Sentiach - Mostly SPN

endless dean winchester - 45/∞

Here's how the revival should go for maximum heller pain. Misha should play Jimmy in one scene. Cas should have a new female vessel, AND Dean should familyzone them. Then after that Cas should go back to being a beam of light. And the rest of it can be Sam and Dean, as it should be.

I tell ya, i can't wait for the revival to happen just for the meltdown that will come from Jensen disregarding the confession. Either just completely friendzoning Cass or using it as a dismissing it with a joke. But then again, the hellers would make up some dumb bullshit and queerbait themselves.

Yeah, I think at this point, it's pretty clear there is literally nothing hellers can't convince each other is actually ~*proof*~ of the validity of D/C because [absurd batshit nonsense]. Hell, with no new SPN-related content airing, they've resorted to applying the same old myopic conspiracy-think to completely unrelated shows to explain how D/C will have to be made canon, FFS. Literally nothing.

Of course, no matter how many times they echo chamber each other into believing a revival must inevitably validate their fanfic? It doesn't magically alter reality and actually make the CW homophobic or canon!Dean bi and into Castiel. It doesn't make Misha reliable or them the majority of the audience. It doesn't give Castiel Sam's place in the narrative or make Jensen secretly have the complete opposite opinions from what he publicly says. Or or or.

So yeah, when Castiel's pre-death wordvomit about lurve is inevitably danced around entirely or Dean politely familyzones the angel because SPN is pointedly not a romance story? They'll throw another huge tantrum, scream about being oppressed, and then start inventing new conspiracies left and right to to explain why a storyline that never existed outside their fanfic and stereotype-tastic meta still continues to not exist in the revival ... but will totes be canon for real next time!

Sam Winchester in every episode: Roadkill (2x16)

Hope's kind of the whole point.

endless dean winchester - 49/∞

This is so good.

One additional point- let's say Dean does see Castiel as someone who can be confided in. Why would it mean that they have a relationship beyond being friends? Do people get sexually attracted to anyone who gives them the time of day?

Alrighty- Whaddya think of this?

I’ve been rewatching the show and am now at season 8. I shake my head at all the known moments in the show that hellers claim are canon ship bs, because you’d have to be stretch Armstrong to reach that far..

But something did nag me. There were times that Cas WAS the emotional support for Dean where I really thought it should have been Sam conversing with him. For the majority of the series we saw Dean be the caretaker, emotional support etc for Sam, and it never really came from anyone else- lest he was being manipulated by some evil person. However there were many times where that wasn’t reciprocated on screen. Cas would almost stand in for Sam when Dean needed someone, showed Dean a lot of compassion. (Please believe I’m being objective and not a stan in hiding). I think THAT dynamic confused people. Why didn’t they have Sam having those convos with Dean more? I mean, narratively I understand the need for Cas to move the plot forward with his specific role, but so many times it was an angsty Dean who I think NEEDED his BROTHER more than a convo with Cas. Now there are people who just wanted to sexualize Jensen/Dean and couldn’t possibly be linked the wincest as their puritan sensibilities just wouldn’t allow them. But OTHER fans seemed to have latched on to the dynamic of Dean and Cas because they saw Dean have emotional moments with him.

Now during my rewatch it pissed me off, because I realized that the writers were making some conscious choices to have Sam NOT fill that role for Dean. Like it seemed like they went out of their way at times to make Sam seem more indifferent to Dean. This is why- wildly unpopular opinion here- I didn’t like Sera Gamble! I think she isolated Sam away from Dean and had Cas fill in for Sam. That codependent brother thing I LIVE FOR, was kinda washed out during her seasons (in my opinion), but more so from one side. I think she didn’t really like Dean, period, but whereas I know Sam fans LOVE Gamble, I think she mischaracterized Sam a lot.

In my mind, Sam is just as in love with Dean as Dean is with him (whether that be wincest or brotherly is up to your interpretation). You remember when Rowena started really having a relationship with Sam? And then Jack, too? That was really the first time we’ve seen Sam have that type of side character interaction depth. It’s why Sam fans love those two characters because they related to Sam! Well, isn’t that why Dean fans loved Cas, too?

I dunno I’m ranting and probably make no sense, but I was definitely annoyed with the writers in quite a bit if my rewatch during seasons 4-7 because it seemed such a purposeful choice to NOT show Sam being for Dean what they chose to show Cas being. I think knot blurred the lines and did such a disservice to Sam. Ironically, I think Carver rectified this a lot! Even with the angst and separation, Carver’s seasons demonstrably showed the codependency and intense brotherly love. I prefer seasons 1-3 and then all of Carver’s seasons!

I couldn't remember any instances of Dean leaning on Castiel when there wasn't some obvious reason it wasn't a conversation with Sam. So I went through season by season, and ultimately, I think you have to look at what the plot arc between the brothers is. As I've said before, the one thing that I actually like about Dabb as a showrunner is finally dropping the constant circling back to brother conflict drama that, to me at least, felt more and more artificial. Even if we're talking about seasons 4-7, we have to start at the beginning, because I think the first three seasons are pointedly bringing the brothers back together closer than ever in preparation for all the apocalypse shenanigans to attempt to tear them apart.

In terms of Dean opening up, specifically, consider what happens in those seasons between them from Dean's perspective.

In season four, he comes back from hell traumatized only to realize Sam has been lying to him about using his powers and working with Ruby. When he asks Sam to explain because he's scared of the powers, Sam refuses to talk about it and says he wouldn't understand (4x04). So how can it be a surprise that when he wants to talk in the next episode, it's Jamie the bartender he chooses instead? Is it really strange he basically mirrors what Sam said about Dean not being able to understand when Sam confronts him about what Uriel said regarding him remembering hell (4x08)? Castiel (4x07) and Anna (4x10) conversing with Dean are more about their own fears and insecurities more than Dean's. When Dean does finally open up and is ready to actually talk about what happened in hell, it is to Sam (4x11). Except, it's pretty soon after that (4x14) where Sam throws it back in his face under the influence of the siren, calling him a weak, whiny burden who is just holding Sam back. Can it really be a surprise then that, again, next time Dean opens up it's to Tessa (4x15)? And then, when the doubts are basically exactly what Sam said, i.e. that the apocalypse really is too big for him to deal with and he is scared, he says it to Castiel instead (4x16)? Which I think is only validated to Dean when Sam says the same kind of thing all over again without the siren's influence when they fight in 4x21. They're in conflict and being torn in opposite directions, which is kind of the point. Actually communicating – if they both weren't too stubborn to do it – would basically halt season 4's entire plot in its tracks.

Without making this post five miles long, those kinds of things happen again and again in 5-7, too. Sam is literally not there to talk to when he leaves at the beginning of the season, and they don't get back together because they've actually sorted out all the shit between them from the previous events, but because Sam has realized he can't get out and Dean doesn't trust that Sam will continue to say no to Lucifer if they're apart. So when Dean opens up, it's to his hallucination of a therapist instead of Sam. Blow after blow follows thereafter. What they see of Sam's heaven being an entire absence of Dean. Everyone leaving Dean to grieve at Lisa's for a year knowing Sam is back(ish) the whole time. Soulless!Sam's actions, which (as unfair as it might be) Dean clearly had trouble separating out from regular Sam's. Sam's sanity hanging on by a wall, then being plagued by Hallucifer. Similar big conflicts and obstacles to frank conversation continue on into seasons 8 and 9, too.

I think you can fairly go fifty layers deep into what's going on in both of their heads in any of those instances and see where they're coming from, but Dean isn't going to be doing that as the one living it. From his perspective? There are a lot of reasons to not open up to Sam because of what's going on in their lives and how they each feel about it. So sometimes he does open up to others – which includes Castiel.

I definitely remember way back when I was a multishipper that a lot of D/C shippers said they started shipping the ship because Castiel didn't have that fraught history with Dean that Sam does with all the conflicts and misunderstandings. That's fine (although IMO it hardly held true for very long). However, to me it seems like Dean is just as likely to turn to a stranger (or the hallucination of one) as he is to turn to Castiel instead of Sam, so I don't really see it as some huge thing in the canon that really justifies thinking the ship is anything but certain fans over-investing in what they particularly like. I also think that Sam was just less and less likely to open up to anyone at all as the series went on – but when he does, it was also often with Castiel or Jody or Charlie or Rowena instead of Dean. Because the season conflict didn't rely on them being unable to communicate effectively with those other characters and the judgement of those other characters couldn't do as much damage if it was negative.

None of that even gets into the whole other issue of the underlying dynamics carried over from their childhood which also plays into things. Where Dean still sees his primary purpose as protecting Sam as his little brother rather than always seeing him as a true partner. Where he has self-worth and abandonment issues that make him unable to understand why Sam would value him and not be able to just get over his death. Where Sam is not only all too aware that Dean doesn't value himself and gets frustrated with that? But has spent so long fighting against what everyone else wants from him that he still sometimes treats Dean as a substitute for authority instead of a partner and pushes back at any disagreement with his (not always as) brilliant (as he thinks) plans as “bossing him around”? Where he also gets very agitated whenever Dean is not okay because he needs Dean to be okay to the point he insistently tries to fix it by making Dean talk when Dean isn't ready to. In short, they both have huge underlying issues that skew how they see each other and they're both stubborn as hell.

Then when you add on top of that how the writers had such a tendency to revolve the action arcs around Sam and the emotional ones around Dean as the viewpoint character that Sam's emotions and thoughts often seem like a mysterious locked box through large parts of the series? I do get why some fans can read that as Sam being indifferent to Dean, but I don't think that's the underlying intention or the case. Because of that focus choice, to a large extent we only see how badly Sam needs Dean when there's a threat of Dean not being there or Dean is taken away – but I would argue that we do really see it then. From not caring about Marshall Hall to wanting to try Doc Benton's solution to trying to suicide by demon to initially allowing himself to be manipulated by Ruby to taking on his Cage memories to the Rowena and Oskar debacle to how his montage life was entirely blurry except for his son and his grief over Dean.