it’s important to note that by saying I’m team joel I am not against saving the world. but I am against how the fireflies, a group of unorganized freedom fighters, handled the situation. “joel took away ellie’s choice” so did the fireflies! and the fireflies took away joel’s! with a gun against his back and a scalpel to his daughters head he truly thought he had only one option. I understand the cure was important, but they were rushing the surgery on a non consenting 14 year old. would she have consented if they asked? most likely bc she’s a traumatized child of an apocalypse who would want to do her part to save what’s left of the world. but it was HER choice to make. instead they put her under and planned to kill her in her sleep. not to mention the cordecyps are only alive when the host is alive. they should have done tests on her, studied her body’s reactions, scanned her brain. spent weeks going over the options with both joel & ellie awake. ellie was the ONLY person they’d ever seen with immunity and they were just going to waste their one opportunity with an unethical hack job? if you want to save humanity you need to act human in the process
I do think there’s something to say about how ellie has treated joel from the beginning. because she saw how other people treated him. she’s smart, and she’s observant. she saw that people were scared of him. that he rubbed people the wrong way. that people trusted his capabilities, but little else. that people had stopped pushing him or trying to get close (tess tried. she did). he had a reputation and it wasn’t a good one. he called her cargo. kept her at a distance. but ellie didn’t care who joel was. she got out her joke book and started reading. asked questions and chatted relentlessly. she wore down on that hardened shell he created (the shell so many people were scared to touch) and in doing so unlocked the person joel had spent so many years hiding. the person still mourning and traumatized over his daughters death. the person who will stand awake all night in a forest so a little girl can sleep. who cries to his brother because he’s scared. who spent so many years focused on self preservation, would rather send the one person who could save his life away so that he doesn’t traumatize her with his death
Shayne got Damien a vintage video game styled shirt about Hereditary for his birthday!
Damien's Instastory (12/2/22)
The reactions are funny:
How Sam and Dean Manipulate Each Other - Part 1
NOTE: This has been a surprisingly difficult meta to write. I wanted to be relatively clinical about it, as I felt I had been for Sam and Dean’s individual metas, and list off the various ways they manipulate each other and how those things changed over the years. Because I knew going in that it did change. But as I got into it, it struck me just how much things changed halfway through the series, and why. And with that, the various other things Sam and Dean do to each other - puppy eyes and controlling protectiveness and emotional love-bombing - were dwarfed in comparison to the other stuff.
I finally realized I had two metas on my hands, because while there are some throughlines to how Sam and Dean put the screws to each other over the years, there’s also a giant shift that affects everything. So, with that - this meta discusses how Sam and Dean manipulate each other up until the end of Season 8. There will be a second meta down the line about how they shift to different tactics in Season 9 and onwards, where I will also discuss in more detail the “throughline” tactics that are less toxic than what I discuss here, but which never completely go away.
But first, I want to go back to the start. Because, it turns out, the Pilot sets the tone for the next eight years.
How Sam and Dean Manipulate Each Other, Part 2
Or, Dean finally realizes the power he has, and immediately screws up.
I'm so sorry for how long this took guys, I really wanted to have this up two weeks ago, but life got busy! This one is 2200 words and a MONSTER, dealing with Season 9 onwards, but... well, a lot happens in Seasons 9 and 10 lol.
I do have one more in this series that I'm poking around with, focusing more specifically on John, as John has so much to do with how both Sam and Dean manipulate and are manipulated. That one should hopefully be shorter than this. In the meantime, enjoy!
So, as of Season 8, Sam realized his most powerful weapon against Dean was useless.
If late seasons!Dean was deaged to stanford era!Dean, he would lose his shit. There's his baby brother, all big and grown up, telling Dean almost casually that they've been hunting together for 10+ years. No Stanford, no girlfriend/wife, no apple pie life, just the two of them together, hunting, and they even have a cool home base. That's all he ever wanted and he can barely believe he got it. He tries to play it cool, making stupid jokes, but he’s really transparent, staring at Sam with heart eyes.
If someone writes this I will love them forever
I look forward to your undying love and devotion, @weirdchesters
this is gonna be so long for no reason i know it already but i’m painfully rewatching parts of season 8 and i really just will never be over how people severely underestimate the impact of trauma on sam’s whole arc in season 8, and that’s obviously because the writers were so fucking asleep at the wheel when it came to that, but it’s the only thing that makes everything slot into place in a way that makes sense (to me, at least).
the thing with sam in season 7 is that it wasn’t his post-hell arc the way season 4 contained dean’s post-hell arc: sam is still functionally in hell in season 7 in at least some way shape or form - in other words, up until the last 5 episodes of the season, sam is experiencing some form of hell-related trauma, not the after-effects, but the actual thing. it may have been psychosis, but as we saw, it was real to him and frequently debilitating. so that makes season 8 sam’s real post-hell arc, compounded with the sudden and confounding loss of dean (his “stone number one”) at the end of season 7, again, barely 5 episodes after sam’s 17-episode long psychotic break ended.
sam canonically (per jared, not the writers, of course) has PTSD from his experience in lucifer’s cage and we see that manifest in more understandable ways in later season when he’s faced with lucifer again, but it has to exist before then even if left unacknowledged by the narrative. but the season 7 hallucifer arc is in itself traumatic and not just a response to the older trauma from the cage because his mind is at all times trying to convince himself he’s still in the cage. that barely ends before he loses his brother again. so that’s a double dose of trauma and sam has to deal with both at the same time. that’s what gets us to a sam that is so unable to function in his life alone that he runs away from every responsibility and settles down into a pretense of normalcy with amelia. it’s not just grief or losing dean but effectively the first time his mind is not actively dealing with the trauma of the cage and instead now in post-trauma mode.
PTSD manifests itself differently in different people but it certainly can cause a debilitating fear of change, as after experiencing trauma people seek a sense of security and stability, so losing the “rock” that he had throughout his traumatic experience in season 7 (dean) so soon after he finally “escaped” hell would obviously send him into that kind of spiral, where he can only stabilize once he’s found some solid ground to re-orient himself and someone to effectively replace dean with. the need to feel safe, to feel secure, stable, in control, are all very real post-traumatic things. and then dean coming back is a similarly disorienting experience for similar reasons, resulting in him wanting things to be the way that he got used to while dean was gone.
moving on to benny, the thing that bothered sam about benny is, as astutely pointed out by jared and never really acknowledged by the writers, the hypocrisy of dean being able to have this monster friend and expect him to be trusted automatically when he was deeply mistrusted for his relationship with ruby and then berated to hell and back (LITERALLY) for having been stupid enough to trust her. now having difficulty trusting others is also very much a symptom of PTSD in people who were victimized by others which is something that just generally applies here in my view.
but for sam specifically, this is the origin point of his trauma - he went to hell because this, trusting ruby, ended the world and made him feel guilty enough to think that was his sole fault. this is compounded by the fact that for sam, prior to the in-between year between 7 and 8, the events of season five are basically the last time his mind and memory were functioning in a linear and normal way. for half of season 6 his soul is in hell and for the remaining half he has no memories of either thing except brief flashbacks and then suddenly he has all the memories again, centuries of memories, but then trauma is destroying his psyche and messing with his sense of reality etc. and season five is when he was being raked through the coals for this very thing, which led him in an incredibly, fully direct way (“i let him out, i gotta put him back in”) to the source of the horrifying trauma that his mind is forced to process. now PTSD obviously causes memory issues in and of itself so adding that to the absolute mess that sam’s mind/memory is because of the above, it’s hard to say objectively what’s “fresh” in sam’s mind vs. what isn’t, but the causal link between “trust monster” and “almost unsurvivable trauma” is definitely present.
that obviously adds another dimension to sam wanted to be “pure” and rid himself of the thing inside him (demon blood) that, to him, was the root cause of all of this - if you didn’t have the evil blood, they wouldn’t have been able to get to you, you wouldn’t have deserved to go to hell - but also would apply to wanting to scrub himself of everything done to him and his traumas and become clean again, whole again, instead of the mangled mess he sees himself to be after hell. and it of courses adds another dimension to my beloved sacrifice church scene because this entire time sam would have been coping and struggling with unimaginable trauma compounded by the loss of dean in the only way he can, trying his best not to hurt someone again the way he did the last time he lost dean, and he’s being berated and blamed again somehow for doing it the exact opposite way this time as last time - having lost not only the security he built with amelia but not being able to find any solid ground the whole season with dean either, who was capricious at best with his brotherly affection due to his own issues post-purgatory and his woundedness and blame towards sam for not looking for him - and then the rules of who to trust and not trust are flipped on him but just before the church scene dean again brings up trusting ruby like it was a cardinal sin but only when sam does it - resulting in a desperate breakdown at the end of the season where he doesn’t think that anything he does can ever be the right choice because he’s done diametrically opposite things in the same situations and been berated both ways, but now i’m getting off topic. anyway season 8 sam didn’t do anything wrong in his life ever
Please do put those amazing tags in a separate post because you really described their late seasons dynamic really well
<3333
Referring to this lovely gifset of late-seasons Dean arbitrating to Sam and how Sam (later in the conversation) goes along with it.
what always strikes me about late-seasons dynamic is how easily it can be mistaken for sam just capitulating to dean when that's really not what's happening, not in a way in which he's denied selfhood or autonomy (which is what happens to him in all earlier seasons! so this shift is important!).
i said in my tags "scenes that make me screeeeeam" because yeah! it does!
we see late seasons dean order sam around; sam picks his battles and pushes back on it (like in that gifset, "i beg your pardon?" - sam is independent and that hasn't disappeared! he still questions dean!) but then he often ends up accepting dean's arbitration.
and on the one hand it's like 🥴 stockholm syndrome king my beloved. and i do make those jokes and i like the line (half-joking and otherwise) about how damn pleased dean is that by late seasons he has a little brother who listens to him and does what he wants (and how guilty and fucked up he feels about all that happened to sam for them to end up here in this place that scratches that itch at dean's core).
but i honestly don't read sam as any less challenging toward dean in late seasons, or any more capitulating. i read them as having a healthier dynamic overall.
because here (in the gifset) when they're arguing about going back in time to the submarine and again when they argue about dean going to the alt-apocalypse universe with ketch, both scenes emblamatic of the shift between them because of how sam "gives in" and agrees to dean -- it's not that sam actually is giving in. not in the way one subsumes themselves or makes themselves small or gives up what they want for another person.
what's happening in both instances is that dean lays down the law, so to speak. he says hell no, you're not going. and sam balks, both times. but when he does, dean goes on to explain that his priority is keeping sam save, and they don't know what they're facing on the other side in either of these situations, so he wants -- no, he needs sam out of it.
it's not like they don't face dangers and uncertainty all the time, but these case are particular. there are a lot of unknowns, and they're on a specific clock or existing with a narrow and focused goal under constraints. and dean needs sam not to go. it's a hard line for him.
why?
because with those constraints and with that goal, dean believes he can do it, can cut through all the mess and uncertainty of what is waiting on the other side and accomplish what they need to, but he can't do with sam. not because sam wouldn't have his back or because he'd rather any other partner beside him, but because sam is his priority. sam is his focus. now, always, in every universe.
so when faced with a new and complex and messy situation, dean can't accomplish the task objective if sam is there because his focus won't be the task objective, it will be sam, and keeping sam safe, and watching out for every danger and uncertainty and issue in order to prioritize sam. the mission be damned.
(we see this, time and again in the 15 years of canon. dean "oh i'm sorry have you met me?" winchester when told not to worry about sam. the man is self-aware on this topic).
and what's amazing is that sam accepts that! not capitulates, but understands! dean in both instances explains his priority, that he needs sam safe (that he doesn't give a shit what happens to ketch), and instead of sam's understandable insecurities getting the best of him, he recognize that it's not about him. not that dean doesn't trust him, but that dean doesn't trust himself to get the job done. that dean will work best if sam is safe.
they're both so much more mature here 🥲 dean is being forthright (without bitching about having to be open about his feelings), even if he's blunt as hell about it. sam is trusting dean's words rather than letting his inner rebel lash out because he feels excluded.
so sam accepts dean's arbitration, his ruling in these cases, with his own caveats. and he figures out his role. he becomes dean's lookout and determines that if he can't watch dean's back in person, he can and will keep him safe from this end of things, and find a way to save him if he can't return. dean accepts this too, because he does trust sam and does rely on him, and honestly if everything goes sideways he will want and need sam's help, and the mission will be screwed regardless.
it's just that by late seasons, they're at a point where sam doesn't feel like dean doesn't trust or rely on him, and he gets that dean can't help his need to protect him. dean in turn is for the most part honest with him and doesn't exclude him. he tells sam exactly what's up and they make decisions together, even when dean's arbitrating like this it's still a give and take. they mutually acknowledge their own needs and hard lines and determine the best course of action within those limits. which is what healthy dyads do!
(and my tags on the post mentioned that this leads to sam coming along on the second trip to the apocalypse universe with the "and if we die we'll do that together too" which itself is evidence in support of this mutual reading, rather than a reading where sam is capitulating. sam lays down his own law because he can't bear to be excluded on this and dean gets that. but when sam demands to come, he does so in acknowledgement of dean's priority being sam's life and potential death. and lmao sam does die so like, dean wasn't wrong to be concerned, and dean is ready to go back and also die next to him, so they get it. they understand each other. it's not just about the risks and not just about dean setting the rules, it's about them understanding each other's needs and working within those.)
so anyway yeah late-seasons dynamic is sexy submissive sam but only as a surface reading, because the reality is that he's calling the shots just as sure as dean, it just looks different between them because dean speaks in demands and orders -- he always has -- whereas sam convinces and discusses, but ultimately makes his own decisions regardless of what others (including dean) think. neither of their styles have changed, it's just that sam is more accommodating of dean and dean is more forthright with sam, and that obfuscates the equality of their relationship.
i know it’s just bad writing, but i’m still so obsessed with making sense of the the difference in sam’s attitude about how people have treated him in 4x21 compared to how he remembers it in 13x03. like thinking about sam’s hurt indignation when ruby says “i had no idea dean would do that to you,” about the forced detox and him saying “yeah, you and me both” in that way, and then around nine years later he says to dean about that whole arc “you saved me,” and he says to jack, “my family helped me through that.” like, just younger sam still having it in him to feel something, anything negative about being treated poorly and unfairly versus older sam looking back on being hurt and mistreated and thinking, i was being helped, i was being saved… it makes me so !!!!!!!!
i mean, think about the sheer volume of guilt and blame that was shoved down sam’s throat in the year that followed the events of 4x21 over season five that would have altered his perception of himself and what happened to him, such that at the end of the season he’s thinking that he’s the least of anybody that he knows, even as he gears up to sacrifice everything - his life, his body, his eternal soul - to save them all. like, the way he internalized all of that shame and that blame and it became self-loathing and over time it just built up inside him – because it’s not like he stops being blamed for this, dean brought it up again in 8.23 and it got brought up in s9 too and not once did he get absolution from any character about it – and so of course he looks back and thinks, i was a monster and i didn’t deserve to be treated any better than how i was treated, he looks back and he thinks, they helped me, they saved me, even when they trapped me in a cell and said they didn’t care if i lived or died.
but then when you also take into account seasons 8 and 9 - in season 8, sam thinks his brother is dead and tries to move on healthily and build his own life and he just gets dragged through the mud for it by dean and by others, he’s made to feel so bad for it that by the end of the season he feels like he’s better off dead because he let his brother down so many times - and just for trying to deal with grief and trauma in the only way he felt he could? and yet he feels so bad for it he said he never forgave himself even three years later and still apologizes. and then in season 9, sam’s last great stand against being mistreated by dean, not one single person validates his anger at dean either, including dean himself who acts like it’s unfair? later in season 9 and then in season 10, dean spits sam’s words (that he wouldn’t “save” dean in the same way) back at sam and sam is basically made to believe (see his convo with charlie in 10.18) that his anger at dean was unwarranted, that dean did the right thing, that by extension any negative response to mistreatment is unfair.
so after all that blame, all that guilt, just clearly being internalized and coming out in sudden bursts of desperation and despair like 8.23 - and more importantly, after season 9, being made to feel like he really has no right to object to being mistreated (and that’s been a recurring theme anyway, with sam getting shit for wanting to leave an abusive childhood behind, the way that sam so gamely takes punches from dean and says you satisfied instead of getting angry at being hurt, sam’s almost pathological ability to forgive those who wronged him, sam supporting lucifer’s injured body with his own to save him in service of a greater good in season 11, sam not being angry at god for being a deadbeat despite keeping faith for so long), being made to think that he was in the wrong for being angry about something as awful as having your body violated like that without your consent…..
then you have season 13 sam, who just has all of this inside him that’s built up and calcified over the years, and the blows to his self-worth and his autonomy have just kept coming and coming and coming and coming and that young man in season 4 who was shocked and hurt that his brother would do something like that is just gone, the young man who would be upset that someone would lie to him and hurt him like that is dead. and he’s replaced by someone whose experiences have forced him into this place of kindness and forgiveness that stems from the most awful self-loathing and self-blame and lack of self-worth, that sense of forgiveness that, uncovered, is really just an open invitation to hurt him because he no longer has the ability to think he deserves to be treated well or kindly or honestly or in a way that’s respectful to his autonomy. and so i can’t believe dean would do that to me becomes dean helped me, dean saved me and it just shatters me whenever i think about it
I love that in the ten years I've been on tumblr, tumblr users' attitude towards tumblr has come full circle, now we're back where we started at "tumblr is our beloved home, no other social media can compare, no other website has what we have, do not trust other websites, do not tell the outsiders about us", only this time we're like. Really exhausted and with a sense of irony about it.
you know what, we should organize a tumblr convention
Maybe you’re not as good at your job as you think.
Fan: Did you keep in mind that Sam & Dean being soulmates & was Sam worried about not seeing his brother in Heaven?
Jared: I think Sam & Dean, especially after say season 8 or 9, knew that they were gonna be together one way or an other, wether on this planet or the next and especially, you know Jack & Cass came along and offered their help. Like Heaven!Bobby said, they had a big hand in Heaven making sure it did happen. I don’t think Sam was worried that he would never see his brother again. I think he knew it was gonna happen one way or the other.
Jensen: I think there was probably found that in that scene on the bridge at the very end. You know Dean wasn’t like “OH MY GOSH? “WHAT?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” “THIS IS SO WEIRD!”
Fan: He senses Sam
Jensen: Yeah and that was always meant to be like that. That moment was supposed to be, like yeah, Dean was supposed to be like, you know, “What took you so long?” “About time” kind of a thing. So I think they knew that they would see each other again.
#SPNNOLA 2021 [Video: @gayled_it]
that was me! i was the nervous rambling mess who asked that question! they gave a great answer :)
➤ Supernatural | Carry On Anniversary Week Favourite line from The Barn Scene
➤ Supernatural | Carry On Anniversary Week Domestic life - With and without you
i was born right into nothing, under a very bad sign
okay still thinking about the sam-and-suicidality ask i answered and i need to say this in addendum:
i said that dean is his biggest trigger (and his strongest coping mechanism). the reason dean is his biggest trigger isn’t just because dean is a constant from their traumatic childhood. he isn’t a burdensome reminder of what screwed sam up.
remember, dean is also the surest remedy, the most grounding thing for sam. he is so much more than a remnant of a sad childhood. dean is the biggest trigger because he loves sam so much.
(TW below: discussions of suicidality and emotional trauma)