Fic: SPN In their time of

[citrus_java]

Name: In their time of
Ship: Dean/Cas, of sorts.
Words: ~1000
Rating: PG?
Warnings: Violence, character death.
Spoilers: 817
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the owners of Supernatural.
Notes: Been fussing around with this for days. Time to post.
Also, are there any communities it makes sense to post this on? I'd love recs.

Summary: POV of Dean in the teaser.

Dean wakes up to pain and a dark warehouse ceiling. Not for the first time. His arm is twisted so far, he thinks blurrily, that if he could move it he'd finally be able to touch his own elbow. Sam would be so jealous. But he can't lean on anything. The floor is slippery, gooey stuff clotting under his fingernails.

Then there's movement – tan overcoat, his angel, it's Cas. "Cas, over here", he tries, but he can't make words well, can't even lift his arm – not even the normal one. But it's OK, it's fine, Cas is here. Dean allows himself to bask in the relief pooling around him warm on the linoleum floor.

Cas is fighting something to get to Dean, Dean can't see. He hears begging – his own voice. Wants to warn Cas – that's not really him! But it's OK, Cas is smarter than that, kills the shapeshifter or whatever it is without hesitation.

The body falls heavily across Dean's field of vision. And Cas is coming for him.

No, he doesn't go for Dean yet, there must other monsters coming. Cas is walking away, strong, determined strides. The shapeshifter's body in Dean's vision is badly mangled, calf bone breaking thought skin and fabric. Cas must have been pretty angry with him, Dean thinks fondly.

It takes Dean's stuttering mind a moment to get - the shapeshifter's skin is all wrong, it isn't peeling like it should. And the wounds are slowly dripping red, no black ooze. Must be a demon possession, Dean concludes, logically. He wishes he could remember further back. The memories will come back once Cas heals him, but he sure could use them now.

He hears himself saying "Cas, what's going on?", sounding bewildered and in pain. For a moment he thinks he managed to speak, but Cas is stepping over Dean, sound of rough contact behind Dean's legs.

There's a crack of bones and a choked, pained breath. Is Cas OK?

Dean's voice says – "Cas, wait, it's really me, don't-".

Cas doesn't believe him.

The next Dean doesn't beg, doesn't try to stop Cas. He flails in Cas' grip, limbs jerking like he's still growing into them, slipping on the floor. Breathes a wet breath through stained lips, looking up at Cas. Places his palm on Cas' chest, and Dean hopes the real him never looks as cracked open as this guy.

Cas pauses, gives the Dean shaped thing in his hands one of the looks that belongs to dean, the real one. Like Cas is eternally bewildered by him. "Dean", Cas says, and his voice is rough with so many emotions Dean is having trouble placing, hand moving up Dean's face. Then he twists, sharp, and the thing slumps to the floor.

The next Dean-shaped thing is saying – "Cas, please. Cas. Something is wrong, this isn't you, this isn't-". And Dean has to admit, he might be right.

It takes Dean maybe ten more Deans to get it. The asswipe is killing Dean, over and over again. How much would you have to hate someone to need to kill him so many times?

Dean should have seen Cas was feeling like this. Should have managed to drag Cas out of purgatory, tied and gagged if necessary. Should have managed to save him. Should have told him. If you're gonna punish yourself, you do it yourself. You don't throw yourself into some celestial punishment you imagine some deity thought up just for you.

Perhaps the monster-Deans would go to purgatory now, roam land in a ruthless pack of sexy hunters. He almost smirks at the things they would do.

So now Cas is killing Deans. Cas is killing Deans, and Dean knows his own tells, knows when he is lying. And all those Deans –he's pretty sure they really think they're real. If they're all sort of Dean, will they all be put in the same heaven? He's not so sure he'd want to spend eternity with himself, let alone so many of himself.

The flaily Dean, who looked at Cas that way Dean doesn't want to remember, is moving. Short breaths he can't complete, and Dean can't imagine why he hasn't passed out yet. But that sort of thing is all over the warehouse, and Dean can't bother with it at the moment. That Dean can take the pain, there are more important things to deal with, urgent things.

Dean looks around, mostly moving his eyes. He needs to change the game. Perhaps he could get some of the Deans together and fight, escape. Or he could help one of the next Deans stop Cas. At least long enough for any of them to figure out what's happening. But the Deans come one by one, and though Cas might be getting tired, he is also getting more determined. And Dean has to recognize that he can barely move, probably only still alive due to an oversight.

Would other Deans take care of Sam, if Dean doesn't make it? Sam needs him now. He is not OK. Cas knows – th memory of his prayer to Cas is too much, too much to think about, when Cas is so far away from anywhere Dean would ever have imagined.

Dean hopes other Deans will be there for Sam. Probably would. If they're anything like the real Dean, they probably feel the same worry and ache as Dean feels -

The realization explodes in his chest with pain and relief. He is not Dean, not the real one. There is another Dean out there, one who stands a chance of stopping this. To figure out what's happening with Cas before - Dean doesn't know before what, but it can't be good.
Dean wants to –

He grabs for Cas' leg as Cas passes, and Cas startles, bends down to Dean, clinging to ruthless irritation.

"Cas", Dean says, more croak than word.

Cas looks at him, lips soft, like he wants to take Dean in, like he could burry his head in Dean's chest and cry. Dean wants to pat Cas' back and make it all better. To figure out that thing inside of him and fix it. Mortifying things Dean would never say, would never allow himself to think.

But he is not really Dean. Almost for sure. He is not Dean, so he can just do whatever he fucking wants to.

Cas moves two fingers towards Dean's forehead, with great effort. Stops before he could touch. Zones in and out, internal struggle.

Dean bullies his less twisted arm into lifting, just a little. Managed tolput it on Cas' face, leans it on Cas' jaw, and the corner of Cas' lips is just as soft as he'd thought it would be. Annoying, to be - Dean could just – if he could move or Cas just moved -

Cas' eyes widen, shocked, blessed, then suspicious. He leans in slowly, like he's dropping, floating, breath coming out of him warm, deflating. So close to Dean -

This is not helping his struggle. Cas closes his eyes, concentrating, but that – but it isn't –

Cas pulls away from Deans hand and looks at it, long and wry. Then, wild and jerky, he moves his own hand away from Dean's forehead.

"You're not really him", he says. Explaining, hoping for forgiveness.

Then everything stops.

Comments

[tabaqui]

Ooh, all the Deeeeeeeeans!!
*smishes them*

Poor little things.

If you want a bit more distribution, drop the newsletter a line that you've written this (like Dean, Castiel, gen, rating (adult? dunno.) spoilers for this ep and the title and a link, they'll include it in the next newsletter. Also, you could post over at supernaturalfic.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot, for the recs and for reading :-)

I guess I will :-)
I'm trying the whole lightening up a little thing, I guess. Normally I want months to think and rewrite and so forth before I publish anything, but you can't really do that with episode reactions (which I didn't even mean to write! :))...
So sure, I wanna try it :-)

[tabaqui]

Go for it! Fics should always get a re-read and a beta, because it's amazing the funny little things you can miss, but too much 'polishing' rubs the shine right off.

Good luck!

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

I usually do the whole beta thing, and then fix things, and then beta again with a different person, and then think about it, and then tweak, and just - too much :)
Especially since I don't know that many fandom people, and since meanwhile what I've written was meant as a fun little thing, or to say something small, not as "art" :-)
Ukulele bit written in ten minutes and recorded on a camera phone.
So, for now, I'm trying to accept that I'll have a typo here or there :-)

[tabaqui]

Yeah, a typo is no big. I have the best beta ever, she pretty much never misses and makes my who em-dash 'issue' always better.

And getting it out there - releasing it into the wild! - is the fun part. :)

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Sounds awesome :-)

And yay, thanks <3

[darkrose-9.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

:-)

[balder12.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, this is the best idea for a fic ever! I'm honestly kind of jealous I didn't think of it :-). Very cool!

Did you ever find comms to post to? Because this seems like a good fit for Dean/Castiel, spn_Castiel, and Hoodietime.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-)
If you want to, please do write it!
I very rarely write fic, and when I do, it's often because there's some idea no one else will write and I'm frustrated it's not out there. Right now I'm sort of debating writing a short Sam/Tara fic to make a point. Don't wanna! :-)

Thanks for the recs! :-)
I posted it on the newsletter, should I post it there too?

[balder12.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could do better by the concept than you did! I'm drawing a blank on Tara right now--but I still think you should write it because yay, fic!

I'd say if you want eyeballs then go ahead and crosspost as obnoxiously as possible. I always do. It's not like anyone's going to object.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking you probably could :)

Tara - oh, sorry, of course. Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I should have said.

It's crazy, the fics I've written so far, this time around in fandom?
Femslash, Destiel, character death. And now I'm considering writing het. I don't generally read any of those (though I'm not strict about most).

Thanks for the encouragement :)

[balder12.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh, that Tara! That would be an interesting pairing--I guess Tara has a thing for people with magic addictions :-)

I've mostly written D/C and I keep wanting to branch out into writing more pairings, but even for SPN Pairing Bingo I ended up doing the least out-of-my-comfort-zone set of fics possible. Although I guess at least it got me to pop my Sam/Dean cherry (I read it, I just don't write it). In practice I end up reading slash 99% of the time because those are the pairings I like, both in SPN and in my previous fandom obsession, the HBO show Oz (random fandom is random). But then for Yuletide I sort of surprised myself by having three het requests, so who knows?

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, Sam and Will have a *lot* in common.
But actually, I was thinking about the scene in the end of Family.
Haven't made up my mind whether Sam should actually be with Tara, or just a Scoobie (and I want to read the plot of him going to school to be normal and sort of becoming a Scoobie step by step. Cause I think a lot of what he dislikes about hunting is being forced into it, John, the world of hunting, not being able to ues his skills, and yes, the sense of safety. All of those are partially different in BtVS).

Anyway. For Sam to witness that last scene. In some ways, Tara's family is just like his. That rough, manly world. Coming to take her away because to them, she is somehow born to serve them in their world, regardless of how much she wants her own life and going to collage. And on the other hand, people like Tara's father have been around him all of his life. He gets them, he sees the awesome things about them, and though he might hate to admit it - he is one of them, sort of, when he realizes what a narrow othering view the Scoobies have of them, perhaps racist/classist.

Sam would relate to Tara wanting to stay, but I doubt he'd have expected the new ideas of family, chosen family. Like - of course he'd have thought about something like that, but it's not the same as experiencing it. All those people aligning themselves with Tara (though, of course, they were never as close to Tara as anyone Sam has, perhaps. But that wouldn't show, yet). It being clear to all of then that it's her choice whether to stay or leave. If he's had dreams or some reason to suspect he's partially demon, that would change his world. Anya saying demons didn't have to be evil. The Scoobies not being racist about demons. Taking Tara's side, not necessarily something evil inside her, and if so - they could deal with that with compassion (rather than *unmentioned events from Heart!*). And if later, when he found out about what John said to Dean, he could talk to Tara about it, it would probably make a huge difference.


And perhaps, cause I'm a shipper, if family could be chosen, perhaps he could choose a different definition, with Dean... "Family doesn't mean the same thing to me as it does to you, Dean".


And I could see Sam watching this unfold and just click, click, click, you know, so many things he'd assumed for all of his life... and also realizing those people weren't as nice and inclusive as they'd like to think, as he'd like toi think. Perhaps that' push him a bit towards hunting.
That last bit is not what Sam actually did. In canon h chose to lie and try to make himself more like the normal people. But perhaps had he started off lying, slowly become a part of the group, opened up, and then realize dthy weren't that perfect - it would have been different.

Wonder what Sam'd think of Riley.

Re pairings -

Oooh, I love how diverse your pairings are.
I was generally like that too, I loved looking for rare pairings and making them work, loved making up ways and ideas. Which I still enjoy. But as for passionately reading - it's different for me in this fandom... like so many other things. Here I mostly ship Dean/Sam and J2, I like the occasional Sam/Cas or Dean/Sam/Cas when that works, and I sometimes read other stories, especially if they're particularly well characterized of have a very interesting plot, but I must admit most of the time I'd rather be reading my ships (including gen about them).

[balder12.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you should definitely write the fic! There's a fascinating difference in the worldviews of Buffy and Supernatural. Like all Joss Whedon's shows, Buffy is very interested in chosen family, and in the experience of people living on "the raggedy edge", as Mal puts it in Firefly, who nevertheless build a community that's worth preserving.

Supernatural almost aggressively resists the creation of a chosen family/community--the Roadhouse burns after a single season, Bobby's house burns eventually, and secondary characters consistently die rather than accumulate into a band of "Scoobies." The Campbells were amoral and the Men of Letters exist only as a memory. We're told that a larger hunting community is out there, but Dean and Sam never really plug into it, and when other hunters do turn up they're enemies about as often as they're friends. Cas ends up with the Winchesters because his own people betrayed him, and when he tries to build a new coalition of angels who share his values, he betrays them.

I'm not really complaining, even though I've often wished that SPN would expand its universe to include more side characters, because I do think that it's a more or less deliberate choice. The universe of SPN is fundamentally bleak: you have free will, and maybe in rare moments you can break away from the tracks laid out for you with a strong enough exercise of force, but for the most part you're doomed by your own nature. It's not morally black and white because the show recognizes that characters like Lenore and Benny are tragic, but it also insists that in the end the only choice they can make is whether to die or kill. And I think the show applies that same logic to Madison: I found that decision incredibly frustrating because I don't buy that there's no practical way to tie someone up three nights a month, but from the perspective of the show, "the other shoe always drops." Even Sam didn't avoid his destiny: in the end of he drank a bunch of demon blood and got possessed by Lucifer in Detroit, just as predicted. It was just that Lucifer misunderstood the prophecy. The SPN-verse is almost a tragedy in the Greek sense, and I appreciate that even though I don't agree with it. It's so different from the worldview presented anywhere else on television.

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to drop Sam into the middle of a different paradigm. I do think that if he felt like he had a genuine choice about hunting he might eventually come around to the idea that it was something he wanted to do, rather than just a bitter necessity. And it would blow his mind to be around people who could know the truth about him and still accept him--SPN asserts pretty strongly that you can either be honest about yourself or be loved, but not both, at least outside of the circle of Sam, Dean, Cas, and Bobby. Lisa, Amelia, Jess: you can only have them, and the normality they offer, at the price of being someone you're not.

Re: Pairings

I mostly read D/C, Sam/Cas, and Dean/Sam/Cas, although I read Sam/Dean when it's a good author or an interesting idea. I've got a bit of a dark!ship for Dean/Alastair (yay, Stockholm Syndrome! IDEK), and I wish there were more Sam/Ruby. I'd like to try writing it some day. Btw, if you haven't checked out Obstinatrix's fic and Badbastion's art for Sam/Cas, Dean/Sam, and Dean/Sam/Cas, you're missing out.

As a side note, have you considered signing up for Summergen? It's a good chance to write some gen Dean and Sam and meet more LJ folks.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Exactly. There are so many similarities, but so many differences. Though Kripke sounded like he thought there weren't.

With Joss I felt more cared for, honestly. The tone of the fandom, I knew I could trust Joss to come through for underdogs, people who weren't heteronormative, women, lesbians. Trusted Joss to try to be aware, and there for me. Also, on the side of fandom, with his groundbreaking support of it. But I realize more and more that there is some stuff to be desired, there, re race and class perspectives.

I like your point re the show actually blowing up, killing etc. chosen family. Though it also killed blood family. The only way to stay together is to be... part of each other? Codependent. Though that's not necessarily the worst thing that could be, for them. I strongly agree, re chosen family (though Bobby). I think it's all part of the "it's us against the world" theme. That's also where the dichotomy between ways of life might be coming from - you're either the underdog on the road and so forth, or you're the Bradys. You know. You can't be part of *both* worlds! (unless your a pervert witch who owns a woman and sleeps with a dog...?).

Anyway - though I found seasons 4-5 *fantastic*, I can't - I don't have to words for how - I am still vibrating from those deep "ding"s...
But I did find the ways Sam was made evil a bit contrived. I'd have been more interested in really understanding a full, complex process, that I could identify with more... Dean making a deal I could understand more (and why was he not considered evil for that and for starting the start of the apocalypse, and Sam was...?) But Sam and the demon blood was less... built to identify with. IMO. It made a lot of sense - and if so, I don't buy that it evil, really - or it was this stupid mistake Sam should have obviously known not to take, that was partially the fault of some chick and her evil pussy. Dean got so much backstory. I need a reason for Sam doing it - even if it was only for revenge, or to redeem himself for not managing to save Dean (a better though less common interpretation, to me) - what part of his identity, of his emotional state, what deep part of his world did this come from? You know? Like Dean's identity being so based on taking care of Sam...
That gets in the way of it being a classic tragedy, to me, too.

I agree re free will, Madison.
I don't like that the show never explains it, it's just "the way it is". I suspect it's to justify a lot of crap, and some very manly choices (and also, from the way J2 talk - glorifying making those choices). And to make the drama more extreme. Just the opposite, btw, ofThe Doctor making, at times, very dangerous, perhaps irresponsible choices based on hope and compassion. But then, so many of the boys' choices are rash and perhaps irresponsible. The Doctor is, at least, compassionate at times.

Different from other TV -
Yeah. "Kill the monster cause it's a monster (unless it's Sammy)" thing - the "unless it's Sammy" makes it amazing. But the basic assumption... isn't it very common? Even on th news? Until season 8, Dean had no trouble with that double standard. And the thing is, the show kept proving him right. Monsters are monsters. That is distinctly different from BtVS, and while the show recognizes it's problematic if you're the monster, it either says "well, you'll have to sacrifice yourself to redeem yourself", or, for short periods, mostly in season 5 - "we're fucked up, monstrous and whatever, but we're what is, so we have to do what needs to be done". There's some, and I wish there were more , of the attitude of "Yeah, we;re fucked up, but perhaps that's no so bad".

As for "except for Sammy" I feel there's something there I don't completely understand, from my perspective. Perhaps a set of values and just way of thought about values I was definitely not raised with, that's really interesting to me and unique on TV. I feel I missed out, and I feel that what I was raised with, that Dean's perspective here is just amoral, is mean and reductive. I want to understand it better. Which is the major reason I'm not comfortable writing that fic, at least not yet. Way too "come be enlightened by our liberal values".

[balder12.livejournal.com]

I actually found S4 Sam pretty relatable, but I'm also the weird, rare person who spent the entirety of S4 saying, 'guys, I think maybe Sam has a point . . .'.

I distinguish Sam using his powers/demon blood from his interpersonal behavior with Dean. I don't think that Sam was self-evidently wrong in deciding to use his powers, or even in deciding to drink demon blood. If there's even the remotest chance that drinking demon blood will save the world--and I don't think it's irrational for Sam to believe there is--then arguably you absolutely should do that, even if it damns you as an individual. And especially if you believe that you're inherently doomed, as I think Sam did at that point. If you can't save yourself, you might as well save everyone else. As much as I love S4, I think the the two big mistakes of that season were waiting until 4.16 to reveal what Sam was up to, and casting Genevieve Cortese as Ruby. The former made it hard for the audience to identify with Sam, and the latter made Sam look stupid because Gen just wasn't very good at playing a master manipulator, and that made it hard to understand why Sam got sucked in. Picture, say, Six from Battlestar Galactica or Alice from Luther (assuming you've seen either of those shows), and Sam's arc gets more sympathetic.

Sam's behavior toward Dean in S4 was pretty inexcusable, but I think it came from pre-established character traits. He'd spent his whole life being the little brother that Dean took care of, and he obviously resented that in many ways, but it was also a huge part of his identity. So when Dean comes back and is broken, Sam wants to be mature and understanding, but nothing in his life has really equipped him to do that. He talks a good game about how he wants to be there for Dean, but when Dean actually does spill his guts about what happened in Hell, I think Sam is totally emotionally paralyzed, and just kind of panics. The mixture of pity, impatience, and contempt that Sam drops on Dean in the second half of the season is awful--and doubly so because Dean's worst fear has always been that if he's vulnerable he'll be rejected--but I don't think it's genuine indifference. Sam cares way too much and doesn't know what to do about it, so he distances himself. Which is bad, but not evil. Long story short, there's really nothing Sam does in S4 that I can't picture myself doing.

Re: Kill the monster because it's a monster

Yeah, I think that in itself is pretty common. But my sense is that scifi/fantasy, at least on television, tends to break down into two categories: mindless, 'America, fuck yeah!' monster killing (not a criticism: Aliens is one of my favorite movies), or else the liberal-ass, 'we're all the same under the skin' storytelling you get from Joss Whedon or Battlestar Galactica (not a criticism: I adore Joss and Battlestar). The aggressively pessimistic worldview of Supernatural seems fairly unique to me. It acknowledges that there's moral complexity, and that the world is fucked up, but then concludes that mostly you're just going to have to live with it.

Which ties into the show's weirdly wonderful antitheism. Every god on SPN feeds on their human worshippers. The pagan gods in "Hammer of the Gods" literally eating human flesh is the most extreme example, but the same basic thing goes on with the Judeo-Islamo-Christian God. Angels need to inhabit human vessels, and when they do they burn out the minds of the human they've possessed. And Cas's quest for souls in S6 makes it clear that angels feed on soul energy in some way. The closest equivalent I can think of to that is Babylon 5, but there the humans ultimately sent away their gods and demons. Nothing that final ever happens on SPN. Even after the Apocalypse, the world is still controlled by powers beyond human understanding. Guys like Ken Lay go to Heaven, guys like Bobby go to Hell, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

[balder12.livejournal.com]

Re: Except for Sammy

I think I need you to explain more what you mean about that. Just that Dean kills other supernatural entities, but not Sam? That's certainly true. If Sam hadn't been Sam, Dean would've killed him in early S4, and Dean said as much himself. And I don't know that that ever fully goes away. Even in S7, it's disturbingly easy to read the killing of Amy as a symbolic killing of Sam. But I think that Dean's motivations are pretty straightforward: fuck morality, he's not killing his brother. And really, the same suspension of the normal rules applies to Cas--he killed hundreds of humans when he went Godstiel, not to mention the thousands of angels, and Dean's still all "you're family! I need you!" Anyone else would have an angel sword through his chest at this point. That's just human nature at work.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean that Dean's comfortable killing anybody, pretty much – unless it's Sam (or Cas, or maybe Bobby). Had he counted Sam the way he does everybody else, Sam would have probably dies as soon as Dean found out he had powers, definitely by the time John said he might have to kill him, for sure by the time he was possessed by Meg.
Dean keeps getting more and more like that, until season 8. More comfortable killing people possessed, vessels etc. - killing just in case, etc.

What do you means by "goes away"? Dean's – perhaps discomfort – for not having killed Sam?

I like your point re Amy. And in that one, again – Sam was so very quick to forgive that... and if he expected Dean to lie to him and kill her anyway – it didn't show. He didn't tell her to run...

fuck morality, he's not killing his brother


But that's morality too. It's putting love, or loyalty, or "his people", or family over anything else he needs, wants, believes. That's a very strong conviction. If that's not a moral POV, it's because morality isn't a big/deep enough concept here, perhaps...

You could claim it's nothing but a strong emotional/psychological need, but I believe Dean really stands by it, believes it is the right thing to do.


Cas – huh, definitely. Aww...

[balder12.livejournal.com]

What do you means by "goes away"? Dean's – perhaps discomfort – for not having killed Sam?

Yeah, the whole 'save or kill' ultimatum. I think the idea that Sam could go darkside is always in the back of Dean's head, even post-S5.

I found the whole Amy thing frustrating. I totally buy that Dean would do what he did to Amy (although not that he'd threaten a frightened child in such a callous way--he's too sentimental about kids, and has personal knowledge of what it's like to witness your mother's violent death. It just felt OOC to me), but the way the show didn't give Sam a voice was annoying. Dean yelled at him for being very reasonably angry, and in the end Sam just agreed that oh yeah, Dean was right, Sam totally wasn't entitled to his feelings at all. The end. Ugh. That was such a pointless and unpleasant subplot.

You could claim it's nothing but a strong elmotional/psychological need, but I believe Dean really stands by it, believes it is the right thing to do.

You know,I was thinking of it mostly as an emotional/psychological need, but I think you're right that if you called Dean on it he'd tell you sincerely that it was the right thing to do.

The thing is, I'm not sure that Dean has a reasoned out moral code. He's deeply emotional and impulsive. I think he has incredibly strong feelings about what's right without really having any intellectual framework for it. He believes you need to eliminate threats to the innocent, and he believes you need to protect the people you love at all costs, and I doubt he's spent ten minutes contemplating the many ways that those two beliefs conflict.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

My problem isn't so much with not understanding Sam to begin with , but with the show kinda backing up and saying "no, those reasons were stupid and invalid", which leaves me hoping for other reasons, then. I was a little disoriented and surprised when Show didn't even touch on that possibility, and just chalked it up to "he was wrong *and* that was completely obvious from moment 1 *and* he was led on *and* an addict *and* it wasn't about doing something good, it was all *revenge*". Oh, *and* he brought on the apocalypse. Which, btw, Dean did too. And John. There wasn't even a moment of "But it was *also* a good choice".

I found Sam relatable because it makes sense to me to not assume a whole huge group of beings are inherently evil and should be always killed on sight. *Especially* when you are part of that group/when the person you love most in the world is part of that group. And it makes sense to build trust, to learn about yourself as part of that group, especially since it's coming out whether you like it or not, in dreams and in your body, no matter how much you try to control it and push it down or away.
For other reasons too, but that, for a start.

But the show didn't back any of that. The conclusion was just admonishment.
So if it was just Sam being weak, stupid and vengeful – I want better explanations as to why.

The way Sam treats Dean -
I really could understand that. I have trouble calling it inexcusable…
He was doing everything he could, and so focused on being not ok, cause Dean focused on that (and Sam never had much of a chance to develop himself as a person who got to decide what "the issue" was). Sam needs Dean's approval. He is always under Dean's inspection, always worried about Dean's judgement. Sam spent his life looking up at Dean. He tries not to be "the little brother" , but he doesn't know how to see Dean as someone that can be broken, especially since Dean keeps making it very clear he isn't.

Even just imagining that "the right thing to do" would be going against everything Dean's saying, the way Dean explains the world, Sam, their power balance - it's a huge deal to even grasp that it could be possible. I remember I once was sexually harassed at work and filed a complaint. Despite years of feminism, I felt like *the worst person of earth* for being so petty, so mean, ruining the pleasant atmosphere and so forth - even though of course it a fucked up way of seeing things. And that was with plenty of advantages, and with people I'd only know for a couple of months. Dean is Sam's *life*. Sam's worldviews are built around and according to Dean. His rebellions are tiny, and even they shook both his and Dean's world very frighteningly. Dean still hadn't forgiven Sam for leaving, still feels so insecure. So it's a huge leap, to even imagine to change the power balance between - that it's an option, that he could do it and how, and that it could be what Dean needs. It is so so hard to know what people need.

And even when he sees Dean is not ok – he tries, but he doesn't have any tools for dealing with that. Frankly, even had Sam been fantastic at that and had every known tool – what do you do with someone who was tortured for 30 years and them tortured others for another ten? The show didn't deal with it either. It's too big. How do you even approach that? Especially while running and fighting and trying to save each other and the world under an inhuman amount of pressure !

Long story short, there's really nothing Sam does in S4 that I can't picture myself doing.

Seconded.
I hope no one kills us :P

'America, fuck yeah!' monster killing

LOL

not a criticism: Aliens is one of my favorite movies

Honestly, I do criticize that, often. And I want to understand the other side of this better.

It acknowledges that there's moral complexity, and that the world is fucked up, but then concludes that mostly you're just going to have to live with it

Mm, I see what you mean.
Thanks :)

Ooh, interesting point, about the Gods.
I skipped what you wrote about B5, I'm still somewhere in the middle of it, but - ogh – good and very disturbing points.

[balder12.livejournal.com]

I found Sam relatable because it makes sense to me to not assume a whole huge group of beings are inherently evil and should be always killed on sight. *Especially* when you are part of that group/when the person you love most in the world is part of that group. And it makes sense to build trust, to learn about yourself as part of that group, especially since it's coming out whether you like it or not, in dreams and in your body, no matter how much you try to control it and push it down or away.

For me, S4 Sam kept threatening to turn into the world's most uncomfortable (unintentional) metaphor for homosexuality, for exactly the reasons you cite. He has this intrinsic evil in him from infancy that he tries to resist but can't ultimately suppress, and he fears that his family will reject him if they see his true self. And he absolutely hates the word 'freak,' which dances kind of close to the word 'fag.' I was somewhat disappointed by the demon blood thing because it seemed like a cop out that denied Sam responsibility for his actions, but I was also kind of relieved the whole thing turned into a metaphor for addiction. Especially when it proved to be significantly less ridiculous than Willow's magic addiction.

Re: America,fuck yeah! monster killing

There are so many versions of monster killing that it's hard to talk about without narrowing it down, but I was picturing your basic monster-killing movie, like Aliens, or Predator, or anything where someone awesomely mows down a fuckton of zombies. Maybe Jaws, too, or any movie the ends with someone blowing up a shark (improbably, there's more than one).

I like a good monster-based action movie, although not as much as I like a good monster-based horror movie, which is an entirely different thing, and the subject of a different discussion. I think the attraction of monster-killing stories is id-driven: when cavemen learned to talk, the first story they told around the fire was probably about the sabertooth tiger they totally killed with a spear. When Ripley goes mano a mano with the alien queen, she's fighting all your most primal fears and winning. Pretty much everybody in every culture wants some version of that: it's like seeing pretty people have sex or eating fatty foods. It's a quintessential human desire.

I'm talking about movies because I'm having a hard time thinking of a TV example. The only one that comes to mind is The Walking Dead, and that mixes awesome zombie killing with much more serious violence between the surviving human communities.

Re: Babylon 5

Yay! Someone else knows that show exists! Where are you in the series?

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

I do think BtVS has some awesome and complex exploration of being yourself while facing society, like it or not, being normal vs. being part of "the life" and so forth.

Oh, you definitely should write Sam/Ruby! I think you can really do the pairing justice.

Thanks for the rec :)

For what it's worth, I find Stockholm Syndrome really interesting, and very common, I guess, in the broader sense. I can identify with such feelings, I think most everybody can, and yet it's considered so weird and far away. There is some really great fic around it. I'd love to read some deep, interesting D/A about it, or better - season 4 Dean trying to come to terms with it. It makes more sense to me than Dean just not being able to keep suppressing this sadistic side of himself. Dean is about approval more than he is about suppressed violence, IMO.

Summergen - ahhh... butbut... I need to write six papers, a lecture, my novel (yeah right :( I reached the point in which I always get stuck - breaking it into coherent, linear scenes), and so many other things... I don't *intentionally* take on other writing projects! ;)

[balder12.livejournal.com]

Aw, damn real life always getting in the way of fandom :) Good for you working on a novel. I've been saying I'm going to start one for a year and never have. Scenes I can do, it's plot that always brings me grinding to a halt.

Re: S4 Dean and Stockholm Syndrome

Images of Broken Light by Amaresu is a really interesting big bang fic set in an AU of S4 where Alastair is in the picture. I think it does a good job of capturing Dean's Stockholm Syndrome and what the relationship might have meant to him.