I never even thought those wrist marks WEREN'T werewolfy in origin, but you're right; someone will think they were from John.

So here's what I got from Bad Boys that I am sure someone on Tumblr is disagreeing with entirely right now (not that I'm going to post this on Tumblr):

Sam, who ran away from home (initially I wrote Dean...) and got a dog that Dean didn't learn about until recently is so reflexive about his immersion into his brother's life that he doesn't countenance for a moment that anyone calls Dean a nickname that he he wouldn't know. Top that off with the lying about the whole petty incarceration Sam's starting this episode on unsure footing.

It could have been a Something WIcked type of situation where the normal pushes and pulls q on a teenaged boy overrode his mandate to parent Sam and he just wanted to play cards. Maybe there's something he wanted to buy that he couldn't afford--either for him or Sam. Maybe it wasn't going to be enough money for some reason--poor planning, hunt took too long.

*I* don't blame John for that happening, and I don't blame Dean. Shit happens. And Dean probably tried to make it better with the tools he had to hand. If this show ever hinted at him tricking for money as a teenager I will throw up in my mouth a little. That's for fanfic alone, thanks. Canon's bleak enough as it is. Hustling cards failed, stealing failed.

So John leaves him. Is John mad? Does John think a dose of juvie or whatever punishment he's going to get will do a boy good? With his former Marine current drill sergeant mode of thinking, this is the conclusion that I come to. He's not going to be overly sentimental about an absence of two weeks, and he trusts Dean to be on the job and protect himself (as he did, dutifully, warding the beds) and hopefully learn a lesson.

The bruises were from a werewolf. I don't want to hear it.

Dean's not seeing himself in Timmy, as far as we've been shown. Is he seeing Sam? I don't think so, although Sammy was bookish, he seems to have been a loner by choice and hung out with kids that needed people on his side. So that's just Dean and his pull to and facility with kids. I like that they still play this, and the running leap into Dean's arms at the end made my heartstrings clench.

Dean's sixteen, he's with a girl who plays the guitar, and he wants to get away from the family business and be a rockstar. At no point do we see him express any interest in the instrument, and the one instance we've seen of his singing was deliberately bad. So I'm seeing the kid who loves his father's records and the rock and roll life here, not someone who's looking to turn either love of or talent at music into a great career. Some kids want to be astronauts, some want to be archeologists, Dean does not want to need to finish high school for his, clearly. He segues into a mechanic here, his father's previous occupation, so even as he wants to give up the family business, his life has been so sheltered that he impractically wants to play his father's music, or more practically pick up his father's occupation.

I think right there we're not supposed to feel sad at a dream that passed him by, at a profession his father prevented him from having. I think we're to see that he could dream--that he had boyish impractical desires and was tempted to do boyish impractical things to make them come true. The audience is the grownup in this scene, not fellow adults who let their dreams pass them by as well.

This is reinforced, IMO, by the conversation with the adult Robin, where she reveals that the dreams she had at 16 weren't her either--that where she is right now, doing both her father's job and her mother's is the right place for her to be, and the right things to do. Is it deliberate that she's working at both her parents' professions? Is this saying something about both hunting and being a Man of Letters? Certainly, though, the parallel of we're doing the right things now is spelt out here.

At age 16, it's the love of Sammy that takes him back on the hunt with some regret, but without ambivalence, IMO. It wasn't about family, it was Sammy. But at age 26, it was about family. Once he'd gotten Sammy, he needed his father back (continued...)

( continues...) as well. That's what adulthood had taught him was important to protect.

At the very end we're shown a mother who loves her son so much she stays around to protect her son, but she's been driven mad by the trauma of dying. It takes not saving him (since there'll be another crisis around the corner) but him releasing her for her to move on and stop hurting people.

I'd draw parallels here with Home, when another mother stuck around, but for a much longer time, in a very specific place, and her only motivation was to save her son. What made Mary different from Timmy's mother? They're both horrific deaths with young children barely saved...I can't suggest much. Maybe knowing about what makes a bad ghost helped her not go all Shining on anyone, and just step in when Sam needed her the most, and then disappear.

That's two really sad episodes in a row. This had way less comic relief in it than last week to boot.

I'm reading this epic fic--it started promisingly, but I read the header while it was being posted, so I didn't know there were 200k words. AND THE STATUS QUO HASN'T CHANGED IN FOREVER. The sex was fun, the characterisation interesting...

And now they've gone back on Cas--makes his first couple chapters make no sense at all, and she's pulling surprises out of her hat. Tight, tight, POV, but how can you have two neurotic sexually active characters never think about being HIV positive? And I mean that in the plural--they blurt it out to each other and then it's one more reason they're so perfect for each other--I think the middle 100k is just a litany of the physical responses they get from each other, admitting their fucked up pasts, and explaining more love than can possibly be healthy. Oh, and mentioning the conflict they're hoping will go away if they ignore it.

But the funniest thing is that she has had Dean put his knees together not once, but twice so far. Yeah, never gonna happen, sweetie.

But the funniest thing is that she has had Dean put his knees together not once, but twice so far. Yeah, never gonna happen, sweetie.

They can't reach each other! Can they? It'd be as effective as unfolding paper. Still ending up creased.

I mean, she mentions the bow in his legs two sentences prior (he's wearing women's underwear, which I'll come back to later). He's posing in front of a mirror, and puts his knees together to see how he looks. LIKE HE BROKE HIS LEGS, THAT'S HOW. Totally crushed the sensual mood.

The stats say that there are a lot of male transvestites, and those numbers are largely made up of men whose only female garment is a panty. In this story, Dean isn't wearing it as a kink, and he isn't wearing it as a gender expression, he's wearing it because they're pretty, and after having fought hard to not be a pretty boy in his teens, dammit, he does want to be pretty sometimes.

Women's underwear cut to hold stick and berries (should the man have them) is not women's underwear, right? If you get silken men's underwear with lace trim, the wearer is no longer a transvestite, right? Maybe not, anyway?

There are probably a lot of men numbered amongst transvestites because the women's section is the only place they can get the pink frilly numbers they want--alongside the men who like the way it *doesn't* fit their cock and balls and get off on that, or the people who can only wear this one piece of clothing (so far) that expresses a gender they're coming to terms with, or a million other reasons, right?

I mean, does that make sense, in the same way that when I wear a tie, from the men's department, I'm not a transvestite either? (If someone tried to sell me women's ties I would beat them about the head with something much harder than their tie-ette)

Women's underwear cut to hold stick and berries (should the man have them) is not women's underwear, right?

I wouldn't think so. I've seen some pretty fancy, silky stuff when underwear shopping, but it was specifically designed for men. Wearing that sort of thing wouldn't make a man trans any more than wearing coveralls would a woman without an accompanying urge to identify or present as the opposite gender, though "girly" and "boyish" might be fair descriptions.

Yeah, I gather the cry of "I'm not a transvestite! I just like wearing women's panties instead of boxers!" would be followed by the laugh track, whereas--hey, Victor's Secret is a bit more well kept. It's not the fault of the guy who has to suffer through the uncomfortable fit.

(Noting, of course, there are some guys that *love* said fit)

Paid my cable bill and finally caught up on Show.

The end. OMG. I don't think I've been double-sucker punched like that in ages. First the sight of baby Sam and Dean making his choice (despite the unfortunate eyebrows, that actor gave really good Dean, props to him), and then Sam actually cluing in. I flove it when Sam gets what Dean has done for him/what he means to Dean. Actually, I can't really recall any other instances. Dean selling his soul for him was an obvious one, but I can't remember if it was shown that Sam Got It. Maybe this was a first. Heart-clench.

ita, what is the Cas-foster-fic?

I think of Season Five as the Season Where Sam Pulled His Head Out Of His Ass Re Mommy Dean. Starting with heaven.

Here's Smiling Out of Fear by pinupchemist, Julie. Probably the best foster D/C AU I can remember reading, but I'm always open to a new good one, or remember an old good one.