But that would mean he was turning demonic, not just dark, before the death, right?

Ruby loved fries. Crowley loves Whiskey. That's why I think it was more like the monomania of Famine than demonic nature in particular. That the Mark and the Blade really had their teeth into him.

Admittedly, those are two atypical demons, but still.

Here's what the wiki says about Cain stopping killing:

Eventually, Cain fell in love with and married a woman named Colette. She forgave him for his past misdeeds, only asking that he never kill again. The Knights took Colette prisoner in 1863 in attempt to goad their former leader back into his old ways. This back-fired when Cain killed all the other Knights, save Abaddon, who possessed Colette and damaged her body in front of Cain by repeatedly snapping her neck. In a fit of anger, Cain tried to kill Abaddon with the First Blade as well, only for Abaddon to vacate Colette's body and trick a horrified Cain into murdering his wife. With her dying breath, Colette reminded Cain of his promise not to kill anymore, not even to gain vengeance on Abaddon. As the First Blade was indestructible, Cain threw the weapon into the ocean to honor Colette's final wish.

Fell in love is pretty telling right there. That's not going to happen much, is it?

Unless "love" is not specific to romantic love. As demonstrated over nine years now, Dean's love for Sam is paramount to all else. I'm betting on brotherly love to save Dean ultimately (if anything to retell the Cain/Abel story SPN-style.)

Here's to getting Sheriff Mills into demon-hunting with Sam and Cas, with the b-story of Cas finding/restoring his own grace before his stolen grace burns out and he dies.

Cool compilation of every season's title cards: [link]

It's still amazing to look at that and remember so clearly when every year, renewal was a nail-biter.

Unless "love" is not specific to romantic love.

I don't see any reason it has to be (can you imagine if they tried to pull that????), but a big issue is that those kids break promises to each other all the time. So that mode might not work.

I would love to see Dean for a while pretend he can do it, and be a real Rogue Demon Hunter.

I was planning to sit down and do a series of all the title cards including the gag ones (Changing Channels is so much more than a card, but something). So if you know someone who's already done that--spare me! I'm so bad at GIFing to tumblr limits, and that would never work.

My Winchester family pic has doubled in notes since the finale (taking me over 1K for the first time and then some). I have no idea why, but...yay!

Rogue Demon Hunter

Heh.

those kids break promises to each other all the time.

Very true. But when it comes to the possibility that a deep, abiding love may be the key to freeing oneself from the Mark of Cain (as it had for Cain), the boys' bravado and their lies don't hold a candle to the fundamental truth of how they really feel about each other - Dean especially. His profound love for Sam might be the key to freeing himself (or Sam freeing him) from the Mark. And I'm guessing that love could be used as leverage, too, for Crowley as Abaddon had done with Colette.

No idea. Just fun to consider what that dastardly Carver is thinking. Although, I do very much like the idea of Rogue Demon Hunter Dean!

I'm not sure if Crowley is really over the blood spell from last season and is back to being Full Metal Douche, but I think that's what was implied.

Yeah, I think I misheard that -- I thought I heard him say he was back on human blood, but I guess it was the other way around?

I'm already itchy to know what Crowley has in mind. I think his line about "Why set hearts aflutter over mere speculation?" was aimed as much at himself as anyone else -- as in, the idea of the Mark turning Dean into a demon was there, but he wasn't going to count his chickens early.

Full Metal Douche or not, I think Crowley has some geniune affection for both Dean and Sam, though. His relationship with them is as complicated, if not more so, than Meg's was.

Oh! I saw on Tumblr someone saying that Ruby's knife didn't affect Cain (with photos), so what does that mean about the kind of demon Dean is? Or is he just like Cain?

It's going to be a long summer, which is sort of refreshing to say.

Finally got caught up on show and thread. The ending has me intrigued for next season, as it should have. But I want Metatron gone. I'm getting tired of Cas and I used to really like him. I'll have to rewatch to be able to react to more than the last few scenes. Jared knocked it out of the park holding Dean as he died. Again...how many times has he done that and yet this still grabbed me.

With Cas losing his grace and Crowley back on human blood - are they both going to turn human?

(A) there was a lot I really liked about this finale, despite my problems with some of the underlying axioms. Sam in particular was wonderful.

(B) I'm guessing when Crowley mentioned Brentwood he didn't mean the city near me, but a guy just got arrested there for selling meth out of his ice cream truck, which does seem like something a demon might get up to...

I assumed Brentwood meant the city near me, which is meta-snotty.

I think Crowley has some geniune affection for both Dean and Sam, though. His relationship with them is as complicated, if not more so, than Meg's was.

I think their relationship is complicated because of history, but not affection. I think Meg was more of a natural aberration than Crowley, who I think is a supreme opportunist and doesn't think being evil has to get in the way of that.

Of course that doesn't count the blood, and that could turn out to be a factor any time the writers want it to.