“people On The Outside Of The Wincest/ Wincest Adjacent Bubble Are Like “so You Think Sam And Dean

au where obi-wan gets prophetic dreams of anakin’s fall but they’re the kenobi show montage dreams where nothing useful can be gleaned about how to stop it; so obi-wan decides he just needs to leave the order. anakin is only 12, he can be trained by another master. obi-wan didn’t even have a master when he was 12. anakin will be fine. stars, he’ll probably be better.

of course he’s not and of course obi-wan abandoning him pushes him closer to palpatine and he falls much sooner, becoming a baby sith that palpatine mostly farms out to dooku for training because anakin at 16, 17, 18 is a lot

and when he falls, the jedi order is like hm. we’re gonna tell kenobi about this. cause now skywalker is a sith with a sith master, and a grudge the size of coruscant against the guy who left him, so. let’s just give him a heads up to maybe consider going into hiding

but of COURSE when obi-wan hears his precious padawan STILL FELL he goes right to count dooku and asks to be his apprentice, he’d make such a good apprentice, dooku always liked him when he was qui-gon’s padawan, remember? now he could be his apprentice

dooku knows that with skywalker, 19 and well-trained now in the picture, his usefulness to sidious is running out, so he doesn’t have a lot of reasons to say no to kenobi. and kenobi is right. he did always like him when he was qui-gon’s apprentice, so sure he’ll give him a sith name (solence) and a red lightsaber (sick)

but basically this leads to very awkward sith family dinners where darth vader–is trying to kill darth solence with his eyes and sometimes the nearest oyster fork, darth solence is throwing sad kicked puppy expressions across the table at darth vader and sighing into his dessert pudding all the while debating with darth tyranus about how good the dark side could really be, i mean, if one were to really think about it, especially in comparison to the life we all led at the Temple, remember anakin? you loved life at the Temple.

darth sidious stopped accepting the invites five dinners ago.

F1 x tumblr but it's just @infectiouspiss's textposts

I'm ready to let myself look for love

Some thoughts on Sam & Dean’s handgun preferences

Or: why Sam has more guns, but Dean is the better shot

So I can’t find much proper meta about the weapons (and even the SPN wiki was making mistakes.) But I think there’s a goldmine of good character stuff here. Ryan Steacy has been the SPN armorer since the beginning of the show, and he’s put some really nice thought into the boys. Respect, love, appreciation for him. 

So… I’ll just jump right in, shall I? 

Dean’s M1911A1

Dean carries the baddass American pistol. It’s very macho, very MURICA. The 1911 was the service gun during WWI & WWII, right up through the Korean war. So it gets (and deserves) a lot of love. They have a reputation for needing more maintenance than some modern pistols, but considering how often Dean’s just sitting there, casually cleaning while chatting with Sam, he probably sees this as more a feature than a bug. He’s a natural mechanic. Firearm maintenance is probably relaxing and zen for him. 

(I do think that for Sam it’s more a stressed-based compulsion. He tends to do it when he’s feeling helpless or scared. In “Hello, Cruel World” Dean interprets Sam’s gun-cleaning as sign that he’s in a bad headspace. 

BOBBY: Well, at least he’s not curled up under the sink.  DEAN: Yeah, no, he’s just sitting there silently field stripping his weapon. 

And Hallucination!Lucifer sees it as evidence that Sam’s suicidal. Sam goes for a more traditionally low-maintenance pistol, and I kinda think Dean may clean it for him a lot of the time.)

But anyway. Dean’s 1911 holds large .45 caliber Colt ACP rounds - which means it can only fire seven shots before he has to reload. (Sam’s pistol, by the way, can fire seventeen shots in a row.) 

And people who like the 1911 say this is fine. The bullets are so big and the gun is so powerful that seven shots is all you need. (You hear the phrase “stopping power” or “knock-down power” a lot.) But there are also the people who think that the 1911 is just over-powerful, and it isn’t worth it to sacrifice carrying capacity and accuracy for pure force. 

Because yeah, it is harder to be a really good shot when you’re using .45 ACP rounds. Target shooting teachers will probably start you off with baby .22mm bullets, then slowly move you up to something bigger (bigger bullets = slower bullets = less accurate bullets. Also more recoil, which makes everything harder.) This guy is kind of intense, but puts it well when he says “every step up the caliber ladder means another round of very serious training.” 

But hey, Dean is a better shot than Sam

Like, I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated, but of course he is? 

Their entire childhood, it would have been Sam going back to the motel room early to study or do his homework, while Dean dutifully puts in another three hours shooting coke cans off fenceposts. 

This also helps explain his choice of handgun. Dean uses a less accurate pistol with a smaller carrying capacity because he can. He knows he’s going to hit the thing the first time. And if he’s going to be fighting literal wendigos, I guess he wants the holes he pokes in them to be as big as possible. 

(plus all this classic Americana does kind of go with the Impala) 

Sams’ Taurus PT92AFS

Sam spends the first season borrowing Dean’s Smith & Wesson 5906. It’s very clearly Dean’s - it fires .45 ACP rounds (Dean’s preference) and Dean sometimes actually loads it before handing it over to Sam. Since Sam doesn’t actually want to be a hunter though most of S1, this makes perfect sense. 

Then in S2, Sam gets his Taurus PT92AFS – basically, a budget version of the  Beretta M92. In a lot of ways, the Taurus is the souped-up Honda civic you get when you can’t afford a Ferrari. (and in both cases, you’ll totally get people saying they’re being smart by not paying extra for the brand name.) 

A Taurus  PT92AFS is a practical and cautious choice. It’s not the least bit flashy. It’s light and accurate, it carries a lot of rounds, and they’re little .99mm rounds, which are more budget conscious and accurate than .45 ACP rounds.

Partway into S2, Sam’s Taurus gets nickel plating and pearl grip. Possibly Sam did this so his gun would match Dean’s. Or possibly Dean customized Sam’s pistol as a gift. (it’s the firearm equivalent of painting racing stripes on your car.) Either way, it’s a pretty darn cute touch. 

Sam’s Taurus Judge (his “witch killer”) 

“For an unknown reason, Sam appears to prefer using this gun for firing witch-killing bullets rather than loading his regular pistol with them. In contrast, Dean uses his Colt M1911A1 for witch-killing bullets rather than employing a similar practice.” 

@supernaturalwiki, it’s because the witch-killing bullets Sam makes are .45 ACP, not .99mm. They wouldn’t fit in Sam’s normal Taurus PT92AFS. He makes them for Dean, so of course he makes them in a caliber that Dean prefers. 

Sam’s Taurus Judge is a close-quarters backup piece that fires five shots. This is just in case Dean (the better shot) isn’t able to take out the main threat. Hilariously, the Judge is a revolver that chambers both .45 ACP rounds and shotgun shells. This means Sam can load it up with rock-salt shells or witch-killing bullets or silver bullets. So you know. Whatever’s on the menu that day. 

Soulless!Sam’s Heckler & Koch Mk23

Sam switches over to this when he loses his soul, then switches back to his Taurus products when he gets his soul back. When Soulless!Sam and Sam!Sam fight in their vision quest, they fight Heckler & Koch vs Taurus. 

The Heckler & Koch Mk23 is designed to have the power of Dean’s 1911 and the carrying capacity of Sam’s .99mm handgun. So it’s huge, and very intimidating. It’s waterproof, crazy durable. It’s made by a fancy schmancy German defense contractor known for their precision engineering and their popularity with the special forces. H&K weapons are also known for being crazy expensive. This pistol would have set Sam back at least $2,000 (and for reference, you can get a Taurus PT92AFS for $500, easy.) So, either Soulless!Sam killed someone with a Mk23 and looted it, or somehow raised 2K very quickly. And I’m not even sure which option is more terrifying. 

But the Mk23 still has that vibe of practicality and caution that Sam seems drawn too. (’Over-prepared’ is a good word to describe it.) It’s still an in-character choice. Just, Soulless!Sam is more brusque and intimidating when he’s dealing with persons of interest, as opposed to Sam!Sam’s softer, more approachable manner. And I think those two attitudes are pretty well represented by the H&K Mk23 and the Taurus PT92AFS respectively. 

Interestingly, the H&K Mk23 does not fire Sam’s normal .99mm bullets. It fires the larger .45 ACP caliber rounds. And Soulless!Sam can get away with this because - I’m pretty sure Soulless!Sam is a much better shot than Sam!Sam. 

SAM: Ever since I came back, I am a better hunter than I’ve ever been! Nothing scares me anymore. ‘Cause I can’t feel it. 

Like again, why wouldn’t he be? Soulless!Sam is ice cold, steady heartbeat in a crisis. Marksmanship is a mental thing as much as it’s practice, and Soulless!Sam’s hands aren’t shaking. And that’s why he eventually switches back to his Taurus PT92AFS. It doesn’t matter if your shots are more powerful, if they don’t hit anything. 

(he still does have that H&K Mk23, though. He cleans it when he’s in a bad mental place. It’s not like he borrowed it from the Campbells or anything.) 

tl;dr

Dean uses big slow American bullets, because he’s a good enough shot to compensate. Sam uses little, accurate European bullets, and he uses a lot of them (because he’s cautious, and not quite as good as shot as his brother.) The witch-killing bullets Sam makes are a larger caliber, because he makes them for Dean. He’s got a little revolver that can take them, but he’d prefer it if he didn’t have to use it so much. 

Soulless!Sam is both a better shot, and not adverse to giant expensive German handguns acquired though less-than-legal means. So he switches over to a pistol that shoots giant bullets, and lots of them. 

(Also, disclaimer: I do not pretend to be a firearm expert. I’m just here to have fun.)

people with blood on their teeth are just so special to me.

imagine sitting next to sam winchester in prelaw 101 and you’re like can i borrow a pencil and he hefts his backpack onto the table and it’s noisy and lumpy like he’s got a bunch of coins in there and he rummages around and pulls out a pencil and you’re like thanks. do you have a sharpener by any chance and he pauses and looks between you and his bag a few times and reaches in and hands you a pocket knife

Don’t think about malnourished baby Sammy. Don’t think about little four year old Dean begging his Dad to buy formula instead of ammunition, of four year old Dean burning himself trying to warm up Sammy’s milk. Don’t think about Dean waking up every couple hours after crawling into Sammy’s crib to make sure he was still breathing. Don’t think of little four year old Dean who used to beg to feed his little brother his bottle, now not having another option. Don’t think about baby Sammy getting sick and Dean begging John to make him a doctors appointment to make sure he’s okay. Don’t think of baby Sammy learning to walk with his older brother holding his hands, of baby Sammy crying when he sees John because he doesn’t recognize his own dad. Don’t think of baby Sammy calling Dean dad, or the fact that Sam’s first steps were towards Dean. Don’t think about the fact that the doctors were worried about Sam’s weight at that doctors appointment, and ever since, Dean has made sure that Sammy always had enough to eat, even at the cost to his own health.

Don’t think about twelve year old Dean collapsing on the first night of a hunt because he hadn’t eaten in four or five days, because Sammy needed the food. Don’t think about John yelling at Dean asking what the hell is wrong with him etc. and Dean just shrugs it off. Because he’s fine. And he ignores it. He shoves the aching for food way down and ignores it. So, when they go back into town because they hit a dead end, and get food at a diner, Dean gorges on the food, and eats half of John’s too. Don’t think about John seeing this, having a flash of worry but ignoring it because “it’s Dean he’s always fine.” Don’t think about Dean worrying the first time Sammy called him Dad because “no, no, no, Sammy, I’m your big brother Dean.” Because he’s worried that his Dad is going to freak out if he hears Sammy calling Dean dad.

Don’t think about the fact that Sam probably didn’t learn the word Mom until he was at school because it wasn’t something his dad and Dean said. Don’t think about Sam driving alone for the first time and hitting a dear and calling Dean because he didn’t trust that his dad would answer. Don’t think about Dean, sitting in some motel at 23 years old after a fight with his dad who stormed off debating calling Sam because he’s the only one who would get it.

Don’t think about the Winchester brothers as little kids left alone in motel rooms for too long, underfed, and unsure of when their Dad was going to be back.

Kabuto's such a weird guy because he sorta befriends naruto, gives him advice and willingly helps him but afterwards he immediately drops out the exams so he can do some sketchy villain shit. He then tried to kill sasuke at some point until orochimaru was like oh hes my new body and he just goes ok boss. Oh and he also fought kakashi and got away and kakashi acknowledges how powerful he is and never thinks to bring it up to anyone else. He then betrays naruto without him even knowing up until they go out to find tsunade which is MONTHS after the chunin exams. He proceeds to beat the shit out of him whilst acting as orochimarus arms because he lost them and he was probably also wiping his ass at this point. He then leaves with orochimaru and plays nurse for a good few years until orochimaru was done shedding his skin or whatever he does as a weird snake immortal human tri hybrid and then when he does appears in shippunden hes feigning as a spy attempting to kill sasori of all people a member of the most dangerous organisation in naruto what the fuck was he thinking.

He's loyal but freakishly off putting to any outsiders because hes out here sacrificing anyone for orochimaru and speaking as if hes the centre of your world because he expects naruto uzumaki of all people just to know hes orochimarus left hand man slash special guy

Ok but could you imagine if Adam ended up in John’s Dean’s care?

Sam would be about 12/13 and still looking like he’s 9 because he hit puberty late and Dean looking like he’s in his early 20s from all this trauma he gained as a child

Dean who just lost another 18 years of his life to play parent(s) to another one of John’s kids

Dean would be out one day with the two, Adam babbling on his hip as he holds Sam’s hand to cross the street and some lady coos and says he has cute kids

Dean stalling in the middle of the road before Sam whines about ice cream

He a father to a 5 year old toddler and a young teenager

Jayvik, the missing years 1\2