They need to crack a code that involves complex cryptography and lateral thinking? If only they had someone older than language whose mind outstrips every supercomputer ever built!
They need to settle a dispute between two quarreling parties to get a job done? If only they had a strategist and military commander who could mediate and get them back on track!
They need to get to someone in a hurry before she’s killed? If only there was someone around with wings and the ability to teleport – or barring that, SCAN THE AREA WITH HIS BETTER-THAN SUPERCOMPUTERS TELEPATHIC MIND POWERS!
They need to stop Dean from tromping off on his own? If only they had someone who could literally boop his fucking forehead and knock him out
Season 11 starts. The Winchesters aren’t in the Impala anymore. Dean looks at Sam. Sam looks at Dean. “Why aren’t we in the Impala anymore?” they both ask at once. Neither one has an answer. Dean almost says “Fuck if I know,” but then he remembers they are on a network television show.
They are surrounded by roiling black mist. “Wow,” says Sam, completely deadpan, “this does not remind me of the Leviathan at all.”
The roiling black mist coalesces into a vague human being shaped thing. After a dramatic title card, it is revealed to be an old white man in a very dark suit. He is balding, but still trying to hide it. He should have purchased a bigger suit. In the back of his mind, he thanks the God that does not exist in this universe that at least they didn’t get a black man to play the Darkness.
“No,” Dean agrees. “This is nothing at all like the Leviathan.”
Suddenly, the old white man in a very dark suit looms threateningly. Sam and Dean don’t know it, but this is thanks to a strange camera angle and several overworked post-production techs. They find it very frightening.
“I find this very frightening,” Sam says to Dean.
Even more suddenly, Charlie appears beside the Winchesters. She is semi-transparent. She is floating in the air.
“I thought you were dead!?” Dean exclaims, clearly oblivious to the fact that she is a ghost.
“You are clearly oblivious to the fact that I am a ghost,” Charlie says. After a moment, she shakes her head as though trying to get water out of her ears. “What the hell was that? I meant to say that duh, dipshit, I’m a ghost! Are you blind? Also, since when were ghosts semitransparent in this show anyway?”
Sam blinks in awe. “You just cursed,” he says.
Ghost Charlie shrugs. “Apparently dying comes with being very genre savvy. And don’t worry.” She turns towards the old white man in a very dark suit, who Sam and Dean abruptly remember is the Darkness. “I know how to deal with this fucker.”
She pauses a moment, for drama, and then exclaims “Christo!”
The old white man in a very dark suit stands gaping for a moment, before he dissolves back into roiling black smoke. It goes screaming up into the air and then disappears back underground. Distantly, the Winchesters can hear it shouting “Continuity-y-y-y-y-y-yyyyy”
The Winchester gape at Ghost Charlie. She shrugs again. “There was never any Darkness,” she says. “There was just the manifestation of the writers’ ineptitude.”
crossroads demon!sam trying to talk people out of selling their soul, showing them all the ways they can improve on their own when they just start to believe in themselves
reaper!sam convincing people to pick up the phone and call an ambulance, keeping them conscious by talking to them about how beautiful and important they are until the paramedics can take care of them
ghost!sam haunting cliffs and bridges and revealing himself to people who are desperate, explaining to them how they can solve their issues and telling them about the positive influence they had on other people and how grateful those people are to know them
djinn!sam feeding on people who are in an irreparable coma, checking on them to make sure they get proper treatment, allowing them to be reunited with their families and able to live the life they wanted to live
