a wind had blown away the sun

(i feel a bit bad for dragging down the mood in my dash with this stuff because all i want to do is flail and finally write my review of 8.17 as whole, but i feel that this must be dealt with.)

context. this post is in reply to what went on in my tumblr two days ago after i wrote about dean’s parentification.  

i got a couple of answers from blacklid that i took, perhaps a bit too naively, as an attempt at discussion in good faith. the point is that this person never made their argument, and when asked for clarification, they passed on personal insults. now i had decided to ignore them completely - i tend to ignore personal insults - but during the night the above post, the one i linked, happened. and that is what i’m going to address.

you see, never in any of their answers they came out with an argument in favor of John’s parenting. they could have talked about john’s PTSD, they could used the recent canon about john’s father disappearing, but no. they kept turning the whole thing on its head. they kept making it all about, guess who?, dean - and later sam -  the kids of said parent.

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let’s be real. dean will always offer himself as a sacrifice (subconsciously or not) and ignore the blood he sheds.

i actually don’t know how i feel about this. i don’t feel happy or triumphant. i do know that dean won’t hold this against cas. he didn’t after cas healed him in this same episode. and he didn’t held cas responsible for beating him in point of no return, and he didn’t held john responsible for torturing him while possessed and he didn’t held sam responsible for what he did to dean while possessed or soulless or envesseled by lucifer. but it remains, clear as day, that violence and love are irremediably intertwined in dean’s brain, in those cuts that have been healed, and in those bruises that have faded. i don’t know how it messes dean up more than he already is, in which directions and ways twists the idea of dean’s worth and dean’s self image. later, he asks cas, what happened (why did he stop) indicating that he definitely isn’t seeing himself as the reason to stop.

i’m not sure the show is able to address this aspect or if it should and how. but it exists. it’s an interesting part, rather an horrific part, of the show that repeats itself again and again. brutal in its effectiveness. 

forever fascinated at how, in general, fandom rejects and stigmatizes dean’s anger. 

and it’s not even that dean gets to express it a lot, as anger is probably one of the first thing john winchester disapproved of. [dean was supposed to be the helper, he couldn’t be angry, he had to be tame and pleasing.] but every time dean is angry, i see ppl hating it, the emotion. and it’s confusing and interesting.

random reflection of the day: the fact that that the greatest declaration of love to dean have arrived on the tail of the most violent acts perpetrated against him - through not fault of their own - by the same people that love dean and that dean loves.

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just to be clear. dean doesn’t owe forgiveness (nobody does, actually). and he has the right to his anger and hurt and to be disappointed and to feel betrayed. there is a fine line that should be threaded on this subject. a nuance that cannot be forgotten or ignored or flattened under the usual arguments i too often see in fandom. because i see people put off when dean is angry or hurt and expresses his hurt and disappointment. idk. it’s hard to talk about this subject especially with dean. he is a character that, for his personal story, because of his childhood, has been taught to push down his feelings because they didn’t matter against more (in john’s point of view) important problems like revenge against the demon who killed mary, or against the superior need to protect sam. he honestly believes that his hurt and disappointment don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. the fact that this aspect of dean shines is complicated, for lack of better words, it’s not as easy to label as it seems. 

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divachester:

i dunno what is there really to talk about. then again i did just roll out of bed so i don’t think i really have a lot to say anyways. 

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i too noticed that empty side of the room. and i’m hoping it gets filled with all the other things that we know Dean likes. copies of Vonnegut’s novels, a cheap edition with the entire collection of Bukowski’s poems. some Anne Sexton too because once Bobby referenced her and he got curious. a brand new copy of The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit and the Silmarillion. DVDs of his favorite movies and tv shows - from Star Trek to Dr. Sexy. and then the music he likes apart from heavy metal, like all of Johnson’s albums, and all the blues. i’m not even sure that Dean knows how to shop for himself, how to treat himself to a gift. i’m sure he doesn’t know how to buy something just because he desires and wants it.

that empty side of the room should be filled with all those sides of his personality that are not just a good little soldier and a blunt instrument. i think that room may become a visual representation of Dean integrating and cherishing and aknowledging all the parts of himself.

you know what my argument/headcanon is for Dean liking both women and men is based on? it’s not about any single scene in the show (there’s nothing wrong with analyzing those and coming to certain conclusions and it’s been interesting reading some of the meta, it’s that they don’t really work for me). my argument is a bit simpler maybe, and it is based on his needs for tenderness and for being touched. he likes that. he likes sex. in fact it kind of makes me sad that he doesn’t have sex as much as he did. sex wasn’t complicated pre-hell and pre-season 2/3/4/5/6/7/8 with the huge issues of suicidal thoughts and post-hell issues and depression and alcoholism and renewed PTSD. sex was something he took for himself. it was selfish, fun and easy and it made Dean feel better with himself even if for a few hours. Dean rarely takes something for himself without feeling the need to apologize or to feel guilty but he took that and i liked it.

my personal (sub-textual, personal interpretation, headcanon or whatever you want to call it) argument for Dean being no big about having sex with women and men is based on the fact that he wouldn’t differentiate as long as it was an hour or a night of mindless fun. and sure he probably hid it from John, and presented this front that John would approve of. or that the hunting community by extension would accept - though it’s not like there were a lot of contacts with it as John kept both Dean and Sam pretty separated and isolated with a few exceptions like Pastor Jim, Caleb and Bobby. but it’s not the only aspect of himself Dean hid from John (and Sam) behind his carefully constructed walls so it doesn’t really surprise me.

this is my headcanon and my very personal interpretation.

It’s why he rejected Jo initially, because she was pretty and had feminine traits, she obviously couldn’t be strong enough to Hunt. 

actually, pls, rewatch the scene. that’s not even half the reason why dean was angry she was hunting. he said it himself: you have choices, you don’t have to do this, because this is damaging and will screw you over. you have a parent that will make you decide what to do. and he also said that it was.not.because.she.was.a.woman. that she couldn’t do the job.

 eta: because i have to add that ignoring the above and Dean’s reasons behind Dean’s attempt at making Jo go back home and stop pursuing hunting is ignoring one of the early times in canon in which Dean has expressed out loud and in words the damaging aspect of hunting and how hard he felt it. forgotten is the gung-ho Dean of early first season who wouldn’t have admitted ever that hunting could be damaging. No Exit came at a time when Dean was reeling from John’s death and the guilt he felt for it. it was in the same season when Dean ends making a deal with the devil for his little brother. so i find a bit sad that his exchange with Jo - who is a mirror of Dean in so many ways and of Sam in so many others - gets so lost. it was a sign, an early sign that telegraphed Dean’s feelings about John’s parenting (that exploded in Dream a Little Dream) and also the end of the season adding another layer of meaning to the deal for Sam.

i’m still not sure i’ve come to terms with the most recent episode of spn and the message of it - i do get the intention and i do get the strength of the emotions behind it, but i’m not really sure the execution wouldn’t have worked the same way but with a different premise. i’m also trying to figure out how the first 10 episodes fit  with the last 4, as i have a strong sense of disconnect between the two parts of the season. but we’ll see if everything will gel together in the end, it’s too soon now to give a verdict.

something that i’m hoping will happen is to see Dean use his considerably brilliant brain and strategy and leader skills (there was a very pointed scene in Larp where they showed Dean being the strategist of the LARP battle). i’ve been a bit worried about the (fake and oversimplified) separation between brawn and brain - and the stupid Singer’s quote didn’t really help -  and seeing Dean say that he considers himself the brawn when it’s been evident for me that he’s been the brain behind the whole operation for a long time has made me see some kind of logic behind this choice. fuck my boy is a genius and Sam has only confirmed out loud what i’ve always thought that the show was telling me.

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to the anon who sent me the ask about the dead man’s blood scene:

i had to think for a bit about what to answer as it’s evident that the scene hit you very hard. i do think that there was a carelessness in early seasons in dean that was very on the nose. i’m pretty sure that pre-series, many were the situations in which dean was put in danger because of the job. part of it was john and his dedication, to the point of obsession, to the hunting life and to find what had killed mary. dean’s loss of safety at the hand of something mysterious and dangerous triggered a natural reaction in dean: he clung to john and an idealized version of john to feel safe. in turns enhanced dean’s need to prove himself worthy of the job to john. it’s not hard for me to imagine a dean who volunteers himself to be bait or to carry on a dangerous diversion or mission.

of course this shows a carelessness with dean’s life; you don’t put a kid at 8/10 years in a highly dangerous situation like hunting without being at least a little bit careless with their life - and i say this as a protective mom for whom the idea of putting a child, any child in such a situation is horrible.

remember that dean defines himself as a blunt instrument. there’s some merit in that definition and it’s not just something that comes up because dean has self-esteem issues. he definitely has, but he’s also being taught and raised as a blunt instrument, raised as a weapon in john’s war. he’s a soldier child. 

you are definitely legitimate in what you think, as dean’s childhood has been indeed thrown to the wolves. (sam’s too but in different ways.)  and for a lot of the series, he’s been put and has put himself in the position of being the one who has to put aside his problems and issues to deal with someone else’s problem (be it personal like john’s or sam’s, or global like the end of the world in all its declination). 

what i disagree with you is that the writers aren’t aware how horrible and damaging and wrong it is. if there’s something consistent in SPN is how obviously they show the damage of a traumatic childhood and how subsequent traumas make it worse and much more complicated and harder to address. 

not a lot to say about this episode apart that i liked it. i can see a few twists in the future but for now it’s just gut feelings. in any case, i’m digging a few things specific to the episode and to the whole season. with some caveats.

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okay, because it’s coming up again and again in the last week. i think what i’m going to say is not only banal, but something so self-evident it shouldn’t be said at all. but again and again i see this kind of problem coming up in fandom so maybe, idk, i’m going to be banal and say it.

• there is nothing wrong in liking something that somebody else hates.

conversely

• there is nothing wrong in hating something that somebody else likes.

(i think that the difference is made by the fact that one should try not to be an asshole about it, but that’s just my personal philosophy. there are also places and ways in which the conversation is possible, a mediation between the two positions, but sometimes it’s just not going to happen, and it’s not a matter of being open or what, it isn’t possible.)

it’s just that the power of storytelling is really, really great and stories hits us all in different ways. because stories speak to us and touch us in ways that few other things do and that feeds our passion (or passionate hate/love and everything in between). i’ve been in both positions  (the one that couldn’t understand why people weren’t liking this or that or why people were not as mad as i was about this or that) and i get how it feels. but in the end, the reaction to any kind of story is intimate, it’s personal in ways that are closely tied to our experiences and background and culture and personal history.