#and this is what i mean when i say deangirls are capable of understand what was going on with dean

[queermania]

#boooooo i had a long tag essay and was almost done and then i accidentally clicked on a notif and it disappeared :(#the short version is you're right!#dean did a shitty gross thing and i'm not going to defend it. it sucks!#i also think in a really shitty bass-ackwards way dean is trying to ask for help here#what you said about the weight being unbearable really stuck with me#if you look at just the gadreel decision alone that's huge#but he is also carrying the weight of holding sam charlie cas and kevin's lives in his hands and feeling like the only one who could help#cas and charlie came back but that doesn't erase the pain of watching them die and feeling like it was his fault.#plus the guilt he felt at bringing them back#if we go back to s8 he's carrying sam through the trials and before that he's carrying cas and benny out of purgatory#s7 it's the weight of losing cas and bobby plus trying to hold sam (and later honey cas) together#s6 it's lisa and ben plus sam's soul. s4-5 it's making sure heaven and hell don't kill sam.#is he partly to blame for placing this burden on himself? sure. is he handling things well? nope!#but it doesn't change the fact that he is carrying so much and he feels like he must carry it alone#(and sometimes others give him more to carry and/or tell him he must carry it alone)#dean does think he's responsible for everyone and to blame for everything. he does think he's poison.#most of the time he processes and deals with that alone which makes it so striking that he voices it in 09x10#and i think he takes the step to say it out loud because he is being crushed by his real and assumed responsibilities#and he just wants someone to help him#this may be unfair of him to ask for. it is certainly unfair to ask the way he does and at the time he does.#again i am not defending him this is a super shitty thing to do#I just think it's interesting to look at this as the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak#spn (via @monstermoviedean)

#prev tags#i think this is one of the worst side effects of the two of them rarely spending significant time with anyone else especially in seasons 8-9#dean IS asking for help here but he's asking for help from the person least equipped to help him in that moment#and possibly the person it's least fair to ask for this specific help in this instance#but who else can he ask?#he and cas are still sort of dancing around each other and he's carrying no small amount of guilt there already#and he doesn't really have any close friends at this point#they're still in the all our friends are dead era#i also think he's trying to force his relationship with sam to be recriprocal in a way it just never can be for so many reasons#who offered sam absolution (eventually) when he went off the rails with the demon blood and lilith?#who stood by him while lucifer had the wheel and gave him something to anchor himself to?#who pulled sam from the brink of suicide literally less than a dozen episodes ago by contradicting all sam's worst fears about himself#dean functions as sam's sin-eater over and over again throughout the show (this will not be the last time)#and he is looking for sam to do the same for him here#but sam cannot do that for dean for all the reasons dean must do it for sam#because their relationship is so entrenched in the parent-child dynamic#and that dynamic really doesn't move the other way so easily#i also think this is the culmination of several seasons' worth of dean's loved ones unintentionally making him last priority#in ways that specifically feed his worst self-image rather than contradict them#dean doesn't take the mark because sam said one cruel thing to him (or didn't say one thing he needed to hear)#dean took the mark because of that AND because cas didn't trust him with the angel tablet AND because benny didn't come back with sam#AND because cas let go of his hand in purgatory AND because sam didn't even try to get him out#AND because cas took in the souls and said they weren't family AND because cas wouldn't stop when dean begged him#AND because lisa and ben wanted him gone in the end AND because emma was born to kill him but died herself AND because#sam was out of the cage the whole year and nobody told him not even bobby AND because his mother's only living family loathed him#AND because cas went to crowley instead of him And and and and and and#seasons 6 through the first half of 9 were just a neverending avalanche of people literally choosing death over staying with him#and 9 tines out of 10 it wasn't even about him but look me in the eyes and tell me dean doesn't think it is#dean winchester#dean studies (via @darkshrimpemotions)

yeah you guys get it

perhaps my most controversial take as a deangirl is that dean is so wrong for what he says to sam at the end of 9x10. (what sam says isn't necessarily okay either but it is understandable in terms of how much time he's had to process the gadreel situation [read: like none] and the problem with what he says is more that it's part of a larger pattern of behavior but that's a discussion for a different time.) what dean does is... one of the grossest things he does in the entire series. he tries to guilt sam into forgiving him for something he's not even sorry for. and i think that's the real crux of the issue: dean's not sorry; and i don't think he should be but because he's not sorry, he doesn't know what to say, or how to move forward.

dean is very good at apologies. he's very good at saying, "here's what i did wrong. here's an acknowledgement of how it hurt you. here's the reason i did it. i know that doesn't make it okay. here's what i'm going to do going forward." but that's not an option in this situation. he's not sorry for what he did and he'd do it again in a heartbeat. so instead he says, "i'm so bad and evil and it makes me so sad" with an edge of "i'm saying this so you'll disagree with me and tell me how good i actually am and that you forgive me." but of course sam doesn't do that (and it's silly to think he would). so dean just leaves. and it leads directly to him taking the mark of cain.

and it's not that he's doing any of it on purpose. i don't think he even realizes he's doing it. part of what makes this situation so unique for him is the kevin of it all. dean's not sorry for saving sam's life but he is sorry that it got kevin killed and the weight of that is unbearable. there's nothing he can do to make it okay. but like, that doesn't make what he's doing here okay either.

all that being said, he's still my babygirl, and i support the angst scruff he's about to grow. <3