#apl dean winchester

[schizosamwincester]

So, there's this specific conversation that aspec people who don't know they're aspec tend to have. Someone comes to them for relationship advice, and the relationship sounds very bad, and the aspec person, having no understanding of why the other person would want this relationship in the first place, ends up saying, "you should just break up with them/stop being friends with them/cut them off." I had it way, way, way too many times with a specific friend about their girlfriend back before I knew I was aro (honestly they really should have told me to fuck off), and just a week or so ago a friend had it with me about my family before literally going "wait. You actually like, feel a connection with your family and want to be around them?" (Shout out to her for discovering she's afamilial)

Anyway, I bring this up because Dean Winchester also had one of these conversations in Skin (1x04):

I think this conversation may be the most aplatonic conversation anyone's ever had. Dean simply does not understand why cutting off friends is a big deal. I'm pretty sure he has no idea that platonic feelings even exist (which, no judgment to him. I only learned they existed a year ago). So to him? Yeah of course it's easy to just let friendships go. Once they're no longer in front of him, friends might as well stop existing at all.

A few other things to highlight:

Dean keeps using the term "buddy." I didn't really realize until I was looking at this scene how "buddy" is such a belittling term for a friend. The fact that Dean keeps using it suggests that he doesn't actually think of Sam's college friendships as real relationships with any actual meaning.

I also just need to draw attention to how unsympathetic Dean's face is. To him, cutting off all your friends is absolutely nothing. He doesn't even try to show any pity for Sam. He can suggest something that would be devastating for most people with a smile, like the emotional damage of it has never even occurred to him.

Finally, here's what to me is the real nail in the coffin. Sam knows Dean better than anyone else in the world. And how does he cap the scene?

Now, antisocial generally does not equal aplatonic (I myself am very social, it's just that I see people less as relationships and more as neat activities), but in this context? That's pretty much what Sam means. Not interested specifically in friends. After all, he knows damn well that Dean can be sociable when he wants to be—Dean charms countless strangers when they're working together, and Sam has seen him win over God knows how many women in bars. There's only one area Sam knows Dean doesn't do, and that's friends.

So hey, don't believe me about Dean being aplatonic. Believe Sam.

[writercole]

Fic Forward Friday

Hey guys!

It absolutely saddens me that there is no new chapter of Sounds of Someday for you guys today! That series has been running since April and I miss those idiots so much. 

But instead, I’ll give you a little preview of what’s to come:

Sunday, Chapter 3 of Soldier On will be posting. It’s a total of 5 chapters!

Nota Est Metallum Gustum is going to be posting Chapter 6 on Monday. I’d lost steam for a bit but I”m picking back up. Things are getting twisty and turny. I kinda like it again so I may not stop at the 10 chapters I was planning on lately.

Next Friday - Fire and Rain starts posting! Dean Winchester is the Lieutenant of Unit 2Y5 in Lufkin, Texas. When his unit is called to a blaze at a residential apartment complex, his world is rocked. His gut is telling him that this blaze was intentional and that the targets were the woman and child he rescued - Y/N and her daughter Lana. Can they figure out who did it or will the stress burn them out?

Sept 28 - Yes, Mistress - Sub!Dean, smut.

Sept 29 - Apple Pie Life part 1 - Pretty angsty. When Sam goes to hell, Dean settles down. He’s kept up with the situation and knows that Cas has brought Sam back. When they realize he’s got no soul, he heads out on the hunt to save his brother, despite Y/N’s protests. Can he return to the apple pie life he’d set up?

Oct 3 - Soldier On 4

Oct 6 - Blood and Ash - Y/N is a vigilante like Jason Todd, aka the Red Hood. Their paths cross on more than one occasion and they’re best describes as frenemies. Y/N falls against his door one evening, barely clinging to life. Jason is forced to confront his past as he tries to decide on his future. 

I’m really proud of several of these pieces. APL will be a trilogy, B&A is a one-shot, and F&R is at 4 chapters already. Everything listed here is already on Patreon if you’re antsy!

[schizosamwincester]

You know, there's no reason the siren needed to say "I could be your brother." He was just filling in the role of Dean's best friend. It's not like he was anything like Dean's actual brother. He liked the same music and cars as Dean; that's the opposite of Sam. The thing about siblings is that you're stuck with them whether you have anything in common or not. Shared hobbies and interests is generally a friend thing.

Now, from a Doylist perspective, yes, he did have to say that because Supernatural is the "family is hell" show and generally doesn't care that much about friends. A Supernatural episode is supposed to have a moral about either family or fate, and even fate is really an extension of family because their fates are ultimately in their blood, bloodlines, and bodies.

But from the Watsonian perspective? I can think of one reason the siren wouldn't just say "I could be your best friend" when that is obviously what he is. It's that Dean doesn't actually get what the big deal about friends is. Why does everyone need to have a best friend? He'd take Sam over some rando any day. He doesn't get why everyone is always so eager to attach themselves to other people. Friends just seem like more trouble than they're worth and extremely overrated. He's never actually wanted a best friend at all.

Yes, that's right folks, Sex and Violence is yet more proof that Dean Winchester is very, very aplatonic.

[schizosamwincester]

Today's order of business: Dean Winchester is aplatonic. Let me explain why.

To start: aplatonic people do not experience platonic attraction. They do not have any desire to befriend specific people. I am going to assume that you all are familiar with asexuality and aromanticism. It's the same exact thing but for friendship. They often don't want friends in general, although of course not necessarily. Some aplatonic people are indifferent and don't really care if they have friends or not, and some like having friends despite the lack of attaction. The key is that if you're aplatonic, you don't meet people, even really cool people, and go "hey, I want to become friends with them." Even if you have friends, they tend to be pretty easy to drop if life changes because you don't feel that inherent connection to them.

Dean? Throughout the show as I've seen thus far (seasons 1-4), he never exhibits any desire for friends. He doesn't want to keep any specific people around, and he doesn't want friends as an abstract concept, either. The whole thing never enters his mind.

This is especially noticeable because Sam is so clearly alloplatonic. He's always looking for connection with others. Every time he meets one of the special children, he wants to keep in contact. He gives out his phone number to Andy and actively searches for Ava. In early romantic/sexual encounters, like in Provenance (1x19) and Heart (2x17) he seems much more interested in befriending these women than sleeping with them. In After School Special (4x13), the death of someone he was friends with for a single month in high school absolutely guts him. In Dean's flashbacks to high school, he doesn't even try to make friends. He only cares about hooking up with girls.

The only real exceptions I can think of are his relationship with Cassie (1x13), which is still far more sexual/romantic than any kind of friendship, and Richie (3x04) who is a fellow hunter and thus more of a coworker than anything. Yes, you certainly can be friends with girlfriends and coworkers, but that usually isn't the defining feature of either relationship. Besides, if his feelings for either of them were especially strong, I think he would have kept in contact with them. He runs into Richie again by accident, and he never seeks out Cassie again after her single episode.

The contrast with Sam makes it pretty obvious that it isn't just that friends are impractical given Dean's lifestyle. The same goes for Sam, but he still obviously wishes he could have them. It also means that it isn't a matter of desire for friends getting in the way of the plot or the writer's vision for the show, because Sam displays platonic attraction all the time and the show still works.

Now, one could argue that he does want friends and simply represses that. It is true that Dean represses almost everything. However, Dean is not actually good at repressing things. There are always cracks in the facade, and these cracks are displayed very clearly to the audience. He thinks he puts up a decent front, but time and time again, characters (especially Sam) see right through him. But when it comes to loneliness? Desire for connection and relationships outside of his family and sex? We don't see a thing. Dean is only lonely when separated from his family. He very much does not need anyone else.

If Dean wanted friends at some point but learned to repress that or ignore that desire? We would see that. We are shown countless times all the dreams and desires he needs to set aside in service of hunting and family, and friendship is never one of them. Even in his dream reality in 2x20, he doesn't have any friends at all.

Now, I am aware that in later seasons, Dean makes friends. That said, from experience in the apl community, it is pretty common for us to end up with friends whether we want them or not. Alloplatonics enjoy adopting friendless people. Sometimes people just keep showing up in your life and you're like "well... I guess we're friends now." Not feeling platonic attraction doesn't stop us from liking people or getting along with them once the relationship exists, we just don't have that feeling of attraction compelling us to start a relationship. I personally have loads of friends, and they're mostly by accident. You have enough good conversations with a mutual or someone in a discord server or someone irl and they tend to stick around. So while I know Dean makes friends later, unless he actively seeks them out and initiates the friendship, that really doesn't have any bearing on if he's aplatonic. Besides, the fact that in 4 entire seasons he doesn't do that at all when Sam does multiple times is more than enough for me.

To put it very simply, why do I think Dean is aplatonic? Because Sam is lonely in general, but Dean is only lonely when separated from Sam and/or John. Family are the only people he wants or needs.

(A disclaimer that aplatonic people can absolutely want romantic relationships. Dean just never demonstrate that. They also don't necessarily have any attraction to family either. That's called being afamilial. Dean just very obviously is not afamilial)

[schizosamwincester]

Look, obviously "I was kind of a lonely kid, Dean" "no you weren't, you had me" is mostly a reflection of how Dean can't acknowledge that anything was ever less than perfect about Sam's childhood because that means Dean failed, and thus Dean is a failure and a bad person and terrible, worthless, etc. But. It also reflects a lack of understanding that Sam would want friends at all. Almost as if Dean has not realized that other people need or even want friends. Presumably because he really doesn't. It seems that to Dean, family is all anyone could possibly want for companionship. Which, say it with me, is yet more proof that Dean is aplatonic.

[schizosamwincester]

Thinking again about how djinnverse!Dean does not appear to have a single friend. You know that if it was Sam's ideal dream life, he'd have a decent social circle, but Dean? What's a friend? Who needs them? I've got family and a hot piece of ass. As ever, an aplatonic icon