#complex dean

[shallowseeker]

Thinkin about Dean's complicated desires to protect and be protected; the competing desire to be trusted with and shielded from

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One of the first scenes that epitomized Dean's warring needs re: Cas was in 5x18.

CASTIEL: Because there are at least five angels in there. DEAN: So? You’re fast. CASTIEL: They’re faster. CASTIEL takes off his tie and wraps it around his palm. CASTIEL: I’ll clear them out. You two grab the boy. This is our only chance. DEAN: Whoa, wait. You’re gonna take on five angels?

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There are many ways to deal with this deranged, contradictory emotion. To (A) goad him into being faster, harder, stronger or (B) call him a baby and a whiner and hope that he steps up or (C) take him out of the fight all together "Just stay here and get better!"

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SNIPPET from this conversation:

(In season 14)

...there's the irrational desire of Dean's that Cas would just fix it all and shield Dean from all of it. This is something that Dean's scripted irrationality in Game 14x18 Absence accomplishes so, so well:

CAS: "Are you mad because I didn't tell you-- or that I'm telling you at all?" DEAN: "BOTH!"

It's both!!!!!

He craves Cas's protection. But he resents it, too. It's what he loves about him. It's what he hates about him. It's the power dynamic that brings him simultaneous comfort and pain.

The sad thing is, if Cas had solved Jack's soul problem on his own, Dean would have probably been elated and relieved. Just like how he was in total awe when Cas got the Leviathan blossom on his own. Dean was weak in the knees for it-- ready to tell Cas something big for it. It's so messy and dualistic and complicated.

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Anyway, that protectorship of it all is complicated. That's what this spooky line is about in 15x02. Everyone everywhere is reminding Cas of his failed familial obligations. Here are the civilians in the gym, getting frustrated with Cas:

ANDY: First Nan went missing. Now Dave and Sheri. CASTIEL: We are looking for them everywhere. ANDY:You said you'd keep us safe. [Cas has no better answers for him. He pauses, closes his eyes for a moment, and then walks away]

Cas is the failed protector, the absent soldier who's trying his best to be on ALL impossible fronts: battlefield, home, marriage, work.

It's the same raw frustration we see out of a distraught Dean in 3x10:

DEAN: He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He- (DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.) He's the one who let Mom die.

Cas was supposed to succeed where John failed! But it's too much weight. No one can be that strong. Not even Cas.

[shallowrambles]

ANNEMARIE: Yeah. I thought so, too. Seeing you take on Matt, I was like, “wow”" no one's ever done that for me before. But then you kept going and going, and I realized whatever is going on with you has nothing to do with my “honor” at all.

(10x01)

The name means, "favored grace, rebellious lover." Annemarie is a window into Dean wanting to (yet again) run away from everything, from Sam, from Crowley, from work. From his chronic feelings of rejection. From feeling things, from living in the real world with obligations and responsibilities.

Annemarie calls Dean on beating the person who was wronging her (Matt), a la how Dean called Cas out re:taking on Raphael. Because, like Godstiel, Demon Dean kept going beyond defending honor, beyond protectorship.

Demon Dean is a treatise to the loss of free will through disinhibition, yes, but it's also Dean acting out everything that was ever done to him. There's pent-up rage and rejection tied up with all of it.

It's the specter of "I did all of it for you!" which only sounds romantic, only sounds honorable...but Cas kept going, slaughtered the angels en masse. Because it was really about Cas's beef with his brother Raphael and his family and his issues. Just like in SPNWIN Mary called out John on using Mary as an excuse for her issues.

Anyhoo, we stan Annemarie. She is "human Dean."

She walked out of there thinking she deserved that.

[opheliasam]

god he (dean) used to be so different my chest hurts

[anassemblageofpassions]

The thing abt john winchester is that he is too complex for the majority of the spn fandom and for a good portion of the writers on the show too.

Because at his core john is about love over everything else. When he looks up at his sons (yes, up, the fact that they’re both taller than him>>>>>), there is love seeping achingly from every single pore of his being even as he abuses them, as he destroys their souls beyond belief. He does it all entirely out of love. And he is so, so wrong for it. A part of him knows it. But he wants to keep dean alive, and he wants to keep Sam pure. And he loves them so much. And he damages them so horribly. John Winchester is the foundation upon which they are both built, they only become more of what he made them as the series goes on. Sam stops fighting it, Dean continues to mold into his image no matter how hard he tries to fight it.

Hell puts them both on steroids, but their individual trauma responses that influence this are the foundations that John built into them. No wonder azazel wanted sam to win so badly. John Winchester crafted his sons into alastair and Lucifer’s ideal victims, respectively, and dean was a better (worse) john than John ever was. John held out in hell. Dean acquiesced to his abuser despite all of his efforts to fight him, and he’s never been the same since.

Sam fought like hell, and he fought destiny, but at his core, he did what John always wanted him to by doing what dean wanted him to do, and then he stops fighting at all, loses the fire he showed john in adolescence that john immediately notices when he returns in s14.

And the sad thing is. They filled their roles so well that John is saddened by what they’ve become. He didn’t want dean to break. He didn’t want Sam to be dimmed. He’s sad to see what Sam is like in s14. In the process of recovering his wife, he ensured he would mold his sons into what he wanted them to be, and when he got what he wanted, he was devastated.

John Winchester is so driven by love and grief and he’s so filled to the brim with both that it’s painful to watch him on screen because he destroyed his family because of it. And he wanted this all along but he didn’t realize what he’d have to give up to get it.

[5sospenguinqueen]

Castiel: You don't want Dean to die.

Castiel: And I don't want Dean to die.

Castiel: So, now we just have to make sure Dean doesn't want Dean to die.

Y/N: Fantastic plan, but have you met Dean?

[toydrill]

i missed drawing venture siblings so bad

[merrymorningofmay]

the funny-sad thing is that there IS a conflict going on right now that IS ethically clear-cut, comic book tier good vs. evil where the us/europe have a big role to play and you Could throw all your energy into canceling the bad guys (who, for once, are not and have never been a historically oppressed group) and anyone who affiliates with them and pressure your officials into taking proper action and get your quick moral superiority dopamine all you want, but that likely won't annoy your parents, so

[ghostl-yy]

Little Sam lusting over his big brother Dean is great and all but theres something so fucking raw about Dean being the one who has the hots for his little brother, his baby Sammy. The guilt eating him up, knowing that it's wrong, thinking hes sick but not being able to help it, trying so fucking hard to swallow it down and pretend it doesnt exist but never quite managing it. Trying to be quiet about how desperately he wants his little brother - spending his teens feeling disgusted with himself for even thinking about ruining his sweet, pure Sammy.

[sammygender]

tldr

[faithsknife]

people still think dean wasn't in love with cas. people actually believe that shit. i could line up plenty of examples, but his widower/grief arc at the beginning of s13 is one of the best. LOOK AT HIS FACE. literally the face of a man who believes the love of his life is dead

[secretsoftheuniverse1987]

I see a lot of references to the scene in Goodbye Stranger where Dean, on his knees, begs Cas to come back to himself (and to Dean), and I see a lot of reference to Dean referring to praying as begging, but not a lot about how these scenes are literally in back to back episodes? Dean Winchester really said I don't pray because it feels like begging, but I'll pray to you, and then in the literal next episode said fuck it, let's drop the pretense, I am begging. I need you.

[trashgyrl]

sam "i would die for you" winchester and dean "i can't live without you" winchester

but also

sam "i would kill for you" winchester and dean "i would burn myself before putting you in danger" winchester

[shallowrambles]

My spiciest take is I do think you could take Demon Dean’s comments about running away, liking the disease, you humans actually much worse/evil than me morally, you’re nearly killing me to bring back my human weakness and stamping out my unfeeling “strength,” imprisonment, etc and shove it into the mouth of vintage Sammy and a whole lot of it would mostly work.

Dean took on the mark to be stronger, and he liked being without pain and weakness. Dean’s early “moral code” was prone to moral rigidity (especially when stressed out) and black-and-white rules (parallels Cas).

Early Sam took in demon blood to be stronger. He was was objectively “more moral” re: saving human vessels than human hunters often were. Vintage Sam was prone to spiraling about moral relativism to the point of neuroses.

I think there is a tendency to minimize what Bobby and Dean did to Sam because it’s uncomfortable. But it’s as real and true to me as Sam not taking responsibility for his own behavior sometimes. And I think their problem-solving behavior affected his later problem-solving behavior. (He mimicked it to the point of extremes.)

They have different psychological signatures and motivations. But the parallels are there.

Both brothers go full corrupt with good intentions, and in both cases the trap of heroism terminates in the loss of self and inhibitions. (MOC Dean was ready to die and Sam was ready to die re: Lucifer and Hell trials.) I think addiction and disinhibition is the stronger analogy in both cases. The self-medication is a trap. Neither "addiction" represents a true self in my book so much as it represents "checking out" of humanity.

In a very real sense, MOC is like alcohol, blackout drinking, rages, and loss of memory. “Comfortable numbing.” (An early-days John-coded secondary psychopathy.)

For Sam, his drug reminds me of super-soldier type drugs, and his method of saving of ppl analogous in my head to him overpowering them without weapons/guns in a combat zone. It’s an unsustainable, dangerous approach with more personal risk. (In particular, his soulless stent makes me think of Pervitin, which can cause heart failure in the end.)

[wanderingcas]

if you want my two cents about it - dean pre-season oh, let's say 11 or 12, believably has no idea that cas is in love with him.

he knows their friendship is... different? he feels differently about cas than other friends he has. but dean has so few friends and cas is an angel to boot, so of course things are going to be different with him.

but then lucifer kills cas right in front of dean and he's forced to look at a lot of things. like why this death hurts more than anyone else's. why cas dying this time makes dean feel like he's walking around with a permanent hole in his chest.

and when he really sits down with himself and realizes not only does cas loves him, but he loves cas? well he shuts it back up into a box right away. won't look at it directly in the eye. at first it's because cas is dead and not having him - well, really thinking about that would probably leave him comatose on the bunker floor. and then he gets cas back, and it's the happiest fucking day of his life, and the new reason is cas just got back, he has a son now, give him some space. and then fear takes over. if losing cas without the romance shit attached hurts this much - what would it be like if they actually crossed that line? if dean knew what it was like to have cas, truly have him, then lose him? so it's just easy to take hunt after hunt, to get swept up in saving the world, losing other people... it's easy to keep those feelings for cas tight in a box.

but then he nearly loses cas again. not to death; to dean's anger. after saying those cruel words to him after losing mary. and he realizes that if he lost cas again in any capacity at all, it might just kill him.

so he opens the box. he gets on his knees in purgatory. and he prays damn hard for cas's forgiveness. and he's ready to put it all on the line before cas stops him from saying anything out loud.

i think that post confession, it wouldn't come as a surprise to dean that cas loves him. i think that, due to him being captain emotionally insecure with himself, he'd be really fucking confused by why cas is in love with him in the first place. but i don't think he'd be shocked by it. i think he'd have to come to terms with loving someone like that and losing them, and knowing that cas didn't even hear dean's reciprocation. i think that's what would tear him up the most.

[wickedwitchofthesouth]

I am still thinking about Castiel walking out on Dean during the divorce arc... After he apologized, after he held his tounge because I fucking know cas would have had some shit to say after Dean got Jack killed (and yes he did. nothing will ever change my mind on that)

But mostly I'm thinking about what was going through castiels head when he left. What emotions was he feeling? I'm sure he was sad, devastated even. But I wonder if he felt some tiny, distant, and undoubtedly dreadful inkling of relief at the thought of never seeing Dean again. Not because he was angry with Dean (which he had every right to be) but because not seeing Dean would have meant that he wouldn't be able to achieve true happiness

And not achieving true happiness at that point would have meant the empty leaving him alone, which would have in turn meant getting to live longer.

It would have meant getting to feel Dean's presence on earth for longer. It would have meant getting to admire humanity for longer. It would have meant getting to love Dean for longer

Even if it meant he would have only loved him from a far, Cas would be okay with that. He wouldn't be happy but atleast he'd be alive

Because god, at least he could still love him.

Maybe Cas left because he didn't want to be forgiven. Maybe he knew that forgiveness would leave him crawling back for more.

And the deal he'd made had bound his wrists in chains that read "more is less"

[ardentpoop]

saw someone in the tags be all “claiming sam is the main character…. i know what you are” with the implication presumably being that only Wincest Freaks care abt sam lmfao. wrong, first of all!

second, wincest enjoyers who view sam as the core of the show are getting the most out of the experience BY FAR so jot that down before your hands cramp from clutching your pearls