#dean + equalizer

[shallowseeker]

1. Jack isn't really holding back here. His anger definitely gets the better of him. Poor gas station clerk.

2. Cas immediately moves to restrain him. (Cas has rightfully determined that now's not the time for a lecture.) Meanwhile, Jack: "get out of the way, angel-dad!" (who it's okay to be rough with, because we're more equal in physique). And symbolically, it's a crotch/waist hit, too, which symbolizes Jack overpowering Heaven-Father, which is a big warning sign within a family unit:

3. Earth-Dad Dean gets Jack's attention with an equalizing force. (Humans use tools to become powerful enough to take on forces bigger than themselves, after all.) This seems to snap Jack out of it.

But importantly, it's not even symbolically at the level of stun gun. It's like a little whoopin' or even a foghorn blared, just enough to get his attention. (It doesn't phase him.)

4. Next, Jack first looks to Cas, appealing to him, like "you approve of my violence, don't you?" But when he doesn't, Jack looks to Mentor-Dad-Sam, and Sam gets to deliver a voice of reason. Meanwhile, gas station guy is shaken to hear about Maggie.

Throughout all this, Sam mostly stands around yelling and acting shocked! Whereas Dean and Cas simply...aren't. Much like in Tombstone, when Cas somberly asks, post-security-guard shooting, "if this has happened before." Cas and Dean seem generally more acknowledging of the danger Jack's power poses.

5. Ashamed at his violent overreaction, and at being wrong, Jack rushes out. Dean thinks Jack's needs to be alone to stew. Perhaps, he’s right. Jack tends to need space to process, akin to Dean and Mary.

But maybe Cas's instincts are more on the money here, that Jack is fragile and needs to have the support of people around? It’s hard to say, since Lucifer finding him was very unusual, unfortunate happenstance.

Again though, Cas and Dean seem to be more on the same page in terms of not reeling from shock, but immediately acting to respond.

were you the one who called dean shooting jack to get his attention a spanking because I can't stop thinking about that lol

I did! In this instance, it's only the visual of pulling a gun on your child that's bad IMHO. Because Jack is unleashing angelic, overpowered rage on an innocent minumum-wage-gas-station-worker! Cas moves to full-body tackle Jack, and Jack throws his angel-dad across the room.

Only then does Dean pull the gun and give him a lil' whoopin'!

[lambmotifz]

“wincest isn’t canon!” dean winchester canonically thinks that “little brother” is a synonym for “wife”

[woundlingus]

If Dean Winchester was an animal he’d be one of those cats who screams and sticks it’s paw under the bathroom door when you’re taking a shit because he gets that much separation anxiety and he HAS to come sit in bathroom with you but the second you open the door he immediately stops giving a fuck and leaves.

[flying-ham]

love love LOVE when I’m watching a late season spn recap and they use an out of context soundbite from the early seasons

[angelsdean]

dean and cas love and trust each other unconditionally. they give and they forgive easily. there is never a debt to settle. never a score to keep. i'd rather have you, cursed or not. i prefer trusting, less dumb less ass. i'll go with you (again and again and again). i forgive you, i need you. of course i forgive you. of course i wanted you to stay. i've got you. i love you. etc etc. they are best friends first and foremost. they can talk to each other and be real. they know when the other is lying about being "fine" and they call each other out on it. and then they listen. they get angry sometimes, and miscommunicate often, but they are always approaching everything with the desire to understand, to work together. they worry. they make bad choices sometimes out of a desire to protect the other. keep each other out of a situation and out of the loop. take on the burden for the other. all these flaws and wrong choices are still rooted in love and care. they care SO much. that love and care is at the center of everything they do.

[incesthemes]

there is interesting johndean subtext and insinuations across kripke era, usually through an antagonist insinuating parent-child sexual violence in order to exert dominance over dean. this type of mockery exploits that ambiguous relationship between john and dean and reminds dean that he never had a normal relationship with his father, and that makes him gross and wrong. it doesn't actually matter in the end whether john was sexually abusive to dean. the core of their relationship was damning enough: dean was made to take the place of john's wife—to comfort john and raise sam—while simultaneously being his son. the codependent nature of their relationship implies the incest that underscores their dynamic. again, this is regardless of what literally occurred between dean and john because there is enough doubt toward the nature of their relationship that multiple antagonists can use it against them.

sonwife, brotherhusband—dean is stuck in a liminal space between family and lover and is unable to put his feet firmly on just one side and instead has to accept both together or abandon both together. he doesn't get to have a relationship with his family without it being simultaneously incestuous. he plays the role of wife to john and mother to sam as mary's replacement; he therefore becomes more than a son and transcends the boundaries of the familial into the incestuous. it's baked into the dynamic and he can't hope to escape the liminality in which he's stuck without abandoning his entire family altogether.

this ambiguous relationship is further acted out with sam, where people perceive them as lovers rather than brothers; where their mutual devotion trumps, neglects, and disallows any other close relationship outside each other; where their physical closeness is viewed through an unusually sexual lens despite no literal sex acts between them taking place on screen. once again dean is stuck in a liminal space, paralleling the ambiguous and uncertain relationship he had with john.

in the end, sex (and sexual violence) is just a symbol of this codependency and uncertainly incestuous dynamic. sex acts in kripke era end up being symbolic: misinterpretations of sam and dean's relationship; accusations of sexual violence; literal, on-screen sexual moments between the brothers and someone else. it's a literary device that highlights the incestuous themes of the show. dean hand-picks women for sam to fuck because it allows dean to be symbolically part of sam's sex life. henricksen accuses john of raping dean because it is a symbol of the unhealthy, codependent relationship dean had with his father. the samulet stays on during sex because sam is symbolically integral to dean's sexual gratification (seen too in the way both dean and cassie in 1.13 appear to kiss the amulet at least once in the dark room). sex is used to signify more than what's literally on the screen, and the connections between the literal sex acts and the blurred lines of dean's familial relationships allow for a reading of incest between both john and dean and sam and dean.

it never mattered whether johndean or samdean had a sexual relationship in the canon because that was never the point. the point is the liminality that permeates the narrative. sam, dean, and john all stand upon a threshold between acceptable and taboo. the point of it all is the doubt and anxiety, the are-they-aren't-they that is never answered. the absence of incest within the text invites the understanding that the incest was, in fact, always there.

[monsterfuckermilligan]

i’m sure this has been said before but when adam and michael are talking in the bunker about the possibility of michael’s dad being a grade a asshole, there’s something so so so important to me about how adam points out michael’s hypocrisy.

ADAM: Point is…. Parents keep secrets. Does it hurt to ask the question?

MICHAEL: Yes! It would mean I doubt him. The good son; the favorite doubts his father.

ADAM: You still care about that? After he left you in the cage?

this matters because michael was JUST criticizing sam and dean for leaving adam and how he is in unable to trust them. he doubts them because of their actions.

MICHAEL: You’re asking me to trust you. You who doomed me, you who let Lucifer walk free while your own brother sat in Hell.

in turn, adam is pointing out that clearly michael has a line for his family members and it’s been crossed by michael’s own, so why is his dad any different than sam or dean? what makes michael different than adam? why does his dad get to betray and abandon him and still get michael’s trust and loyalty? why is michael expendable?

he’s really tapping into michael’s beliefs that were just established to us as the audience at the diner. (ie: family sometimes hurts you and just because they’re blood relatives or ‘family’ doesn’t mean they have your best interests at heart. sometimes there are things more important than family, sometimes walking away from your family is freedom) and he’s holding michael to the same standard he’s set for the winchesters.

side note: another thing i enjoy about this interaction is that adam is being gentle, although it 100% appears as if they’ve had this conversation before since he literally rolls his eyes, and not to mention that michael is an archangel. he could easily be mean or not even care about his feelings or michael could not even take his opinion into account and do what he wants. but despite everything, adam asks for michael to listen to him, and he does. and in turn adam appeals to him with logic and reasoning, because he’s overall a very rational and strategic being that’s simply been groomed from the get go in his dad’s weird cult. adam appeals to his emotions in a way that’s familiar. they share this experience. adam knows michael is protective of him and that it’s easy for michael to hate sam and dean for the same things his dad has done. but michael’s own lack of self worth that was drilled into him by his dad for aeons is being challenged, and it’s uncomfortable for him, but adam doesn’t back down and he helps get through to him. it’s really a great scene. this post wasn’t meant to be so long but yeah i have lots of thoughts about this short interaction!

[sweetpapercroissant]

it’s very very interesting to me when fandom looks at dean, the guy who consistently sacrifices his own life to save/bring back sam, and goes ‘he’s so scary so mean he’d kill anyone and destroy the world to keep sam chained to him’ meanwhile sam, the guy who actually did sacrifice the world to save dean and said with his whole chest he’d do it again zero hesitation, gets the ‘poor baby <3 he wants to be free from dean so bad someone save him’ treatment

[unlimitedhearts]

Dean Winchester and Shawn Spencer would be making out sloppy style before the SPN/Psych crossover episode even got through the cold open send tweet

[sammygender]

it is SO funny to me when people say things like ‘by the end of the show sam and dean’s relationship is a lot better!! they’re not constantly fighting anymore!! :)’. girl that’s because sam mostly stopped ‘fighting against dean’ (striving for autonomy or questioning him) and let dean become sole arbiter of narrative, decision making, and morality🙏

[jackandclairearesiblings]

SPN season 16 except Sam goes back to school and get shell shocked by the change in atmosphere and vibes

[lambmotifz]

sam and dean are not equally abusive. sam doesn’t feel the need to have physical power or control over dean and he’s not possessive to the same extent (he is possessive but it’s not the same as dean’s desperate need to own his brother like he’s his property)

[fatallyaddictedtofiction]

Just me thinking about the narrative parallels between Castiel and Frankenstein's monster...

[pussypopstiel]

The thing about spn au’s with no supernatural elements is that you can take dean and give him a shitty home life and he’ll be pretty much the same guy but something brain melting has to happen to cas to make him like that.

[normalbrothers]

*must be an incest aficionado or at least shipping adjacent in some way (can be reblogged for greater sample size)