#dean + hell trauma

[fandom-hoarder]

Inspired by some chat about s6!Dean on discord, and loosely piggybacking off my other boyking!sam imagines:

_

S6 Dean, whose dreams are nightmares of Sam in Hell. Sam on fire. Sam calling out for him. Sam begging for Lucifer to stop.

Dean, whose nightmares also visit his waking hours. Who is constantly plagued by the question of whether these are just nightmares or visions from Sam's psychic link. Who drinks himself to sleep every night --not because it stops the visions (it doesn't) but to numb the pain of them; to his mind; to his heart. Who can't stop secretly searching for a way to save Sam, crying and screaming to Heaven when Castiel won't respond to his prayers.

Dean, who hugs his brother tightly when he finally sees him after a year, alive and whole. Who looks Sammy in the face after Sam rebuffs his attempt to talk about Hell memories, and asks him if Sam used his mojo to send him visions; if all those things Dean saw were real; if Sam was really screaming for him.

Whose stomach squirms with cold dread when Sam laughs and says no. Again.

Who --despite Sam being right there, within reach-- still doesn't feel whole himself.

Dean, whose visions of Sam being tortured don't stop even when they're back together. Whose entire being is wired with tension like he needs to be doing something; like he's geared for a fight; for a jailbreak.

Who can't get over the feeling this is how it was for Sam when Dean was in Hell; the feeling that some part of Sam is reaching out for him.

Dean, who looks at the beaten and bloodied body of his little brother --panting from enduring Castiel's soul investigation-- and demands the truth about his Hell visions.

Soulless Sam, who admits that he lied about it, because Dean had been having the visions even during the year Sam was free, so what good would it do to tell him they'd been real at first? Sam didn't know it was because his soul was still down there; he just figured Dean was dealing with guilt or PTSD -- none of Sam's business.

Dean, who tries his hardest to answer Sam back; to promise he'll get him out.

Dean, who alone bears the nightly burden of Sam's Hell memories willingly. When Sam has his first seizure, Dean gets hit peripherally with his first true vision since Sam was re-souled.

When Castiel breaks the wall, Dean goes down too.

[shallowseeker]

Gabriel tortured Dean by killing him over and over, but it was played for LOLs.

I just think, that if someone had killed Sam over and over, it certainly wouldn't have been played for laughs on the show. And I suspect the fandom would have crucified Gabriel as "abuser-who-can-never-be-an-ally."

In fact, I seem to recall that the narrative of Gabriel's torture was not talked about in terms of how killing Dean was cruel; only how it affected Sam.

[opheliasam]

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

[sammygender]

its so so insane how dean has like. the huge fanbase he does. he is AWFUL!!!! i love him truly but im known for loving awful characters in fandoms im used to characters who act like him being viciously hated!!! and the only explanation i can think of is that hes played by jensen ackles (aka pretty white man). theres the fact that the narrative favours dean a lot when hes not actually right (a la s4) but thats not just it because dean is pretty clear-cut presesnted as getting morally greyer to the point of antihero territory in like s9 (where im at) at least. and Yet. he is unproblematic ally king to all??? supportive brother of the century??? Girl what???? do you know who dean winchester is? he is a controlling possessive clingy manipulative aggressive unstable thirty five year old who cant grow past his own damage and never really will because the narrative is perpetuated by the cycles he keeps perpetuating

[angelsdean]

god the offhanded mention of the violation dean knows hell to be from first hand-experience is really...big oof. once again society IF dean ever got to have proper hell trauma arc. it hurts so much knowing he dealt with all that pain and torment alone

this bit is also interesting seeing soulless sam just ready to hand the guy over to crowley with very little evidence, while dean is like, "no we gotta make sure," debunking the fanon misconceptions that dean is a trigger-happy indiscriminate killer who acts first and thinks later. dean here is the moral compass. and dean is often the one to say "wait hold up lets think abt this / make a plan" while sam is often the one acting impulsively.

[traumatizedsam]

Swim with me I think I can see the beach Just don't look underneath us I need you here with me

—The Beach, The Neighbourhood

[sampegger]

do you guys think the writers would have taken it more seriously if it had been alastair around relentlessly tormenting dean in late seasons as opposed to lucifer with sam

[quietwingsinthesky]

was writing this down for an ask but realized i was quickly getting off topic for that ask lmao. let’s talk about Dean’s handprint, the wild misinterpretations of it, and how those have affected how people read Anna covering it during her sex scene with Dean.

We have to establish the obvious first: the number one way the handprint is misinterpreted is to establish a romantic connection between Dean and Castiel from their very first meeting. Because of how popular the ship is, we’re now left with the unfortunate aftermath of people knowing the ship first and the show second, and therefore being more inclined to interpret the show through the lens of the ship. Needless to say, while looking at season 4 through that lens for hints of destiel is fun, it doesn’t lead to a thematically cohesive reading. The handprint is the best way we can demonstrate this. If we take the handprint to indicate that Castiel has been romantically interested in Dean since minute one, or even that he sees Dean as a person rather than an instrument of Heaven’s will at first (put a pin in that), then the rest of his character arc for the season is incoherent and meaningless. To assert that this is what the handprint is about takes the conclusion Castiel needs the entirety of season 4 to reach and transplants it onto him at the very beginning in order to make it easier to find evidence for the ship.

There’s a lot of media out there where interpreting it through the lens of a ship, even one unintended by the author, can enhance the original text. (Lest we all forget our Winter Soldier roots.) Supernatural does not have that relationship to interpreting it to be about destiel. A season 4 where the handprint means Castiel is in love with Dean is a weaker story and does a huge disservice to Castiel’s actual character arc.

So, now that we’ve established what the handprint isn’t, can we talk about what it is? Yes. It’s pretty simple, actually.

Think of it this way: To Heaven, Dean is livestock, and the handprint is the brand telling everyone (but especially Dean) what ranch he belongs to.

Let’s start with the obvious: it isn’t a metaphorical brand at all. It’s literal. It’s burned into his skin permanently (or at least, when the makeup department wants to put it there.) I’d argue that from the nature of it being notable as the only scar Dean has from being raised from Hell and later showing up during his sex scene with Anna that even if we don’t see the handprint, we’re meant to interpret it as continuing to be there for… well. The rest of his life, most likely. And that’s horrifying. The handprint is telling us two things when it shows up: one, letting us know that Dean’s resurrection was intentional and through a manner we as the audience don’t have the information to guess at yet. Anyone who watched the show airing, or watches it now without knowing about angels would have assumed demonic deal intervention as being the cause of Dean’s new lease on life, and this. handily. discards that theory. But secondly, it tells us that this resurrection was violating. All resurrections on Supernatural are.

We assume from Castiel’s line, you know the one, we all know the one, Mr. Gripped-You-Tight, that he’s the one who put it there. However, to then make a further leap that it was Castiel’s personal decision to do so is, I think, a misunderstanding of his role. Take that pin out now. Dean is not a person to Castiel at this point. They’re not friends. Dean is a tool for Heaven to use, a tool that should be honored and grateful to be picked up at all. Make no mistake: Castiel branded him for Heaven, not for himself. Castiel’s a ranchhand. They aren’t in the business of letting the cows run free if they look a little sad to be slaughtered later.

Castiel needs to start here for his arc to be as impactful as it is. He can’t begin rebellious. He has to learn how to doubt. He has to develop a personal friendship with Dean that threatens his allegiance to Heaven. He has to see Anna having chosen to fall rather than obey Heaven and to be betrayed by Uriel being so desperate that he’s turned to killing their brothers and sisters trying to find a way out from under Heaven’s control.

There’s another line I think gets misinterpreted a lot in this initial meeting. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?” On its face, easy bait for someone looking for shipping fodder, but that misses the actual point of the line. It’s a powerplay. We don’t learn until later why Dean wouldn’t think he deserves to be saved (aside from his general Winchester levels of self-esteem, but knowing that trait about him actually serves as a pretty good red herring to mask real reason Dean is thinking about himself as irredeemable now until the reveal. It’s not that Dean had a low opinion about himself in general, but that he tortured people in Hell and can never forgive himself for that.) , but Castiel does know. All of Heaven knows what Dean’s sin in Hell was. Without saying it, Castiel can remind Dean of it here. This line isn’t about Dean being so inherently good that Castiel had to rescue him. It’s about making sure Dean knows that the only way he can be ‘redeemed’ is through obedience to the heavenly powers who own his ass now. This is how he deserves to be saved. Because God commanded it. Because they have work for him.

And if he doesn’t bow? Then, as Castiel puts it in the very next episode, “I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.” This threat hanging over Dean’s head won’t go away for the rest of the season, not from Heaven. The only shift is that Castiel’s continued doubt and disobedience levels the playing field between them. They’ll both be punished, rather than Castiel taking on the role of disciplinarian. (It’s a really clever way of dealing with that power gap between them, actually. There’s always a bigger fish.)

The handprint and Castiel’s early conversations with Dean serve as a reminder of the precarious position he’s in. We shouldn’t take him ‘being saved’ at face value, no more than we should take Heaven being good just because they’re the angels in this equation as a given. Dean hasn’t been saved. He’s being used, just as much (if not arguably more) than Ruby is using Sam. (Because at least Ruby truly believes this is for Sam’s benefit, in the end.) And the worst part is how aware of it Dean is. How could he not be? His entire stint in Hell is defined by how Alistair used him. He’s just been handed off to a different owner, one that will still happily push him into the thing they ‘saved’ him from the minute it proves useful. Dean needing to torture Alistair reminds us just how little his circumstances have actually changed. He’s not allowed to say no to this.

So. The handprint is Heaven’s mark of ownership. It’s Dean’s status as their tool, their victim, burned into his flesh and inescapable. What does it mean when Anna places her hand over it?

I’ll lay my cards on the table. I’ve been thinking about this for so long because the aforementioned tendency to assume that the handprint is evidence for destiel means that the scene between Anna & Dean also gets lumped into being interpreted as more evidence for destiel. For over a decade, I have endured people joking about Anna being jealous of Cas for getting to leave a mark on their boytoy. And that’s one of the nicer things the Supernatural fandom will say about a woman who they perceive as a threat to their ship.

So, not to be rude or anything, but fuck Castiel. This ain’t about him.

This scene—It’s a lovely scene, a fantastic continuation of Dean and Anna’s previous conversation into the language of a sex scene—is about two people who have both been used and threatened by Heaven connecting over that shared trauma. Before, Anna gives space for Dean to open up about Hell, but he can’t, not yet, and though she knows what he’s gone through, she hasn’t been there herself. But when it comes to what Heaven has made of them, she does understand. It’s an incredibly vulnerable moment.

You make the handprint about Dean and Cas, and you erase what that scene is about entirely: the way Heaven’s abuse has tangled itself deep into Dean and Anna’s lives, into their bodies, and how they can resist it, if only for a few moments together.

The handprint was never about Castiel at all. It was about Heaven and its dehumanization of Dean.

[today-in-the-bunker]

Today, Dean has a flashback to his time in Hell while preparing for dinner. He comes back to Cas's hand on his shoulder, whispering quiet reminders of where they are. Dean attempts to move on like nothing happened and finishes cooking. If Sam, Cas, and Jack were a bit more subdued and lighthearted for the rest of the night, well, Dean wasn't going to complain.

[soullessjack]

trauma candy salad trend would go crazy in spn I think

[andy-888]

Whenever someone tells Edwin he made his whole personality the fact that he spent 70 years in hell either in the show or fanfics I find it so funny bc If I were him id do the same like imagine someone telling you "There's something wrong with you" Well... YES I WAS TORTURED FOR 70 YEARS. IN HELL.

Shout out to my bestie Dean Winchester who took the route of networking in hell which was surprisingly worse

[boywifesammy]

trapped in the Garden | post-cage wincest

It's been a week since Sam got his soul back. When Dean slips into his bed, desperate for what they had before the Cage, Sam lets him have it. He thought it'd be easier to give him what he wants than to explain- and it was, until it all becomes too much and he shuts down during sex.

(gif by @/angel-e-v-a)

[inthatgreatsupernatural]

I dreamed that he tried to leap from the earth as from a bog.

He emerged covered in black and red clay. I heated water and poured it into a basin so that he could wash off that earth, that death.

"In That Great River: A Notebook" - Anna Kamienska (tr. Clare Cavanagh)

[opheliasam]

realising that dean Resents sam . while also deeply loving his baby brother Is crazy bc it’s bc of this that the audience also resents sam . Except for when he’s sammy.. helpless and quiet and resigned and never questioning dean’s decisions… girl they r chugging down the pro abuse rhetoric used for justifying the sustenance of the patriarchal familial structure repackaged as Family ❤️ koolaid over here . there’s poison in ur silly drink btw

[demonbloodenthusiast]

91w deancas is so delusional cause they been making heart eyes at each other since day fucking one, calling the other sweatheart, thinking of kissing the other innocently just for the sake of the other being kissed, because they deserve that softness in the midst of all the chaos around them and the minute they actually get to it (motherfucking 200 pages in mind you) they try so hard to revert it back into something purely phisical with no emotions involved AND THEY KNOW THAT IT'S MORE BUT IF THEY BOTTLE IT UP AND IGNORE IT THEN ALL THE REVERENCE OF MOST OF THEIR LOOKS AND TOUCHES WILL JUST DISAPPEAR which is the epitome of the dilusional repressed gay way of doing anything

[angelsdean]

this is also a very sick shot. that also breaks my damn heart