#dean and sam were abused

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

So, I realized the other day that there's some really good parallels between Dean's life and experiences growing up with John & his abuse, and the song that's my new obsession: Would've Could've Should've.

Let's look at some of this:

If I was some paint, did it splatter

On a promising grown man

And if I was a child, did it matter

If you got to wash your hands?

After Mary died, John had his sons relying on him, and all he wanted to do was go after what killed her. So he did anyway, with zero thought to how it would affect his sons. Particularly Dean, who was accustomed to a normal life. Was I a hindrance, an inconvenience to you? It didn't matter because I was a child, so no one cared if you just washed your hands of me and of the effect it would have on me.

I would've stayed on my knees

And I damn sure never would've danced with the devil

At nineteen, and the god's honest truth is that the pain was heaven

If John hadn't dragged them into it, into his vendetta, his obsession with revenge then Dean never would have grown up required to be a soldier, a killer, another weapon in John's arsenal. It was so fucked up that Dean grew up enjoying it, enjoying putting his life at risk to kill things other kids didn't even know existed, things that rightly scared the hell out of grown men. He was so fucking young and he was so warped and manipulated that he wanted it, he thought it was a good thing.

And now that I'm grown, I'm scared of ghosts

Memories feel like weapons

Now as an adult, he's still afraid of all the things John put in his head and taught him to hate. It's always there and even though John is dead he's still afraid of disappointing him, still afraid of just the memory of John.

And now that I know

I wish you'd left me wondering

Now as an adult, he's gained more insight, he's seen how he was used as a weapon, not loved and cared for like the child he was, and part of him kind of wishes he'd never been drug into it, left wondering about it all because the alternative, the life he's lived, has been so twisted.

If you never touched me I would've

Gone along with the righteous

If John had never drug them into it, even if he had just flat out left, up and vanished instead of dragging them down the same road, they would have gone along and lead normal lives, had normal relationships and not been driven to go down this dark, twisted road.

And if you never saved me from boredom

I could've gone on as I was

If he had never taken them on the road with him, if he had never taken them away from their boring, "apple pie life", they could gave gone on to be normal kids, Dean could have stayed a normal kid instead of a soldier, a weapon, a child, and a parent all at the same fucking time.

But, lord, you made me feel important

John made it seem so great, always sold it as they were special, doing all this to save other people's lives, made Dean think it was his responsibility, even as a kid, to "look out for your brother" and "saving people, hunting things".

And then you tried to erase us

Then, John raises them this way their entire childhoods, 100% of the time, like they never had a life before John decided his vendetta superceded the well being of his preschool and infant sons.

Oh, you're a crisis of my faith

Dean's perception of everyone, of the world, every aspect of life is jaded, mistrustful, suspicious purely because John raised him to never trust anyone except him.

Would've, could've, should've

If I'd only played it safe

There's all the possibilities, the futures that never came about, all the questions and what ifs. 'If I would've grown up normally', 'maybe I could've done something with my life', 'I never should've had all this put on me'. If only Dean had grown up in a normal, safe home with a family who cared for his and Sam's well being.

If clarity's in death, then why won't this die?

Years of tearing down our banners, you and I

John is dead, he's long dead, but everything he did, everything he said, everything he instilled is still there and it won't die with him. No matter what Dean does, trying to separate himself from the weapon John made him, he can't get rid of it, he can't tear it down.

Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts

The older they get, especially Dean, the more he sees it and the more things he does that he knows full well his dad would have lost his mind over. Befriending a vampire, being on relatively decent terms with not one but two demons, having an angel, someone who is not human, as a best friend (or more). All that shit would have made John absolutely crazy and Dean knows it.

Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first

John took away Dean’s childhood. He had a childhood, until he was almost 5, and then John ripped it away from him.

God rest my soul

I miss who I used to be

The tomb won't close

Stained glass windows in my mind

I regret you all the time

I can't let this go

I fight with you in my sleep

The wound won't close

I keep on waiting for a sign

Everything John put them through, everything he did, everything he didn't do, was profoundly damaging and neglectful at best if you want to sugarcoat it. The reality is that his entire upbringing from the night his mother died was abusive in so many different ways. The person that little boy could have grown up to be died with his mother that night, and it's impossible to bring him back, to ever be anything resembling who that little boy could have grown up to be. His entire life is a constant reminder of that, of everything, of all the potential that was stolen from him as a little kid.

I regret you all the time

[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.

[caterinaofsiena]

my dark vanessa | supernatural | mysterious skin

[shadystranger]

the scene of sam single-handedly playing corrupt lawyer for dean and absolving him of everything wrong he did was CRAZY the man legit gaslighted everyone in the room including himself

[sammygender]

i’ve said this soooo many times but i cannot believe the widespread fandom take on nightmares is ‘episode that proves john didn’t hit the kids or at least that sam didn’t know about :)’ NO??? that entire episode is to directly parallel sam to max??? i really hate to break it to you guys but sam being like Damn at least we weren’t and aren’t still being regularly beat to shit by the two male parental figures in our lives 🙏 lucky to have dad fr is not the same as him saying Wow i’m so grateful dad never hit us at all. essentially he is literally like ‘if dad had got drunk more often and hadn’t channeled his energy into hunting maybe we would’ve ended up like max. guess i should be grateful he didn’t”. hello. how does that endorse an entirely violence-free parenting style. like have your own interpretation. but the text of the episode isn’t saying John didn’t hit them. the text of the episode is intentionally bringing up the concept of john hitting them, withholding direct judgement/confirmation on whether it happened and keeping it ambiguous, sure, but still bringing it to our attention.

[aliusfrater]

you know the more i think about the events of season eight from sam's perspective the more i think. yeah id want to kill myself too

[adaav]

the "Sam is not a woman or child, he is not a weak victim" is probably the WORST thing camed from them because woah it's almost like victims generally can't leave their abusers(what do you mean not all victims are self aware perfect human beings) or man can't get abused( terf vibes)

Also how can people see Dean hitting Sam A LOT OF TIMES and just say

"Bu-but Sam was so mean to Dean that one time!!! H-he is so abusive!!"

Or

"Dean didn't hit Sam the times i want him to hit him so he is not abusive actually he is not hiting him enough."

Yeah i saw the last one on reddit

Oh yeah. We've had this argument for over a decade now and it never stops being infuriating.

Like, these people need to make some special mental gymnastics in order to feel morally superior for liking Dean. And they were so mad when other people argued with actual examples of the show instead of fanfiction metas.

Someone needs to make a prize for all the Sam fans that survived to season 9 and season 10 fandom. At times it was an uphill battle.

[ihopethatyoureasleep]

wait yall actually believe that either one of the winchester siblings had a harder/worse childhood than the other and that they weren't both abused and neglected in different ways

[bardicious]

Does anyone know a supernatural fic where John comes back to life around s7 and above? I specifically want to read one where he's protective of Sam. And finds out what both his children have gone through.😭 The regular family dysfunction would also be a plus, but dear god, no bad father!John please.

[alaynestone]

even if sam truly had zero control over anything he did to hurt dean he still did those things and dean has the right to be hurt and not immediately force himself to move past that and trust him like he used to like nothing happened, what's hard to understand?

[sastielsfandom]

Tired wired brain idea, angelic names are sacred, they hold power over the angel it belongs to. But only in their language, Enochian, it was created by God to say their names with meaning, any angel called upon God in the name of angels was an absolute honor. It also acted as a reminder of the power God has over every angel he created, there's a reason it's so difficult for angels to have free will. Taking power over their name is forbidden, it's one of the reasons why Lucifer was casted away. Every angel knows the tale no matter how young or old they are, God made it a point to create the angels with this knowledge. It's also why God never gave his name to the angels, even the name Chuck falls flat of power, it's not the angelic language, it's not his true name.

This is all well and good, when angels touch down to Earth, the names they share hold a little power over them, it's why you can call upon them and trick them into a trap. But it's nothing compared to a human saying their true name.

When Castiel met Dean, they rattled off the name humans recognize as the angel of Thursdays and other associations. Meeting Sam though, their true name came out quietly, disrupted by thunder from Uriel, the humans didn't hear it. That didn't mean Castiel wasn't reminded of the dire consequences that can occur if they want to be giving out true names to humans, with the road Sam was on, he hardly counted as human, drifted closer to demonic. Uriel spread the rumor, though they called it a message and warning that Lucifer's vessel is capable of pulling out true names. Be careful and deliberate when speaking to the boy, and only do so when necessary.

This was the first domino to fall of Castiel taking the power over their name. When they picked the Winchesters over heaven, Sam was the first to know Castiel's true name. His pronunciation was horrid but better than Dean's attempts, though they weren't true attempts, Bobby was the closest to saying it correctly. Castiel shared multiple names and peeled back the open wounds of the language, teaching them how to use the language as a tool and weapon.

There's a lot more to delve into but ending on this, Castiel wasn't the first angel to reveal their name to Sam. Lucifer was. Countless thoughts and dreams would land on this name, Sam was never able to locate the source until they revealed themselves in the form of Jessica. Telling Sam he could trust them, giving the name, and telling Sam how to use it. Believing Sam would never be able to have ownership of the vessel once they took over it. Believing there was no power to that name anymore but they could pretend there was to gain Sam's trust. And finding out how wrong they were when Sam harnessed that power over Lucifer long enough to put them back in the cage. Where Lucifer took revenge and etched the language into Sam's head, making the language burn on Sam's tongue, making it so repulsive that Sam would never want to utter a single word from the angelic language. Making him regret ever speaking it, while burning out the original language Sam had spoken on Earth. Hoping to leave Sam without a voice, without any power, but like so many others, Lucifer underestimated Sam and the knowledge they gave Sam was far greater than anything Castiel ever revealed. Allowing Sam enough protection to his vessel to remain safe from Lucifer, but not his mind.

[gh-0-stcup]

The weirdest take I've seen on Reddit is that the show made John Winchester a worse father in the later seasons than he was initially. That the worst he did early on was being a bit distant and training his sons from a young age. And of course, that stuff wasn't that bad because it was necessary to keep them safe.

Just off the top of my head here's what we get from season 1 alone. Dean being traumatized by John's treatment of him following the shtriga attack. John disowning Sam for going to college. John refusing to pick up his phone when Dean is literally dying. John physically intimidating Sam during an argument - one that started simply because Sam refused to go along with whatever John said to do without asking questions. Dean having to physically get between the two of them and having to physically pull them apart before they attacked each other.

There's a load of other stuff from the first 3 seasons as well. If anything, the show took a stronger stance regarding John's terrible parenting in those seasons than any of the later ones. The longer John was dead, the fonder the boys became of him.

[sammygender]

thinking about how one of the last things john ever tells dean is an admittance that the way he treated him was fucked. & of course this destroys dean and makes it so much harder for him to come to terms w his death right after and with his childhood in general bc he’s spent his entire life chasing after johns approval. he’s spent his entire life telling himself that the way he was treated was okay and justified and that their childhood was good because he could handle it and he was strong enough and that was how it had to be. he’s worshipped john as a hero and seen nothing wrong with any of it. because he’s had to. his entire life is built around this idea there’s nothing else. he’s his dads perfect soldier and punching bag and wife-replacement and suddenly his dads gone & he said he’s sorry and that he shouldn’t have treated dean that way. what the hell is he supposed to do now.

[aliusfrater]

i hateee the way the supernatural narrative sets up like. relationship conflict through fault because i feel like it's counterintuitive to understanding characterisations and relationship dynamics

[totalfreakingloser]

I had a S*pernatural dream against my will and it actually made me really sad. Not only did I have a dream about a fandom I stopped caring about after high school, but it made me sad. I’m never sleeping again.

[artemis-73]

Instead of saying that it's Mary's fault that John was a bad dad, you can just say you hate women.