#something about the way dean says this ..

[lambmotifz]

this is a controversial take but i don’t really think sexual wincest dynamic would be the same as the dynamics they have with girls. mostly because this interpretation tends to ignore canonical nuances that define sam and dean’s relationship, which includes dean’s extreme possessiveness, sam’s willing submissiveness with dean (especially when it comes to physical touch), the fact that dean is the only one with whom sam is able to be physically vulnerable in a way he can’t with anybody else, the fact that dean genuinely loves taking care of his little brother. it’s an essential part of their relationship, and it just makes sense for it to be part of their sexual dynamic too

[wanderingcas]

from day 1 i've said that paradigm is best served as a wip, and tomorrow that will REALLY be true. tomorrow's chapter will be about the point in the fic where shit really hits the fan. so if you've been wanting to read it in real time but also don't want to wait too long for updates... now's your chance! i really think (and hope and pray) that reading this in real time will be worth it ;)

link to fic || link to playlist

[babybrothershaped]

[incesthemes]

i can't stop thinking about the first episode of season 6, when sam tries to convince dean to come with him, to come back to hunting. he says "it's just better with you around, that's all." it's an interesting line because sam is soulless, obviously. and even though he doesn't understand the details yet, he knows something's wrong with him.

"it's better with you around" he says, citing dean's compassion and care for others as the reason why. and how interesting is that? sam's working with plenty of other hunters who still have their souls—they're all more than capable of caring about the people they save. but sam needs dean specifically. he knows he's missing something, and he sees dean and recognizes that something in him. even cold and calculating and unrelentingly logical, sam recognizes that dean, alone, can "complete" him, give something back to him that he's supposed to have.

in episode 8 he tells dean he "needs his help." he doesn't elaborate; he never explains what he means by that. he has a whole family of hunters who'd be willing and able to help him, but still he needs dean. even without his soul, his hyperrational mind knows he needs him.

soulless sam isn't capable of caring about dean. but he doesn't need to care to know they need to be together, no matter what—to know dean is good for him, dean completes him, dean needs to be there for him.

it's like a sick reversal of season 1. sam drags dean back into this life because he can't keep going without him. because he needs him. because when you think about it logically, and sam has no other choice, there was never any other option for them.

[opheliasam]

what is spn about if not humanising the monster (people who do objectively violent and wrongful Things) vs. villainising the humane (people who are labelled inherently wrong and sinful and therefore mistrusted and ostracised again and again . Regardless of what they do. they are not granted the grace of mistakes, or imperfections—they are held to a standard of ideality so strict it’s disturbingly cruel. Every thing they do Has to be about making up for what they are. The only way they r accepted is if they accept this rhetoric and use it to self-flagellate and overcompensate and beat themselves up again and again—)

[sammygender]

finally on s13 and jack is the best character in the whole world i love him so much i’ll protect him with my life. in other news i want to kill dean winchester

[angelsdean]

ruthlessly deleting old 2021/2022 posts (not by me) from my dean studies tag like *click* un-incorporating that from my beliefs system! also the way SO many posts have me like ok uh-huh good aaand then say one completely wrong thing that loses me. it's so many posts.

[july-19th-club]

first time i watched 'no exit' i was 100% in jo's corner like oh great it's sexist dean time . wheeee let's all watch her learn a lesson about hunting and he can be 'right' in a factual way but he'll be as obnoxious as possible about it the whole time . now i think what's happening here is that he has pretty much instantly samzoned her, as a college dropout from a hunting family who has a contentious relationship with her one surviving parent. EXCEPT that she's a five-foot-something twiggy barely-out-of-her-teens woman who has a crush on him and has never been on a serious hunt before, and he's dismissive/over-vigilant enough with the actual sam, a powerfully-built man with clairvoyant powers and over a decade of experience. bearing that in mind, his behavior towards jo is barely outside his normal realm of bossy and overbearing, and since he knows a little something about how sams will respond to direct orders, he still tells her mother she's not on the hunt with them so as to avoid the fallout until it's over. basically i think the whole dean thing, his most consistent characterization over the course of fifteen years, is his tendency to express even genuine protectiveness through the medium of 'bossy older sibling', and this makes him come off like the worst person on the planet. he frequently IS, but it's actually because of other things and has nothing to do with that habit in specific

[lambmotifz]

thinking about sam saying “you were the one who said don’t come back dad. you closed that door.” to john vs dean telling sam “if you walk out of that door, don’t you ever come back” i love it when they’re so unsubtle about samdean/samjohn parallels

[explainslowly]

I think Dean has had an Al Pacino era where he watched every movie that guy starred in he could get his hands on, which is the reason he saw Crusing. He has since blanked out what that one was about, funnily enough. Some detective thing? Al Pacino did a lot of those...

What do you think is Dean's favorite Al Pacino movie? I think it's Heat.

[acesammy]

There's something interesting about how sam and dean's hell experiences are portrayed. Dean has just enough agency in hell to become the aggressor, while sam is only the victim and can only be the victim

[incesthemes]

see what gets me about provenance is that sam is really scared of pursuing a relationship with sarah and other girls because he's afraid they're going to die. sam is cursed, the people he loves will die bloody, he doesn't want that, so he's staying away from people.

but this curse, textually, from sam's own mouth, can affect his family too:

so this isn't just limited to his romantic endeavors. anyone who's close to him, including his family, might die if they stick around him.

so what about dean??? he fits the criteria, but sam is still hanging onto him like a monkey on a vine. and what does this say about sam?

in some ways, i think there's a sense of hero-worship at play, like sam truly believes that dean can handle whatever comes his way and he'll be safe. there's a sense of protectiveness from sam throughout season 1, but dean carries himself in a way that is reassuring to sam. when he tells sam that he'll protect him, sam believes him without question, even if he's still worried. sam believes, or wants to believe, in dean's bravado.

which is interesting considering the episode faith, where sam very well could have blamed himself for dean getting hurt and almost dying (and maybe he did, and that was why he was so desperate to save him, no matter the cost—dean saw it as his time coming, but sam saw it as an unnatural death brought on by his curse, perhaps, and so he was willing to go to unnatural lengths to prevent it).

in other ways though, the context of the season makes me feel like above anything else the reason is that sam can't do this without dean, and he's willing to take the risk (and therefore handle the consequences himself, do whatever he has to do to keep dean safe from him). even in a story where sam has to choose between opposing forces that can't coexist—his revenge or dean, he can only pick one—dean is woven into every fiber of his quest for revenge. the revenge can't be pursued without dean, and dean is the opposition to sam's revenge, so sam never really had a choice to begin with: he was always going to pick dean.

i just love that even sam's greatest fears exempt dean—he wants dean there with him so badly that his no-relationships rule doesn't apply to him (and the same goes for dean, too, what a coincidence), and he accepts whatever risk there might be because he can't do this without him. dean is the exception, dean is sam's big brother, dean is the one person he can't lose even when he believes he's putting dean in danger just by driving around with him.

and dean doesn't even know any of this. he doesn't have a clue about the extent of sam's love or what sam is willing to risk to be with him, because sam never told him.

[pagannatural]

About halfway through, I noticed that the whole arc of spn season 4 focuses on faith. This is the season in which angels and god are introduced in earnest, whereas before the topic of god was nodded to but didn’t factor into the plot in a critical way. Episode 1 Castiel has pulled Dean from actual hell. The questions of faith, doubt, free will, and god’s will are explored consequentially. We meet a fallen angel and learn that angels can’t feel or empathize or choose or doubt. We also explore what it means to have faith in humanity, either because of or in spite of god. And, most importantly, this is also the season in which the Winchester brothers lose their faith in each other.

Up through season 4 (at least) this really is the central theme and conflict of the show. By the end of s2, Sam had gained complete faith in Dean as his older brother, as his protector, essentially as his keeper. Dean’s faith in Sam is really better described as his complete and utter devotion to him. Their senses of self, purpose, destiny, and belonging depend on each other’s faith and devotion to each other. Sam rails against this throughout his life, but his seeking normalcy is really just seeking autonomy plus acceptance. It’s Dean’s acceptance that he needs. God and heaven and hell and humanity are contained between them.

When Dean sells his soul and goes to hell for Sam, he’s also (mostly unwillingly) abandoning Sam. He doesn’t realize that damning himself will in turn cause Sam’s downfall, that one can’t be right without the other. So when he comes back, he comes back to a brother he’s forsaken.

Dean’s devotion to Sam wavers in s4 when he fears that he’s not really Sam, just like Sam’s faith wavers when he starts to believe he doesn’t need Dean, that Dean is not capable of protecting him. He pulls away from his brother, his god. His fall from grace (drinking demon blood, starting the apocalypse) happens both because of his doubt and because of Dean’s failure to be present and love him unconditionally.

And there’s so much more going on but to me this is what makes their dynamic so compelling and also so batshit insane. Just to caveat, I have not watched season 5-15 at this point and I have no idea if this framework changes or holds up throughout the series. And I’m new here so idk if this has already been talked about quite a bit. I also don’t care because wincest is rotting my brain and if I don’t analyze this text it will eat me alive. I’m now rewatching the first 4 seasons that I blew through to get a better understanding of it because it feels like a good place to pause and go back. Anyway, tldr Dean’s religion is Sam and being the god/brother/home that Sam needs and Sam’s religion is belonging to Dean and being accepted and protected by him.

[clairenatural]

so sorry but it does throw me off when i see cas calling dean "baby"

[found--family]

they couldn't let cesar and jesse return bc they would've taken one look at dean and cas interacting and known they had it bad for each other

[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.