dean and cas have abandonment issues but they deal with them in such different ways.
dean is terrified of being unloveable and of people leaving him, so he pushes them away before they can leave. because in his head, everyone leaves in the end, so why bother let them get close? he’ll just end up heartbroken in the end because that’s all he’s know, from his own family, his friends, partners, allies. they either end up dead or gone.
cas, on the other hand, is terrified of being useless because he had been created as a tool, a weapon for others to use, and was treated as one his whole life. every time he thinks he isn’t useful anymore he leaves because why would anyone want a broken tool? people always end up leaving when he doesn’t have power, or they make him leave with little to no explanation.
dean needs someone to stay when he’s pushing them away, to be reassured that even when he is at his worst they still love him and want to be around him.
cas needs someone to tell him to stay when he’s no longer useful. if he is asked to leave he will, because he is never allowed to stay for long and sees so little of himself.
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2.09 Croatoan
-my beloved
-The brothers go to Oregon because Sam has a vision of Dean shooting someone who pleads for his life.
-Sam thinks Dean is violent and out of control because of his grief but he’s actually violent and out of control because he’s losing his mind over Sam.
-Sam looks very Scared Little Brother when they realize the town has no phone signal. He stands really close to Dean. Sam is right. I forgot how scary this episode is.
-Sam hesitates to kill the son who had the mom tied up, and Dean berates him. Dean calls the son a “monster” and Sam says “it was a kid.” Dean likes a clean line between monster and human.
-Sam is always the one who comforts the victims and tells people everything will be okay, another way in which his role in the relationship is traditionally feminine. He’s the one women find non-threatening. (And he’s too distracted by Dean to be attracted to them).
-When the mom, Beverly, says “one minute they were my husband and my son and the next they had the devil in them” the camera cuts to Sam and Dean. This line could be Dean describing a blood-drinking Sam: one minute he was my husband and my son and the next he had the devil in him.
-One of the armed men blocking the road out of town asks Dean to get out of the car to “talk a little,” and Dean says “you are a handsome devil but I don’t swing that way, sorry.” It’s easy to forget that in the early 2000s, this kind of throwaway joke on network tv didn’t usually hint at a character’s hidden sexuality, it was just a vaguely biphobic little joke. But I do think there’s a reason it’s here.
The Croatoan virus is a demonic virus spread from blood infection that’s not visible just by looking at someone. So we have a little AIDS parallel. It’s also a similar concept to Sam’s demon blood. His blood represents choice and sin and the human mixed with the monstrous. Blood is also associated with family.
Incest and queerness are taboos that have often been conflated in fiction (and in history), and both have been strongly associated with monstrosity—think predatory sexuality, birth defects, infertility, rejection of the natural order. A desire that’s dangerous and wrong and destructive, that must stay hidden and can only survive in the shadows. The homoerotic incestuous monster hunters are the perfect storm of gothic queer horror.
Whether or not either brother is queer doesn’t affect the plot, and isn’t the point. I can see Dean grappling with being in love with Sam without questioning his sexuality at all. Sam is a category unto himself to Dean, and Sam doesn’t appear bothered about his sexuality aside from his feelings about Dean. But the confluence of these taboos—incest and queerness—with blood is central to the plot of the show and the question of what evil is. Really their love for each other and their shared blood is what saves them, keeps them human.
-Another of my absolute favorite underrated wincest moments is when Beverly is begging for her life from the utility room and Dean asks Sam “are you sure she’s one of them?” Sam barely nods and it’s enough for Dean to shoot her three times point blank. He doesn’t need any more information, just for Sam to nod slightly.
-Sam suggests that they need to leave to warn others of the virus and Dean tells him he has a good point. They respect each other’s input and work together well.
-Duane shows up and the situation becomes very tense. Sam is standing with his whole body facing Dean. In moments of extreme stress, Sam often seeks Dean’s protection rather than focusing on the threat.
-Dean has a gun on Duane with some urgency but Sam says “I gotta talk to you—now” and Dean leaves the room with him immediately.
Sam argues that they should wait and not kill Duane in case he isn’t infected. Dean says “what’s that buy us?”
“A clear conscience, for one.”
“Well it’s too late for that.” Is Dean talking about his guilt over John’s death? Or is this more about his general self hatred around never being enough to be everything for everyone, to give Sam everything that he needs and be the perfect son and soldier and brother and father and mother?
Sam tells him “you don’t act like yourself anymore, Dean. You’re acting like one of those things out there.” Dean does feel lost. He needs Sam to save him so that he can save Sam.
-Sam is so devoted to Dean this season. He spent season 1 gradually giving into his complete trust and commitment to Dean and now he’s been losing him or at risk of losing him in different ways all season. He fights tooth and nail for Dean every step of the way to get him to listen, to talk, to come back to him.
-Dean pushes Sam out of the way and locks him out, aiming to kill Duane. He says “it’s not him, not any more” and “I’ve got no choice.” But then Dean decides not to shoot him.
-When the doctor asks if it’s alright to untie Duane, Dean and Sam seem to have a wordless conversation in which Dean defers to Sam’s judgement, and Sam tells the doctor it’s okay to untie him.
-Sam is Dean’s morality. Dean is submitting to Sam, needing him to help him make the right choice. By doing this he’s also believing in Sam’s ability to stay good.
-Sam says about Dean not killing Duane “you know I’m gonna ask you why.”
Dean replies “yeah I know,” not looking up, focusing on keeping his hands busy making Molotov cocktails.
“So why? Why didn’t you do it?”
Dean looks at Sam with his chin tucked, like it’s hard to meet his eyes. He doesn’t answer. He clears his throat and says “we need more alcohol,” basically asking Sam to leave for a moment so that he can pull it together. He gazes after Sam with this raw, shamed look.
It’s the first of two parallels in this episode to their conversation in 1.19 where Sam says his reticence to date is mostly not about Jessica, and Dean asks “then what is it about?” and Sam just looks at him, implying heavily that it’s about Dean.
The question Dean was asking Sam there was essentially, Why can’t you love anyone else?
The first question Sam asks Dean is why he didn’t kill someone, but it’s also why Dean wants to do the right thing and not lose himself, and the answer is because of Sam.
-After Sam is attacked, he reaches for Dean’s hand to help him up off the floor and then just leaves his hand outstretched after Sarge holds Dean back and tells him Sam is infected. It’s like his muscle memory of reach-out-hand, Dean-pulls-me-up hasn’t caught on.
-The whole time Dean argues with the others about Sam, Sam only looks at the floor or at Dean. He’s not watching the conversation, he’s watching Dean because he’s scared and he looks to Dean when he’s scared.
-Dean says “no one’s shooting my brother”
He’s so protective. He was about to kill someone who might be infected just in case, but when it’s Sam he would simply rather die in a murder suicide and that’s that on that.
-Sam asks for the gun so that he can shoot himself, saying “I’m not gonna become one of those things.” This episode is pure foreshadowing for the end of s5. Sam refuses to become a monster, Dean chooses to stand by him and die rather than kill him. Because of their faith in each other, because they waited, things work out.
-Dean hands over the keys to the impala. He’s not fucking around. He tells the doctor “oh actually we’re not really marshals.” He’s in a truth telling mood, fuck it.
-Sam asks Dean to leave him and keep living, looking at him with incredulity and gratitude and love and fear.
Dean leaving him alone to die or become a monster would fulfill Sam’s deepest fear—left behind, not belonging, because something is wrong with him. But he still asks Dean to go, he throws a fit, he tells him “this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.” It reminds me of that scene from Titanic, Jack telling Rose “you’re so stupid” for staying with him instead of saving herself.
He says “it’s over for me, it doesn’t have to be for you.”
“No?”
“No. You can keep going.”
“Who says I want to?”
This scene is so dramatic and romantic. Close shots of their faces, Sam looking up at Dean with his eyes full of tears, begging him. Dean tells Sam he doesn’t want to go on without him.
Sam asks, what?
For a moment it almost looks like he’s taking this as the confession that it is, before Dean puts some distance between them and leans against the wall. This is the second scene is this episode to parallel their conversation in 1.19, this time even more closely.
Sam thinks Dean doesn’t want to go on because their dad died, but Dean says “you’re wrong. It’s not about dad. I mean part of it is, sure, but-“
Sam interrupts to ask “then what is it about?” and Dean gives him this look,
this look of love and tenderness, like he’s willing Sam to understand.
This time Sam’s question is Why don’t you want to live? And the answer is that Dean doesn’t want to live without Sam.
I love how this scene makes clear that Sam’s romantic partners compare directly to Dean. It confirms what Sam was thinking about in 1.19, because for these scenes to rhyme they must have been thinking about each other.
-The brothers share a romantic beer at the lake. Sam asks Dean what he was talking about last night in a way that honest-to-god sounds like he’s referring to pillow talk. Dean doesn’t want to tell so Sam keeps pushing, but their tones are teasing and light. They really sound like they’re flirting. Dean suggests that they go to the Grand Canyon.
Sam keeps questioning him, gentle but insistent, as Dean talks about taking a break.
-Where is our Grand Canyon episode?
-Sam looks so scared when Dean says John told him something about Sam before he died. I wonder what’s running through his head. There’s this feeling that people with Sam’s negative core belief often get, which is a fear that something is deeply wrong or rotten in them and that eventually other people will find out. He’s probably thinking that’s finally happened.
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happy wincest wednesday!! what do you think would happen if jess found out?
This is highly dependent on when she finds out and how she finds out, in my opinion.
Personally, I struggle a lot with fics where Jess is immediately okay with it and even kinks on incest because it often feels like an easy way to avoid conflict and drama. In an effort to sketch out her character, it feels more like she's positioned as a "cool girl" plot device who is down for anything rather than a fully formed, real person with feelings that can be hurt. So for a situation where Jess eventually becomes okay with it, I imagine it would take a lot of work and development to get there.
My primary thought would be an AU where Jess lives, but in the process is injured and traumatized, and feeling deeply hurt and betrayed by Sam who she discovers has been lying and ommiting truths, leaving her vulnerable. If she chooses to go with them, it would need to be for herself and her own peace of mind, but in the process, she would be getting to know Sam as he is and not as he presented himself, all his dark parts and secrets, and not knowing if she can love this Sam when she fell in love with an illusion. In this AU, I imagine she becomes closer to Dean by default of there being no history, Dean is a clean slate, Dean hasn't lied to her and made her believe he was someone he wasn't. A writer would have to develop Dean and Jess as a separate relationship and dynamic, then have Jess open up to Sam again.
As for her finding out about Sam and Dean in this scenario, I think depending how everything unfolds and develops is what would make or break it. I don't think Jess is in a position to immediately accept it because I imagine she's lived a fairly regular life, and while I think people are cool with things in fiction, it's another thing entirely to have it shoved in your face in reality. I imagine in the best case scenario, with development, it's still a shock to her system and she would have to reconcile everything else that has happened, on top of finding out the man she was going to possibly marry is in love with his brother. So I waver on if she can fully commit and be all in, or not, which I don't blame her at all for and would rather a more realistic and messy possible break up, over a situation that rings hollow and false.
As for finding out during the canon Stanford timeline, I can't imagine any other scenario than her assuming Dean had sexually abused Sam. This would be figuring something happened when Sam was underage, and that Dean being older and his caregiver meant he took advantage. I think she would loathe Dean in this scenario and attempt to help Sam with trying to get him therapy or give him books or find groups he can attend, all while Sam continues to insist it was never like that and wholeheartedly defending Dean. I imagine she would be cold to Dean when he shows up in the pilot and unable to figure out why Sam would want to go off with him.
I also like scenarios where Sam confesses half-truths, like he was younger when he lost his virginity to somone older and Jess using context clues and coming to the worst conclusions. In these scenarios, Jess means well and is trying to help Sam because she loves him and she's never going to be able to wrap her mind around in what world any of this would be okay, or even understandable. She doesn't have the same frame of reference or experience. I personally would love to see more fics that explore the complexities and nuances of what it would be like to be Jess and having to come to terms with all this information, as well as fics that don't necessarily end in a happy poly Sam/Dean/Jess situation, but rather Jess realizing the best thing for her would be to walk away.
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Supernatural is not a good show. In fact, it is pretty objectively terrible. It has moments of brilliance and potential, but it squanders it most of the time.
But there will never be another show like this one.
Supernatural was a show where pretty much anything could happen, and it went on long enough that pretty much everything did. It went from a straightforward, procedural monster-hunting show to a weird, meta parody of itself where the main characters beg for freedom from a cruel and all-powerful writer controlling their fate.
Supernatural was a show made for cishet white men that gained an audience of anything but, and spent years struggling with that dissonance. It became multiple shows at once to appeal to its vastly varied fanbase and, when faced with the need to choose an ending and decide its identity once and for all, ended up angering everyone.
Supernatural was a show that the writers completely and utterly lost control of. I don't think the writers of 04x01 Lazarus Rising could have ever in a million years imagined the events of 15x18 Despair. It became a monster bigger than itself because of the energy of its fanbase. The show itself briefly became a mirror of this dissonance in its final season, before the show finally tried to regain control and ended the way that it did.
Supernatural has had an impossibly impactful mark on internet and fandom culture. It has changed this website in tangible ways that won't be forgotten anytime soon. It was the 12-year-long queerbait, the one that would serve as the scale against which to compare all queer ships before and after. It spawned the only ship to date with over 100,000 fanfics on ao3. It was the homosexual homophobic show. The world's longest, most drawn-out hate crime. And it ended it all with superhell, tetanus, and party city wigs.
Supernatural is not a good show. But it is undoubtedly fascinating and influential. I want to study this show endlessly. It is just so fully insane to me.
Anyways, I'll be posting about this show A LOT tomorrow as well so sorry to my non-supernatural mutuals. I'm jealous that you are not cursed with the burden of knowledge that is this show.
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