#*i'm very pro-every-interpretation-is-valid if you can either back it up or... just want to do it for fun. it only starts to irritated me

[weaksspot]

happy wincest purgatory ! there has been contention in the fandom recently regarding deans characterization in relation to wincest. the main two being the mommyfication of dean (nurturing sam, spoiling him, reprimanding him, etc.) or the wife beater allegations (abusing him, controlling whose hes with, etc.) and theres probably some more tropes, but thats the ones i picked up on. where was i going with this. . . what is your preference, if any? also i say "contention" as a joke because wincesties are very nice to eachother even if they cant agree. and for me the variety is probably my most favourite thing about the fandom

happy wincest eternity sweet anon <3 this is such a good questionnnn thank youuuu :D

you can probably tell from my posts i don't especially love either of these readings of him, not because i think either is wrong or bad* but i just personally don't get much out of trying to slot him in to an archetype outline like that. if that makes sense. i think he has traits of both those things, but i don't think either fits him completely.

perhaps one of my most controversial opinions in this fandom space is that i don't really see dean as ever being sam's parent. i think DEAN sees himself that way sometimes, definitely, and it is indisputable that he was given far too much responsibilty for looking after sam and i definitely consider it parentification to a degree. but i don't think their relationship ever really shifted from brothers into a parent/child dynamic, maybe in part because their age gap isn't big enough, maybe because john WAS very present, even if we were mostly shown times that he was absent. that is part of it as well, like, i think the show gave us a lot of "here's what happened when john wasn't there" but that doesn't mean he was never there. and i think his influence was always very strong, i think dean was almost always working under "what would dad want me to do" in a way that was very much Big Brother.

i do also feel that gender comes into this in a way where my feelings on it differ from popular fanon - i can't see dean in a "mommy" or "eldest daughter" role because him being male makes the dynamic very different to what it would be if he was female.

as they get older though i think the parenty vibes fade a LOT and they really... honestly do settle into more of an old married couple type dynamic. lol. but it's a BROTHERS dynamic before it's anything else. like when they fight, say when dean scolds sam for something, it is so sibling fight-y. i can't really think of an example where it's like a parent telling off a child. TO ME at least. in the flashbacks as well, like the infamous lucky charms scene, it's purely siblings. idk, i don't know how to be succinct about this lmao, it's all feelings and very little logic 😭 sorry. i'll think about it some more.

the wife beater thing i have talked about a lot already dfkgjhdfg i just don't see it. i see shitty, sometimes even cruel, older brother and that's it. i definitely do think his behaviour can be abusive, but i don't think he is Sam's Abuser in the clear cut way he's sometimes portrayed in current meta.

please DO NOT misinterpret this as my feelings on any real life abusive relationships, but regarding THEM SPECIFICALLY, to me that would require more desire from sam to get away from dean and dean preventing that from happening. and when people talk about sam being ground down by dean to want to stay i just do not see that at all lol. i don't think dean coerces him in a general sense (in specific situations, maybe sure), i actually think most of the time he is very upfront about what he wants from sam - which is for him to stay and be alive, basically - and leaves it in sam's hands whether to do that or not.

in my mind i always go back to scarecrow where sam leaves and dean lets him. sam makes the choice to go back to dean and stay with him after. if there's anything forcing them to stay together, it's their external circumstances, it's not dean. i just do honestly think he loves sam and wants him to be happy more than anything else in the world and i think he demonstrates that consistently throughout the entire show and i don't think that's a facade, just because he is not normal or healthy about it much of the time lol. neither of them is normal or healthy. sam was willing to frankenstein them both forever. sam fights to keep them together just as much as dean does.

so yeah ummmm. sorry i'm sure that's all totally incoherent. but ultimately i think they love and need each other in equal measure. there are a lot of things i fucking hate about dean if we're being really honest but the way he treats sam ON THE WHOLE is not one of them <3