chuckwon

[chuckwon]

“Supernatural is about two brothers”

Wrong. It’s about the fact that they’re sons—molded and abandoned by their father and the Father, thrust into the cycle of violence that created, struggling to break free of it.

Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days.

[chuckwon]

I really think during the divorce arc Cas should've tried to get drunk in an effort to stop thinking about: the box, Dean using the equalizer, Chuck killing Jack, and his own hands destroying Belphegor. He should've gotten TRASHED. And he should've drunk called Dean to verbally rip him a new one.

[chuckwon]

okay definitely do NOT take this post as a promise of anything in any sense, because I’m just temporarily listening to the tempting voices in my head that want me to think about doing something insane

[chuckwon]

okay definitely do NOT take this post as a promise of anything in any sense, because I’m just temporarily listening to the tempting voices in my head that want me to think about doing something insane

[chuckwon]

real

holding out hope for act 2 season 16, personally

instead of jack becoming god at the end of spn they should have brought back marie from fanfiction and made HER an authorgod. the final shot of the show should have been salmondeancas and their new robot driving the impala through outer space (which now exists in supernatural)

[chuckwon]

Saw a post on the dash I so strongly disagree with I have to make my own post without interacting with OP... but if this makes it back to OP or anyone who agreed with their take, know this wasn't meant as hate or shade

I do genuinely think that in 15x11 when Dean says "Lady, I'm Tolstoy" to Fortuna he means it and believes it, and I think that's also important to the themes of the episode overall in the thematic context of the season.

Dean certainly has some semblance of self-worth by season 15 and it's kind of a misread of him and his character development to say he doesn't ("I’m good with who I am. I’m good with who you are" in season 14 weren't empty words). But aside from that, Fortuna calling him "sexy, but skimmable" and a "beach read" was about her saying he's simple and that there are no further depths to who he is. Therefore he's uninteresting to her and not a fun challenge. But Dean knows that's not true because he knows himself and his own complexities. He's well aware that he's deeper than people sometimes assume at first glance in several senses.

Which brings us to this: what Fortuna says to Dean acts as commentary on what people often assume about Dean's character in-universe and out of it. How often throughout the course of the show do villains hit on Dean and underestimate him because he's hot? And how often do parts of fandom paint Dean as simply sexy, the womanizer jokester, and/or the dumb one in comparison to Sam (in a well-meaning way or otherwise) when Dean's actually well-read, has a wide range of knowledge from pop culture to survival skills, and is extremely clever plus emotionally intelligent? Some of those misconceptions stem from earlier seasons when Dean's self-worth was lower, and/or just when he'd make jokes about Sammy being ~the smart one~ since he went to college and tends to be the research nerd. Y'know, the classic shit from when they were younger that people took at face value or didn't realize their characters shifted away from. But we're not in the earlier seasons anymore, and all of those old assumptions about who Dean and Sam are as people or how they see themselves don't apply in the narrative by season 15. They hadn't for years.

The reason why Fortuna's comments are also meta commentary is that nearly all of season 15 is. That's the nature of the overarching plot of Chuck as villain and the fight for free will. And that's extra true in 15x11, which deals with a god who steals luck (as Chuck stole their luck), misunderstands them, and therefore underestimates them. Sam wins his first game against Fortuna because she was distracted by the conversation, and as she says to Sam, "You got me talking. You're good." But Dean's the one who primarily distracts her while she's playing by asking her the questions; Sam even catches on to what Dean's doing in the middle of it (they exchange a glance) but he barely says anything. Which is why Sam pointedly replies to Fortuna, "I learned from my brother."

Dean knows ~he's Tolstoy,~ and he demonstrates how he got a read on Fortuna by cleverly playing the fuck out of her as Sam's backup in the first game. Because he knows it'll work, and it literally does. She loses because he distracts her!

Beyond characterizations, the importance of this is that the entire situation in Fortuna's pool hall is structured to reflect the rigged "game" of Chuck's narrative that Sam and Dean are trapped in. In regards to the importance of Dean saying "I'm Tolstoy" specifically... Again, there's more to Dean as a person and he's being underestimated. That's key in the context of their fight against gods, aka both Fortuna and Chuck. Dean further proves this by calling bullshit on Fortuna's "double or nothing" offer: "That's how the cowboy died." The cowboy challenged Dean to double or nothing and Dean took that bet because importantly he knew he had what it took to win it, but with Fortuna, he hesitates because he's astute. Plus, there's the fact that he and Sam are true "heroes" and the importance of that.

The takeaway for them and for us is that Sam and Dean had what it took to defeat Chuck. (Especially Dean, who Chuck is now obsessed with vs how Sam was originally the chosen one, just like with Fortuna.) They won a game against a goddess! But the key? Don't get baited into continuing to play.

Metanarratively, Dean is also the "cowboy." Going double or nothing in the overarching story – Sam and Dean not walking away when they get the win of having Jack back, but instead still playing Chuck's game and going up against him in a way he ultimately orchestrated rather than changing the game (with Cas' help) – is how/why they lose and Dean dies in 15x20. If Sam and Dean had taken Fortuna's advice of "Don't play his game. Make him play yours." – if they hadn't challenged Chuck within "his own joint" aka the confines of his storytelling Framework – then they wouldn't have lost. But they didn't do that, and so they didn't win.

"Lady, I'm Tolstoy" -> Dean's underestimated -> Dean and Sam have what it takes to defeat a god.

They didn't quite manage it with Chuck, but they (initially) did with Fortuna to win both their luck and her advice, and that still counts for something.

[chuckwon]

lol

I don't know how to turn this into a poll, so it's just a question.

Imagine that in order to stay in the fandom you need to write and defend a thesis about Supernatural. What topic would you choose for your thesis?

[chuckwon]

The Lover

[chuckwon]

"Throughout [season 15]. . . Dean is placed at the very center of his family’s struggle for freedom. This is not accidental, and it’s tied to the importance of the inherently queer themes. The very fact that conformity needs to be pushed upon Dean specifically implies that he, just like Cas, is distinctly “other.” The heart of season 15’s story is about all of the characters questioning who they’re meant to be, but it is especially positioned as the question of “Who is Dean Winchester?” The answer is the point to all of this, and just as Dean needs to find certainty in the truth of his identity, so does the audience.

We are shown how Chuck tried to make Dean forget, eliminate, or doubt parts of his identity to get Dean to conform to his expectations and act out a predetermined ending. In the real world, the network/executives needed Dean to be a certain kind of character that conformed to their expectations in kind, and to fit into the ending they wanted for him. Ultimately, Chuck won, and so we know those executives were successful in denying Dean a story in which he lives openly in his truth. This makes it all the more evident that the answer to “Who is Dean Winchester?” – understanding the totality of this character’s identity – is worth knowing, as well as why it was silenced in the end.

As Dean struggles with this aspect of his journey, it calls attention to the details of and nuances in his characterization. If a higher power has been controlling the story the entire time on some level, what is real? Who is Dean as a person? Does he know, and do we know? The answer is abundantly clear when the show is examined as a full body of work.

From the very beginning, Dean Winchester has been a character tied to classic elements of American masculinity. He was introduced with a superficial veneer involving those elements, but almost immediately the early episodes provide a look at the complexity of his character underneath it. Over the years, that complexity was further explored, and he came to embody a study in things society would often have us think should be incompatible contrasts: the gruffness and grit of hunting life and its associated masculine iconography, paired with his open and deep emotional care for the world; unabashed love for classic rock, superheroes, and horror movies, as well as unabashed joy connected to TV dramas, chick flicks, and childhood favorites like Scooby-Doo; life on the road with a muscle car, but the desire for a home base with creature comforts he can make his own; motivation to always help people, but the clear longing for balance with personal domesticity and relaxation so he could save not only others but also himself.

As a whole, his character functions as an effective deconstruction of toxic masculinity and stereotypical American heroism. And while much of Dean’s most masculine traits and interests are said to come from his father’s influence, part of his journey is loving those parts of himself on their own merit not because he ever had to but because he wants to. He is not his father, and he redefines those valued parts of his identity so they are his and his alone. He also crucially learns to recognize and joyfully embody that those masculine traits were never all that he had to be, working through and overcoming shame and hesitancy along the way. The result? He’s “good with who he is.”

He and the audience are encouraged to see that there are no rules his identity and interests must subscribe to, on a micro or a macro level. The message is to disregard predetermined destiny or duty. Free will means his life is his to determine, his family can be what he makes of it and how he defines it, and what he needs and wants do not ever have to be mutually exclusive. Dean’s journey is about freedom from outwardly-imposed limitations–whether those limitations come from his father’s example and the God altering his story, or from the pervasive societal ideals and network/executive interference outside of it. Dean can and should contain multitudes, all at once.

In this way, Dean’s story is a powerfully queer narrative that acts as metacommentary. In the fullness of its execution, it is also specifically a deeply bisexual narrative.

The not-so-hidden truth is that Dean is canonically a bisexual man. His story was afforded something that’s rare for most characters and almost nonexistent for queer ones: fifteen years of lengthy, nuanced development. As part of that, the well-established media tools of queer subtext and queercoding were used to makes Dean’s bisexuality clear as crystal, and sometimes it’s even overtly textual to a startling degree. The valid canonicity of the deliberately full picture is indisputable. Over the course of the show, he flirts with and is flustered by both women and men; has crushes on female and male celebrities; is tricked by both women and men who feign attraction to him; enjoys sex with or mentions enjoying sex that involves women and men; and makes niche queer pop culture references. Dean’s various and nuanced non-platonic relationships with both women and men are also often central to his plotlines and instrumental in his character development, including Cassie, Jo, Lisa, Benny, Robin, Crowley, and Lee. (Each is deserving of its own essay.) And, as the very fun cherry on top, he proudly sings in front of bisexual lighting in the final season.

Again: Dean’s identity journey is about how he can and does contain the capacity for multitudes, and it’s part of what makes him such a compelling character. He can like “this” and “that.” He can be attracted to women and men. Or, as writer Ben Edlund and director Phil Sgriccia said in a DVD commentary, Dean has “the potential for love in all places.”

Whether or not Destiel was a factor, the above would all still be true and intrinsic to who Dean is. But of course, as an extension of all of the above, it’s abundantly clear that Dean is written as being in love with Castiel to the point of desperation.

Implying or insisting that Cas is in love with Dean in canon but not vice versa – simply because Dean’s love is not conveyed through an explicit “I love you” – is the equivalent of bragging about missing every moment, line of dialogue, parallel, and romantic arc that indicated otherwise for at least a decade’s worth of storytelling. Until or unless the documentary we deserve about the making of this show is ever allowed to be made, we’ll never know for sure exactly where and when Destiel crossed over from “fortuitous dynamic with interesting hints of potential” to “baked into the plot by the writers with intention.” But you can keep looking back at the show’s canon, and at every turn it holds up in the big and small details: Their divorce arc is in season 15. Cas makes the deal with the Empty in season 14. Dean’s widower arc mourning Cas is in season 13. Dean gives Cas a personal mixtape as a romantically-coded gesture in season 12. Amara uses Cas’ heart to find Dean in season 11. Dean and Cas are paralleled to Cain and his wife Colette in season 10. Their split in season 9 is treated like a breakup, and Cas gives up his army to save Dean. Dean hallucinates Cas like a mourned lover and helps break Cas’ brainwashing in season 8. Etc., etc., etc.

The cohesiveness is a triumph. The endless list of plot elements, romantic arcs, and significant moments that form their love story are not accidents or inconsequential details, nor are they one-sided. They were constructed to build upon each other and the show at large. Dean’s side of the story was not allowed to culminate in the way that every narrative cue indicated it should have, but the writers are clearly not to blame for that. We can see that Dean was forced by higher powers into becoming someone he isn’t and denied the chance to express who he truly is, because everything in the story cleverly tells us that was the case.

It also doesn’t mean that what is in the show – all of the subtext and coding and storytelling that blatantly points to Dean’s bisexuality and his love for Cas – somehow “isn’t enough” or “doesn’t count.” Dean’s bisexuality and the reciprocity of Destiel are not somehow less canonical simply because the expression of both was heartbreakingly denied the ability to be brought to full explicit fruition. By the same metric that we can know Cas is canonically in love with Dean, the reverse applies – and the same people who wrote Cas’ love and took its culmination as far as they could also did the same with Dean’s.

–THE PURPOSE: The Significance of Real-World Censorship Part 7 of the Chuck Won analysis

[chuckwon]

blogging about the supernatural finale 4 years later like

[chuckwon]

heyyyyyy

HAPPY (?) 4 YEARS SINCE THE SPN FINALE

did you think it was tragic

did you think it kinda sucked

did you not even watch it or don’t even go here but you wonder why it was so bad

well GREAT NEWS (sort of)

I have plausible answers for you

enjoy

[chuckwon]

15x04 | 15x20

[chuckwon]

i genuinely do feel SO fuckin bad for the supernatural team. they tried so hard you guys. by the final season they were moving like that Will Smith gesturing at stuff image. they did literally everything they could to tell us that destiel was the story they were telling but because Dean ended up getting edited to just kind of stand there during the confession then immediately die by bury your gays rebar, and Cas never got mentioned again due to covid and network interference, literally ALL their hard work was for nothing. Culturally people just remember it as queerbait. Equivalent of a team going to the superbowl after 12 years and then all its players getting food poisoning and dying.

[chuckwon]

I feel like I get activated like a sleeper agent whenever I see someone posting about supernatural s15

[chuckwon]

oh the fucking LAYERS to this Chuck has moved just the Sam and Dean funkos to the desk next to him. literally cutting out Cas!!

i’m trying not to read too much into this but also … this is the reading too much into things show! this is the handwaving the gay away show!

everyone involved in supernatural season 15 is like You Guys Need To Prepare Yourselves To Hate The Finale, Which Only Has The Brothers In It, But Also Remember It Was Written By Chuck And Thus Not Our Fault.

[chuckwon]

happy bi visibility day to Dean Winchester specifically 🩷💜💙

[chuckwon]

the odds of me buckling down to write long-form meta about The Winchesters that no one would read are always low but never zero