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and what we’ll do for each other, how far we’ll go, they’re using it against us. 

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i love that sam is seen picking locks more bc it makes me think he was better at it than john or dean (who would rather kick doors in) and sam gets caught up in the challenge and when the door unlocks he turns over his shoulder beaming at his big brother and dad and they both look proud, john ruffling his hair as he passes through the doorway and dean patting him roughly but when sam slowly stands, watching his hunter family creep through the darkness he’s returned to the cold stark reality of what theyre doing and the pride goes hard and ashy in his stomach

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i think a potentially underexplored aspect of dean's feelings toward john are a profound understanding of john as a victim. it's especially clear in dean's speech in 8.12:

HENRY: John was a legacy. I was supposed to teach him the ways of the Letters. DEAN: Well, he learned things a little differently. HENRY: How? DEAN: The hard way. Surviving a lonely childhood, a stinking war... only to get married and have his wife taken by a demon... and later killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn. But you know what? He kept going. And in the end, he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad.

12.22 gives us a little more as well:

DEAN: 'Cause Dad was just a shell. His perfect wife? Gone. Our perfect Mom, the perfect family... was gone.

dean has spent his entire life, encountering people in the moments after disaster. in the moments after the supernatural punched its way into their lives and torn them apart. and dean, the most caring, loving human being, is so empathetic to that tragedy.

and i think he deeply applies it to his own father. whereas dean was raised to understand the world of ghosts and monsters as a child, john was thrown into it by watching his wife die horribly and inexplicably with no one around him who could listen or explain.

i think dean has such a huge place in his heart for how lost and sad and broken john was for so, so many years.

maybe the most interesting and compelling and tragic and sad and important part of dean and john's relationship to me is the way children of abusive parents are often so in tune to their parent's emotions and needs and care about them so much. some of this stems from pragmatism, of course - a parent who is less devastated can care for you better. but, i also think dean - beautiful, loving, caring dean - was always going to want to fix things for his dad (and mom).

dean really spent so much of his childhood trying to comfort john and keep him from suffering more. and even as an adult, the thought of john, scared and determined and fumbling through a whole new, terrifying world "hurts every time."

was it fair, no. does dean feel a huge amount of resentment about it, yes. are the dynamics extremely layered and complex and impossible to summarize at once, yes.

would he do it all the same way again? yeah.

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wait a damn minute not a single scene in the cw's supernatural where sam or dean took a hit (bullet, knife, big blast of magic) via pushing the other out of the way and then getting gravely injured as a result????

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i actually kinda like it when a character getting better includes them becoming weirder and less polite and more confusing and strange. no more "domestication" i wanna see the weird guy be weird!!!

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SUPERNATURAL 8.17

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john winchester's such a fascinating character and i don't think fandom does him enough justice tbh. like, you love your sons more than anything; all their love for you is twisted up in hate and fear and devotion. you sacrifice everything to keep them safe; it's actually for your dead wife more than them. you brag about your youngest's achievements every chance you get; you tell him to never come back. your boys think of you as drill sergeant first, perhaps more than father; fifty percent of your screen time is spent crying for how much you love them. you hate when they correct you, it makes you so damn mad; you acknowledge that they're right. you would do anything to keep them safe; you fuck them up irrevocably, and they never get a chance at normalcy. you teach them to be soldiers; they love you like dogs, all blind loyalty and teeth.

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(Also applies to J2 tbh)

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hell of a time to like bottom sam without being opinionated about it 😔

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“demonization of dean” and it’s something dean did in canon

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constance welch, 24

joseph welch, 30

two young children, 5 and 6

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The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O'Connor

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How is that kid even vertical?

Sammy Gets Knocked Down (YouTube)

sam winchester ✘ chumbawamba “tubthumping”

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SUPERNATURAL 1.01 + 4.03

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supernatural, are you there, god? it's me, dean winchester [4.02]

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oh and off the back of my "castiel should have swapped vessels" post - castiel falling for dean and trying to choose vessels he thinks dean might like. going through a few different women and then a few guys, and they just gradually look more and more like sam

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shout out to the doctor who looked at my physical results and said 'you will live to 100!' and then looked at my mental health results and said '...if you want to'