#Spn gaslighting

[deanwasalwaysbi]

It's not about dissecting the intention behind every narrative. It's not about ruining art, or only centering intention at the expense of higher level reading.

It's about queer narratives being the only ones writers and studios deny are clearly written into the text. It's about needing to deny what your story is about to get it made. It's about saying it's "up for interpretation" being progress after years of dodging, denial, and derision of fan readings.

It's about the urge to reanalyze and evaluate reality after experiencing gaslighting. It's literally a trauma response.

[acecroft]

I guess I was wrong.

[casgod]

When a man tries to gaslight me I'm like boy... I've been a destiel shipper and a bi dean truther for years...

[castielssuperhell]

gatekeep, gaslight misha collins into thinking he's bisexual, girlboss

[wh0mst-is-this]

Mary Winchester has a brother???? I have so many questions and no answers??? [2x4] An uncle who paid for her headstone and never mentioned again like even when Mary’s dad came back or a flashback or even The Winchesters??

[ardentpoop]

to this day i see fans vaguely allude to Things Sam Did Wrong and i instinctively bristle lmfao

pray tell what do you think he did wrong vs what the story (and dean) thinks he did wrong. i need to hear u summarize your take before i decide whether or not i care abt anything you have to say abt this character

[thefableddestiel]

Supernatural feels like home.

In the same way that your childhood house with parents who flip flop between showing you love and gaslighting the shit out of you feels like home.

[opheliasam]

spn season 10 was actually delicious i enjoyed it thoroughly (<- guy rewatching S10e23)

[adaav]

the "Sam is not a woman or child, he is not a weak victim" is probably the WORST thing camed from them because woah it's almost like victims generally can't leave their abusers(what do you mean not all victims are self aware perfect human beings) or man can't get abused( terf vibes)

Also how can people see Dean hitting Sam A LOT OF TIMES and just say

"Bu-but Sam was so mean to Dean that one time!!! H-he is so abusive!!"

Or

"Dean didn't hit Sam the times i want him to hit him so he is not abusive actually he is not hiting him enough."

Yeah i saw the last one on reddit

Oh yeah. We've had this argument for over a decade now and it never stops being infuriating.

Like, these people need to make some special mental gymnastics in order to feel morally superior for liking Dean. And they were so mad when other people argued with actual examples of the show instead of fanfiction metas.

Someone needs to make a prize for all the Sam fans that survived to season 9 and season 10 fandom. At times it was an uphill battle.

[lilacpaperbird]

the way destiel shippers describe spn will never not be funny to me because it's always something like "you know, supernatural, the story of a faithless man who fell in love with the angel who saved him from perdition" my beloved friend where's sam in that equation. you know, the actual co-protagonist of the show. it's like listen I love that you love destiel so much but that's just. not the plot of the show. you're gaslighting me

[insanesonofabitch]

Supernatural where everything is the same except they make seemingly insignificant line alterations that makes it even more gay than it already is.

“Okay Cas here’s everything you need to know about waitresses and bartenders…” (deans dream job)

“Well Cas not for nothing but the last guy who looked at me like that, I got laid.”

“There are two things I know for certain: one, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Especially not on my watch.”

[tiktaalic]

When spn tries to gaslight me it’s like. Aw you’re sweet. When neil gaiman tries to gaslight me it’s like. C’mon man.

[soullessjack]

completely obsessed with this scene from superman II where lois fucking shoots clark to prove he’s superman. what a woman

[visceral-rage]

The first and last time I watched Supernatural I was 11 years old. I watched the first 6 seasons in less than a month, I was watching up to 10 hours a day. I grew heavily attached to it, possibly in a unhealthy way. I literally depended on it for weeks. Then I stopped watching it and never went back to it.

So I decided to start Supernatural again after almost 10 years :) what could possibly go wrong :) it's not like it was a deciding factor in my mental development :)

[ardentpoop]

stressful :)

[quietwingsinthesky]

was writing this down for an ask but realized i was quickly getting off topic for that ask lmao. let’s talk about Dean’s handprint, the wild misinterpretations of it, and how those have affected how people read Anna covering it during her sex scene with Dean.

We have to establish the obvious first: the number one way the handprint is misinterpreted is to establish a romantic connection between Dean and Castiel from their very first meeting. Because of how popular the ship is, we’re now left with the unfortunate aftermath of people knowing the ship first and the show second, and therefore being more inclined to interpret the show through the lens of the ship. Needless to say, while looking at season 4 through that lens for hints of destiel is fun, it doesn’t lead to a thematically cohesive reading. The handprint is the best way we can demonstrate this. If we take the handprint to indicate that Castiel has been romantically interested in Dean since minute one, or even that he sees Dean as a person rather than an instrument of Heaven’s will at first (put a pin in that), then the rest of his character arc for the season is incoherent and meaningless. To assert that this is what the handprint is about takes the conclusion Castiel needs the entirety of season 4 to reach and transplants it onto him at the very beginning in order to make it easier to find evidence for the ship.

There’s a lot of media out there where interpreting it through the lens of a ship, even one unintended by the author, can enhance the original text. (Lest we all forget our Winter Soldier roots.) Supernatural does not have that relationship to interpreting it to be about destiel. A season 4 where the handprint means Castiel is in love with Dean is a weaker story and does a huge disservice to Castiel’s actual character arc.

So, now that we’ve established what the handprint isn’t, can we talk about what it is? Yes. It’s pretty simple, actually.

Think of it this way: To Heaven, Dean is livestock, and the handprint is the brand telling everyone (but especially Dean) what ranch he belongs to.

Let’s start with the obvious: it isn’t a metaphorical brand at all. It’s literal. It’s burned into his skin permanently (or at least, when the makeup department wants to put it there.) I’d argue that from the nature of it being notable as the only scar Dean has from being raised from Hell and later showing up during his sex scene with Anna that even if we don’t see the handprint, we’re meant to interpret it as continuing to be there for… well. The rest of his life, most likely. And that’s horrifying. The handprint is telling us two things when it shows up: one, letting us know that Dean’s resurrection was intentional and through a manner we as the audience don’t have the information to guess at yet. Anyone who watched the show airing, or watches it now without knowing about angels would have assumed demonic deal intervention as being the cause of Dean’s new lease on life, and this. handily. discards that theory. But secondly, it tells us that this resurrection was violating. All resurrections on Supernatural are.

We assume from Castiel’s line, you know the one, we all know the one, Mr. Gripped-You-Tight, that he’s the one who put it there. However, to then make a further leap that it was Castiel’s personal decision to do so is, I think, a misunderstanding of his role. Take that pin out now. Dean is not a person to Castiel at this point. They’re not friends. Dean is a tool for Heaven to use, a tool that should be honored and grateful to be picked up at all. Make no mistake: Castiel branded him for Heaven, not for himself. Castiel’s a ranchhand. They aren’t in the business of letting the cows run free if they look a little sad to be slaughtered later.

Castiel needs to start here for his arc to be as impactful as it is. He can’t begin rebellious. He has to learn how to doubt. He has to develop a personal friendship with Dean that threatens his allegiance to Heaven. He has to see Anna having chosen to fall rather than obey Heaven and to be betrayed by Uriel being so desperate that he’s turned to killing their brothers and sisters trying to find a way out from under Heaven’s control.

There’s another line I think gets misinterpreted a lot in this initial meeting. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?” On its face, easy bait for someone looking for shipping fodder, but that misses the actual point of the line. It’s a powerplay. We don’t learn until later why Dean wouldn’t think he deserves to be saved (aside from his general Winchester levels of self-esteem, but knowing that trait about him actually serves as a pretty good red herring to mask real reason Dean is thinking about himself as irredeemable now until the reveal. It’s not that Dean had a low opinion about himself in general, but that he tortured people in Hell and can never forgive himself for that.) , but Castiel does know. All of Heaven knows what Dean’s sin in Hell was. Without saying it, Castiel can remind Dean of it here. This line isn’t about Dean being so inherently good that Castiel had to rescue him. It’s about making sure Dean knows that the only way he can be ‘redeemed’ is through obedience to the heavenly powers who own his ass now. This is how he deserves to be saved. Because God commanded it. Because they have work for him.

And if he doesn’t bow? Then, as Castiel puts it in the very next episode, “I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.” This threat hanging over Dean’s head won’t go away for the rest of the season, not from Heaven. The only shift is that Castiel’s continued doubt and disobedience levels the playing field between them. They’ll both be punished, rather than Castiel taking on the role of disciplinarian. (It’s a really clever way of dealing with that power gap between them, actually. There’s always a bigger fish.)

The handprint and Castiel’s early conversations with Dean serve as a reminder of the precarious position he’s in. We shouldn’t take him ‘being saved’ at face value, no more than we should take Heaven being good just because they’re the angels in this equation as a given. Dean hasn’t been saved. He’s being used, just as much (if not arguably more) than Ruby is using Sam. (Because at least Ruby truly believes this is for Sam’s benefit, in the end.) And the worst part is how aware of it Dean is. How could he not be? His entire stint in Hell is defined by how Alistair used him. He’s just been handed off to a different owner, one that will still happily push him into the thing they ‘saved’ him from the minute it proves useful. Dean needing to torture Alistair reminds us just how little his circumstances have actually changed. He’s not allowed to say no to this.

So. The handprint is Heaven’s mark of ownership. It’s Dean’s status as their tool, their victim, burned into his flesh and inescapable. What does it mean when Anna places her hand over it?

I’ll lay my cards on the table. I’ve been thinking about this for so long because the aforementioned tendency to assume that the handprint is evidence for destiel means that the scene between Anna & Dean also gets lumped into being interpreted as more evidence for destiel. For over a decade, I have endured people joking about Anna being jealous of Cas for getting to leave a mark on their boytoy. And that’s one of the nicer things the Supernatural fandom will say about a woman who they perceive as a threat to their ship.

So, not to be rude or anything, but fuck Castiel. This ain’t about him.

This scene—It’s a lovely scene, a fantastic continuation of Dean and Anna’s previous conversation into the language of a sex scene—is about two people who have both been used and threatened by Heaven connecting over that shared trauma. Before, Anna gives space for Dean to open up about Hell, but he can’t, not yet, and though she knows what he’s gone through, she hasn’t been there herself. But when it comes to what Heaven has made of them, she does understand. It’s an incredibly vulnerable moment.

You make the handprint about Dean and Cas, and you erase what that scene is about entirely: the way Heaven’s abuse has tangled itself deep into Dean and Anna’s lives, into their bodies, and how they can resist it, if only for a few moments together.

The handprint was never about Castiel at all. It was about Heaven and its dehumanization of Dean.