#sam studies

[lilyflxwers]

nothing hurts me more than s9 e7 of spn ‘bad boys’, john letting dean be punished for stealing bread, absolutely no child steals bread unless they’re hungry and they don’t know when their next meal is. the fact john leaves him there long enough to get a taste of normality and then arrives on the night of his prom, you cannot tell me that john winchester didn’t know full well that it was an important night for little fifteen year old dean. he turns up right as dean is about to leave. not in the morning or after it’s happened but the second that dean was about to experience being a teenager, all dressed up smart, ready to just be a kid, you cannot tell me that that was merely a coincidence. and you can see the second dean realises that this has all been a fucked up lesson about never getting attached. and him seeing sam hanging out the back window and knowing if he doesn’t sacrifice his childhood then sams will be sacrificed in its place.

[torturedpoetemotions]

People miss the point about Dean's interaction with Marta the post office lady in 14x13 so hard and it's FRUSTRATING.

No, it's not a reversal of the running gag about older women finding Sam attractive (which is gross anyway because it usually involves playing his obvious discomfort at being touched without consent for laughs). It is also not just Dean trading on his looks and flirting to get what he wants.

The point is to illustrate a significant difference between the brothers!

Specifically how they interact with the community of Lebanon, and what that says about their characters.

At this point in the show, Sam and Dean have now lived in Lebanon for like, six and a half years. And yet Sam approaches this woman like he would approach any stranger or witness in any random town in the country. And she reacts to him like any witness would to a strange man asking questions--with caution and some level of suspicion. It is incredibly clear that they don't know each other at all, despite how long they've been living in the same community.

But Dean knows her! And not just by sight and in passing. He's on a first name basis with her! He asks about her grandson and she readily answers! She knows his first name, too! They very clearly have an established report and have talked many times, enough times for her to have complained to him about her "spoiled little jerk" of a grandson!

This scene establishes that Dean is a known entity to at least some of the people of Lebanon. A known and LIKED entity. Trusted, even! He has truly put down roots there in a way that Sam has not, despite them living there for the same amount of time. He's bonded with people he sees regularly. He has little interactions with them offscreen all the time. That tells us something about Dean as a character!

And if it's a reversal or play off of anything, it's 1x11 (Scarecrow) when Dean fails to convince a couple who is in danger to let him fix their car so they can leave town sooner. Dean assumes (incorrectly IMO) that it's because HE specifically comes off to "normal people" as abnormal and dangerous, whereas Sam would be able to convince them with just a sincere look. In reality, of course, it probably has more to do with Dean being a total stranger, with no obvious credentials for car-fixing other than his word, in an unfamiliar place, than it does any inherent quality of Dean himself.

Because the key is, Dean isn't putting in any special effort in either scene. The way he approaches the couple is a contrast to how he usually handles cases. There's no costume, no subterfuge, and no alias. He isn't trying to fool either the couple in 1x11 or Marta in 14x13 into liking and trusting him. He's just being himself and telling the truth in both scenes (maybe not ALL the truth, but the essential basics). It works on Marta because she already knows and likes him. It doesn't work on the couple because he's a stranger to them.

So in 14x13 (and at other times in the show too) we see that Sam is not any better with people than Dean, especially when he makes no effort. He in fact gives off somewhat alarming vibes to strangers when he doesn't present with some kind of subterfuge that engenders immediate trust (i.e. being an FBI or insurance agent). (Think of Amelia's initial reaction to him in season 8 for example.) And this is true even for people who have almost certainly seen him around before, in the town he's lived in for over half a decade.

And the fact that he has made no effort to get to know his neighbors is telling in itself. Sam isn't any more automatically trustworthy to regular people than Dean unless he puts in specific effort to be. Costumes and aliases, fake credentials, even that specific face and voice he uses to talk to witnesses are all effort he has to put in. And that effort is not something that comes naturally to him or occurs to him outside of the context of a case. (I think we also see in season 6 exactly how much conscious effort those things require of him, given that without a soul he not only lacks personability but is downright impatient with and insulting to people.)

It's actually Dean who's good at building bonds, establishing casual report, and eliciting trust from people. And moreover, it's Dean who thinks to make the effort to do so. Sam is better at leading hunters specifically, but that's a whole different story and meta.

[cascigarette]

mary wants to be forgiven. sam wants to forgive her.

[casboobs]

sam's drawing skills going from this in home (s1 e9) :

to this in bedtime stories (s3 e5) :

will never not be funny because there are two possible explanations implied:

1) he sucks at drawing in general but he's specifically very skilled at drawing trees

2) being good at drawing was part of his psychic abilities and so when he lost those his ability to draw well vanished too

[angelsdean]

no but really it's funny sam thinks dean is john 2.0 when s1 dean is just. content to take on random cases and help save some people and is trying to do some good w/ the hand he's been dealt and isn't all that interested in his father's revenge quest and up until then has always had to play the mediator and swallow down his own feelings and anger. while sam's the one who quickly becomes obsessed w/ revenge the minute he loses jess and finding the thing that killed her and is quick to anger. "you're more like him than i'll ever be" "i'll take that as a compliment" "you can take that however you like" etc etc

[queerstudiesnatural]

you are sam winchester and everyone you love ends up dead because of you. your mother burns on the ceiling. your girlfriend burns on the ceiling. your college friends were puppets planted there for you. the people underneath the demons are long gone. your brother stabs your childhood friend. you get reunited with an old flame. she chokes in front of you. a gift to you. a message to you. you are responsible for your loved ones dying. you meet a hunter and she gives you hope that you could build something real and lasting, but she is killed and you know it was your fault. she would have been fine if she hadn't met you. she comes back and gets taken away again. you're destined to kill the one person who's ever understood you in your entirety with no judgment. you still think about jessica. your hell is right here you are cursed to kill and kill and kill.

you are dean winchester and your loved ones keep killing themselves for you. they die and they die and they die and it's all for you. not just because of but for you. offerings of devotion that make you want to repay the favor but you keep springing back up like a grotesque clown in a box. your curse is to keep on living and living, carrying them within you. an altar stained with their sacrifice. an obscene fire sustained against your will by the corpses of your loved ones.

[castielsparkle]

☆ ...on siblings & safekeeping & secrets-kept

☆ supernatural 5x02 - good god, y'all | dexter 6x12 - this is the way the world ends | supernatural 4x20 - the rapture | dexter 1x01 - dexter

please do not tag as 'ship' - this is not intended as such so fans of that please dni, thank you

[destiel-wings]

I was reading this thread on twitter and it made me think about how Sam humanizes the monsters and sees more in shades of grey, whereas Dean, especially in the early seasons, has more of a soldier mentality, which is John's. He can't afford to see grey as Sam does, he was taught that monster = bad, and that needs to be true to justify the horror of "killing things". He can't consider the possibility that mosnters might be victims or might be anything other than bad, because otherwise his whole beliefs system would crumble. And what they did (killing them) would be wrong. And (maybe even) worse, JOHN would be wrong. BAD even, for teaching their kids to do so.

So i think it's even more interesting that the one who does see the world in shades of grey is Sam, the rebellious child, and the black sheep of the family. The one with demon blood, who embodies the key (for Dean too) to understand that monsters aren't always evil, and morality isn't always black and white, which is something that s2 starts to delve into, with John leaving Dean the burden to kill Sam if it becomes necessary.

Dean's choice at the end of the season is the stark opposite, not only does he save him instead of killing him, he trades his own life, paying with an eternity in hell, just to bring him back.

And this marks a big point for Dean in terms of understanding morality and making up his own choices on what HE believes is right and wrong, despite what John taught him. He starts making his own choices, seeing the world in more shades of grey, and following his own heart.

[spn-fanfic-reblog-writes]

So, apparently Dean and Sam might have high functioning depression

[annmariethrush]

Sam claiming that John is why they (read: he) turned out “all right” instead of understanding/acknowledging that Dean was personally responsible for him being raised successfully is so fucking devastating. And then Dean at the end of the episode pointing out that he is the one who is there for Sam and will be the one to keep him from going off the rails???

[lilyflxwers]

i find it fascinating how differently john treated sam and dean. he tried to take both of their futures and was only successful with dean, does that speak to their characters? or does it speak to the focus of johns abuse? i mean. dean and sam were kids when john started to abuse and neglect them BOTH, but dean was a little older, took more of a caretaker role. which you see a lot in abused kids. dean knew a life outside the neglect, sam didn’t. did dean stay in the life because he wanted john to love him again or did he stay out of familiarity? if it’s all sam knew then why did he leave? it’s interesting that sam, the kid who knew nothing BUT neglect managed to leave, however temporary the leave was. sam got out. until he didn’t. the way they shadowed sam and johns lives was so interesting, everyone thought sam was out of that life and then at the last minute, just before he graduated college and got married, he was dragged back into the life as a mirror of john.

[torturedpoetemotions]

The thing is, Sam is at his best when he's a freak with no plan. Driving the Impala into a haunted house? Smearing blood on his face to hide from Samhain? Taunting Artemis? Etc. etc. etc.

[bisaster-energy]

Sokka Tells Toph a Secret + Screencaps of the Only Winchesters That Matter

[angelsdean]

god the offhanded mention of the violation dean knows hell to be from first hand-experience is really...big oof. once again society IF dean ever got to have proper hell trauma arc. it hurts so much knowing he dealt with all that pain and torment alone

this bit is also interesting seeing soulless sam just ready to hand the guy over to crowley with very little evidence, while dean is like, "no we gotta make sure," debunking the fanon misconceptions that dean is a trigger-happy indiscriminate killer who acts first and thinks later. dean here is the moral compass. and dean is often the one to say "wait hold up lets think abt this / make a plan" while sam is often the one acting impulsively.

[solarmidnight]

Dean's aversion to physical exercise in the later seasons, to my memory, is him being played against Sam as being "lazy", but I have a feeling it goes deeper than that.

As we know, John was pretty harsh and unyielding when it came to training his sons for the life of a hunter. He'd have put them through all sorts of military training from being able to fight hand-to-hand, weapons handling, and running half marathon. The first season shows how well they can scale fences, jog long distances, and fight, just to prove how "badass" these guys are.

But what if Dean had hated it the whole time?

He hated fighting, running, the whole shebang - but he did it all because that's what John expected of his sons, and Dean wanted to earn his praise.

This ended up making him look like the "perfect" son and soldier to Sam, whom we know deeply resented Dean for it. The two of them get pitted against each other in fights, and because Dean is older and more physically developed, he wins more often than not, fuelling Sam's resentment because we know John would be the first to point out every single flaw he sees.

The two of them would have kept it up, though. Kept to the regimes just in case. Sam may have stopped for a while during his Stanford years, but Dean didn't; he had to stay sharp, ready, and he was hunting with John for a while before he went solo entirely.

But then John dies, and Dean just...stops. It's a good excuse as any. He does what he needs to stay in shape, but he doesn't stick to the highly militaristic regimes of his childhood.

Meanwhile, Sam develops a love of exercise and healthy eating because it's entirely under his control now. He gets to choose what exercises he does and when, he gets to choose what he puts into his body because he has more autonomy now than he did as a child.

I reckon this also coincides with Dean slowly letting his nerdy side come out. Loving Star Trek and cowboys and Scooby-Doo, and LARPing.

John is dead. Sam and Dean are safe.

[fandomtrashhh]

Genuinely not to be a Deancrit at all, but I'm seeing a post going around about how Dean never treated Sam like a freak because of his demon powers and that Sam was projecting and yeah, maybe if we're talking about season 1 & 2 Sam and Dean than that's mostly true, but what most of us mean when we talk about Dean treating Sam badly about the demon stuff is moreso season 4. The show framed the demon blood as an addiction, yet everyone shit on Sam for it when they should have been trying to actively help him instead of shaming and insulting and berating him. He needed support and no one gave that to him but Ruby, which is PRECISELY why he turned to her and chose her over Dean. Anyone would have in his situation. Like Dean literally said "It's not what you're doing, it's what you are" and "If I didn't know you, I would want to hunt you." I understand Dean was under a lot of stress and he was concerned for Sam, but that's not okay to say to someone who's suffering from an addiction and who's getting manipulated by someone close to them and made to genuinely believe they're doing the right thing. Again, I love Dean with my whole heart, but saying he never shamed Sam or treated him like a freak is not true.