Oh I don't know how I missed this! Ty for the tag <3

Last song: Spotify says, The Eagles "Life In The Fast Lane"

Currently reading: It's been a while 😳

Last movie: I watched Parasite last night with my Mom!

Currently watching: Supernatural 😏

Currently craving: The the ability to focus on my work which I have been unable to do consistently for a long lone time 🙃

tagged : @mvdeanw ( thank you! 😍😍)

rules: tag 9 people you'd like to know better/catch up with.

last song: Willow, Champagne problems, the entire evermore album by Taylor Swift.

currently reading: Just started LOTR.

last movie: Atonement

currently watching: I'm rewatching Supernatural again. Currently on season 2.

currently craving: Ice cream!!!

tagging: @deanzupremacy @cacophony-of-notions @trekkiehood @deans-arie-edg @geminispiritnb @raina16 @squirrelsan @baby--spinach @prince-of-elsinore (I'm new to tumblr, so I'm just trying to reach out to you guys, make some new friends🙂🙂)

Hey I just wanted to say I read your…character study thing I guess? Your addition to the post about Dean and “Deancrits”. It was so thorough and well thought out. You apologized for the rant in the tags but that is one of the most interesting takes on Dean and his relationships that I’ve ever seen (probably because of the psychological aspects being touched upon and I am a major psych nerd). So, I guess I wanted to say kudos! That was awesome and SUCH an interesting read. Thank you for sharing!

It took me a minute to figure out what this was about because it's been a while, but I guess you mean this post? Well, I don't think many people read my addition haha, but thanks! I just think it's way more interesting to talk about why the characters have the issues they do than judge them for their actions, you know? Crit misses all of the actual interesting parts about Sam, Dean, and Cas by focusing on their negative actions instead of the dynamics and background that lead to those actions to begin with, and I think that's a damn shame because the underlying reasons are the most interesting part, and make the characters all feel so much more layered and multidimensional as they're supposed to be.

Dean is always eating because he rarely ate as a kid and always made sure Sam ate instead.  

Sam & Dean Challenge 2022 | June 14th | Do you have any Sam & Dean headcanon?

do you have a paypal or gofundme or anything like that?

i do have a paypal, it's [email protected]

as far as anything else goes, it's just been really difficult to...deal with or ask for help because it feels so futile and desperate at this point and the idea of putting anyone out and burdening friends/loved ones has been sort of unimaginable and riddled with guilt. hence why i haven't shared much of anything until it ended up stressing me too much and i let a few cracks show :/

thank you for asking and for your care, dear heart

Guys I’ve just made an absolutely insane discovery and I am losing my entire fucking mind

Ignorance of the environment that plays into Dean's trauma is a huge issue, and ignorance of trauma overall and the various responses to it is generally an issue all over Tumblr with multiple communities I have found when they talk about broken characters in various stories. However, my big issue with Dean crit blogs is that they pretty much universally hold Dean to different standards than they do Sam and Cas because they frame Dean as Sam’s father/mother and Castiel’s god, and in so doing, perpetuate Dean’s parentification. 

This belief in Dean’s authority through the parent relationship or Castiel’s worship is what leads them to title Dean as an abuser and not someone who is just... being a bad friend/brother when he is wrong. They see an imbalance of power, yet Dean is neither Sam’s parent nor a god. Crits often expect him to fill those roles then condemn him for (1) doing so inadequately and (2) being in the role to begin with. It is seen as entirely Dean’s responsibility to remove himself from these roles, when this is actually not possible if only Dean reframes his relationships. Dean does have to reframe the relationships for them to change, but if Sam and Cas and others in his life and the narrative itself do not also stop expecting Dean to fill those roles too, they will continue to be broken. Dean has recognized for a very long time that being expected to raise Sam severely damaged him and twisted his relationship with his brother. The problem is, he can keep recognizing it and trying to cast off those chains all he wants, but if Sam, for example, throws them back on by falling back into the role of a child when his own decisions backfire (at times even blaming Dean directly for his own unilateral choices), and/or expects Dean to take sole responsibility, the nature of the guilt associated with parentification means that Sam can actually suck Dean back into accepting responsibilities that should not belong to him and “doing better” at parenting instead of stopping, perpetuatating Dean’s trauma and Sam’s own (to the extent that Dean’s parentification has damaged both of them). The narrative itself also consistently throws these chains back on Dean as he tries to cast them off. See season 5′s “The End” for example, when Dean needs space from Sam, and is immediately punished for it by being shown a future where everything goes to shit because he didn’t love Sam hard enough. (Of course that isn’t the only message in the episode—the other message is that Dean is also better off with Sam, but the first message remains). 

Even Sam seeking Dean’s love and pride the way a child seeks a father’s is a form of parentification perpetuated... and I actually think it’s the more meaningful (and tragic) issue here. Sam spends the entire first half of the series struggling with the desire for Dean’s fatherly pride (jfc look at the season 8 finale for a great example of this) but at the end of the day, Dean is not Sam’s dad, and Sam also has to reframe his relationship with Dean and recognize when he is seeking something from Dean that Dean should not have to give or can’t. Your brother shouldn’t be the defining source of your self-esteem. It’s not Sam’s fault that he grew up framing Dean that way, just as it isn’t Dean’s fault that he was expected to fill that role from the age of four. But they both have to stop looking out of the lens of their childhoods, and that’s hard to do... and crits do not understand how to fix it. What they want, is for Sam to set boundaries, and Dean to have none. They want Dean to give as much as possible to Sam in terms of unconditional fatherly love and acceptance and pride (because they know Dean is the defining source of that for Sam), without also having fatherly authority. Basically, they want Dean to keep showing the “good” side of being Sam’s parent or Castiel’s god without the “bad”. This is, ultimately, why crits (and frankly, the narrative) can often be seen shaming Dean for setting boundaries after someone hurts him, while applauding Sam and Cas for doing so. What actually needs to happen, is that beyond Sam/Cas setting boundaries and Dean recognizing when he is falling into that role, Dean also needs to be allowed to set boundaries with Sam and Cas, and they also need to reframe how they perceive Dean! Dean needs to be allowed to tell his family that it is not his job to be their unconditionally loving nurturer who gives and gives and gives regardless of how he is treated, without being accused of being unloving or not filling his role by the narrative or being bossy or withholding love to get something. If you want to see how toxic SPN makes this entire dynamic, look at Bobby’s (who I love btw but this was fucked) screaming speech to Dean after he and Sam fight in “When the Levee Breaks”. Dean acts out in that fight with Sam by treating Sam as his child and mirroring their father, but then Bobby actually perpetuates Dean seeing himself as Sam’s father by shaming him for being a parent like John and telling Dean to be a better parent to Sam than John was, when the whole issue is Dean isn’t Sam’s father in the first place!!! Unfortunately, the narrative often perpetuates the idea that Dean needs to be the universal source of love and acceptance in the Supernatural universe, and when Dean’s trauma reaches a point where he consistently starts failing to be the sun (especially triggered by Mary’s multiple deaths), they also bring in Jack to further drive the point home that Dean isn’t loving enough to those who have sought out his light. At the same time, the narrative also suggests frequently that Dean needs to take charge and is bad and wrong if he doesn’t (the world is going to end if you don’t act, people will die, Sam will die, Cas will die, Sam and Cas will act unilaterally and it will backfire, etc)... but then is also bad and wrong when he does take charge because he didn’t do a good enough job and/or was perceived as bossy. 

The dynamic with Cas is in some ways even more fucked up than that, because Cas and Dean both seem to seek dual roles from each other that are unfair to one another. It’s incredibly hard to argue that Dean solely acts as a leader who lords over Castiel, when in many situations, Cas decides unilaterally what is best for Dean and then acts that out without consulting Dean at all—in fact, often in direct opposition to what he knows Dean would want. Dean sees Cas as someone he needs to protect at times, and at other times, he wants Castiel’s protection (the latter was more prevalent earlier in the series, when Castiel routinely did act as Dean’s guardian and had his full powers).  Castiel, meanwhile, sees Dean as this beacon of free will and treats Dean sort of like something to worship, but at the same time, is also prone to block out Dean’s voice and keep him in the dark. He doesn’t hear, he controls the means of communication, he leaves for days and weeks at a time... and in this way, there are actually colors of parentification and John Winchester in the relationship between Dean and Cas too... but it’s not just Dean being expected to provide unconditional love—the dynamic also reverses where it’s actually Dean seeking out Cas as a protector where maybe he shouldn’t, then becoming upset when Castiel shows him triggering shades of John’s abandonment and secrets. I think that since the beginning, Castiel has been kind of this revelation for Dean, of a person who has power and knowledge beyond what Dean himself posses, and cares about him and protects him, which isn’t something Dean had much experience with in his formative years. So Dean craved that, and in the beginning, Dean reacted to Cas as his guardian and Cas in turn reacted to Dean as someone who needs and desires his protection. It isn’t that Dean saw Cas as a father, but he did expect him to fill the role of protector, perhaps sort of in the ways that he wished John had. Cas was also okay with filling this role for the most part and wanted to fill it, beyond when Dean demanded more of his attention that Castiel felt he could give while managing other responsibilities. But then trust was broken between them, partly because Cas protected Dean from too much (a.k.a. kept secrets). In trying to mend the relationship, Castiel wanted to protect Dean more which meant he continued to try and protect Dean from information and make unilateral decisions about how to best protect Dean. This was all further exacerbated by Castiel’s waning powers. Castiel reacts to the loss of his powers from many angles which don’t all have to do with Dean, but the angle that does have to do with Dean, is that he’s afraid he can’t fill the role that he believes Dean wants him to fill as a guardian... and Dean responding to Castiel’s waning powers by trying to reverse the dynamic and protect Cas actually upsets Cas further because it threatens the guardianship dynamic that he believes is the cornerstone of their relationship, and pushes Cas further into this desire to protect Dean not just physically but also from basic information. It’s like a battle of wills with each party wanting to protect the other by taking charge, and they fall into this vicious cycle, and the spirit of John still somehow manages to look over it, especially in the later seasons. 

like I GET deancrit and I get that perspective but I can never truly get behind it at the end of the day, because if you just shifted supernatural a couple degrees to the left and gave tfw some stable external relationships outside each other this problem would be solved. the show demonstrates to the audience over and over again that actually when dean has stability, when he has people who will check his behaviour and tell him he’s being a dick when he’s being a dick, so much of the weird entrenched misery and nastiness in the tfw dynamic goes away. dean is not some arch-abusive villain who is destined to always be horrible. his maladaptive behaviours are, on the whole, relatively easy problems to solve that he ALSO wants to solve.

but then spn is like yeah but what if bobby died what if mary died what if they could never have a moment of peace what if every scrap of happiness dean manages to claw his way is taken from him what if these guys are single-handedly responsible for solving every dumbass supernatural problem that exists. “see these characters at their WORST” well okay I’ve seen that for ten seasons I don’t want that. that’s boring. I reject that

GOD I love how Sam in the pilot is like “I’m done hunting forever !!!!” then Dean shows up askin for help and 3 seconds later “okay fine but I’m gonna complain the whole time!!!” and then Sam has fun the entire hunt

“You ever been really hungry? I mean, haven't-eaten-in-days hungry?“ “Yeah.“

- Travis & Dean | 4.04

i'm OBSESSED with the way that sam has no idea who dean is or why that question might piss him off

#please could you be tender and i will sit close to you; let's give it a minute before we admit that we're through#this is beautiful#cassie#polina#i'm going to quote what vicky said about this because i love heartbreak#'i wish there was more content about his inhuman alien nature and how gentleness does not come easy to him'#'how his way of showing his love is sacrifices done in dean's name and never sticking around'#that's their whole tragedy#the tenderness inherent to dean that he too often has to bury isn't the natural default for cas#and that part of cas so willing to sacrifice is also an element of dean's worst fear#abandonment or that he is damaging to those he loves#it's so compelling and layered and sad#so many loved ones willing to die for him but who was willing to live with him#i'd rather have you

a question and an answer

(source) | (insp)

with love, from [x]

Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul. ~ Dave Pelzer

The fact that I can build a perfectly valid framework for the finale that Sam was actively being punished for being “selfish”.