linndechir (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
linndechir) wrote2012-01-16 04:26 pm
linndechir) wrote2012-01-16 04:26 pm
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John/Dean meta
Warning: this post is a decidedly too long meta rant about John/Dean and why and how I ship them. If you don't give a fuck about Supernatural or John/Dean, or if the discussion of an incest ship makes you uncomfortable (how do you survive talking to me? ;)), you should probably just ignore this post. Maybe you should even ignore this post if you are interested in John/Dean, because this is seriously unfiltered meta vomit about me shipping a pairing that's supposedly unhealthy in a pretty healthy way. Haters can go hang out in Lucifer's cage. ;) So, yeah, incestuous meta vomit ahead. Don't say afterwards that I didn't warn you.
So, I have far too many feelings about John Winchester. He's one of my all-time favourite characters of all fandoms, somewhere up in the top ten and probably in the top five and maybe even the top three? Not sure, but I seriously adore him, and for some reason I can't stop thinking about him at the moment. I don't even know why, it's not like he's been dead for six seasons. -.- But I'm still not over him, and I hate how the show treats him in later seasons, but I don't want to get into that now. I actually wanted to write something about why I ship John/Dean so hard, and why I don't really like how most fanfic writers write this pairing. Before somebody jumps at me for generalising: this is not true for all fanfics out there, of course, but there is a tendency to portray this pairing in a certain way in the large majority of (consensual) John/Dean fics I have read, and that's what I'm talking about (I won't even bother with non-consensual John/Dean, because that's just OOC bullshit). That doesn't mean there aren't other fics who portray them differently (and, btw, if you have any recs, I'd be very happy to see them). Mostly, my point is that John/Dean is not your typical father/son pairing, and I don't think people do it justice when they just write it as such.
Thing is, many people tend to think that John had very different, but in their own way very "typical" relationships with both his sons. Sam is the rebellious son: the one who rejects his father's beliefs and plans for him, who rebels against his authority, who wants to live his own life and who eventually leaves to escape this overbearing father who constantly tells him what to do. Sam accuses John of wanting to control him when John thinks he's only protecting him, and John accuses Sam of being selfish and ungrateful when Sam just wants to make his own decisions. They have a typical unhappy father/son relationship, which is why I can't really ship them, no matter how fascinating I find their dynamics.
Now at first view John and Dean have an equally "typical" relationship, it's simply the other extreme. Dean is the "perfect" son: he's obedient, he wants to be what his father wants him to be, to the point where he tries to be exactly like John. He's "Dad's good little soldier". Dean doesn't question John's decisions, and he judges Sam for doubting John. There's nothing Dean seems to want more than to make his father proud of him. Sam tries to escape John's overbearing nature by rejecting him and refusing to meet John's high standards, Dean tries to deal with it by submitting to him and trying to be who John tells him to be. Many John/Dean fics I've seen so far seem to focus exclusively on this aspect of their relationship, which gets emphasised even more when that relationship turns sexual: Dean wants to make his father happy and proud, he wants to feel loved, he wants John to express his approval. And that automatically gives their relationship a pretty skeevy twist, because the whole encounter will inevitably be about what John wants (or rather what Dean thinks John wants), and not about what Dean wants. Now of course this makes sense, because that's exactly who Dean is: the guy who puts his own interests and desires aside, because the only thing that matters is his family, his brother, his father, not he himself as an individual. So of course the father/son dynamics, the part where Dean wants to make John happy and proud, play a huge role, and I don't blame any writer for focusing on it. It's important, and it's never not there. It's just not all there is.
Unlike with John and Sam, whose relationship really turns mostly around this father-son-conflict, there is actually a lot more to John and Dean. First of all, people tend to forget that it's not just Dean who's incredibly emotionally dependent from John – John depends just as much on Dean. John is a very strong man, but he's also very vulnerable. He's been through lots of shit: lost his wife, had to raise two little children on his own, while at the same time discovering that there are all kinds of supernatural monsters out there, one of whom killed his wife for no apparent reason, and he fears it might try to hurt his kids as well. Oh, and all of that is after he served in Vietnam, fun times. Now it's heavily implied that from the very beginning, Dean took care of John. Dean, this four-year-old, traumatised boy who lost his home and his mother, and he's already trying to be there for his dad. Dean, as a child, but also as a teen and an adult, has always taken care of John, and not just to gain his approval, but because John needed him. Dean was there to patch him up, both physically when John got wounded on a hunt, but also emotionally, when John was a mess, when he was hopeless and desperate and didn't know what to do. In a way, Dean was as much the emotional centre of John's world as John, together with Sam, was the emotional centre of Dean's world. John isn't this detached, cool, composed guy who looks from a high spot onto his devoted son who hero-worships him and would do anything for him. John relies on his son, leans on him, depends on him, needs him. He trusts Dean to take care of Sammy when John isn't there, he trusts Dean to have his back, he trusts Dean to take care of him. I don't think John ever showed much weakness to Sammy – sure, Sam has seen him drunk and sad, but I don't think Sam has seen him in his worst moments, because that's when Dean probably even tried to hide John's weakness from Sam. I don't think Sam ever realised the extent of John's pain, because that's something John tried not to show either of his children, except that he couldn't hide it from Dean like he hid it from Sam. Of course one might argue that this only adds to Dean's need to take care of his father in any possible way and makes the whole thing more abusive, but personally I think it balances things out a little.
I don't see John and Dean as a total imbalance where this one strong guy takes advantage of the emotionally dependent kid. I see it as a relationship that HAS, of course, a huge power imbalance, but it's still a relationship between two vulnerable people who depend on each other, and who allow themselves to be taken care of. John needs Dean's love and trust as much as Dean needs John's. John needs Dean to express his love as desperately as Dean needs John to do the same.
I think that's also one of the reasons why John could never deal with Sam questioning him – he relies on Dean to support him, to tell him he's right when he's questioning himself (because John is full of self-doubt, of wondering whether he's doing the right thing or not, and he needs Dean to make sure his doubts don't paralyse him). His eldest son gives him more strength, so it confuses and unbalances him when his younger son doesn't support him as well, but calls everything he does into question. In a way, John and Dean are very similar (and I never bought the whole "Sam is actually a lot more like John than Dean is", because I just don't think that's true; but that doesn't belong here). They're both incredibly strong-willed people who will endure any amount of pain for their family. But they can't do that on their own. They both need this family they're protecting to support them, to give them the strength to keep going. John may not be quite as dependent as Dean is, if only because he's older, because he used to have a normal life when he was young, but he still needs Dean a lot.
Secondly, as Dean grows older, as a teenager, but definitely when he's a young adult, I think the relationship between John and Dean gains a different dimension that the one between John and Sam could never develop, because Sam left when he was only 18 and still pretty much a child in John's eyes. It's a pity that so few fics deal with grown-up John and Dean, because I find their dynamics at that time incredibly fascinating. I've said before that John always relied on Dean, and I think that aspect becomes more important as Dean grows up. Dean becomes more and more a partner and a friend to John. Of course they're not equal partners – John is still very obviously in control, and when John gives him an order, Dean will obey without question. But they're still partners, partners who hunt together (and apart, which implies a HUGE level of trust and respect on John's side, to allow his son to go off on his own), grown men who basically spend their entire time together, 24/7, in the car, in motels, in diners, in libraries, working, eating, drinking, talking, watching movies ... They do everything together, even once Dean reaches an age when most young adults move out, when their parents usually become less central figures in their lives. John remains the focus of Dean's world at an age when Dean is too old to think of him just as his daddy. Dean is still John's son, of course, and that never stops being a huge part of who they are, but he also becomes more and more his partner and his friend.
Sam leaving probably only made this co-dependence stronger. Before, Dean's world turned around two people, but with Sam gone, out of reach, his everyday life is completely focused on John. No more Sammy to take care of, no more arguments to mediate between John and Sam. There's only work and John. And I really, really wish we would have got to see John and Dean during those four years they spent alone together. Sam's departure must have brought them even closer together because suddenly they were the only thing they had in the world. They both felt betrayed by Sam's departure, and that could only bring them closer to the person who did not leave them, but stayed. And even though John remains demanding and overbearing, and takes it for granted that Dean will always obey him, it can hardly have escaped him that Dean is not a child anymore, but an adult. And that changes something about their dynamics. To be honest, what always intrigued me about John and Dean is that I can honestly see them being friends, even if they weren't related. If it weren't for the family relation, I don't really see Sam (even hunter!Sam) getting really close to either Dean or John. But John and Dean? I can see them as BFFs hanging out and working together even if they weren't related, because I think they just get along. Part of that is of course due to the fact that Dean always wanted to be like John, liking the same things as John, but still, the result is that these two actually get along great. Put them together on a free day, and they won't argue, they won't be bored either. They'll watch a movie and go work out together and work on the car and make dumb jokes while they're at it and just enjoy being together.
I'm kind of losing my point in all this rambling. What I mean is this: of course the father/son dynamic and Dean's endless attempts to gain his father's love and approval play a huge part in their relationship, but I think it doesn't do them justice to reduce their relationship, especially when Dean is older, to that. I don't think Dean spent 24 hours a day thinking about how to make Daddy proud. I think Dean and John worked hand in hand very often, as partners who trust each other completely, who were on one level most of the time even if one of them calls the shots in case of disagreement. I think in all those years they spent hunting together, they must have had fun moments, relaxed moments of just being comfortable around each other. It just seems unrealistic to assume that Dean was on edge 24/7, that John was a demanding asshole 24/7, and as strict as John was, I doubt that he never let his boys relax for one minute (which is why Bobby's phone conversation in a recent ep pissed me off so much, I just can't for my life imagine John not allowing his kids to play – after the shooting practice, obviously ;)). I think there's just so much more to their relationship than just "Dean hero-worships John and wants to make him proud, by any means."
Which actually brings me to another issue I have with the common John/Dean interpretation: that Dean uses sex as a means to express his love, and in return to feel his father's approval. Now I just don't get that. Since I'm not in the "John is an abusive monster" camp, I cannot ever imagine John starting things, or even showing the tiniest sign that he might theoretically be interested. Ever. Initiating any sort of sexual contact would have to be Dean's doing, and as fucked up as these kids are, even Dean knows that wanting your father is not exactly normal. Therefore, I just don't see him doing this in order to gain John's approval. He should expect John to be angry at him, disappointed; if anything Dean should be terrified of making such a move because he'd expect to lose the love and respect John has for him, not the other way around. I don't see Dean starting this as part of his general attempt to be what his dad wants him to be, but despite his desire for John's approval. This is Dean taking a risk, Dean doing something he expects John to disapprove of. In a way, it's the complete opposite of Dean thinking that he has to please John sexually in order to gain his approval. To me it's the moment of Dean expressing his wishes, and even daring to choose his own desires, for just one moment, over what he thinks John wants him to do. I don't see Dean thinking, "Dad is lonely and maybe he'll feel better if I kiss him". I see Dean thinking, "I want to kiss him so badly that I will give it a try, even though he's probably going to be mad beyond words." It's the opposite of Dean being John's obedient little soldier. And similarily, John accepting this (reluctantly because this guy beats himself up about everything) is actually him accepting that there's something in Dean that is not what he wants him to be, but something that Dean wants.
Yes, I am aware of how warped this sounds. Then again any discussion of any incest pairing is inevitably warped. But my point is, I don't see John/Dean, especially if it happens when Dean is a bit older, as a particularly abusive pairing (while it's almost always depicted as more or less abusive or at least thoroughly unhealthy in fanfic). When I look at them, I can't imagine a father demanding such things from his son, abusing him, hurting him, using his son's dependence to coerce him. I see two equally wounded, vulnerable people who completely depend on each other in every aspect of their lives, who are at that point in their lives at least as co-dependent as Sam and Dean are later on, after John's death. It's a fucked-up pairing by normal standards, but I actually think it can be good for them, can make them happier, whole. Of course the fact that they're father and son breaks through, and I can definitely see how once they're in bed Dean would easily revert to his usual habit of trying to please John (with John probably not letting him, because he'd feel that this is a situation in which he should take care of Dean), but I can't see Dean's desire for John's approval at the origin of any sexual relationship between them. It just doesn't make sense to me.
That's why, as hot and kinky as John/young!Dean may be, I find this ship so much more fascinating when Dean is a young adult, shortly before Sam leaves and even more so after Sam left. And even years later, if we go AU and John somehow comes back. Because their relationship goes beyond mere father/son dynamics, it's so much more complex than that, and the older Dean gets, the more these other aspects will come into play. But they're there even when Dean is still a teenager. Because from the very beginning on, he's not just John's kid, but John's partner, John's right hand. Dean is the one who supports him and keeps him going, the one John trusts. So I have trouble with fics who reduce them only to these "John relies on Dean to obey him, and Dean wants to make daddy proud" dynamics. It may work nicely for kink meme fills, but not for fics that are actually supposed to show the real dynamics of their relationship. Also, how the hell does anyone think that even someone as fucked in the head as Dean would assume that Daddy would be proud of his son for hitting on him? Seriously.
I'm sorry for this long rant, but I just needed to get all this off my chest. I feel like I've read just about every consensual John/Dean fic on the planet, and there are maybe two or so in which I'm completely happy about the characterisation. For the record: I'm not attacking anyone who writes them differently than I would, we all interpret characters and pairings differently. I'm not saying all those fics are bad. I'm just saying that I don't like most fics I've seen so far all that much because I just happen to disagree with these interpretations. So, no need for anyone to feel offended. :)
Also, now I really want to write John/Dean fic, and I so do not have time for that. I need to go work on my translation of that bizarre text in which birds freeze in the air and drop dead to the ground and then some guy is describing his own birth. Being a translator = reading weird shit that you'd never read otherwise. Just, what? Although it's not quite as weird as the other text with the oddly sexualised description of the body of some girl who just killed herself ... why am I doing this again? Right, because I have no skills other than my knowledge of several languages.
So, I have far too many feelings about John Winchester. He's one of my all-time favourite characters of all fandoms, somewhere up in the top ten and probably in the top five and maybe even the top three? Not sure, but I seriously adore him, and for some reason I can't stop thinking about him at the moment. I don't even know why, it's not like he's been dead for six seasons. -.- But I'm still not over him, and I hate how the show treats him in later seasons, but I don't want to get into that now. I actually wanted to write something about why I ship John/Dean so hard, and why I don't really like how most fanfic writers write this pairing. Before somebody jumps at me for generalising: this is not true for all fanfics out there, of course, but there is a tendency to portray this pairing in a certain way in the large majority of (consensual) John/Dean fics I have read, and that's what I'm talking about (I won't even bother with non-consensual John/Dean, because that's just OOC bullshit). That doesn't mean there aren't other fics who portray them differently (and, btw, if you have any recs, I'd be very happy to see them). Mostly, my point is that John/Dean is not your typical father/son pairing, and I don't think people do it justice when they just write it as such.
Thing is, many people tend to think that John had very different, but in their own way very "typical" relationships with both his sons. Sam is the rebellious son: the one who rejects his father's beliefs and plans for him, who rebels against his authority, who wants to live his own life and who eventually leaves to escape this overbearing father who constantly tells him what to do. Sam accuses John of wanting to control him when John thinks he's only protecting him, and John accuses Sam of being selfish and ungrateful when Sam just wants to make his own decisions. They have a typical unhappy father/son relationship, which is why I can't really ship them, no matter how fascinating I find their dynamics.
Now at first view John and Dean have an equally "typical" relationship, it's simply the other extreme. Dean is the "perfect" son: he's obedient, he wants to be what his father wants him to be, to the point where he tries to be exactly like John. He's "Dad's good little soldier". Dean doesn't question John's decisions, and he judges Sam for doubting John. There's nothing Dean seems to want more than to make his father proud of him. Sam tries to escape John's overbearing nature by rejecting him and refusing to meet John's high standards, Dean tries to deal with it by submitting to him and trying to be who John tells him to be. Many John/Dean fics I've seen so far seem to focus exclusively on this aspect of their relationship, which gets emphasised even more when that relationship turns sexual: Dean wants to make his father happy and proud, he wants to feel loved, he wants John to express his approval. And that automatically gives their relationship a pretty skeevy twist, because the whole encounter will inevitably be about what John wants (or rather what Dean thinks John wants), and not about what Dean wants. Now of course this makes sense, because that's exactly who Dean is: the guy who puts his own interests and desires aside, because the only thing that matters is his family, his brother, his father, not he himself as an individual. So of course the father/son dynamics, the part where Dean wants to make John happy and proud, play a huge role, and I don't blame any writer for focusing on it. It's important, and it's never not there. It's just not all there is.
Unlike with John and Sam, whose relationship really turns mostly around this father-son-conflict, there is actually a lot more to John and Dean. First of all, people tend to forget that it's not just Dean who's incredibly emotionally dependent from John – John depends just as much on Dean. John is a very strong man, but he's also very vulnerable. He's been through lots of shit: lost his wife, had to raise two little children on his own, while at the same time discovering that there are all kinds of supernatural monsters out there, one of whom killed his wife for no apparent reason, and he fears it might try to hurt his kids as well. Oh, and all of that is after he served in Vietnam, fun times. Now it's heavily implied that from the very beginning, Dean took care of John. Dean, this four-year-old, traumatised boy who lost his home and his mother, and he's already trying to be there for his dad. Dean, as a child, but also as a teen and an adult, has always taken care of John, and not just to gain his approval, but because John needed him. Dean was there to patch him up, both physically when John got wounded on a hunt, but also emotionally, when John was a mess, when he was hopeless and desperate and didn't know what to do. In a way, Dean was as much the emotional centre of John's world as John, together with Sam, was the emotional centre of Dean's world. John isn't this detached, cool, composed guy who looks from a high spot onto his devoted son who hero-worships him and would do anything for him. John relies on his son, leans on him, depends on him, needs him. He trusts Dean to take care of Sammy when John isn't there, he trusts Dean to have his back, he trusts Dean to take care of him. I don't think John ever showed much weakness to Sammy – sure, Sam has seen him drunk and sad, but I don't think Sam has seen him in his worst moments, because that's when Dean probably even tried to hide John's weakness from Sam. I don't think Sam ever realised the extent of John's pain, because that's something John tried not to show either of his children, except that he couldn't hide it from Dean like he hid it from Sam. Of course one might argue that this only adds to Dean's need to take care of his father in any possible way and makes the whole thing more abusive, but personally I think it balances things out a little.
I don't see John and Dean as a total imbalance where this one strong guy takes advantage of the emotionally dependent kid. I see it as a relationship that HAS, of course, a huge power imbalance, but it's still a relationship between two vulnerable people who depend on each other, and who allow themselves to be taken care of. John needs Dean's love and trust as much as Dean needs John's. John needs Dean to express his love as desperately as Dean needs John to do the same.
I think that's also one of the reasons why John could never deal with Sam questioning him – he relies on Dean to support him, to tell him he's right when he's questioning himself (because John is full of self-doubt, of wondering whether he's doing the right thing or not, and he needs Dean to make sure his doubts don't paralyse him). His eldest son gives him more strength, so it confuses and unbalances him when his younger son doesn't support him as well, but calls everything he does into question. In a way, John and Dean are very similar (and I never bought the whole "Sam is actually a lot more like John than Dean is", because I just don't think that's true; but that doesn't belong here). They're both incredibly strong-willed people who will endure any amount of pain for their family. But they can't do that on their own. They both need this family they're protecting to support them, to give them the strength to keep going. John may not be quite as dependent as Dean is, if only because he's older, because he used to have a normal life when he was young, but he still needs Dean a lot.
Secondly, as Dean grows older, as a teenager, but definitely when he's a young adult, I think the relationship between John and Dean gains a different dimension that the one between John and Sam could never develop, because Sam left when he was only 18 and still pretty much a child in John's eyes. It's a pity that so few fics deal with grown-up John and Dean, because I find their dynamics at that time incredibly fascinating. I've said before that John always relied on Dean, and I think that aspect becomes more important as Dean grows up. Dean becomes more and more a partner and a friend to John. Of course they're not equal partners – John is still very obviously in control, and when John gives him an order, Dean will obey without question. But they're still partners, partners who hunt together (and apart, which implies a HUGE level of trust and respect on John's side, to allow his son to go off on his own), grown men who basically spend their entire time together, 24/7, in the car, in motels, in diners, in libraries, working, eating, drinking, talking, watching movies ... They do everything together, even once Dean reaches an age when most young adults move out, when their parents usually become less central figures in their lives. John remains the focus of Dean's world at an age when Dean is too old to think of him just as his daddy. Dean is still John's son, of course, and that never stops being a huge part of who they are, but he also becomes more and more his partner and his friend.
Sam leaving probably only made this co-dependence stronger. Before, Dean's world turned around two people, but with Sam gone, out of reach, his everyday life is completely focused on John. No more Sammy to take care of, no more arguments to mediate between John and Sam. There's only work and John. And I really, really wish we would have got to see John and Dean during those four years they spent alone together. Sam's departure must have brought them even closer together because suddenly they were the only thing they had in the world. They both felt betrayed by Sam's departure, and that could only bring them closer to the person who did not leave them, but stayed. And even though John remains demanding and overbearing, and takes it for granted that Dean will always obey him, it can hardly have escaped him that Dean is not a child anymore, but an adult. And that changes something about their dynamics. To be honest, what always intrigued me about John and Dean is that I can honestly see them being friends, even if they weren't related. If it weren't for the family relation, I don't really see Sam (even hunter!Sam) getting really close to either Dean or John. But John and Dean? I can see them as BFFs hanging out and working together even if they weren't related, because I think they just get along. Part of that is of course due to the fact that Dean always wanted to be like John, liking the same things as John, but still, the result is that these two actually get along great. Put them together on a free day, and they won't argue, they won't be bored either. They'll watch a movie and go work out together and work on the car and make dumb jokes while they're at it and just enjoy being together.
I'm kind of losing my point in all this rambling. What I mean is this: of course the father/son dynamic and Dean's endless attempts to gain his father's love and approval play a huge part in their relationship, but I think it doesn't do them justice to reduce their relationship, especially when Dean is older, to that. I don't think Dean spent 24 hours a day thinking about how to make Daddy proud. I think Dean and John worked hand in hand very often, as partners who trust each other completely, who were on one level most of the time even if one of them calls the shots in case of disagreement. I think in all those years they spent hunting together, they must have had fun moments, relaxed moments of just being comfortable around each other. It just seems unrealistic to assume that Dean was on edge 24/7, that John was a demanding asshole 24/7, and as strict as John was, I doubt that he never let his boys relax for one minute (which is why Bobby's phone conversation in a recent ep pissed me off so much, I just can't for my life imagine John not allowing his kids to play – after the shooting practice, obviously ;)). I think there's just so much more to their relationship than just "Dean hero-worships John and wants to make him proud, by any means."
Which actually brings me to another issue I have with the common John/Dean interpretation: that Dean uses sex as a means to express his love, and in return to feel his father's approval. Now I just don't get that. Since I'm not in the "John is an abusive monster" camp, I cannot ever imagine John starting things, or even showing the tiniest sign that he might theoretically be interested. Ever. Initiating any sort of sexual contact would have to be Dean's doing, and as fucked up as these kids are, even Dean knows that wanting your father is not exactly normal. Therefore, I just don't see him doing this in order to gain John's approval. He should expect John to be angry at him, disappointed; if anything Dean should be terrified of making such a move because he'd expect to lose the love and respect John has for him, not the other way around. I don't see Dean starting this as part of his general attempt to be what his dad wants him to be, but despite his desire for John's approval. This is Dean taking a risk, Dean doing something he expects John to disapprove of. In a way, it's the complete opposite of Dean thinking that he has to please John sexually in order to gain his approval. To me it's the moment of Dean expressing his wishes, and even daring to choose his own desires, for just one moment, over what he thinks John wants him to do. I don't see Dean thinking, "Dad is lonely and maybe he'll feel better if I kiss him". I see Dean thinking, "I want to kiss him so badly that I will give it a try, even though he's probably going to be mad beyond words." It's the opposite of Dean being John's obedient little soldier. And similarily, John accepting this (reluctantly because this guy beats himself up about everything) is actually him accepting that there's something in Dean that is not what he wants him to be, but something that Dean wants.
Yes, I am aware of how warped this sounds. Then again any discussion of any incest pairing is inevitably warped. But my point is, I don't see John/Dean, especially if it happens when Dean is a bit older, as a particularly abusive pairing (while it's almost always depicted as more or less abusive or at least thoroughly unhealthy in fanfic). When I look at them, I can't imagine a father demanding such things from his son, abusing him, hurting him, using his son's dependence to coerce him. I see two equally wounded, vulnerable people who completely depend on each other in every aspect of their lives, who are at that point in their lives at least as co-dependent as Sam and Dean are later on, after John's death. It's a fucked-up pairing by normal standards, but I actually think it can be good for them, can make them happier, whole. Of course the fact that they're father and son breaks through, and I can definitely see how once they're in bed Dean would easily revert to his usual habit of trying to please John (with John probably not letting him, because he'd feel that this is a situation in which he should take care of Dean), but I can't see Dean's desire for John's approval at the origin of any sexual relationship between them. It just doesn't make sense to me.
That's why, as hot and kinky as John/young!Dean may be, I find this ship so much more fascinating when Dean is a young adult, shortly before Sam leaves and even more so after Sam left. And even years later, if we go AU and John somehow comes back. Because their relationship goes beyond mere father/son dynamics, it's so much more complex than that, and the older Dean gets, the more these other aspects will come into play. But they're there even when Dean is still a teenager. Because from the very beginning on, he's not just John's kid, but John's partner, John's right hand. Dean is the one who supports him and keeps him going, the one John trusts. So I have trouble with fics who reduce them only to these "John relies on Dean to obey him, and Dean wants to make daddy proud" dynamics. It may work nicely for kink meme fills, but not for fics that are actually supposed to show the real dynamics of their relationship. Also, how the hell does anyone think that even someone as fucked in the head as Dean would assume that Daddy would be proud of his son for hitting on him? Seriously.
I'm sorry for this long rant, but I just needed to get all this off my chest. I feel like I've read just about every consensual John/Dean fic on the planet, and there are maybe two or so in which I'm completely happy about the characterisation. For the record: I'm not attacking anyone who writes them differently than I would, we all interpret characters and pairings differently. I'm not saying all those fics are bad. I'm just saying that I don't like most fics I've seen so far all that much because I just happen to disagree with these interpretations. So, no need for anyone to feel offended. :)
Also, now I really want to write John/Dean fic, and I so do not have time for that. I need to go work on my translation of that bizarre text in which birds freeze in the air and drop dead to the ground and then some guy is describing his own birth. Being a translator = reading weird shit that you'd never read otherwise. Just, what? Although it's not quite as weird as the other text with the oddly sexualised description of the body of some girl who just killed herself ... why am I doing this again? Right, because I have no skills other than my knowledge of several languages.
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Also, I keep having episodes of Supernatural ruined for me by my John-related feelings, so many pointlessly out-of-character-seeming remarks about him. Stop resenting him, Dean, and grow the hell up. Maybe your childhood was stolen from you but John wasn't responsible for that. You were happy, Dean, you were. You have the suckiest way of coping with grief. /my own personal John feelings crazy.
re: weird source material for translations, I know exactly what you mean. The symbolists are total whackjobs. I'm frequently stuck trying to translate poems which hinge on sexual puns and have to decide whether to be crudely explicit or massively prudish. I go for crude every time. ;D So, um, be thankful it's only birds and birthing for you this week? Haha.
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I hate how SPN later on talks about John, how they make even turn Dean against John, which just makes absolutely no sense and I try to ignore it as much as possible, it's so OOC. It can really ruin the episodes when they have Dean complain about John for strictly no reason. It's just cheap drama to make him look even more sad, as if Dean's life wasn't tragic enough without making his father look bad. Personally, I find it way more tragic that he lost the father he adored than that his father didn't love him in the first place. It bothers me even more that they also did it to emphasise how important Bobby was to Sam and Dean - as if Bobby couldn't have been an important father figure without making John look bad. And those random little bits of information, all of which are about how John was mean and cruel and unloving? Can't we, for once, get some nice memory of John? Something sweet that he did for his kids? Moments in which Dean just fanboys John? It pisses me off so much.
Haha, yes, at least I don't have to think about weird sexual puns in these texts, lucky me. ;) Just really bizarre metaphors that make no sense in the original and make even less sense in the translation.
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Just kidding. ;-)
I wish I had some way to get you the testimonial from a father about his sexual relationships with his two young adult sons from Boyd McDonald's legendary Straight to Hell anthologies of true gay sex tales. These anthologies are legendary for the sheer range and variety of experiences documented, although of course one can't be sure they're all true. But they are refreshingly transgressive, completely filthy and unabashedly politically incorrect. I own approximately seven of the 10 volumes in print.
Having read these books, and having had gay friends for over 30 years, I can honestly tell you that your rant is more plausible than you could ever imagine.
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The part that I diverge on a little bit is the idea that John would have no interest in Dean before Dean initiated contact. The way I read John is that he's a very internally withdrawn person, who wears his anger and strictness as a mask for confusion and vulnerability. You hit on that really well, but we came to two equally valid but nonetheless different conclusions as a result of that. For me, I think that it's very possible that John felt something for Dean that resembled a romantic/sexual attraction, but being the single-minded man that he is, it was repressed so quickly that he barely, if at all, had time to realize it. It started coming forward subconsciously, in leanings and subtle twitches, things that Dean wouldn't consciously register as romantic/sexual but subconsciously it unlocks a similar urge in him, something he might not have realized before or might have mistaken for something else. The back and forth goes on, becoming a little more overt over time, until there's a moment that they look back on and realize that it had just grazed that line. Now you get conscious realization, denial, active repression, delicious awkwardness, until one of them - probably Dean, for reasons that you pointed out - tests the water again. At that point it's not a shock, it's a relief. And of course, you have to ask yourself afterwards if it's worth the risk and if you care about the consequences or what it implies about yourself, but getting over that hurdle to realize that you love someone is difficult in a lot of other situations as well.
The great thing about John and Dean is that they live this life of aliases and lies already. Who's to say they didn't travel across the country introducing themselves to people as a couple instead of father and son. The freedom of anonymity is a wonderful thing for relationships like this (in fact, the John/Dean series I'm writing now centers on this idea).
Dean, I think, is really good at compartmentalizing as well. He's never going to forget that John is his father, but I think he can separate "dad" and "John", and similarly John can separate "son" and "Dean", which makes this a little less morally disturbing for them; provided either of them has a strong moral belief in the first place, which I don't seem to get off either one of them as much as I get it off Sam.
I'm sort of a closet expert on brother-couples, but this is the first time I've thought extensively about this kind of intergenerational incest, so it's interesting to me to see other people's viewpoints on it next to my own. Sorry for the rant! <3
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Actually, I think we almost agree on pretty much everything. Maybe I wasn't clear, but I didn't mean that John would have absolutely no interest in Dean before Dean started that, I just meant that John would never allow himself to show it. I can very well imagine John having more inappropriate thoughts about Dean, but I think he repressed that as well as he could and if anything would just be double careful not to show it to Dean, ever. He'd drown in guilt just for thinking about that. So, yes, I do think that John might have very well been interested in Dean before Dean ever made a move, but he would have made sure that Dean doesn't notice. (On that note: another one of my pet peeves in fanfic is when people treat John's attraction to Dean as nothing but a projection of his love for Mary. Makes me rage and hit the back button faster than I can say "fuck no!")
I do think they both compartmentalise a lot, yes, if only because on a hunt they have to think of each other as capable partners, not as the father or son you want to protect. As I said, there's just so much more to their relationship than the father/son aspect.
I have a weird thing for crossgenerational incest (brothercest, too, but somehow those ships are usually a little less wraped), and a lot of those ships are seriously fucked in the head (in the best possible way ;)), but John/Dean always struck me as surprisingly healthy, considering the circumstances. Thanks for reading my rant. ^^
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I've done a couple father/son ships in the past but it's always been veiled in mythology where they aren't biologically related so much as they are related by influence, belief, core of power, etc. This is the first genetic father/son ship I've had. I sort of saw the potential for it a bit with Howard and Tony Stark, but other than that I haven't pinged on anything else. I poked around your Tumblr and I see we have quite a few fandoms in common (I'm moderntrickster, by the way). Any other ship recommendations in that regard?