Dean Is Bi - Tumblr Posts - Page 2
wow i keep finding all these subliminal messages in my day to day life.i wonder what they could possibly mean???
This bar from 10x02 is covered in flamingos, a symbol of gay pride. Jerry Wanek, I see you. And I love you so much.
“Happily for flamingo fans, the ‘70s were a carnival of schlock, and by the early part of the decade, the pink flamingo had become so un-cool, it was cool again—this time as a self-conscious symbol of rebellion, outrageousness and all things Bad Taste. By the time John Waters’ movie, Pink Flamingos, hit theaters in 1972, the bird had fully transitioned to the realm of ironic kitsch. Gay bars used them as mascots, transvestites sported them on earrings and platform pumps, and in 1979, students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison planted 1,008 of the two-legged creatures in the grass in front of the dean’s office, earning them—and the bird—a place in Wisconsin’s State Historical Society.” - (x)
Attachment Styles and Why ‘I Need You’ Can Mean More Than I Love You
At this point, I think we’re all familiar with the ‘I need you’ scene but I’d like to dust off my old undergrad psych degree and give you a character analysis.
In psychology, it’s generally agreed upon that a person’s relationships with their primary caregivers in childhood can impact how they react and behave in relationships later in life.
One way to look at this is through a person’s ‘attachment style’. If all goes well the parent and child develop a secure bond. However, for a number of reasons, this doesn’t always happen. When this doesn’t happen a person develops an insecure attachment style. They aren’t all relevant here, so I’m just going to go into what I believe Dean’s attachment style is. It’s important, I promise we’re circling back to ‘I need you’.
Judging by the way Dean acts throughout the show, I think he has an insecure-avoidant attachment style.
An avoidant attachment style is generally developed when a child’s needs aren’t met by their caregiver (looking at you, John Winchester). Parents of people with avoidant attachment styles tend to be dismissive of their child’s needs or emotionally distant.
To combat this, a child learns to look after their own needs. They become dependent on themselves. They try to build themselves into a person who doesn’t ‘need’ anybody because then they will never be let down. As a person ages, this core belief remains the same.
This rings true when thinking about how Dean generally raised himself and Sam while trying to turn himself into the human equivalent of a Swiss-Army knife. He tries to be a mother and father figure for himself and Sam while trying to be a soldier for John, a normal kid for people outside his family and later a ‘playboy’ when it comes to women. Heavy is the head that wears a thousand different hats, I guess. He has to be a million different things at once because he doesn’t want to rely on other people. He doesn’t want to need other people, because past trauma has taught him if he needs someone, they’ll let him down.
In adult relationships people with avoidant attachment styles typically fear intimacy, hence Dean’s ‘ladies man’ persona. He spends the early seasons getting with a lot of women but he’s had next to no intimate relationships across the show. There’s Lisa, possibly Cassie and of course, Cas. People with avoidant attachment styles tend to withdraw when a relationship starts to become too ‘real’ for fear of being dependant on another person when they have shaped themselves into a person who doesn’t need anybody.
So, when Dean says, ‘I need you,’ to Cas as someone who has been brought up with the core belief that he shouldn’t ‘need’ anyone, that ‘needing’ a person will lead to being hurt and rejected it means a damn lot, maybe even more than ‘I love you’.
One thing that I have genuinely been blindsided by during this spn viewing is how at times painful I’m finding it to watch Dean. His character is giving me an incredibly specific and precise flavour of grief that is exactly my recalled experience of being a closeted queer in the 00s/10s and it really is a lot!
I just do not think I was prepared for the fact that Dean is, by at least the fourth season, being written and acted as queer. Jackles is making Joices that simply must be seen to be believed, and the writers are putting words into his mouth that cannot be read as straight. Obviously you can argue that a lot of those words are queerphobically intended, and you can also question exactly … you know … what the hell Jensen was doing and if he was conscious of it, but the reading of Dean as queer is, if not inescapable, easily textually available to the viewer.
But at the same time, this was the 00s and early 10s, and … it’s sort of trite to say it was another era but it was another era, man. God. You knew being out was a possibility, because other people did it, but that was other people. You knew where the line was, and you could go up to it again and again, but you couldn’t just cross it, out loud, in public. And anyway, there weren’t the words. There were a lot of slurs, and a lot of shitty jokes, but there weren’t just words, really, that you could use about yourself.
And that’s so, so what’s happening with Supernatural. Dean is seeing queerness all around him, pressing himself as close as he can to it like a cat against a window, but he doesn’t let himself claim it. And other people can see queerness in him, and use it against him in often scary ways, but at the same time no one’s able to just name it for him. Because they can’t!
I’m halfway through season 7 right now, and as far as I can remember the last time anyone on the show used the word gay was the season 3 episode Bedtime Stories. And that was, of course, as a slur. That’s par for the course for a show during that era that wasn’t specifically about gayness, but I think it’s so interesting when you think about what Supernatural is: a show in which monsters must be named to be defeated. Sam and Dean know that a lamia is not a vampire is not a vetala. They have to be specific about what they’re dealing with, because when you know a creature you know how to destroy it. They name, and name, and name - but they won’t (can’t) name what Dean is. There are, again, no available words.
So Dean is stuck, and lost, and confused. He knows he’s a monster but he doesn’t know exactly what kind. What’s wrong with him?? No one will tell him. Why does he feel this way? The answer isn’t in any of the mainstream Western pop culture he consumes, and for someone who constructs himself through pop culture, that’s a terrifying blind spot. It’s all so familiar and so painful and I just want to go give him a big hug and then let him watch Our Flag Means Death. RIP Dean Winchester, you’d have loved 2023. Turns out you’re not a monster after all.
Happy Pride my loves!
the thing is that if you take each individual queer!dean moment in isolation you can look at them and go 'wow straight people are fucking oblivious huh' but if you zoom out a little and start looking at the whole picture there is very clearly a purposeful pattern happening there from the writing to the acting to the directing to the editing and i know these days it's a crime worthy of being dragged through the public square to say hey actually maybe the people working on the show supernatural knew what they were doing but um maybe the people working on the show supernatural knew what they were doing
something so ig fantastic about supernatural is that even tho i had decided to stay out of the fandom at around Season 13.
i had been dragged back in due to tumblr exploding.
THiTR SPNAU
¹Grymmid!Dean holds a special place in my heart like-
He’s so fun to write about!
Like he turns into a Boelen Python², which is fucking huge btw, and it totally freaks out Sam the first time he sees him shift, bc ‘wholly shit that is a bigass snake’.
But it’s just Dean with that derpy little look pythons have. And Zephyr eats it UP. Even though Grimics are reclusive (which makes Grymmids exceedingly rare), they know that as a species they are hardly likely to attack.
That's not to say he's not badass- bc he totally is!
Despite his derpy little face, he is a deadly efficient hunter, doubly so in his snake form.
He can hear demons from miles away due to low vibrations they emit. Angels emit higher vibrations, but they are strong, and it rattles his bones in a way that is most uncomfortable.
Regular monsters are no match for Dean, bc his reflexes are as quick as a pythons' and his grip is near impossible to escape with the way he constricts.
He also brunates!
When fall begins, he starts sleeping longer and deeper, depending on where in the USA they are. By November, he's waking up less, but a few hours can be coaxed out of him if they bury him in blankets and warm clothes.
And by the time December rolls around he only wakes up once every 48-36 hours to sip some water before falling back asleep.
Sam absolutely loses it the first time it happens, despite both Dean and Zephyr saying that it'll be over when the weather warms up.
Speaking of angels; let's mention one of our favorites: Cas!
While he doesn't get the chance to raise Dean from hell, he does get to meet the Winchesters and Zephyr.
Heaven sends him to spy on the brothers and help figure out what went wrong and how to get things Back On Track.
Zephyr and Sam are immediately suspicious of this rookie hunter that no one's heard of wanting to join them but Dean? Dean is takes to him instantly.
Ofc, it's just before brumation, so Sam sends him up to Bobby's so Cas doesn't notice him sleeping like the almost-dead all winter. The moment the frost melts, Dean is raring to go, and totally not because he's looking forward to see Cas again, nope!
Sam and Zephyr still don't trust him that much, but Dean still likes him just as much as he did before brumating, if not a little more.
As Dean sees it, Cas is warm like a perfect rock to sun on, he tastes like thunderstorms, and his voice is the most perfect thing he's ever heard. Who cares that he's probably a spy?
This leaves Zephyr and Sam baffled, because loverboy and Dean just don't correlate well together. It's to the point that Zeph flies back to Fearielynd just to ask the few Grymmids what is going on. (It's a Grimic thing)
Gabriel also gets to meet Dean, but his experience isn't as fun as Cas's.
The moment they get to the same town the trickster's in, Dean just shifts (higher ranking angels are loud, which gives humunoid!Dean headaches) without an explanation.
Poor Gabe gets his own just desserts from the 8 foot long python in the form of tricks and scares.
¹ Grymmids are half Grimic (a creature I created) and you can read about them here:
² Grimics look like snakes and function similarly, so I use snake terminology.
(for reference)