Aloha, cowboy

THE WINCHESTERS AS DEAN’S STORY: An untraditional video essay showing Dean’s physical and emotional state after the Supernatural finale.

Whether you’ve never seen The Winchesters, haven’t thought about it much in years, or know it inside and out, this should be watchable and understandable to you!

(This project is on AO3 here, as part of my Chuck Won meta series.)

——————

The Winchesters, as a prequel-sequel show, acts as a thematically consistent commentary on Supernatural. It explicitly brought SPN’s depths to the surface by spotlighting themes like found family being vital, cycles of intergenerational trauma needing healing, and real love triumphing over predetermined fate.

From episode one, Dean is framed as the show’s narrator and he has a voiceover in every episode. This means that The Winchesters is a story being told from his point of view. The show is Dean’s story in the sense that he’s telling it to the audience; but also, metatextually, it’s Dean's story in the sense that it’s all about him through mirroring and parallels.

I tend to fondly refer to The Winchesters as “The Dean Hall of Mirrors show” because that’s exactly what it is. While watching the adventures of John, Mary, Carlos, Lata and Ada—and the struggles they face—we can recognize they provide a secondary purpose of being commentary on Dean’s life. Through parallels, we learn more about the struggles Dean’s been facing since episode 15x20 of Supernatural. The Winchesters is a deliberate, repetitive condemnation of the false veneer of Dean’s “happy ending” in Heaven that some audiences took at face value. It tells us that he’s trapped. And the fact that the show’s plot lines culminate in Jack arriving to subtly threaten Dean back into “peace” is no accident.

Consider this a video essay, but in an untraditional format. Clips from the shows are interspersed to showcase their parallels and construct a full story, with no additional narration from me. Everything that I need to explain and everything that you need to understand is conveyed solely through dialogue and visuals from the shows themselves—demonstrating just how clear and cohesive the full picture is.

This video constructs an argument to show you (rather than tell you) this:

Chuck was not entirely defeated. Jack’s not okay. Dean and his family are trapped and fractured. And true freedom can only be achieved for all of them through speaking truths, trusting in real love, healing trauma, and breaking cycles of violence together.

Aside from a short opening and ending, this video has 5 chapters:

DESTIEL

JACK + DEAN

CHUCK WON

THE TRAP

THE PATH TO FREEDOM

The sections are designed to build upon each other.

As a (very optional) primer before you watch, a short breakdown of that is below.

This is a one time post we are making to be clear about something. We don't fuck with negativity and nasty comments, and we have both reached an age where we are not wasting our breath on defending or explaining anything we have written and posted for free on AO3 together.

If you leave a negative comment, a nasty comment, or basically use the comment section of one of our fics to bitch about what you did not like about the fic (why are you here? No one is forcing you to read), engagement stops there. You will be blocked and the comment will be removed.

Concrit on free fan works is a fallacy. Constructive criticism is part of a workshop process that happens BEFORE publication or posting, so all you are doing when you leave a rude comment on someone's work is writing a 1-star yelp review like the Karen you are.

misha m&g, the most interesting things they could remember:

first of: Misha was sitting in kind of a bubble of destiel fans, with the people to both sides of him using rainbow fans for most of the m&g,

after he sat down he was told that he was sitting on something,

he slowly pulls it out from under him and it's a bag that says "they're a set don't seperate" (i wanna add earlier in the day i had seen a person with a shirt that had that line over a green and blue heart),

in the little bag were two metal hearts that are intertwined but could be extracted from another, so misha tries and does that. While doing so he talks about having adhd and his habit of fiddling stuff when he used to read lines with an older lady back in the day,

he actually gets the hearts apart relatively quickly and people tell him, there is actually more in the bag,

so he pulls out a little piece of destiel art (it's like an almost kiss kinda drawing),

misha to the person who gifted that to him: "this is porn" pause misha: no it is not porn". Person who gifted it to him: "i do have porn. I can show you porn". Other person: "rob would approve" misha: "oh would he?" Same other person: "yeah. On his podcast... he is the [dedicated?] perv. Rich said that",

moving on to questions...,

the very first question was a destiel question (from a different person, but still right next to him), about what his favorite dean and cas moment was, "it can be destiel coded. Doesn't have to",

they had to elaborate for him what destiel coded means exactly. They defined it as a scene with dean and cas alone. Maybe involving some emotional intimacy. Someone named the mixtape scene as an example

misha starts talking about how it wasn't intentional for the longest time. Also talks about how the writers put some vague stuff into it, cause of fans reactions. At some point he joked that he probably is the person at the con that knows the least about the show, cause he only has seen bits of the show. Now when he said the writer thing, someone jumped in with "the writers probably watched the show". Misha laughs and says "actually i know some of the writers did not watch the show",

he keeps talking about how going back now seeing it with the confession scene knowledge it actually tracks, that one could see it even if it wasn't exactly intentional. He goes on to say some of the lines were actually quite gay. His example: "i gripped you tight." That does sound quite gay",

misha said he and jensen also played into it at times, going "haha i bet people will read into that",

Same other person from earlier mentions the change from script to scene of dean not saying "i love you", but "i need you". They also say they think that only made it gayer than if he'd have said "i love you" Misha answers: "I see. So there was no way... by trying to make it less gay he made it gayer." (Some more back and forth between him and the people around him). Then Misha says that when the "i love you" was in the script Jensen was like "come on guys, I might as well suck his cock then". misha also called it "dean's own confession of a sort". The same other person: "when he was on his knees?" Misha: "yes" same other person's face goes something like

misha mentions that in that scene they joked around between takes. People go "yeah we know". Misha is surprised it was on the gag reel. People go "the baby daddy one right?" Misha: "yeah". Same other person: "the one with the gesticulates the head pulling to the crotch thing Misha: "yeah... i thought that was a private moment.

he looked actually surprised that was on the gag reel, hides half his face behind his tea cup staring into the air for a few seconds.,

then he goes on with "here i was thinking i'm telling you something new nobody knows and you are all 'yeah we know. We watch it all the time'" ,

(I think then we moved on from destiel. There was some googling and info of that later by one person, but yeah...),

John would have to watch the tax accountant looking guy bring Dean tea in a honest to god porcelain teacup while he's researching a case. Quiet thank yous with bowed heads. Dean patting Cas' shoulder then do the Darcy hand clench. He'd have to watch as Cas heals his son with his wide palms and Dean gets all flustered. He'd have to watch Dean jump in front of guns for the angel who cannot be harmed like he's some sort of damsel in distress. He'd get a glimpse inside Dean's wallet while he pays for gas and see the printed out picture of Cas in a cowboy hat. Dean slipping in front of him and call Cas "sunshine" with no sarcasm behind it. He'd come back from the diner's bathroom to hear them deep into debating if ketchup's a vegetable. Cas' feathers in the Impala's trunk. Dean's mixtape in Cas' truck. Constantly texting. The staring. The handprint.

and spelled tracks with two x’s

after saying earlier in the season that knowing zeppelin songs is how his parents fell in love

if cas was tortured and brainwashed and attacked dean, beat him savagely, wrestled him to his knees, bloodied him, angel blade raised, dean wouldn’t fight back. he would gently grab his arm and say “this isn’t you. please. you’re family. I need you.”

and that would be enough to break through to him.

if dean was overcome by an ancient curse to be violent and attacked cas, beat him savagely, threw him across a room, bloodied him, pinned him to the floor, angel blade raised, cas wouldn’t fight back. would gently grab his arm and say “please stop.”

Mary: Not really, you had a crush on a little boy at your preschool

Dean, choking on his beer: what

Mary: *shrugs*

Dean: I was talking about angels being real?????

Hi SPN fandom, i made a very short survey to try and figure out the percentage of spn fans that ship destiel (just for fun and research purposes) and i'd love you forever if you could answer it and share!! The more people answer the more accurate the results :) This should go without saying but I need data from the whole fandom for this, not just my destiel bubble <3

Edit: I did NOT only post this on tumblr y'all, i know tumblr isn't an accurate representation of the whole fandom lol. Also, not trying to start, solve or prove anything, I made this at 3am because I was simply curious and like making surveys lmaoo