#voicelesspointofview

(“Enchanted” is so good, it always makes me want to sing and twirl around like

)

Dean’s childhood (and subsequently, his life) is forever a source of anguish for me because he wasn’t born to be a hunter or a cipher or a soldier or to have his agency sublimated (and you could say that about many characters and about real life, too, it happens all the time, we become things through brokenness and trauma that aren’t always the path we were meant to take) - Dean was borne of love, and to a mother whose desire was to shield her family from the life that she’d witnessed. These are things true of Sam, as well, except Sam didn’t even get to progress beyond infancy without the shadow of hunting and John’s absent parenting hanging over them. Dean did get to be a little person first, he did get the comfort of lullabies and cuddling and tomato rice soup and a warm bed that belonged to him. And those formative things are enormously impactful - he KNEW the safety of home and softness, and then it was burned and ripped away from him, and suddenly he didn’t even get to be a child anymore, he was thrust into a world of violence where he had to be the caregiver to his baby brother because no one else was going to do it. They’ve both attempted the domestic thing and failed at it, but I think their reasons for grasping at it are quite different - it’s one thing to wish for something you’ve never had, and another to long for something you once knew. As brutal as Dean has the capacity to be, as hard as this life has made him, there’s always going to be that inner yearning for something and someone to hold onto, there’s always going to be that underlying core of compassion and depth of tenderness. (I’m always really moved to see his room in the bunker, even, and the fact that he has that small collection of photographs - I’m glad they returned to that and even had Sam taking account of them, because there’s such a simple humanity in that.) Dean’s very self-aware, and it’s good to see them recognizing parts of that, and I hope the boys keep having honest conversations about their issues and the damaged but necessary aspects of their relationship/existences. But the tender/vulnerable part of him that craves a home is always alive under the surface, even if it only exists in dreams and a vision of his heaven, it’s there.

This got away from me I mostly just meant to cry about his early childhood with you

*sobs*

I’ve started realizing that the way in which I examine/relate to him is incredibly skewed by my personal subjectivity, and therefore I really can’t say that I even do “understand” him, because who’s to say I’m right? it’s my intepretation and really important to me, but it might not be someone else’s (which is fine! art and fiction are up to each person to take in their own way). I’ve talked about him/my feelings about him a lot less frequently lately (to the point where I’ve almost felt weirdly like I was letting him down, since I used to be able to eloquently discuss it much more often on my other blogs?) because I’m feeling really protective about it. it’s been a decade (essentially) since he first crashed into my life, and that decade has been full of a lot of struggle for me. there’s a sense of constance with him because of that, he’s become such an intrinsic part of my being that I don’t entirely know who I would be without it - from how I would interpret other characters, to how I perceive my own heart’s attempts at bravery. even my presence on Tumblr would be completely alternate had his character not been the catalyst/reason for a lot of things. he may not be “real” in one sense, but in another sense, he’s a surviving part of me, or a part of why I’ve survived, and isn’t that the whole point of fiction to begin with? that it lives in us, and that it inspires us to be more (more loving, humane, courageous, bold, empathetic, etc). seeing compassion and bravery and tenderness (or even brokenness and self-loathing and the more painful things) in him (or any character I care about, it’s just Dean is…such a transcendent one, for a lot of reasons) helps me to study the reflection of it in myself.

so when you say, “are you even sure he is not a manifestation of an aspect of your inner world?” I can’t answer that, because while he as a character is not, the way I love and understand him is. that is an aspect of my inner world, irrevocably.

Ayan, that quote is absolutely gorgeous, and affirming somehow. my heart overflows that it made you think of me. ♥♥♥ light and bird imagery are etched onto my soul, I think - whenever I read quotes like this, they’re profoundly affecting.