The Over Meta-fying of Dean Winchester
I love all these Dean metas as much as the next guy, but I’m getting a little sick of this trend of turning absolutely EVERYTHING into angst.
It’s honestly starting to feel patronizing and dehumanizing the way every single one of Dean’s character quirks is being attributed to abuse. Dean is more than that. Like, look, I eat up drama too, but there comes a point where you have to take a step back and realize that sitting there and patting yourself on the back for being sooooo smart by making connections to someone's damages all day starts to turn into making that damage all that they are.
Just in a single day I've seen Dean's class clown tendencies, the way he eats, and the way he feels about prostitution all being attributed to abuse reactions. It's nowhere near just that, of course. This post has been building up for a long, long time.
All of a sudden Dean's not just an emphatic/sympathetic, stand-up guy that cares about women despite having no real female presence in his life-- He's just been through the same situation and is doing what literally anyone would do as a response. All of a sudden, Dean's not a joker that likes to laugh and can find humor in the darkest places as a great contrast to Sam-- he's just an anxiety-ridden social reject that can't get by any other way. He doesn't really believe these things, it's just a desperate scrabble to cope. All of a sudden Dean doesn't hunt for heroic, altruistic purposes- it's just a salve to his own hurt.
Just because you can think of a reason that a behavior might be connected to damage doesn't mean it's the case. You need to think about how all these opinions build up to a rounded, realistic human being. Few of them are intrinsically wrong individually, but when you pile meta on top of meta on top of meta, the picture you paint starts to get skewed...
I like to do stupid things just to see if someone will notice and laugh. You could easily attribute that to my anxiety and social difficulties, but that isn't really the case. Newsflash: I'm allowed to have benign personality traits. I would still be intact even if I hadn't gone through the hardship and mental disabilities I have. I am a living, breathing person. I'm capable of looking at my own life rationally, of not being utterly controlled by such things in every aspect of my existence. And so is everyone else.
You did notice that Dean took it upon himself to help those around him even before Mary died, right?
I just feel like people need to listen to what Dean is actually trying to tell you for once. I want people to consider that maybe he has a point. I want people to stop just going, "Well, I know better than Dean here, my poor repressed cinnamon roll!!!!" Stop acting like you don't have to listen to what people say because you've decided they're repressed. You sound like those gay!Dean tinfoil hats. Just because you have his best interests in mind doesn't mean you're immune to treating him poorly.
Stop not taking him seriously just because he has problems. Maybe, if Dean's saying the same thing over and over and over again, you should consider his words. Even if you don't agree with him.
People are being very all-or-nothing, too. Calling your Dad an asshole and having issues with him is not confirmation that he hit you, for fuck's sake. I would definitely call my Dad an asshole. I would and have had problems and bitterness with people that call him a "wonderful father". But that doesn't mean he's horrifically abused me, it doesn't mean I don't love him-- It just means exactly what I just fucking told you: He's an asshole. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’m not saying this is what Dean’s dad was like, but I am saying that people that actually know other people have more insight on them than you do.
Maybe people do consider this, but I’m just not getting the impression of it. I’m just not.
And I'm sorry, but this insistence on, this slash-conspiracist-esque obsession with prostitute!Dean is disturbing, quite frankly. All this "I JUST LOVE UNDERAGE PROSTITUTE DEAN FICS" is just... Why do you want to believe that so badly? Why does it excite you so much to believe that Dean has been abused in every way imaginable?