SPN Fic: The Human Factor

[dodger_winslow]

Okay, this one kinda went the weird way around the block before it got here.

I started out writing a SPN_500 Challenge ficlet just cause I was bored, and this notion appealed to me in a much longer applications, but I didn't really want to go as angsty as it wanted to be in a longer form, so I thought I'd give her a whirl in the 500 words or less

Comments

[tsuki_no_bara]

i like how matter-of-fact dean is about having to puke - just "pull over" and then "sorry." i imagine killing your first demonthing, especially after it's gone back to looking human, would be really difficult. john's justification, that it had to be done because she'd killed a lot of people and would keep doing it, sounds like something dean would say later on, if sam had a problem killing something. very dispassionate and pragmatic.

i'm not sure i buy john telling dean he's proud of him, altho i think dean killing the thing without complication or fuss is something john could respect, and i believe john WOULD be proud of him, i'm just not sure how often he ever said it. i'd buy it for this being dean's first time, tho. also i can kind of see john admitting sam couldn't have done it - i don't doubt he trained them the same but i can imagine john seeing different strengths in his boys, and sam's strength wasn't really killing things, not like this.

[adelheide]

Agreed. I think John would be proud of Dean, but I don't think he would verbalize it. I think John relied on a lot of non-verbal communication. But I think the tone and Dean's actions were spot on.

[dodger_winslow]

I see John's communications as both non-verbal and misdirective, as well as often emotionally constipated. Which is a bit where he is in this, too ... saying "I'm proud of you" when what he really means is "you did the right thing." And equally saying "I can trust you, I always could" when he really means "I've loved you since you were born, boy; and even when you were five, you were my little man and I've never failed to notice that, even if I don't often say it

[adelheide]

John's nod of acknowledgement about Dean having to puke rings very true for me. He didnt' give Dean a hard time about it. He understood the reason and let Dean be. That was very John.

And yes, I can see him saying one think when he really means another. But I don't think Dean heard the words enough, which is why his need for John's approval (almost desperate, when we first met him) strikes me as the behavior of someone who never got a lot of verbal approval. That and Dean's inability to put value and importance on his own life tells me that he didn't hear the words. John may have been behaving in a way that John thought was supportive and yes, males are much more non-verbally communicative, but hearing the words are important, too. And I don't think Dean did.

[starhawk2005]

Very nice. I love how at first, you have the reader thinking Dean is her saviour. And then we find out she's the 'bad guy', running from John. Lovely stuff.

[dodger_winslow]

Thank you. How hard would it be, for someone as protective as Dean is (in particular), to take a victim under his arm with them trusting him to protect them, and then have to pull the trigger. That seemed like the breaker for Dean to me. He can off ghosts all day long an never lose his crackster demeanor. But having to kill someone who is terrified and thinks they're being hunted (which they are) and has no idea what they are before they lose their fur and end up running through the woods in their birthday suit? That would be a killer.

[starhawk2005]

How hard would it be, for someone as protective as Dean is (in particular), to take a victim under his arm with them trusting him to protect them, and then have to pull the trigger

Yeah, I imagine it would be very very difficult emotionally. Especially early on, before he's become fully hardened to the reality that some 'baddies' might be more 'innocent' than one might have expected. But as John points out, she can't be allowed to live, or many more innocents will die. I imagine that thought helps both of them sleep better at night.

[dodger_winslow]

One of the fascinating psych dynamics of Dean is where, exactly, John's "logic" -- or his own, for that matter -- helps him sleep better at night; and where it is something he understands in his head, but that still screws with his gut in a "justify it all you want, she was still looking to you for protection and you whacked her" way.

So where his balance line is between those 2 is always the line I'm looking to define. And the only thing I'm sure of on that is that the line he fronts in his Deanishness is not the one that exists below all the tough-guy facade. Which, of course, is why we all love him so fuckin much. :D

[smilla02]

I'm strangerly fascinated by John and Dean relationship right now (and congrats, yours is the first fic in this fandom I've read) and I guess the more the subject is controversial the more I sink my teeth into it.

Anyway, your story is beautiful, it has a sort of economic quality to it, a paradoxical quiteness that makes the horrors of what is happening more vivid, herthbreaking. It shows in their brief conversation, punctuated by Dean's curt replies. Brilliant.

[dodger_winslow]

Thanks so much. I'm jazzed to be your ambassador to SPN fanfic. There are some amazing writers working in this fandom -- moreso than any fandom in which I've been involved, and I've been involved in a buttload of them.

I'm fascinated by the John and Dean dynamic, too. I love the complexity of it from both sides of the coin.

If you don't mind me asking: Smilla ... a reference to Smilla's Sense of Snow or something else? Just curious. :D

[smilla02]

I'm sure there are, but in all fandom there is a starting point, right? ;)
I was holding back reading fic in this fandom, limiting my involvement to meta, but now there is no stopping me. Even if seeing the mass of fic, asking for recs will be an imperative.

Yes, about Dean and John relationship, so complex and layered and every time I think this is it something new makes me question my previous assumptions. This characters are intellectually challenging. I'm so in love.

And squee! Are you a fan of Peter Hoeg? I'd marry that men, I so love his writing, the first person - stream of consciousness. Admittedly he is not the only one who writes like this but he takes major kudos for creating one of the few female characters that (literally) kicks asses.

Also, friending, hope you don't mind (not much going on right now in term of Supernatural) but I'm trying to carve my little niche.

[dodger_winslow]

LOL. Guess my assumption was correct then, yes? :D I'm not a huge fan of either first person nor stream of consciousness on the usual, but Hoeg does it so well I kinda have to read him anyway, and am always well rewarded for my willingness to stray outside the box of my normal tastes. Neil Gaiman does that for me with fantasy, too. I'm SO not a fantasy girl, but for him? I'll except.

And friend away! I can't see how anyone can object to friending. It boggles me. I'll mutual us, post haste. And if there's anything I can do to help in the niche carving, gimme a holler. Anyone who's into the complexity of the John and Dean relationship AND meta is my kind of flister

[ficwriter1966]

This is all the comments you've gotten on this piece? Wow. That's just...wrong. It's spare, it's gorgeous, it pushes all the right buttons.

And...hee...it's so much like "Love Means." (Without my having read your story until just now. Separated at birth, is what we are!)

I plan to rec this fiercely.

[dodger_winslow]

Thanks so much for your rec on this. It's great fun to see it being read again, as I wasn't very hooked into the fandom when I wrote it, so I know there are many who've never seen it.

And absolutely on LOVE MEANS. This was exactly what it reminded me of ... your John playing this same dynamic in a way unique to your John, as compared to mine. But very much about the same thing, and handled in the same way.

And for me, this one is actually a pretty dramatic break in style just because it is so spare. Not normally the way I lean, but this one just seemed so stark in content, I felt it needed to be stark in articulation as well.

[strangevisitor7]

I loved the quiet balance of the relationship you created between Dean and John. I agree that John has given Dean verbal and non-verbal support. Most likely, not often enough. But I like the idea that the support is not always obvious to us looking in but is obvious to Dean.

That goes back to the whole Devil's Trap vs. IMTOD when John say he's proud. Dean sees the whole situation not just the words.In DT, I always felt that the words didn't fit the situation like they did in IMTOD and Dean recognized that.

I really enjoyed reading the discussion associated with this story. I think is speaks to the quality of your story that it touched off such a serious evaluation of the John & Dean realtionship. I am married to a very stoic guy so maybe I see the quiet strength differently. But is was always obvious to me that John loved his kids and gave them what emotional support he was capable of providing.

[dodger_winslow]

That is one of the things I see in the John and Dean relationship that I also think gets missed by much of the fandom: the fact that DEAN gets what John feels for him and doesn't say to him, even if Sammy doesn't. They have a very particular and unique relationship based in mutual need and intense love tempered by a shared, catastrophic loss. They are their own unit of two: something no one else will ever be allowed to join or ever fully understand, including Sam. But that doesn't mean they don't get it, because they totally do.

I know what you mean about being married to a stoic guy. I often feel those who really get the quiet strength dynamic have known someone with that personality trait, and had to deal with the screwed up ways you have to deal with it, or get around it, or just accept it for what it is. But it is one of the things I love most about men; and invariably, the men I've known who are like that are people I end up loving, even when I want to clock them upside the head with a frying pan.

[strangevisitor7]

But it is one of the things I love most about men...even when I want to clock them upside the head with a frying pan.
It sounds like you know my husband ;) Seriously, I love that too. It seems very manly without being emotionally cutoff. You just have to know what too look for in more subtle ways. Trust me, I know my husband would die for me, he doesn't have to say it.

I think this is why I refuse to read the "John is a drunk or John is a bastard stories"