the men don't know, but the little girls understand
If you've been hanging around this LJ for any length of time, you probably know that I am generally that scourge of fandom, the OTP shipper. I have spent endless hours writing stories and essays, obscenity-laced rants and squee-filled panegyrics about the various pairings I've shipped over the years.
Then there was Firefly, and I didn't really have an OTP (beyond Mal/Serenity), so much as an OTC (one true character) - I can and will read and write Mal paired with River, Kaylee, or Zoe (though my preference, in the end, is Mal/Kaylee, but it's not a really strong preference - I don't get the "Oh no, Mal belongs with Kaylee!" feeling when I read Mal/River, for example), and I can deal with Mal/Inara if it conforms to my beliefs about the ship (about which I have expounded at length, which you can read if you click on the mal/inara tag on my sidebar).
And now there is Supernatural. And I certainly started out OTC about Dean, even though devildoll and hwmitzy were betting on when I'd write my first Wincest (it took me three months, btw), because I have a history of writing incest ships (see, it wasn't incest that SPN broke me for, so much as it was everything else *snerk*), though generally speaking those have all been hetcest.
Anyway. I didn't really buy the incest in season 1 (and I still don't buy it pre-Stanford), though I read and enjoyed quite a bit of the fic. Season 2 has made it a lot easier for me to see and to write, and emotionally, I am pretty OTP about Sam and Dean, in the sense that while I don't mind short-term love interests, I don't want anything long-term on the show, because I don't want anything, in the end, to detract from the primacy of their relationship.
You would think this would make me a crazy hardcore OTP shipper. In fact, every few days, luzdeestrellas asks me, "Are you sure you're not OTP about Sam/Dean? ... How about now? ... Now?"
And I reexamine my feelings, and the weird thing for me is that I'm not. I'm not used to that, but I really am not. And the way I know this is that while I don't want something long-term to appear on the show, I can easily conceptualize a happy future for them with wives and children, and I actually really want them (or, technically, I really want Dean, even more than Sam, but more on this below) to have that. I still think they will be exceptionally close and I still want them to be saving people and hunting things, but I like the idea of them having families beyond just the two of them, and a home somewhere to come back to.
And there are any number of reasons I've tossed out for why this might be so (obviously, it just is -- you either feel a thing or you don't, and any reasons I give are simply rationalizations after the fact, or possibilities that have occurred to me to explain something that really has no explanation, and obviously, this is all about me and my feelings, and how I see the characters and their relationship, and YMMV etc.):
1. I really, really like Dean/women. I also see him as pretty much straight and not into sex with guys, so that gives me two hurdles to overcome - the incest taboo and his disinterest in gay sex.
1a. I really want Dean to have kids of his own, because I think he'd be an awesome Daddy (the practical/economic concerns notwithstanding)
2. I really, really want Dean to have something that is not Sam. That isn't shared with Sam, or part of Sam, or involved with Sam, but is Dean's. Sam had Stanford, he had Jess, and yeah, it was taken from him, but now he's chosen to remain with Dean. I feel like Dean has never had a choice, so if it's going to be Dean/Sam forever and ever amen, I want him to choose it knowing what he's giving up. (And yes, I realize that the way Dean is constructed, he almost can't not choose Sam, regardless, but that just makes me want this more strongly. That also doesn't require that he chooses to have sex with Sam. I love Sam, I do, but I love Dean more. So.)
2a. I like Wincest best when it is borne of desperation and in the moment, yes (and also when it is just something they do, and not the subject of endless discussion about their relationship); but if someone is positing it long-term, then I really want them to still have outside lives - I don't think the people who know them now would approve (I do not get the fannish desire to have John or Bobby know and approve. But whatever. Not my thing. Mileage varies. Yada yada.), but in future? I don't know. I would like to think there would be some kind of support network for them to have, friends, co-workers (hunters, or, perhaps, friendly law enforcement types), civilian allies etc., and if they speculated and placed bets that the Winchester brothers were *ahem* closer than most brothers, that'd be fine as long as nobody ever talked about it. But they'd have friends. They wouldn't be so fucking alone anymore.
3. I think that regardless of wives or girlfriends, that neither Sam nor Dean will ever love anyone else the way they love each other (so, yeah, okay emotionally OTP). This does not mean that any SOs would be less loved, just loved differently. Love is not finite. It doesn't have a cut-off point, like, you can only love two people and then, sorry, tapped out. Obviously, as the show has stood the past two seasons, and probably in season 3, there is no room and no energy for them to love anyone else fully, because there are all those extenuating circumstances, and they are so isolated and don't really have anyone else they can turn to. So I am not all, "but if Sam has a wife, he'll love Dean less!" or "Sam can't really love a wife because of how much he loves Dean, and it's not fair to her!" Because that's just dumb. (Otoh, it does mean I think any woman who got involved long-term with either of them would have to have her own thing going on, because yeah, it's kind of a package deal, in some ways, and she'd have to understand and accept being second, but that's workable in my imagination.)
This is where I get all, "Don't cross the streams!" I can read Wincest where they are together forever and ever amen, and I can read them having families and kids and loving wives (and yet are still together a large portion of the time), but I cannot read both scenarios at once where there is sneaking around/cheating/etc. because I have a huge adultery squick (yes, adultery/partner betrayal squicks me way more in this instance than incest. Obviously, mileage varies.) and that makes me think less of characters I love, and why do I want to do that? (Obviously a threesome relationship where they are involved with each other and the same woman *cough*Faith*cough* would also work for me, but then there wouldn't be the betrayal that squicks me so.)
4. I don't want to privilege any sexual or romantic relationship over the brotherly relationship they already have. If they have sex, they have sex, but I really dislike it when they get mushy and conventionally romantic. It doesn't feel true to me. And in some of the Wincest stories I read, this totally happens, and I am like, the whole thing that makes their relationship so fucking fascinating is that they are brothers. So privileging the sex/romance over that really doesn't work for me. Again, mileage varies.
5. Even if they are in a sexual relationship, I am just. I know I said a big long thing about partner betrayal and adultery up there, but um. I am totally okay with Dean still sleeping with women occasionally, and I think for the most part, if the sexual relationship were established, Sam would be okay with that. Sam knows how much Dean loves him and what Dean is willing to do for him; no random hook up on the side is going to approach that, and Sam knows that. I think it's the emotional and not the sexual that would trigger Sam's possessiveness/jealousy, which is why he's sort of mostly amused and indulgent of Dean's ... proclivities. (And possibly not averse to joining in should the occasion, er, arise.) Which isn't to say I don't think Dean could and would be faithful. I just. I really like thinking reading about him having sex with women. *cough*
This is where I start thinking in terms of Achilles and Patroclus, or Alexander and Hephaistion. There's Briseis and Polyxena, Hippolyta and Iphigenia, but there's only one Patroclus, you know? And everyone involved knows it. And I am surprisingly okay about that, and I think, the way I see Sam, he mostly would be too. Possibly I am projecting. Heh.
Crazily enough, all of this goes right out the window if Sam is a girl. I am completely, insanely, ludicrously hardcore OTP about Dean/girl!Sam (so you know, whenever you are feeling oppressed and alone in fandom, think of me in my insanity. Hi.). Possibly because I've spent so much time figuring out how that would work and why, and falling completely in love with the girl version of Sam as I write her, and also, god help me, I think it's the hottest thing pretty much ever, because, as I've said a million times, you get the intensity of Dean/Sam with the incredible incendiary hotness of Dean/girl.
So anyway, as of today at least, I'm not crazy OTP about Sam/Dean, the way I know a lot of people are. I kind of wish I were, because I think it'd make writing the kinds of stories I am most comfortable and happiest writing a lot easier than it currently is in this fandom. I enjoy reading and writing Wincest, but I can and do read and write them with other people and enjoy that a lot, too.
Ask me again next week -- it could change. Anything could happen. *g*
~*~
Then there was Firefly, and I didn't really have an OTP (beyond Mal/Serenity), so much as an OTC (one true character) - I can and will read and write Mal paired with River, Kaylee, or Zoe (though my preference, in the end, is Mal/Kaylee, but it's not a really strong preference - I don't get the "Oh no, Mal belongs with Kaylee!" feeling when I read Mal/River, for example), and I can deal with Mal/Inara if it conforms to my beliefs about the ship (about which I have expounded at length, which you can read if you click on the mal/inara tag on my sidebar).
And now there is Supernatural. And I certainly started out OTC about Dean, even though devildoll and hwmitzy were betting on when I'd write my first Wincest (it took me three months, btw), because I have a history of writing incest ships (see, it wasn't incest that SPN broke me for, so much as it was everything else *snerk*), though generally speaking those have all been hetcest.
Anyway. I didn't really buy the incest in season 1 (and I still don't buy it pre-Stanford), though I read and enjoyed quite a bit of the fic. Season 2 has made it a lot easier for me to see and to write, and emotionally, I am pretty OTP about Sam and Dean, in the sense that while I don't mind short-term love interests, I don't want anything long-term on the show, because I don't want anything, in the end, to detract from the primacy of their relationship.
You would think this would make me a crazy hardcore OTP shipper. In fact, every few days, luzdeestrellas asks me, "Are you sure you're not OTP about Sam/Dean? ... How about now? ... Now?"
And I reexamine my feelings, and the weird thing for me is that I'm not. I'm not used to that, but I really am not. And the way I know this is that while I don't want something long-term to appear on the show, I can easily conceptualize a happy future for them with wives and children, and I actually really want them (or, technically, I really want Dean, even more than Sam, but more on this below) to have that. I still think they will be exceptionally close and I still want them to be saving people and hunting things, but I like the idea of them having families beyond just the two of them, and a home somewhere to come back to.
And there are any number of reasons I've tossed out for why this might be so (obviously, it just is -- you either feel a thing or you don't, and any reasons I give are simply rationalizations after the fact, or possibilities that have occurred to me to explain something that really has no explanation, and obviously, this is all about me and my feelings, and how I see the characters and their relationship, and YMMV etc.):
1. I really, really like Dean/women. I also see him as pretty much straight and not into sex with guys, so that gives me two hurdles to overcome - the incest taboo and his disinterest in gay sex.
1a. I really want Dean to have kids of his own, because I think he'd be an awesome Daddy (the practical/economic concerns notwithstanding)
2. I really, really want Dean to have something that is not Sam. That isn't shared with Sam, or part of Sam, or involved with Sam, but is Dean's. Sam had Stanford, he had Jess, and yeah, it was taken from him, but now he's chosen to remain with Dean. I feel like Dean has never had a choice, so if it's going to be Dean/Sam forever and ever amen, I want him to choose it knowing what he's giving up. (And yes, I realize that the way Dean is constructed, he almost can't not choose Sam, regardless, but that just makes me want this more strongly. That also doesn't require that he chooses to have sex with Sam. I love Sam, I do, but I love Dean more. So.)
2a. I like Wincest best when it is borne of desperation and in the moment, yes (and also when it is just something they do, and not the subject of endless discussion about their relationship); but if someone is positing it long-term, then I really want them to still have outside lives - I don't think the people who know them now would approve (I do not get the fannish desire to have John or Bobby know and approve. But whatever. Not my thing. Mileage varies. Yada yada.), but in future? I don't know. I would like to think there would be some kind of support network for them to have, friends, co-workers (hunters, or, perhaps, friendly law enforcement types), civilian allies etc., and if they speculated and placed bets that the Winchester brothers were *ahem* closer than most brothers, that'd be fine as long as nobody ever talked about it. But they'd have friends. They wouldn't be so fucking alone anymore.
3. I think that regardless of wives or girlfriends, that neither Sam nor Dean will ever love anyone else the way they love each other (so, yeah, okay emotionally OTP). This does not mean that any SOs would be less loved, just loved differently. Love is not finite. It doesn't have a cut-off point, like, you can only love two people and then, sorry, tapped out. Obviously, as the show has stood the past two seasons, and probably in season 3, there is no room and no energy for them to love anyone else fully, because there are all those extenuating circumstances, and they are so isolated and don't really have anyone else they can turn to. So I am not all, "but if Sam has a wife, he'll love Dean less!" or "Sam can't really love a wife because of how much he loves Dean, and it's not fair to her!" Because that's just dumb. (Otoh, it does mean I think any woman who got involved long-term with either of them would have to have her own thing going on, because yeah, it's kind of a package deal, in some ways, and she'd have to understand and accept being second, but that's workable in my imagination.)
This is where I get all, "Don't cross the streams!" I can read Wincest where they are together forever and ever amen, and I can read them having families and kids and loving wives (and yet are still together a large portion of the time), but I cannot read both scenarios at once where there is sneaking around/cheating/etc. because I have a huge adultery squick (yes, adultery/partner betrayal squicks me way more in this instance than incest. Obviously, mileage varies.) and that makes me think less of characters I love, and why do I want to do that? (Obviously a threesome relationship where they are involved with each other and the same woman *cough*Faith*cough* would also work for me, but then there wouldn't be the betrayal that squicks me so.)
4. I don't want to privilege any sexual or romantic relationship over the brotherly relationship they already have. If they have sex, they have sex, but I really dislike it when they get mushy and conventionally romantic. It doesn't feel true to me. And in some of the Wincest stories I read, this totally happens, and I am like, the whole thing that makes their relationship so fucking fascinating is that they are brothers. So privileging the sex/romance over that really doesn't work for me. Again, mileage varies.
5. Even if they are in a sexual relationship, I am just. I know I said a big long thing about partner betrayal and adultery up there, but um. I am totally okay with Dean still sleeping with women occasionally, and I think for the most part, if the sexual relationship were established, Sam would be okay with that. Sam knows how much Dean loves him and what Dean is willing to do for him; no random hook up on the side is going to approach that, and Sam knows that. I think it's the emotional and not the sexual that would trigger Sam's possessiveness/jealousy, which is why he's sort of mostly amused and indulgent of Dean's ... proclivities. (And possibly not averse to joining in should the occasion, er, arise.) Which isn't to say I don't think Dean could and would be faithful. I just. I really like thinking reading about him having sex with women. *cough*
This is where I start thinking in terms of Achilles and Patroclus, or Alexander and Hephaistion. There's Briseis and Polyxena, Hippolyta and Iphigenia, but there's only one Patroclus, you know? And everyone involved knows it. And I am surprisingly okay about that, and I think, the way I see Sam, he mostly would be too. Possibly I am projecting. Heh.
Crazily enough, all of this goes right out the window if Sam is a girl. I am completely, insanely, ludicrously hardcore OTP about Dean/girl!Sam (so you know, whenever you are feeling oppressed and alone in fandom, think of me in my insanity. Hi.). Possibly because I've spent so much time figuring out how that would work and why, and falling completely in love with the girl version of Sam as I write her, and also, god help me, I think it's the hottest thing pretty much ever, because, as I've said a million times, you get the intensity of Dean/Sam with the incredible incendiary hotness of Dean/girl.
So anyway, as of today at least, I'm not crazy OTP about Sam/Dean, the way I know a lot of people are. I kind of wish I were, because I think it'd make writing the kinds of stories I am most comfortable and happiest writing a lot easier than it currently is in this fandom. I enjoy reading and writing Wincest, but I can and do read and write them with other people and enjoy that a lot, too.
Ask me again next week -- it could change. Anything could happen. *g*
~*~