A Supernatural Semi-Manifesto
Disclaimer: This post contains my personal reasons for avoiding hardcore Dean!h/c fanfiction. I adore Dean as a character and love good non-h/c Dean-centric fanfics to death. (OK, bad word choice.) If you are a die-hard Dean!h/c addict, I strongly advise you to think carefully about whether reading this will add anything to your life. If you write Dean!h/c, I have nothing against you as a person and nothing against you as an author, but merely will choose not to read certain fanfics of yours. I do not write this post to spark controversy or wank, but merely to express my opinion in an appropriate place (i.e. my personal journal). I do not write this in response to any particular fic, author, or community.
First things first, I should reveal that I am an oldest sibling, just like Dean.
Not to say that my family is at all like the Winchesters, or that my relationship with my brother and sister is analogous to Dean and Sam's. I just see this as the basis of why part of me identifies with Dean. Another part of me identifies with Sam. I don't think anyone's personality could be purely one or purely the other. But today I am here to discuss what I see as my personal bond with the character of Dean.
You see, I understand Dean. I get how he genuinely needs to make everything fine so everything can be fine; I do the same thing. I have a game face too. And I get just as upset as Dean when someone calls me out on it.
So raw Dean-angst doesn't do it for me. When I read it, I feel itchy and unclean, like seeing something I shouldn't. And I am seeing something I shouldn't. Somewhere in my head I'm seeing the privacy of someone very similar to me invaded. The terror of such an invasion completely drowns out any enjoyment I could possibly have in the fic.
Also, what staggers me is the sheer amount of crap Dean is put through in Show itself. (Sam is put through similar amounts, but I can relish Sam!h/c because it triggers less malaise.) His troubles are enormous, but scaled down, they look disturbingly like mine-- to make a mathematical proportion out of it, (Procne92's issues)/1 = (Dean's issues)/9999999999999 . Basically they're equivalent fractions but his issues are 9999999999999 times mine.
And try though they might (although knowing them they mightn't try very hard), the Showrunners will never fix Dean. Not completely, if even at all. And no author can either, no matter their talent. (At least without resorting to some kind of cop-out "10,000 years in heaven later" ending or something.) And that's why even the comfortiest Dean!h/c is still too much for me. The comfort may fix Dean, but it doesn't fix me. In the words of the excellent author John Green in An Abundance of Katherines:
"If I did get her back somehow, she wouldn't fill the hole that losing her created."
(Replace "get her back" with "witness schmoop" and "losing her" with "being confronted with terrifying levels of angst that strikes a personal chord." "She" can refer to the author.)
For some reason Sam!h/c is different. Maybe it's because Dean is in the comforting role there, and I can match his warm-and-fuzzy.
So if you read all that, thanks for listening to my rambly thoughts on this subject. Feel free to comment (respectfully) no matter your opinion.
Also, to reiterate: my life is pretty good. I am microscopic next to Dean on a scale of screwed-up-ness. Please don't mistake me for whining about my life-- the whole point of this post is that Dean!h/c makes me face a believable and surreal portrait of how everything could get so much worse.
First things first, I should reveal that I am an oldest sibling, just like Dean.
Not to say that my family is at all like the Winchesters, or that my relationship with my brother and sister is analogous to Dean and Sam's. I just see this as the basis of why part of me identifies with Dean. Another part of me identifies with Sam. I don't think anyone's personality could be purely one or purely the other. But today I am here to discuss what I see as my personal bond with the character of Dean.
You see, I understand Dean. I get how he genuinely needs to make everything fine so everything can be fine; I do the same thing. I have a game face too. And I get just as upset as Dean when someone calls me out on it.
So raw Dean-angst doesn't do it for me. When I read it, I feel itchy and unclean, like seeing something I shouldn't. And I am seeing something I shouldn't. Somewhere in my head I'm seeing the privacy of someone very similar to me invaded. The terror of such an invasion completely drowns out any enjoyment I could possibly have in the fic.
Also, what staggers me is the sheer amount of crap Dean is put through in Show itself. (Sam is put through similar amounts, but I can relish Sam!h/c because it triggers less malaise.) His troubles are enormous, but scaled down, they look disturbingly like mine-- to make a mathematical proportion out of it, (Procne92's issues)/1 = (Dean's issues)/9999999999999 . Basically they're equivalent fractions but his issues are 9999999999999 times mine.
And try though they might (although knowing them they mightn't try very hard), the Showrunners will never fix Dean. Not completely, if even at all. And no author can either, no matter their talent. (At least without resorting to some kind of cop-out "10,000 years in heaven later" ending or something.) And that's why even the comfortiest Dean!h/c is still too much for me. The comfort may fix Dean, but it doesn't fix me. In the words of the excellent author John Green in An Abundance of Katherines:
"If I did get her back somehow, she wouldn't fill the hole that losing her created."
(Replace "get her back" with "witness schmoop" and "losing her" with "being confronted with terrifying levels of angst that strikes a personal chord." "She" can refer to the author.)
For some reason Sam!h/c is different. Maybe it's because Dean is in the comforting role there, and I can match his warm-and-fuzzy.
So if you read all that, thanks for listening to my rambly thoughts on this subject. Feel free to comment (respectfully) no matter your opinion.
Also, to reiterate: my life is pretty good. I am microscopic next to Dean on a scale of screwed-up-ness. Please don't mistake me for whining about my life-- the whole point of this post is that Dean!h/c makes me face a believable and surreal portrait of how everything could get so much worse.