I really should learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes.
So, I was talking to my Human Sexual Behavior professor about Supernatural fanfiction, and how it's the only big fandom I know that has incest as it's main pairing.
She had never heard of Supernatural. Or fandom. She had, at least, heard of incest, but had discussed it more as a "this is why incest isn't more common" type of thing instead of a "incest happens sometimes: here's why and here's why there tend to be pressures against it". Me and my big mouth, huh? I ended up agreeing to write up a kind of fannish introduction (as I couldn't find a good one to fandom in general), with a Supernatural Sam/Dean bent.
Then my big mouth struck again. See, I have a therapist. It's a good thing, most of the time, as I can rant and rave about almost anything and still come out of the session feeling ok with myself instead of shitty that I'm such a bitch. Also, he encourages me to get out of my shell more and actually interact with people (I know, what an amazing concept, right?) so I mentioned that I had actually gone to my psych professors office hours and talked for a long time with them. He was very pleased. I then mentioned what we talked about, and he was intrigued. I further clarified, wondered over into an old CSI: Episode where Horatio referred to Sibling Incest as "rather deviant behavior", and by the time we wandered through sex of various kinds I found myself agreeing to forward the e-mail I wrote for my professor to him.
*headdesk*
Since I'm apparently sharing it around, even though it isn't anywhere near my best work, I might as well post it here. For anyone who's curious.
Ship_Manifesto is basically what it says on the can. People who like a certain relationship write an article about why they like that pairing, in the hopes of sharing the love with people who are new to the fandom, or who have never heard of it before. It often contains a summary of the show and the characters invovled in the pairing, as well as links to communities and stories that the writer finds useful. Here is the link to the ship manifesto for Supernaturals favorite incestuous pairing Sam/Dean: http://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/122065.html
Recently, there was a study about which show had the strongest online fandom, of which Supernatural won. The Supernatural (or spn) fandom put their show on the cover of TV Guide in December, and has been around basically since the show started, growing stronger with time. I saw the article on ONTD (oh no they didn't), which is the "mother ship" of ONTD_Political. http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/58372805.html#cutid1
Some of the stories are rather meta, meaning that they examine the fandom at the same time as they contribute to the fandom. One of these stories is called Stranger Than Fiction, and I'm rather fond of it.
Stranger than Fiction: After learning that people are writing stories about him and Sam together, Dean just can't let it go. He starts investigating it, and finds more than he ever wanted.
http://www.delicious.com/Simplysly my delicious bookmarks, which are primarily stories. There is a fiction tag which is just the stories, and there are also tags designating which fandom a story belongs to or the pairing it has in the sidebar.
On livejournal there's a Wincest community which is primarily for art or fiction for stories about any of the Winchesters in a relationship with another one of their family. There are other communities that focus on Sam or Dean or fanfiction for the fandom in general, but that seems to be the main one for Sam/Dean stories.
I haven't read books on fandom, really. Most of my experience has been first hand, and I've been reading fanfiction for about a decade now. But this book seems pretty good: Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet
Awhile ago, some fans got together to make their own fandom specific wikipedia, and they called it Fanlore. It's a pretty good resource, considering that it is opensource.
I haven't really been able to find a good introduction to Fandom as a whole, but googling the terms fandom + introduction will get a you a lot of things, typically for an individual fandom. So, I decided to include my own list of Things to Know.
Brief rundown on terms. When people write a piece of fanfiction, it's customary to include either the characters that are central to the story, or the main pairing, which is also called a "ship". For example, with Star Trek: The Original Series (generally referred to as ToS online, or ST: ToS), a person who wanted to write about Spock and his motivations and how hard it was to balance being a Vulcan as well as human could do so. They would just list it as Spock-centric, or as Characters/Pairings: Spock in their header. This is to help a reader make an informed decision. So if someone hated Spock and wanted nothing to do with him, they would know to skip this story. In that same section of the header, people would write out the pairing, for the same reason. If the reader doesn't like the pairing or think it's believable, they can just skip the story all together, instead of jumping in blind. The pairing is typically listed as CharacterX/CharacterY. Eventually, because of the prevelance of people using that style to write mainly stories of two male characters together, the category of fiction of two male characters (who may or may not identify as homosexual, for all the sex they are having) was named "slash".
A derivative of that is "fem(me)slash". The spelling is debatable, as it's not really changed through out the years, as people aren't sure how to spell it, and so some will use the double mme, and some just the single m. I think that it is generally accepted to correctly be femslash, at this point in time. While slash is typically used to categorize stories of two (or more) males together, femslash refers to stories containing two (or more) women together. There is some controversy over this distinction, though, as slash was long equated with "gay fiction", and so if it was gay couldn't that be gay women instead of just referring to men? It's related, I think, to the debate of a woman preferring to call herself gay instead of a lesbian. So some stories will be labeled as slash with have a pairing of two or more females, but I don't see them very often.
If you have one side of the spectrum, there is also the other side to consider. So a pairing of a male and a female is generally just called "het", saying that it's hetrosexual. It's interesting to note that while more stories on the site livejournal have started using the label het, I first saw it used and debated over by people who normally wrote slash. Since they normally did not write it, it was an aberration for both them and their audience, and they felt the need to warn people over it. Slash is typically used as a warning in other places, but when the slash writers started warning for het, it was suddenly a Big Deal. That was a few years ago, though, and many communities that welcome fiction of all kinds have tags now for slash, femmeslash, het and gen, so that a person can more easily find the exact kind of story that they're looking for, and it's only when a writer first forays into the other kinds of fiction that a warning is issued, just to alert their readers that this is not the kind of thing they were expecting.
The last kind of fiction is the kind that doesn't really deal with a pairing at all, and as such is typically called general or "gen". These are the stories whose main thrust have nothing to do with a pairing the way the others do, although there may be a couple that is referenced as being together.
For example, I could write a story about solving a murder. That is the premise but I could include the main characters best friends who are in a gay/straight/lesbian relationship and it would still fall under gen, because that pairing isn't the heart of the story. I could even mention that the main character was in a relationship and show their partner, but as long as it's kept as a side note, it would still fall under the heading of "gen". As a courtesy, though, it might be listed as "Gen with slash/femslash/het undertones".
So, slash, femslash, het and gen are the main categories of fanfiction, but that still doesn't quite mean that all fanfiction is the same, or equally accepted by other fanfic writers. Fanfiction is the creation of a story based upon all ready existing characters in a movie/book/television show/comic, etc. But, there's also fanfiction out there that isn't quite so clear cut. These are stories writing about the actors in such movies or television shows. Real people doing things that may or may not have ever happened. These stories are crafted based upon their public personae, but are still kinda skeevy to many people, especially the stories that go into rather explicit detail. This generally called Real Person Fiction, or RPF for short. That is the broad category, of which there is a rather popular subsection called RPS, Real Person Slash. It's the same as regular slash, but now with 100% more real people. This is found in a rather large number of fandoms. Basically, if a person thought that "oh! Those two people are so hot together" there's a story about it somewhere on the internet. It's become, gradually, more acceptable but most fandoms are still a little freaked out about it.
Not Supernatural Fandom. The way they put it, RPS is the more morally acceptable form of fanfic in their fandom.
OH! right, other terms. Fandom refers to the group of people who put together fan creations for a specific show/movie/book, etc. Fanfiction is one of those, but their are also Fanvids (videos made of typically clipped together footage to support a specific theme, can be for any category), Fanart (typically drawn, but can also be in any kind of media. Can be about a specific character/pairing/scene, although some people also make comics, it all counts), and Filk (music made by fans, for any category). There are conventions that are primarily for fanvids, and filk is getting up there in being showcased as well. Fanart (the good stuff, at least) is generally welcomed any where, but I've not heard of any conventions, get togethers, or rooms set aside at a convention purely for it. I could be wrong, though, as it's not really my area of interest.
Fandom is composed of people of all walks of life, from pretty much anywhere that there is a convention, mail, or internet. So some people are in their 60's, and some are in their early teens. Some have never written anything before, and others are actually published authors dabbling in someone elses playground (it's possibly their own under a pseudonym. Hey, it could happen). Sometimes the fanfic actually becomes the published work, although generally at least the names are changed.
I became exposed to fanfiction, and the internet, when I was about 13-14 years old. So, it became how I explored sexuality safely, without a risk to my body, or really my heart, as it was primarily through fanfiction and not cypersex per say. I wouldn't be surprised if others did the same thing, even as adults. Fanfiction is a place to turn for people looking for pretty much anything. Rule 34 of the internet says that someone, somewhere, has written about pretty much anything you can think of. If you're lucky, they even wrote about it well (but most people aren't quite so lucky, alas).
Fanfiction is a place to explore otherwise taboo subjects. Incest, beastiallity, necrophillia and more are all written about in at least one fandom. Supernatural is one of the few fandoms where the primary pairing is incestuous. Typically it's handled more on the fringe of fandom, where these stories exist but may not be many in number. Firefly had Simon/River (Crazy Space Incest), and Heroes had Petrellicest (off of the two Petrelli brothers) as well as apparently a Father/Daughter pairing and a Sister/Brother. Harry Potter fandom has Weasleycest (one of the Weasley's having sex with another one, most commonly twincest with the twin brothers George and Fred), as well as few others.
Supernatural background: It's a story about two brothers (Sam, the younger and Dean the slightly older) who travel around the country in a kickass car saving people and hunting things. The family business. Sam is the reluctant hero, he got a full ride into Stanford and he took it, breaking pretty much all ties with his family when he did so. His fathers last words to him, before he left, were "If you walk out that door, never come back." He left the life of hunting, got out and was studying to become a lawyer when the show begins. He's living with his girlfriend Jessica, and one night his brother breaks into his house. Dean is older than Sam by four years, and he's always had to protect his baby brother, and in fandom raised him pretty much. But they haven't talked in two years, and when Sam asks why he didn't just call instead of breaking in, Dean says that he didn't think Sam would answer. Dean came to get Sam to come hunt with him, because their father is missing. Sam resists, but eventually goes back for this "just one hunt, Dean, I have an interview on Monday that I have to be back for." They don't find their father, but they solve the case he was working on, and Dean drops Sam off outside of his apartment building. Sam goes in, lays down on his bed happy with the success of the hunt, and then something drips on his face. Blood. Jessica is on the ceiling above him, stomach slashed open. Sam barely has time to register this before she's engulfed in flames. He's trying to get to her, but there's Dean, pulling out him of yet another fire. This is the same way their mom died when Sam was 6 months old, so Sam now REALLY wants revenge. Before, it would have been nice to avenge their mother, but he didn't know her so had no real personal motivation. Now, it's what's driving him.
They go on the road in search of their father, along the way stopping to hunt the supernatural creatures they come across. "Saving people, hunting things: the family business." And along the way, Sam and Dean become closer as it becomes apparent to the audience that all they really have is each other. A few episodes in they even introduce the running joke of them being mistaken for a gay couple, which Dean seems to find more hilarious than Sam, for all Sam was the college boy.
They don't have a permanent address or a legal way of making money. Their home has four doors and wheels, and when they can't find a motel, they'll sleep in the car. For the first three seasons, while occasionally showing a reoccurring character, it's really just Sam and Dean. And then Sam dies, and Dean makes a deal to bring him back, giving him one more year to live before Dean gets dragged into hell. Sam spends most of the third season trying and failing to find a way for Dean to live, but the season finale ends with Dean dead.
And season four, of course, starts with him being brought back to life.
Now, at the end of season one their father died, and the most common reoccurring character was their father's friend Bobby who was shown sporratically. Season four changes the dynamic of the show, both by allowing Bobby to have more show time, but also by introducing the angel Castiel who brings Dean back from Hell. Castiel is played by Misha Collins who is about the same age as the Jared and Jensen, the actors who play Sam and Dean respectively. So for the first time we have a character who appears to be about the same age as Sam and Dean, and who is tied to the Winchesters as they attempt to avert the starting of the Apocalypse. Fandom changes and gets a whole slew of new members who can now write about Dean and Castiel (or, occasionally, Sam and Castiel, but it's very rare) instead of straying into the murky waters of incest.
But, at the same time, the show seems to not want to let go of the Sam/Dean relationship. Some of these instances are mentioned in the ship manifesto I linked to above, but some may not be.
In Season Four, we find out that there is a prophet who has been having dreams about Sam and Dean and their life, a little bit of backstory but primarily it follows the episodes that we have seen. This prophet doesn't know that he's a prophet and just thinks that he's going more than slightly mad, but hey, if he writes it out at least he may make some money out of it. So he wrote out books, which apparently have a bit of a cult following (much like the show), and even though the publisher has fallen through there are still conventions. And Sam and Dean get roped into attending one. They also find out that there are people writing about them on the internet. And not just any stories, but stories of them together. Like that. They are, naturally, a little weirded out by the whole thing.
Season Five brings out another twist: Angels need vessels to really manifest on the earthly plane, and because they're angels they need consent. Lucifer is still technically an angel. For the apocalypse with Michael fighting Lucifer, they both need bodies... and their perfect vessels are Sam (Lucifer) and Dean (Michael). Because they're needed for the final battle, Michael and Lucifer aren't going to let Sam and Dean die. Or rather, they can die... they'll just be brought back. A couple of hunters get it in their heads to try and kill the Winchesters, shooting them and leaving them in their motel room. And, naturally, Sam and Dean go to heaven.
Now, heaven is apparently a series of Greatest Hits from your life, that you can move through, but apparently no one else can join you there... unless they're your soulmate. Dean is able to find Sam, and so it's implied that they are soulmates (really, the show is just messing with the fandom now). Basically, Wincest (at least on the metaphysical level) is totally canon.
Despite this, Sam and Dean are still shown as being effectively straight. It's never shown that they pick up any guy, but they also never really stay with any girl. It's more of a one night stand type of situation, and part of that is that the format of the show, two brothers on the road hunting things, doesn't allow for a lot of outside interference and the few times that one or the other has tried to have an outside relationship it just doesn't work out, because their brother comes first. And, probably, because it's rather boring to have a show that used to be about hunting but is now about Adventures in Suburbia instead.
Interesting, but not really related to the Sam/Dean dynamic is that in one episode Sam and Dean traveled back in time to try and prevent the entire mess from ever happening, by stopping their mother from making a deal that would lead to Sam being tied to the Supernatural forever. Now, in the SPN world deals with demons are sealed with a kiss. The Demon that started the whole thing (that killed their mother, killed Jessica and who Sam and Dean kill at the end of season two) makes the deal with their mother... while he's possessing her father. Most SPN fans watch the show the night it airs, or maybe the weekend after wards. It still took awhile for the "huh, did we just see a cross-generational incestuous kiss?" to even be mentioned... and the reaction was more of a shrug than anything else.
Feel free to ask for clarification or more links.
~Melody Jacobs
Anyone have any different links or definitions that I should have included but forgot? Cause trying to explain your culture to people not of your culture is hard. Darn that fishbowl perspective.
She had never heard of Supernatural. Or fandom. She had, at least, heard of incest, but had discussed it more as a "this is why incest isn't more common" type of thing instead of a "incest happens sometimes: here's why and here's why there tend to be pressures against it". Me and my big mouth, huh? I ended up agreeing to write up a kind of fannish introduction (as I couldn't find a good one to fandom in general), with a Supernatural Sam/Dean bent.
Then my big mouth struck again. See, I have a therapist. It's a good thing, most of the time, as I can rant and rave about almost anything and still come out of the session feeling ok with myself instead of shitty that I'm such a bitch. Also, he encourages me to get out of my shell more and actually interact with people (I know, what an amazing concept, right?) so I mentioned that I had actually gone to my psych professors office hours and talked for a long time with them. He was very pleased. I then mentioned what we talked about, and he was intrigued. I further clarified, wondered over into an old CSI: Episode where Horatio referred to Sibling Incest as "rather deviant behavior", and by the time we wandered through sex of various kinds I found myself agreeing to forward the e-mail I wrote for my professor to him.
*headdesk*
Since I'm apparently sharing it around, even though it isn't anywhere near my best work, I might as well post it here. For anyone who's curious.
Ship_Manifesto is basically what it says on the can. People who like a certain relationship write an article about why they like that pairing, in the hopes of sharing the love with people who are new to the fandom, or who have never heard of it before. It often contains a summary of the show and the characters invovled in the pairing, as well as links to communities and stories that the writer finds useful. Here is the link to the ship manifesto for Supernaturals favorite incestuous pairing Sam/Dean: http://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/122065.html
Recently, there was a study about which show had the strongest online fandom, of which Supernatural won. The Supernatural (or spn) fandom put their show on the cover of TV Guide in December, and has been around basically since the show started, growing stronger with time. I saw the article on ONTD (oh no they didn't), which is the "mother ship" of ONTD_Political. http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/58372805.html#cutid1
Some of the stories are rather meta, meaning that they examine the fandom at the same time as they contribute to the fandom. One of these stories is called Stranger Than Fiction, and I'm rather fond of it.
Stranger than Fiction: After learning that people are writing stories about him and Sam together, Dean just can't let it go. He starts investigating it, and finds more than he ever wanted.
http://www.delicious.com/Simplysly my delicious bookmarks, which are primarily stories. There is a fiction tag which is just the stories, and there are also tags designating which fandom a story belongs to or the pairing it has in the sidebar.
On livejournal there's a Wincest community which is primarily for art or fiction for stories about any of the Winchesters in a relationship with another one of their family. There are other communities that focus on Sam or Dean or fanfiction for the fandom in general, but that seems to be the main one for Sam/Dean stories.
I haven't read books on fandom, really. Most of my experience has been first hand, and I've been reading fanfiction for about a decade now. But this book seems pretty good: Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet
Awhile ago, some fans got together to make their own fandom specific wikipedia, and they called it Fanlore. It's a pretty good resource, considering that it is opensource.
I haven't really been able to find a good introduction to Fandom as a whole, but googling the terms fandom + introduction will get a you a lot of things, typically for an individual fandom. So, I decided to include my own list of Things to Know.
Brief rundown on terms. When people write a piece of fanfiction, it's customary to include either the characters that are central to the story, or the main pairing, which is also called a "ship". For example, with Star Trek: The Original Series (generally referred to as ToS online, or ST: ToS), a person who wanted to write about Spock and his motivations and how hard it was to balance being a Vulcan as well as human could do so. They would just list it as Spock-centric, or as Characters/Pairings: Spock in their header. This is to help a reader make an informed decision. So if someone hated Spock and wanted nothing to do with him, they would know to skip this story. In that same section of the header, people would write out the pairing, for the same reason. If the reader doesn't like the pairing or think it's believable, they can just skip the story all together, instead of jumping in blind. The pairing is typically listed as CharacterX/CharacterY. Eventually, because of the prevelance of people using that style to write mainly stories of two male characters together, the category of fiction of two male characters (who may or may not identify as homosexual, for all the sex they are having) was named "slash".
A derivative of that is "fem(me)slash". The spelling is debatable, as it's not really changed through out the years, as people aren't sure how to spell it, and so some will use the double mme, and some just the single m. I think that it is generally accepted to correctly be femslash, at this point in time. While slash is typically used to categorize stories of two (or more) males together, femslash refers to stories containing two (or more) women together. There is some controversy over this distinction, though, as slash was long equated with "gay fiction", and so if it was gay couldn't that be gay women instead of just referring to men? It's related, I think, to the debate of a woman preferring to call herself gay instead of a lesbian. So some stories will be labeled as slash with have a pairing of two or more females, but I don't see them very often.
If you have one side of the spectrum, there is also the other side to consider. So a pairing of a male and a female is generally just called "het", saying that it's hetrosexual. It's interesting to note that while more stories on the site livejournal have started using the label het, I first saw it used and debated over by people who normally wrote slash. Since they normally did not write it, it was an aberration for both them and their audience, and they felt the need to warn people over it. Slash is typically used as a warning in other places, but when the slash writers started warning for het, it was suddenly a Big Deal. That was a few years ago, though, and many communities that welcome fiction of all kinds have tags now for slash, femmeslash, het and gen, so that a person can more easily find the exact kind of story that they're looking for, and it's only when a writer first forays into the other kinds of fiction that a warning is issued, just to alert their readers that this is not the kind of thing they were expecting.
The last kind of fiction is the kind that doesn't really deal with a pairing at all, and as such is typically called general or "gen". These are the stories whose main thrust have nothing to do with a pairing the way the others do, although there may be a couple that is referenced as being together.
For example, I could write a story about solving a murder. That is the premise but I could include the main characters best friends who are in a gay/straight/lesbian relationship and it would still fall under gen, because that pairing isn't the heart of the story. I could even mention that the main character was in a relationship and show their partner, but as long as it's kept as a side note, it would still fall under the heading of "gen". As a courtesy, though, it might be listed as "Gen with slash/femslash/het undertones".
So, slash, femslash, het and gen are the main categories of fanfiction, but that still doesn't quite mean that all fanfiction is the same, or equally accepted by other fanfic writers. Fanfiction is the creation of a story based upon all ready existing characters in a movie/book/television show/comic, etc. But, there's also fanfiction out there that isn't quite so clear cut. These are stories writing about the actors in such movies or television shows. Real people doing things that may or may not have ever happened. These stories are crafted based upon their public personae, but are still kinda skeevy to many people, especially the stories that go into rather explicit detail. This generally called Real Person Fiction, or RPF for short. That is the broad category, of which there is a rather popular subsection called RPS, Real Person Slash. It's the same as regular slash, but now with 100% more real people. This is found in a rather large number of fandoms. Basically, if a person thought that "oh! Those two people are so hot together" there's a story about it somewhere on the internet. It's become, gradually, more acceptable but most fandoms are still a little freaked out about it.
Not Supernatural Fandom. The way they put it, RPS is the more morally acceptable form of fanfic in their fandom.
OH! right, other terms. Fandom refers to the group of people who put together fan creations for a specific show/movie/book, etc. Fanfiction is one of those, but their are also Fanvids (videos made of typically clipped together footage to support a specific theme, can be for any category), Fanart (typically drawn, but can also be in any kind of media. Can be about a specific character/pairing/scene, although some people also make comics, it all counts), and Filk (music made by fans, for any category). There are conventions that are primarily for fanvids, and filk is getting up there in being showcased as well. Fanart (the good stuff, at least) is generally welcomed any where, but I've not heard of any conventions, get togethers, or rooms set aside at a convention purely for it. I could be wrong, though, as it's not really my area of interest.
Fandom is composed of people of all walks of life, from pretty much anywhere that there is a convention, mail, or internet. So some people are in their 60's, and some are in their early teens. Some have never written anything before, and others are actually published authors dabbling in someone elses playground (it's possibly their own under a pseudonym. Hey, it could happen). Sometimes the fanfic actually becomes the published work, although generally at least the names are changed.
I became exposed to fanfiction, and the internet, when I was about 13-14 years old. So, it became how I explored sexuality safely, without a risk to my body, or really my heart, as it was primarily through fanfiction and not cypersex per say. I wouldn't be surprised if others did the same thing, even as adults. Fanfiction is a place to turn for people looking for pretty much anything. Rule 34 of the internet says that someone, somewhere, has written about pretty much anything you can think of. If you're lucky, they even wrote about it well (but most people aren't quite so lucky, alas).
Fanfiction is a place to explore otherwise taboo subjects. Incest, beastiallity, necrophillia and more are all written about in at least one fandom. Supernatural is one of the few fandoms where the primary pairing is incestuous. Typically it's handled more on the fringe of fandom, where these stories exist but may not be many in number. Firefly had Simon/River (Crazy Space Incest), and Heroes had Petrellicest (off of the two Petrelli brothers) as well as apparently a Father/Daughter pairing and a Sister/Brother. Harry Potter fandom has Weasleycest (one of the Weasley's having sex with another one, most commonly twincest with the twin brothers George and Fred), as well as few others.
Supernatural background: It's a story about two brothers (Sam, the younger and Dean the slightly older) who travel around the country in a kickass car saving people and hunting things. The family business. Sam is the reluctant hero, he got a full ride into Stanford and he took it, breaking pretty much all ties with his family when he did so. His fathers last words to him, before he left, were "If you walk out that door, never come back." He left the life of hunting, got out and was studying to become a lawyer when the show begins. He's living with his girlfriend Jessica, and one night his brother breaks into his house. Dean is older than Sam by four years, and he's always had to protect his baby brother, and in fandom raised him pretty much. But they haven't talked in two years, and when Sam asks why he didn't just call instead of breaking in, Dean says that he didn't think Sam would answer. Dean came to get Sam to come hunt with him, because their father is missing. Sam resists, but eventually goes back for this "just one hunt, Dean, I have an interview on Monday that I have to be back for." They don't find their father, but they solve the case he was working on, and Dean drops Sam off outside of his apartment building. Sam goes in, lays down on his bed happy with the success of the hunt, and then something drips on his face. Blood. Jessica is on the ceiling above him, stomach slashed open. Sam barely has time to register this before she's engulfed in flames. He's trying to get to her, but there's Dean, pulling out him of yet another fire. This is the same way their mom died when Sam was 6 months old, so Sam now REALLY wants revenge. Before, it would have been nice to avenge their mother, but he didn't know her so had no real personal motivation. Now, it's what's driving him.
They go on the road in search of their father, along the way stopping to hunt the supernatural creatures they come across. "Saving people, hunting things: the family business." And along the way, Sam and Dean become closer as it becomes apparent to the audience that all they really have is each other. A few episodes in they even introduce the running joke of them being mistaken for a gay couple, which Dean seems to find more hilarious than Sam, for all Sam was the college boy.
They don't have a permanent address or a legal way of making money. Their home has four doors and wheels, and when they can't find a motel, they'll sleep in the car. For the first three seasons, while occasionally showing a reoccurring character, it's really just Sam and Dean. And then Sam dies, and Dean makes a deal to bring him back, giving him one more year to live before Dean gets dragged into hell. Sam spends most of the third season trying and failing to find a way for Dean to live, but the season finale ends with Dean dead.
And season four, of course, starts with him being brought back to life.
Now, at the end of season one their father died, and the most common reoccurring character was their father's friend Bobby who was shown sporratically. Season four changes the dynamic of the show, both by allowing Bobby to have more show time, but also by introducing the angel Castiel who brings Dean back from Hell. Castiel is played by Misha Collins who is about the same age as the Jared and Jensen, the actors who play Sam and Dean respectively. So for the first time we have a character who appears to be about the same age as Sam and Dean, and who is tied to the Winchesters as they attempt to avert the starting of the Apocalypse. Fandom changes and gets a whole slew of new members who can now write about Dean and Castiel (or, occasionally, Sam and Castiel, but it's very rare) instead of straying into the murky waters of incest.
But, at the same time, the show seems to not want to let go of the Sam/Dean relationship. Some of these instances are mentioned in the ship manifesto I linked to above, but some may not be.
In Season Four, we find out that there is a prophet who has been having dreams about Sam and Dean and their life, a little bit of backstory but primarily it follows the episodes that we have seen. This prophet doesn't know that he's a prophet and just thinks that he's going more than slightly mad, but hey, if he writes it out at least he may make some money out of it. So he wrote out books, which apparently have a bit of a cult following (much like the show), and even though the publisher has fallen through there are still conventions. And Sam and Dean get roped into attending one. They also find out that there are people writing about them on the internet. And not just any stories, but stories of them together. Like that. They are, naturally, a little weirded out by the whole thing.
Season Five brings out another twist: Angels need vessels to really manifest on the earthly plane, and because they're angels they need consent. Lucifer is still technically an angel. For the apocalypse with Michael fighting Lucifer, they both need bodies... and their perfect vessels are Sam (Lucifer) and Dean (Michael). Because they're needed for the final battle, Michael and Lucifer aren't going to let Sam and Dean die. Or rather, they can die... they'll just be brought back. A couple of hunters get it in their heads to try and kill the Winchesters, shooting them and leaving them in their motel room. And, naturally, Sam and Dean go to heaven.
Now, heaven is apparently a series of Greatest Hits from your life, that you can move through, but apparently no one else can join you there... unless they're your soulmate. Dean is able to find Sam, and so it's implied that they are soulmates (really, the show is just messing with the fandom now). Basically, Wincest (at least on the metaphysical level) is totally canon.
Despite this, Sam and Dean are still shown as being effectively straight. It's never shown that they pick up any guy, but they also never really stay with any girl. It's more of a one night stand type of situation, and part of that is that the format of the show, two brothers on the road hunting things, doesn't allow for a lot of outside interference and the few times that one or the other has tried to have an outside relationship it just doesn't work out, because their brother comes first. And, probably, because it's rather boring to have a show that used to be about hunting but is now about Adventures in Suburbia instead.
Interesting, but not really related to the Sam/Dean dynamic is that in one episode Sam and Dean traveled back in time to try and prevent the entire mess from ever happening, by stopping their mother from making a deal that would lead to Sam being tied to the Supernatural forever. Now, in the SPN world deals with demons are sealed with a kiss. The Demon that started the whole thing (that killed their mother, killed Jessica and who Sam and Dean kill at the end of season two) makes the deal with their mother... while he's possessing her father. Most SPN fans watch the show the night it airs, or maybe the weekend after wards. It still took awhile for the "huh, did we just see a cross-generational incestuous kiss?" to even be mentioned... and the reaction was more of a shrug than anything else.
Feel free to ask for clarification or more links.
~Melody Jacobs
Anyone have any different links or definitions that I should have included but forgot? Cause trying to explain your culture to people not of your culture is hard. Darn that fishbowl perspective.