7x08 | Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!

me @ Dabb

5x21 | Two Minutes to Midnight

(Originally part of this gif set.)

The most baffling thing about the “Performing!Dean” concept

If you follow this blog, you’ll know that I’m no fan of people speaking of “performing!Dean”, to put it mildly. 

I have some deep ethical problems with the concept, both regarding the puritan condemnation of performance and the fundamentalist belief in a true self. (If you’re interested in a philosophical discussion of the “true form” concept in delightful fictional form, I highly recommend you check you @philosopherking1887‘s excellent Thor fic Form and Matter.)

Leaving that aside, however, I also find the idea impossible to reconcile with canon as I perceive it. Performing!Dean meta imagines Dean as someone who is pretending to be hyper-masculine, tough and promiscuous, thanks to John ‘Worst Dad of the Year’ Winchester, while in truth he really wants to eat pink cake, listen to Taylor Swift and cuddle with Cas. 

What it misses again and again is that John did not simply expect Dean to conform to a single ideal of manhood, but demanded Dean fill several conflicting roles at the same time: wife, mother, family mascot, soldier, hunting partner, bait, and so on, and so on.

4x06 | Yellow Fever

4x06 | Yellow Fever

Cinematography tribute to director Phil Sgriccia

4x06 | Yellow Fever

(Originally part of this gif set.)

4x06 | Yellow Fever

(Originally part of this gif set.)

4x06 | Yellow Fever

(Originally part of this gif set.)

4x06 | Yellow Fever

(Originally part of this gif set.)