Tweak says, "As You Wish"
How do you describe someone like Dean Winchester? The man has layers. Lots of them. On the surface of this complicated man onion, you’ve got the gruff personality. The one that’s a little too sexist, a little too judgemental. He’s a man’s man. He’s all beer and shop talk. Cars and weapons. He has the tendency to speak without thinking and it’s often overly flirtatious. Or aggressive. Or honest, maybe. He’s the embodiment, on this layer, of toxic masculinity. Can’t share emotions, quick to anger instead of admit he’s worried, hides his feelings under comedy, comes off like a womanizer, and with every wall up, fortified, and behind barbed wire.
Peel back that layer, and you’ll get someone who can be a little vulnerable. Who can, still with anger, admit that he’s worried. He can tell you that he cares. He’ll go on long diatribes about just how much he does care and then never speak on it again. Dean isn’t what he appears to be on the surface. He’s been raised essentially to be nothing but a Hunter, a grifter. He’s accepted this upbringing as his sole purpose in life, and he’s incredibly driven to be the best at it - but he’s not just a soldier. He will go to any length to protect the ones he loves, and has zero hesitations in sacrificing himself in order to save someone else, because ultimately Dean does not believe he deserves anything. He truly believes he’s there to serve a purpose - save people, hunt things. He grew up thinking his life did not matter as much as other people’s.
If you can get a little further, you’ll find someone who’s just… scared. All the time. He’s got memories from hell that haunt him, he’s afraid for himself and of himself. He’s driven to try and make it seem like he’s worth this attention he’s gotten from the Angels, worth the task he’s been given. Desperate to prove he can be worth redemption, in spite of what he did in hell. What he gave in to. He’s lost, he’s so lost in his life and who he is, what he is outside of what he does.
Dean can be a good guy, he’s a family man at heart - he’s taken care of Sam his whole life, basically a second father figure to him. He’s a caregiver, honestly, and he wants to provide. He’s cool, he’s confident, and he can be incredibly understanding. Despite how he can come off, Dean is a pretty good listener when he tries, and deeply kind. Dean’s a little immature in the best way, and uses the immaturity as levity in stressful situations, or as a way to decompress from difficult things. He has a pretty black-and-white sense of right and wrong and doesn’t tend to entertain greys all that much, though he has been known to be able to see the grey when the situation really calls for it.
▸ because i said so. As a pseudo-parent to his younger brother and oftentimes even to his own father, Dean has had to take charge and figure shit out in order to keep himself and Sam alive. He doesn't have time to explain why you should just do what he says, just do it. He doesn't want to explain that he's scared and worried all the time and he just wants to keep you safe. no, that'd be too much to share. Dean would rather get angry and tell you to do it because i said so than tell you any real reasoning.
▸ charmer. Incredibly good with people when he wants to be, Dean can be exceedingly charming. He knows when to be nice to get what he wants, he knows what to say. a very talented liar, practiced in it for his whole life hiding who he really was and what his family really did, Dean’s become very good at telling people what they want to hear and getting them to trust him, believe in him, even when they shouldn’t.
▸ real men… Both the embodiment and the opposite of this sentiment, Dean likes to define for himself what real men should be like. Real men stay strong, they fight, they keep their emotions to themselves. But real men also wear pink, they cook for their loved ones, and they share what they’re feeling when they need to, when it’ll help someone else. Dean is not one to conform to any one thing - he may come off like a typical douchebag dude, but he is very comfortable with himself that he doesn’t even think twice about doing things that may contradict his typical presentation.
▸ stepford smiler.The type to smile in the face of danger, Dean is one of those people who spends an extraordinary amount of time trying to hide how they really think and feel about things. How’s he doing? He’s fine. Always fine, fine, fine. It’s almost a running joke, honestly, with how fine he always is. Every so often, he’ll break, he’ll crack and show that he is absolutely not fine and is usually not fine more often than he is, but he’d rather smile through it all instead. GAME ENTRY. Everything has gone all to shit. Sam is gone, but Castiel is still there - somehow, miraculously, he's not dead anymore - and he brings Bobby back and as Dean follows him, a mist surrounds them both and takes them to Dunwich.
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