Y’know, I was thinking about wincest the other day (as I often do), and scrolling through some posts on tumblr, and something that really struck me is how little the ship revolves around subtext. Like, don’t get me wrong, there’s loads of subtext—but comparatively, the vast majority of Sam and Dean’s relationship is text. It’s canon. It’s all actual stuff they’ve said out loud (whether it’s to each other or a third party) or decisions we’ve seen them make on-screen. And that’s referring to their actual, weirdly close fraternal relationship in-show, yes, but also to the more fanon romantic/sexual take on their relationship.
The soulmates reveal in 5x16 might be the biggest one, but even more than that: Dean’s recently talked about how pretty he thinks Sam is [14x04], Sam’s mentioned how physically attractive he thinks Dean is [6x22], Dean literally said he wanted to get off to watching Sam have sex in front of him [12x11], Sam was willing to spend the rest of their lives as undead corpse-monsters as long as they could be together [3x15], Dean told Sam he never has and never will love anyone more than him [8x23], Sam (while having his memories erased, and thus having no knowledge of them being related) asked Dean to run away with him to spend their lives together [4x17], Dean—of his own volition—has referred to them as a married couple more than once [10x03 & 12x14], they’ve both doomed the entire world and everyone in it in favor of keeping the other one safe (something they’ve never exclusively done for anyone else) [8x23 & 10x23 & 12x23], they’ve both attempted to sell their souls for each other (something they’ve never done for anyone else) [2x22 & 4x09], they entered into a suicide pact with a reaper solely because they couldn’t stand being separated from each other for like 6 weeks [12x09], Dean’s siren—as admitted by the siren herself—was a copy of Sam [4x14], Sam’s completely given up all pretense of wanting a relationship with a woman and is fully intent on spending his entire life (and afterlife) with Dean [11x04 & 11x11 & 13x20], Dean literally described their relationship as a “deep, abiding love for each other” [8x01], Sam admitted he only formed a relationship with Ruby (which later turned into a sexual relationship, mind you) because she reminded him of Dean [4x09], Dean laid down an ultimatum and made Sam choose between him and a romantic/sexual relationship with Amelia [8x10], Sam immediately assumed Dean was under a magic spell when he said he was in love with another woman and referred to her as his soulmate [13x12], Dean literally fisted his brother in the ass on-screen [5x08], and that’s not even counting the multiple times complete strangers sincerely assumed they were a couple [1x08 & 1x18 & 2x11 & 3x08 & 9x13 & 10x06 & 11x05 & 11x08], etc, etc.
Like, that’s all canon. Mostly from Sam and Dean’s own mouths (not just some antagonist taunting them to get a rise out of them—although that’s happened plenty of times too). Plus, there’s tons more that I haven’t even mentioned. The hair-stroking and face-stroking and thigh-stroking and all the other way-innapropriately romantic ways for brothers to touch each other. The flirty, teasing, sexually-charged jokes. Dean getting all jealous and snippy about Sam with other women. Them freaking out anytime they’re separated by a door. Them losing their fucking shit when the other one dies or is taken away.
None of the above is subtext. None of it is relying on symbolism, or character parallels, or looks, or moments when they’re probably thinking about each other even though it isn’t stated in the actual text (of which there are all many).
I know it isn’t news or anything, but for some reason I just really got fixated on this thought. Most fanon ships are like 90% subtext, 10% text. Wincest is the other way around.
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