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#but also views his own queer desire--and thus that of others--with suspicion and contempt
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Actually the implications of John also being bisexual are so fucking tasty to me because like. OG John has no support system and no protection against the world except his own perceived strength so he learns to ferret out anything that can possibly be seen as weakness to those around him and that includes any affection or attraction he might feel towards men because nothing screams "stay in your fucking closet" like spending all your time around a fringe subculture of serial killing doomsday preppers in the Midwest during the Reagan era.
By the time he notices Dean starting to look a little too long at boys his age, he's probably convinced himself that whatever he felt (still feels but ignores) was a temporary youthful indiscretion, and of course Dean can't afford those, doesn't get to have those, he's got to be a soldier. He's got to be a better soldier than John, even.
I dunno I've just had enough conversations with family members who are loudly but somehow also mildly homophobic and yet say or do things that make me *eyeballs emoji* not to think this is not only possible but arguably likely.
#supernatural#the winchesters#spn#spnwin#john winchester#shifting my headcanon of john to the type of person who doesn't think of himself as homophobic if he ever things about it at all#and would even probably try to stop a hate crime if he saw one happening right in front of him#(or likes to think he would)#but also views his own queer desire--and thus that of others--with suspicion and contempt#like something frivolous that he simply doesn't have the luxury to pursue as a Real Man in the Real World with Real Responsibilities#and when you live like that especially due to your own choices anything that seems like a luxury you view with a certain level of contempt#so he's like 'heh must be nice to have time for boyfriends' in the most condescending and degrading way imaginable#in the same way he probably treated sam's affinity for academia#in fact i'd argue a lot of what we see from dean with regards to the way he mocks sam for certain things is probably just echoes of john#and what's REALLY crazy-making is the way most of these things dean mocks sam for early on later prove to be things DEAN actually does enjo#dean likes to read and he loves chick flicks and he gets excited about tomatoes and enjoys dressing up nice#dean learned early on that certain things were not acceptable for a Real Man from john bullying him out of doing them#and he does the same to sam#and one of the things he consistently mocks sam for in the beginning is his perceived sexuality#and sure we could just chalk that up to stereotyping but EVEN THEN that jives with the idea that#john simply put his own queer desire in a box labeled 'weaknesses real men don't have' along with idk a love of reading and salads and bein#emotionally vulnerable and sincere with people you love#and then he told Dean 'this is the box of forbidden things'#and dean the ever-dutiful son learned his lesson well
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