mod post / discussion: caretaker!Dean

[hoodietime.livejournal.com]

You guys, there's a topic we'd like to hear your opinion on. Due to the focus in recent canon, a lot of fanworks have cropped up that center around Dean in the caretaker role. Even in fanworks that put Dean in the role of the hurt-ee, there's a tendency to have him either repress or overcome that to care for Sam, reversing these roles to the point where Dean ends up doing the comforting.

Our usual policy on caretaker!Dean is that it's allowed as long as the lion's share of hurt still falls on Dean. With the squicks that recent canon developments have brought up for some Deanstans -- one of your mods included -- this might no longer be enough. Some comm members recently brought the issue to our attention, and while we definitely don't want to strictly exclude anything that has a certain amount of caretaking!Dean, we also want to implement a system that makes it easier to avoid (or find!), because this can be a sensitive subject.

More specifically: we're considering a tag.

This doesn't mean that we intend to change hoodie_times policies, so that they include caretaker!Dean fanworks along with Dean H/C -- it merely reflects the reality that these things can get complicated, and that even in Dean H/C fics ~things happen.

But, since this is a sensitive topic for many Dean fans especially, we wanted to discuss this with all of you before we decide anything. Should we create such a tag? What should it be called, how should it be used? Where do you, personally, draw the line? Opinions or suggestions are wanted and welcome!

➽ This post was compiled by geckoholic and is posted under this account for organizational purposes.

Comments

[seeing-ghosts.livejournal.com]

This is such a messy situation. /o\ But to be brief; yeah, I think the existence of this tag is neccessary, given how canon is nowadays.

Very often, caretaker!Dean can be, and is, written - and more importantly, can be read - in a way that focuses on how harmful it is for Dean; I think it has its place here. On the other hand, as okay as I am with it most days, I know that sometimes I can't even stand it, and stumbling upon such fics leaves me frustrated and annoyed and upset, and I'd appreciate knowing what I'm getting into when I'm starting a fic.

A tag would be pretty swell?

I hope I'm making at least a little sense.

Thank you, mods, for being awesome and going out of your way to help make the fandom experience better for us. /hugs

[geckoholic]

It is messy. CANON, WHY ARE YOU. >:(

Yeah. It's no secret that ~I am the mod who doesn't like running into it either, and it'd be good to be able to avoid it. Alas, I'm a little worried the tag might be seen as ~encouragement?

You do make sense. <3 And hey, it's been brought to our attention, and we want the best fandom experience possible for everyone. /hugs

[boysinperil.livejournal.com]

I *adore* caretaker!Dean and would use the tag happily, just as I use the fever!Dean tag.

[geckoholic]

It would still just be an aside, an additional content information so to speak, rather than a regular tag. Glad to hear someone who does like and write it doesn't take offense at it! :)

[kalliel]

Hee, me too, though through particular lenses.

[greeneyes-fan.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a reasonable idea. I sometimes like caretaker!Dean, but sometimes I want a story where he isn't playing Mommy, and we can just focus on Dean's own situation.

[kalliel]

Yeah, the focus of hoodie_time would still 100% be Dean H/C, but there are fics that are Dean H/C where Dean still at some point makes grabby hands at the caretaker role, because Dean is...Dean.

I'd use the tag to find fics specifically because that happens, just because I like it, but I also think that it'd be an important warning tag, because it seems from this thread that it is, indeed, a sensitive issue.

[yohkobennington.livejournal.com]

TBH I don't care for caretaker!Dean. The Show uses it enough as it is. I want my Dean being the one getting taken care of for a change in fics. So I think a tag it's a good idea to keep them apart, but it should be something that leaves in understanding this is not a hurt!Sam/other person community, and caretaker!dean isn't the main point.

Maybe something like hurt!/caretaker!dean. In that order.

[kalliel]

Mmm, putting something like that in the tag itself is a good idea! We definitely want to make that distinction (between Dean H/C where Dean also takes on the caretaker role at some point, and caretaker!Dean with not enough Dean H/C to be posted on hoodie_time), but if it's not in the tag itself it will get lost for people who miss the post.

[(Anonymous)]

This is great you're doing this. It's respectful to everyone. :)

I personally fall on the hugely squicked by it category. Maybe like it's being discussed upthread, something that also makes it clear that's not the point of the community. 'warning: includes hurt! other characters' That's probably too long, but something like that? Does 'warning' sound too harsh? I want people to feel comfortable writing what they want to, but at the same time, there are other straight-up Dean communities or SPN communities where that wouldn't be an issue. Here at this community being what it is, if it's a borderline hurt!Dean / hurt!whoever situation I would love and appreciate the option of being warned if that's what I'm going to be reading/looking at.

[kalliel]

Yeah, we're trying to figure out how the tag itself would look. It would have to be separate from the normal hurt!Dean tags, because it is not a category of hurt!Dean strictly speaking.

It would function as a warning for many comm-goers, I think, but I share your hangup as far as making people defensive for writing/posting fics that involve it. Posting something you've written is intimidating enough, as is tagging here (lol)!

Maybe there should be two tags, one that warns for hurt!other characters, and one that warns for caretaker dean.

[kalliel]

Yeah, we definitely want to make sure that distinction is clear--that this tag supplies additional information, rather than creating a new category of Dean H/C that would allow for fics where Dean is a caretaker, but there's no other Dean H/C to speak of.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for being so thoughtful and awesome, mods!

I agree with what vanishingbee said. A tag would be fantastic for me. Im down to only following this lovely comm and no others bc Dean h/c is my sole fandom lifeblood. I'm barely even following the show anymore although I rewatch older eps and am still in love.

As for personally drawing the line I don't consider caretaker Dean and the hurt that he feels from that to be a form of hurt as far as Dean centric h/c is at all. I consider it the opposite of that honestly. There would have to be other big forms of sick or hurt Dean as well in that kind of fic for it to count to me, although I wouldn't go for that either as I read exclusively Dean h/c. But I recognize the latter to have a place here and I understand why there's been so much of it the last few seasons with the onscreen canon, like you said.

[kalliel]

Yes, agreed, we want to make the tag one that makes it very clear that it's not a H/C trope that would itself qualify as Dean H/C here, but an additional story element that people either stridently wish to avoid, or seek out. Some extra way to organize the muddle that's cropped up due to the recent canon. Thank you for your input! And we're glad you're sticking around the comm. :)

[ramblin_rosie]

Chiming in to agree that some kind of distinction needs to be drawn between Dean being a caretaker because he's a mother hen and Dean being a caretaker because (for example) even though he's got pnemonia himself, Sammy has the flu with a raging high fever and nobody else is there to take care of either of them.
How the heck you put that in a tag, I don't know, and I would expect that kind of detail to at least be hinted at in the summary. But if you *can* get the tag phrasing sorted out, I expect it would be helpful.

[kalliel]

even though he's got pnemonia himself, Sammy has the flu with a raging high fever and nobody else is there to take care of either of them.

LOL. XD ikr.

Someone suggested that the tag just warn for H/C for other characters, since if Dean is caretaking, there is by definition someone on the receiving end. Do you think that would cover everyone's bases?

[mobiusklein.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that I haven't been reading much fic lately because I'm burned out on having Dean have to stuff his feelings down and take care of others with none of his efforts ever returned. So I have no interest in seeing that kind of "hurt" since I see it all the time on the show.

I'm very much if Dean is hurt then I want to see someone firmly and actively comfort him, not just do a pissing match of "I hurt more so get off your butt and take care of me even if you have a 105 degree fever" and have that count as Dean's hurt.

[kalliel]

As per the comm rules, all the fanworks posted should have a focus on Dean H/C that's, well, H/C, and not H/C-by-proxy or something. But even if it isn't the focus of the fic, what you describe here sometimes crops up in fics anyway, because Dean is Dean. I think the general consensus here is that people would like to have a tag that warns for this type of secondary content.

If you were looking through the tags of a fanwork, do you have any ideas on how you'd like to be warned if that kind of "hurt" appears in said fanwork?

attn: other hurt!characters
attn: dean-as-caretaker

?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm tired of caretaker Dean. Dean is such a dynamic character, to box him in a caretaker role is disheartening. What's wrong with badass, kickass Dean who doesn't need to take care of his 30 year old brother? Seriously, how many of us would diaper and nanny a 30 year old man who is supposed to be smart and independent? Why is Dean stuck with doing that?

I wouldn't like such a tag, and definitely would never read it. I don't care for it on the show, and I wouldn't care for it on fanfiction. As it is, I feel fanfiction stories have really gone downhill. I miss the days of hunter Dean and an equally hunter Sam. Now all there seems to be in fiction and in canon is LimpSam and AlfredDean.

The show has lost a lot of things when it decided that Dean's only role is to take care of his eternally infantile brother. At least this is what I see with caretaker Dean. MV

[geckoholic]

We're not considering the tag to encourage more of that trope -- I don't like it either, to be honest -- but as a warning. So people like you (and me) can give fics with even minor caretaker!Dean in them a pass. :)

[juppschmitz.livejournal.com]

If I was to see a fic tagged (in addition to whatever else) "caretaker!Dean" AND "hurt!(insert name of whatever other hurt-ee)" I'd know to stay well away. On the other hand, somebody who doesn't mind this can happily check it out. Maybe insert a content warning as well, as in "cw: caretaker!Dean" or "cw: hurt!(insert name of whatever other hurt-ee)"

If it was, like, mainly caretaker!Dean without actual hurt!Dean, I'd reckon this probably wouldn't be the perfect place to post? Maybe ohsam would be a better place (if Sam was the hurt-ee - lol, love that word!) or one of the many other less specific comms.

A fic that was tagged "hurt!caretaker!Dean" would sound exactly like something I'check out in a hurry, because I feel show criminally neglects to show how all this caretaking actually affects Dean, but rather seems to think, well, hey, that's just Dean, right?, and takes it for granted just like so many other people.

[kalliel]

I really like hurt!caretaker!Dean as you describe it here, but I think it might be confusing to have such a tag and have posters or newcomers be able to distinguish it from caretaker!Dean + hurt!other character. Because to be posted here, of course Dean could need to also but hurt!Dean in addition to whatever other roles he takes on. And then ak;fjasf;klj it gets so confuuuusingggg.

[prufrock-26.livejournal.com]

A tag sounds like a very, very good idea, because I've seen a lot of people in various forums lamenting the difficult situation re: caretaker!Dean. I'm not personally squicked by it, but I am all for allowing people to avoid what they want to avoid and find the kind of fic they really want to be reading.

That said, I suspect that, as a writer, I'd find such a tag difficult to use. I don't see Dean's tendency to fall into a caretaker mode as an entirely pathological/damaging trait, so I have a tendency to write Dean as caretaker in, idek, subtle and insidious ways that don't fall into a clear "other people are hurt and Dean fixes them" category. Since my understanding of the character is a little different, I'm not sure where, for those who are sensitive to this issue, Dean-caring-about-other-characters (which, presumably, isn't a squick for anyone--?) tips over the edge into offensive levels of caretaker!Dean.

Basically, I have a sense that if a tag comes into existence, I'll spend long hours every time I post anything agonizing over whether it's caretaker-y enough to warrant the tag, and probably at some point offend somebody either by tagging or by not tagging.

I don't know to what degree this is helpful (or comprehensible), but there, for what it's worth, are my two cents.

[juppschmitz.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Good points. For me (as a reader) the problem isn't actually Dean-as-caretaker, cause that's basically a huge part of his personality. For me the problem is when there's a fic that presents itself as hurt!Dean and actually has a shit ton of hurt/tortured Dean, but then ends in such a way that Dean never gets any comfort, his injuries and his pain are basically ignored in any meaningful way, and then Dean provides comfort to the other hurt person, making it in effect a hurt!(whoever else) fic.

That's what I call cheating. And that's the kind of thing I'd want tagged. But what tag to use for that?

[(Anonymous)]

I have a question. I'm currently writing a post season 8 fic where Dean takes care of Sam to the detriment of his health. Eventually Sam is brought back to health but Dean's has already fallen to the waist-side so Sam in turns brings Dean back up to health.

How the heck would I tag that?

[kalliel]

I'd tag it, "Kalliel desperately wants to read that!"


But in all seriousness, yes! This is exactly the sort of scenario we're trying to provide for when we talk about all this tagging business. Since it all cycles back to Dean I'd go out on a limb and say that provided the rest of the fic is also more hurt!Dean than hurt!anyone else, I think you'd be in the clear even without... well, whatever tags we end up with. XD That's the interim, unhelpful answer I can give you right now.

Don't let this discussion at all discourage your posting, though!

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe 'warning/note:' and then 'hurt! others' or whatever. Because for some people (me) it IS a warning, and for others it's a note so something like that would speak to both sides and not be threatening IMO.

[serendip50.livejournal.com]

I hate the idea of having this tag. It's a slippery road once you take this plunge. Canon is what it is it doesn't have to reflect in this comm, there are plenty of other sites where ppl can read caretaker!Dean. I personally don't like to read it at all and certainly wouldn't want to see it cropping up constantly here because of Canon:(. Actually it would spoil this comm for me. I want hoodie-time to remain totally h/c Dean, it's unique in that role. A small piece of fandom where I can retreat knowing I will get exactly what I have come to expect regardless of any outside influence.

I guess if ppl insist they have to include some caretaker!Dean in a h/c dean story, they can post in plenty of other comms.

I know of someone who was tentatively allowed to post a bottom!Sam fic in a bottom!Dean comm because they said that Dean had a scene as bottom. In fact you would have had to squint pretty desperately to see it....lol. Of course it garnered complaints and grumblings because Sam was in fact the focus/ bottom character. I suggested maybe the mods when faced with such a request should base their acceptance on the percentage of who does what ie. 90% bottom!Dean...10% bottom!Sam. And still I think if a comm states bottom!Dean then it should be 100% bottom!Dean. Similarly if hoodie time is h/c Dean then I wouldn't expect there to be any h/c Sam. The problem is if you have both characters in that role the dynamic of the story is somewhat changed as is the focus of a character, it's inevitable and I have read this scenario, to my disappointment, numerous times.

Just to sum up...when I read an essentially h/c dean centric fiction I expect exactly that...but if you mix in the second character as also needing the h/c then the story and usually the focus changes completely. For me the whole h/c deal needs to be one-sided to work...isn't that the whole point?!.
Canon has many aspects/scenarios writers can choose to write just because a few episodes may have Dean as a caretaker doesn't mean it has to be introduced in to this comm, necessarily. Sorry to be so blunt ...jmo as a reader not a writer:).

[(Anonymous)]

I strongly dislike it too. :(

Not a mod, but I get the point of this post as canon keeps pushing this issue at us incessently. That must be hard for the mods here. Fanworks have always since the beginning been allowed here if they contain more hurt!Dean than anyone else which isn't changing, so a tag like this would change nothing except warning people like you and me not to read things tagged that way. I do hope the word warning is used in the tag so it's not taken as anything other than a wrarning though.

[juppschmitz.livejournal.com]

Kind of in reply to the last three posts...

I realize that there are people who come to this comm who clearly don't mind the caretaker!Dean aspect as much as others. (I think it goes without saying that a fic with just that as its main aspect would not really count as hurt!Dean in itself and would not really fit the requirements of hoodie_time.)

There are other cases though like the fic gecko was referring to above where - mathematically speaking - the majority of the hurt was afflicted on Dean.

However, that last fifth of the fic was ALL Dean taking care of Sam's emotional breakdown over what he'd done to Dean. THAT in my opinion changed the WHOHLE focus of the story to hurt!Sam/caretaker!Dean in a way that upset me to an undue amount.

While that fic was certainly good in itself, I'd reckon it would appeal more to bi-bro fans or, lbr, Sam-girls. Which means that I - as a Dean-girl (and not even bi-bro) would have actually loved to be warned, cause I would have stayed the hell away from this fic. And let me repeat - it was a good fic, well written, with good characterization, and *ahem* exquisite torture scenes.

What I've been thinking now, after reading serendip50's post is that maybe it could be as easy as including a [hurt:Sam] or [hurt:Cas] or [hurt:whoever] tag in the list. (Even if the [hurt:whoever] part was emotional rather than physical, cause - hurt is hurt, right?)

I reckon this wouldn't give away too much of the story, it wouldn't clutter the tags list and it would make it pretty clear to anyone who knows Dean that Dean will be taking care of whoever else is hurt regardless of however much he is hurt, because this just is what will happen in that sort of scenario if it's written in character at all.

People who don't mind that can check out that story and others (myself) would be warned to stay away...

[serendip50.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you.

However, this is exactly my original point; by giving more tags to subjects like caretaker!dean, hurt!Sam or hurt!Cas etc just opens the doors to allow more of that sort of fic or role in a fic..*sighs* and this is afterall a hurt!Dean comm. I don't want to come here and find tags for other characters hurts just as I don't expect to find bottom!Sam tags in a bottom!Dean comm.
I presume there is a hurt!Sam comm already, no.
I'm possessive and loyal and adamant....lol...

TO Mods...
Perhaps the mods should specify that at least 80/90% of the fic must be hurt!Dean. I can live with that.

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh, why does the show make it so hard?

This wasn't a problem until the last few seasons was it. Kudos to you guys for dealing with it and making the hard calls. I wish now that it's so hard that you could just allow 0% hurt others for simplicitys sake for everyone but I guess I see the need for a warning tag with caretaker Dean being canon --- providing the fic is way more hurt Dean than anything else. I just hope that people don't use it to post that kind of thing more than they do now.

[angeltrap.livejournal.com]

Sorry I'm late again, but since I'm still hoping to get my muse back and post something here again, I figured I might as well say something.

I'm... a little against using the word "caretaker" in whichever tag we end up using. To me, Dean's role as a "caretaker" - I'd rather use the word "protector" - is a fundamental part of him, and has been since season one, not suddenly in season 8. (Though obviously I'm still a little miffed that Sam got most of the hurt during the last half of the season, because come on, protective!Sam? Is that really too much to ask? ;__;) Thus, Dean worrying about others and placing them before himself is practically always at least a small feature in my stories, if not the reason he gets hurt, and especially in the first case I wouldn't know how to tag my story. And yes, "Dean worrying about others and placing them before himself" is what "caretaker!Dean" makes me think of, not "Dean taking care of and/or comforting concussed!Sam while possibly suffering from insomnia and all that follows". So I'm just a little worried that "caretaker!Dean" would put too much in that category. "Hurt!other character" or "hurt!Cas" and "hurt!Sam" (maybe even with the warning-tag) would work for me much better, or even comforting!Dean, which would clearly indicate that there's a comfortee, that is, some other hurt character. I'm ready to admit that this could be more of an English-is-my-second-language thing, but caretaker!Dean just gives a somewhat different impression to me...

As an example, I have an unfinished story which begins pre-series and ends somewhere around season five and is centered around Dean (with serious allergies, because that's my thing) running himself ragged trying to look after his family and compensate for his missing brother/father, leading to an eating disorder and, during the course of the story, Sam, John, Bobby and Cas helping him fight it. I probably would tag this as caretaker!Dean, but have no reason to tag it as "hurt!other character". And I'm just not sure if this would be the kind of story you'd want to include in this tag, because as far as I understand (and I could've gotten it wrong, obviously!) the problem isn't so much Dean just generally looking after the people he cares about as a default (though I guess some people don't like that either), it's those other people getting all or a part of the attention and the hurt-comfort while Dean is left without or with less. (... Please tell me if I got this wrong, though, and I'll me appropriately ashamed of myself.)

And while I agree with this completely and also think that everyone should be given a fair warning in case it's not their thing, I can't help but feel a little discouraged by this entire conversation. :/

[kalliel]

The way I write Dean, and Dean H/C, is a lot like you, in that Dean is consistently straddling that line and fucking up all the neat little categories that would make fandom's life easier. XD I don't mind caretaker!Dean or hurt!others in my Dean H/C, personally, so my major stake in this debate is also being able to tag my fics for others' peace o mind, without feeling disingenuous to my own feelings for my stories.

Like, I was thinking of posting a fic I'd written for a meme here god knows how long ago, but upon re-reading realized that in the middle, hurt!Dean cares quite a bit for hurt!Sam, and is ultimately the one who goes for help, in spite of his injuries. I count it as Dean H/C through and through, because that's where the narrative focus falls, and where my descriptive interests fell, but the scenario, I realized, was exactly what we're talking about in this post! XD So like, idek, I've always been a border writer, even though as a fan I'm interested in 100% hurt Dean and nothing else. Artistic integrity and, uh, Dean's own obsessions, I guess, have other plans...

And I do think that as a comm, we should be able to allow for that flexibility (within reason). And I think that there's no hard equation that we can subscribe to or offer up in making these decisions, because a lot of it is intent, reception, how the fic reads, individually, irrespective of what its individual parts would make it seem like it is (the issue of caretaker!Dean vs. protector!Dean vs. anything else).

I think you're right that the bulk of this stems from other people getting more attention than Dean, or Dean ultimately ending up with less H or less C than some other character in the fic, or the focus of the fic drifting from Dean 's H and/or C. I do think that's the crux of the matter here, or so I'm gathering from the bulk of lovely and helpful opinions you all have been putting out here. <3

Definitely don't feel discouraged, bb! I'm personally feeling a little wary, LOL, and a little perplexed at how I will be tagging my own things, so you're not alone. XD But as a comm, I'm confident we'll find some middle ground that gives a little something to everyone. You've all been so helpful!

[reapertownusa.livejournal.com]

Just a silly question for the lovely mods - I have no clue what the Dean as caretaker squick is and it sounds like the tag is to warn folks away from a story, which I don't want to do if I'm misunderstanding the issue.

I'm confused because in the comments a number of folks were relating this proposed tag to 'hurt!other' and I write caretaker!Dean, but not in the sense of him taking care of someone else who is hurt - just in that I've always considered it part of his personality while Dean still gets ALL the hurt.

Specifically, I'm finishing a pre-series AU that's basically about the extremes Dean will go to as a caretaker. Dean is the only character hurting and Sam is the only one comforting, but Dean has been raising Sam since John died when Sam was 13 and has put everything into creating a new life for his kid brother so it'd be pretty hard to say it's not quintessential caretaker!Dean even though he's the one being cared for when it comes to the hurt aspects.

Is that the sort of scenario folks here are trying to avoid reading or is this tag specifically relating to Dean taking care of other hurt characters?

[juppschmitz.livejournal.com]

Not a mod, but one of those who feel the need to be warned of a certain scenario.

See, what you're describing there is 100% what I'd normally expect of this comm - Dean being (the only one) hurt and Sam being (the only one) comforting. Dean's personality trait of a caretaker is IMO a given for anyone who knows/writes canon Dean.

The problem only arises when there are other hurt characters in the story and Dean is shown to comfort them while being hurt himself (and not being comforted himself). That is what squicks some people (me included).

That said, I have yet to read any story from you that would fall into the second category ;)

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