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The man can barely work a toaster!
Just watched the first episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I decided in the first five minutes - and the show did nothing to dissuade me - that I was watching an AU of Supernatural where John was a woman and Dean had died as well as Mary. Because - yeah. John C is like *Sam*, totally, only if Sam and John W had been all each other had. John C trusts his mother and follows her orders because her constant terror that she'll lose him is not unmerited - all they have are each other. Whereas Sammy is more resentful of John's constant protectoro because he can't imagine a world without Dean - where they are under threat. Where Sam could be left alone.
And in that AU scenario, it wouldn't be that female!John had been genderswapped, or that f!John was the wife whose husband had died... It would be more like: Sam and Dean have two mommies.
Because, dude. AWESOME.
And the shelf in my brain where I kept my genderswapped!John just had the dust blown off it... The plan was that John makes a rookie mistake in his early days of hunting, gets genderswitched. Early days as in: first *year*.
And he doesn't change back. At least, not for a long time. And John is in this weird in-between (trans?) space where yeah, he is still very much a man - as in, his personality etc does not change - but in a female body. It's not like he "changes" much in how he interacts with the boys etc, but of course, he doesn't live in a bubble and comes up against some difficulty in the hunting world, and in the world in general - being perceived as a single mom, a butch woman, etc. But he doesn't want to 'pick sides' himself - he can't *afford* to dump all the hyper-masculine parts of his character, in the world he moves in. And in terms of how John perceives gender - his white-picket-fence/must-hunt-evil background lends itself to relative binaries. So picking the "female" side for him would involve being motherly, rather than being fatherly, etc.
So Sammy, who was a baby at the time, takes a while until his brain is moving toward independent thought to realise that there's something different about his [insert gender-neutral term of affectionate parental address they pick up here]. Dean, who was four at the time, was a bit further along in his comprehension - but it also means he was at the omg hero-worship phase so what John "is" (and isn't) is hardwired into a different part of his brain. When Sam gets old enough to resent John and want a different life, the whole gender thing is another thing that just rubs Sam the wrong way - it's not *normal*. But Dean feels no different than ever.
Sam goes to college, Dean and John start hunting on their own... and something happens, while they're separated - John is switched back.
Anyway, clearly I have thoughts, but though I reallyreally want to write it NOW, I feel that I'm not exactly in a place I could attack this and do it justice. But still. *clings to it*
Though I LOVE the idea of the Dean-and-Sammy Have Two Mommies, too. Like, SO much. It's all Sarah Connor's fault for being so awesome.
And in that AU scenario, it wouldn't be that female!John had been genderswapped, or that f!John was the wife whose husband had died... It would be more like: Sam and Dean have two mommies.
Because, dude. AWESOME.
And the shelf in my brain where I kept my genderswapped!John just had the dust blown off it... The plan was that John makes a rookie mistake in his early days of hunting, gets genderswitched. Early days as in: first *year*.
And he doesn't change back. At least, not for a long time. And John is in this weird in-between (trans?) space where yeah, he is still very much a man - as in, his personality etc does not change - but in a female body. It's not like he "changes" much in how he interacts with the boys etc, but of course, he doesn't live in a bubble and comes up against some difficulty in the hunting world, and in the world in general - being perceived as a single mom, a butch woman, etc. But he doesn't want to 'pick sides' himself - he can't *afford* to dump all the hyper-masculine parts of his character, in the world he moves in. And in terms of how John perceives gender - his white-picket-fence/must-hunt-evil background lends itself to relative binaries. So picking the "female" side for him would involve being motherly, rather than being fatherly, etc.
So Sammy, who was a baby at the time, takes a while until his brain is moving toward independent thought to realise that there's something different about his [insert gender-neutral term of affectionate parental address they pick up here]. Dean, who was four at the time, was a bit further along in his comprehension - but it also means he was at the omg hero-worship phase so what John "is" (and isn't) is hardwired into a different part of his brain. When Sam gets old enough to resent John and want a different life, the whole gender thing is another thing that just rubs Sam the wrong way - it's not *normal*. But Dean feels no different than ever.
Sam goes to college, Dean and John start hunting on their own... and something happens, while they're separated - John is switched back.
Anyway, clearly I have thoughts, but though I reallyreally want to write it NOW, I feel that I'm not exactly in a place I could attack this and do it justice. But still. *clings to it*
Though I LOVE the idea of the Dean-and-Sammy Have Two Mommies, too. Like, SO much. It's all Sarah Connor's fault for being so awesome.
no subject
If John W was a stand-offish parent, it was because of his personality ("somewhere along the line, I stopped being your father and became your drill-sargeant"), not because of his genes.
Sarah strikes me as being closer to John C as a parent, because of who she is.
Also her job is a little different than John W - hunting the killer of his wife first, teaching his sons about this world not just for their protection but to carry on this work for greater humanity. John is acting as a husband first and parent second. Sarah is a parent first. Yes, she's teaching and protecting John for his good and the greater good of humanity, but John is her first priority in a way that Dean and Sam weren't John's.
You'd have to factor that in. I wonder how John's relationship with his sons would have been different had Mary not been on the scene at the time of the fire and he's already known about Sam or if Sam had been the focus of the attack in the nursery, by Azazel meaning to kill him, like Skynet tries to kill John.