#The15yearshowmeta

[dotthings]

I’m not using the spn or supernatural tags any more, as mitigation where I still can post what loved about it without contributing so much to the “all buzz is good buzz” rewarding its overall profile after the finale failed so many of us. For tagging and blacklisting purposes, i’ll be using #The15YearShow. The character tags I am most likely to use are Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, Destiel, Wayward Sisters, Team Free Will, Saileen. Unlikely I will ever use the “mildew” tag again which I used for spn related wanks but if you want to avoid seeing any drama just in case, blacklist that tag.

A reminder that I’ve been in spn fandom for 15 seasons and I have never seen this many fans, across lanes, so hurt all at once. It’s not because spn ended. There are a host of issues with that finale, and this outcry isn’t driven by any one faction’s lenses.

The fandom was divided over Dabb era, but you could find as much love as anger. The series finale reaction otoh is more overwhelming leaning towards fans hurt by it. This had made a deep ripple effect across factions that don’t even get along with each other. The most prevailing sentiment I am seeing is fans feeling hurt, crushed, flattened, disappointed, baffled, confused, stunned, puzzled. We got a whole thesaurus up in here. Who knows what our feelings are doing. On top of processing the enormity of a show with this long a run, with this kind of emotional engagement, ending. 

There’s a lot of deer in headlights for me with this finale because I loved S15 so much. I got what TPTB were doing, I supported and defended the writers room, and I’m not rescinding any of that or my character-based metas. Something, somewhere went bafflingly wrong, that finale didn’t fit the build-up all season.

The disparity between a dynamic, expansive, subversive and warmly character-driven season vs the bafflingly short-changed, oddly muted emotionally (minus Dean’s death scene), oddly paced finale is so jarring it’s making my teeth ache. The finale did harm to Sam, Dean, and Castiel’s arcs in ways that don’t fit what the season had been doing, it lodged found family down to a footnote, abandoned two crucial-to-season-plot canon love stories, rendered a disabled character portrayed by a disabled actor into a faceless anywoman for the sake of plot servicing so Sam can have a son, flung Cas, a now confirmed queer character, off screen at the last minute (with many fans refusing to believe he wouldn’t return because how would that make sense), harming his individual arc and harming Destiel, which is the second biggest focal relationship in canon after the bro bond, and was an A-plot in S15. The finale was so aggressively bathed in nostalgia, so reductive to Dean’s arc especially, so regressive, despite the rebuilt Heaven ending, it feels like the story sacrificed its own story for the sake of mourning the past instead of the sense of freedom and moving into the future that seems to be the actual intent. 

Oh and covid doesn’t explain it. Because covid wouldn’t prevent them from adding more dialogue, doing some ADR, adding photographs, adding name-drops, doing other infodumps if they couldn’t get actors to set. Covid doesn’t explain Castiel’s absence. Given how crucial Cas is to the story right along, having his role in the series finale of the entire show be so expendable it could be cut out due to the needs of covid regulations, or it was never planned as necessary, is an unforgiveable story sin, plus making no sense. There was a large number of people on that bridge in the final bts group season shot and you’re telling me they couldn’t swing putting a massively beloved main character who is the third lead on this show into this series finale. No. And I wish the crew of The 15 Year Show and adjacent accounts would stop acting like covid explains it.

There’s some good things in the very end, once they get to remade heaven. Some hope and promise for the future, but that doesn’t change the string of fails as to what wasn’t on screen. Pulling out those gossamer spots of comfort is a triage.