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naruhearts · 6 years ago

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OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here:

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text.

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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Hi there! I️ adore your meta and was wondering your thoughts on Danneel joining the cast. Dabb is seemingly rewriting the series this season and now we are getting another Jo...a Sister Jo. I'm awful at this stuff but hopefully you know where I'm trying to go. I've seen a ton on how this will or won't impact DeanCas but little on this aspect of it. Thanks!!

Hiya!

And yeah I’m deep in the “just wait and see and stop assuming the worse” side of things about Destiel, because every single female character casting announcement since ever has been met with a kneejerk “it’s to give Dean a love interest/kill Destiel” reaction and I hate it >.> Even if they do have a fling it seems wildly unlikely it’s an endgame love interest thing and I also hate the idea that we’re supposed to get upset about Dean having sex with anyone… Or assume all female characters are love interests, OR that Jensen’s wife would be cast JUST to hook up with Jensen, jokes aside.

So, hey, let’s throwback to the first character introduced that made people panicked and angry that Dean was going to have a love interest!

In the first couple of episodes with Jo, Dean really has it bad for her. There’s the now since 12x19 infamous line (well, okay, since 4x14 as well :P) about getting picked up by a guy bringing a sixpack and putting some zeppelin on the jukebox or whatever it was. In Simon Said they drop by the roadhouse and he gets the song Jo was playing while she cleared the bar stuck in his head and he’s still singing it far down the road. No Exit put a roadblock into their relationship though by giving us the backstory with John and her father and Ellen seeing Dean as just as dangerous to Jo… The story was subverted with the way they used her as bait and she KNEW she was bait before she even put together the file on the case. By the end of the episode she’s so upset about that reveal, that she can’t really look at Dean any more because Ellen has made her so upset about the truth.

I think this must be the end of the original run of what could have been a longer romance for Dean because they’d naturally give Jo some time to cool and the episodes would start airing and they started getting the ridiculous fan response to Jo, of the first Serious Threat To Dean’s Singledom, whether it’s people thinking girls suck and ruin the story, or romance is bad on TV or having their shipping or fantasy fuel from Dean ruined by imagining him in a romance. So if there had been a plan to bring her back for more episodes in a way where she would be able to interact with Dean more and continue building what at the time was the ideally placed romance for him and about the only way to structurally maintain one short of adding a girl to the team (something fans were REALLY pissed about, and in season 3 announcing the casting, they had to insist Bela and Ruby weren’t going to just suddenly be added to the cast and spend every episode riding around in the Impala with the guys).

Anyways it’s fairly well-known how absolutely disgusting people in this fandom can be and definitely were about female characters and all, so Jo’s only return, while Ellen stays as support on the phone/in the Roadhouse a few more times and has to say Jo’s run off to go her own way, is in 2x14 where she interacts first with Meg-as-Sam where she attacks Jo and reveals even more of the possible backstory to what happened to her father, just to remind her how horrible the Winchesters are. Later when Dean’s around, they have a much less charged interaction, Dean’s way distracted about Sam - rightfully - and the tropey patch each other up thing is subverted by Dean complaining she’s a butcher rather than it being the Indiana Jones “i hurt here and here and here” kinda tropey way to get a woman to touch the dude “plantonically”. They do field surgery and then Jo doesn’t tell Dean about what Meg told her, only gets it from Dean that she might have told Jo the truth to hurt her, and again it’s that Jo can’t bear to get into this with Dean, doesn’t tell him the truth, and they’re not working through this together. If there HAD been a longer arc this would have been something really sad for them to overcome. But he legs it after Sam and she sighs that he’s not going to call her, now moving this really to unrequited pining territory while Dean is distracted and busy and Jo has moved firmly to the “i must protect you and can’t deal with this and we missed the chance” bracket.

She then disappears for three seasons, where she comes back as a “hey this character exists” along with Ellen in 5x02, where she and Dean have *no* meaningful interaction, and 5x10 where he tries it on for old time’s sake, she turns him down because she understands herself better and has grown up and not seen him for 3 years so the whole unrequited pining fire has gone out on its own even if they both still think the other is kind of attractive. He eventually just sweetly kisses her goodbye while she’s dying horribly and that seals it like welp we were never ever going to happen and it’s not just because you’re now bleeding out and about to explode. This is just what was inevitably going to happen to us and in hindsight I’m glad you stopped up hooking up.

And in 7x04 when she reappears, again it’s wistful missed opportunity, but she gets to speak for his conscience and vindicate him that they were never meant to be no matter if they sort of liked each other. They get around to pointing out the same thing from No Exit - that Jo was trying to be a hunter like her dad, that THIS was why she was doing it and we already covered this ground in season 2. Osiris goes into it with a fandom filter - hurr blurr she’s a love interest and Dean feels so bad about it, but Sam gets her own words out - maybe she had a massive crush on him that she can joke about with hindsight but she was always going to be a hunter and probably always would have got herself killed some way or another, but haven’t they all died (too many times) on the job by now? :P

So, yeah, THAT is the legacy behind Jo’s name when you’re talking about bringing in a character with the same name again… Danneel OBVIOUSLY makes you make a link between Sister Jo and Dean although I would find it HILARIOUS if she never met him, but the whole thing with Jo is like a missed connection, a romance that DIDN’T happen for Dean, and probably in no small part because the fandom was awful in the exact same way that has probably kept Danneel off the show for so long. I remember seeing a gifset of a con where Cindy was joking about how much everyone hated Lisa and then saying that Danneel joked to her about well you try being MARRIED to Jensen.

I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a call out of the fandom or anything, but it is interesting that this is all in here… It might just be they’re pulling old names from the past out of a hat for the nostalgia, but I think there’s been some interesting ways to examine what they might mean in the way they’ve been used. Right now I kinda feel like it’s impossible to avoid the way everyone’s mind jumps to casting Danneel to her having a romantic connection to Dean, because of being married to Jensen, even if that’s reducing her as an actress just to the man she’s married to, like, wow, go feminism. But at least giving her the name Jo creates some interesting thoughts right off the bat.

I don’t see Jo as a simple past love interest to just give Danneel’s character this name so ooooh is she going to be another love interest, because they remained unrequited, and didn’t even have any really heated personal scenes because their relationship failed to catch hold after 2x06, and in the long gap between that and Born Under A Bad Sign they got too real about how bad they’d be for each other and how the block introduced to make a will-they-won’t-they more emotionally charged ended up just plain old being a massive block, and sadly deprived us of probably a lot of interesting season 2 John Winchester analysis via their issues with what happened with their parents…

In any case, Dean having a romance with a second Jo seems really on the nose so it’s another reason even ignoring the proper story behind it to think that they wouldn’t really go there because some people IRL have romances with like 3 dudes called Mike back to back or whatever without even meaning to, but in TV you can’t repeat names like that. Unless it’s comical, like Donna and her Doug problems. And that shows that her second Doug had all the issues from the first Doug that she mentally superimposed over him even though he seemed harmless. Perhaps they managed to work together better but I doubt Donna’s going on to Wayward Sisters with a wayward Doug in tow :P Anyway, rules of comedy are different from rules of grim melodrama, which any attempt to romance Dean Winchester falls under… :P

#Asks #13x12 #season 13 spoilers #Jo #parallels #season 2 #dean analysis

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