#and wincesties or bronlies who pick at destiel shippers are just

[angelinthefire]

As someone who's been around the fandom longer than i, what do you think of the claim that destiel shippers were the reason female characters got killed or kicked off the show? This seems to be a really common narrative in gen fandom spaces like r/supernatural but there's never any mention of wincest shippers and idk I find it kind of dubious. I mean obviously when it's applied to characters like bela or ruby it makes no sense but what about others? Like the claim usually goes oh they could never keep around a love interest for either of them because the hellers would throw a fit but did that happen? Usually it's brought up with Jo, Lisa, Meg, and Hannah. I know that is not actually why Meg left the show, but what about the others? I also know Alona and Cindy Sampson in particular are cited as receiving harassment for their roles but did this actually have anything to do with destiel seeing as it wasn't that popular of a ship back then? I only started watching in 2014 when destiel was the biggest ship and it never seemed to me like they were trying to set up romances that were shot down by the fans. I mean did anyone actually expect hannah to be an endgame love interest? And no one really makes this claim about Amara either. And it also wouldn't apply to characters like Charlie or Missouri either who both still got killed off. Idk I've just been seeing a lot of narrative recently about fans being primarily responsible for the killing off of female characters but I feel like it's shifting blame a bit, even more so to apply it solely to destiel fans (I mean did destiel get Sarah Blake killed??)

Yeah blaming destiel shippers is ridiculous. Destiel shippers didn't even reach preponderance in the fandom until s8. The worst of the misogyny of the fandom was solidly concentrated in the first half of the shows life. Attitudes changed as societal attitudes changed, and as the show itself finally broke down and developed more of an ensemble cast.

The wincesties/bronlies were always far more venomous when it came to characters who threatened to get between the bros. No matter the gender. As can be seen from the segment that tried to keep Misha from coming back. Were there destiel shippers who hated on Meg or Anna or others? Yes, but to a degree that is pretty typical across fandoms, especially in the 2000s. Not to the degree that they actually tried to launch a campaign to get any actors fired. Which, again, is what bronlies did to Misha.

In general I think it's incorrect to blame the fans for female characters being killed off. If the writers are committed to a character and a vision and it's working for them they can make it work for the audience too. The thing with Jo and Bela is that, to my understanding, their existence is the result of network notes to try to include more female characters, so Kripke was never super committed to them in the first place.

You point out why Hannah and Meg don't make sense as examples. Alona's role was in s2, and in s5 she was basically brought back in order to be killed off. Same thing with Sarah Blake, which is a useful counter example. She was also brought back to die. Since neither of them had a recurring role when they were killed off, it doesn’t make sense to blame shippers. Again, it's the writers deciding that the most useful thing a female character can do is die to further the main characters' motivation.

Few people liked Lisa at the time s6 aired, she was seen as boring and as detracting attention from the brothers.

I think there's a relationship between the sexism of the writers and the fans. When the writers don't care about characters and see them as fridging material, fans can pick up on it. And then fan hatred of the character is cited as an excuse to write them off. This is a simplification, I do think there are parts of spn fandom that are particularly toxic, but I also think it's true that fan opinion is never the only reason why writing choices are made.

[bogunicorn]

I wish some bi!Dean/Destiel fans didn't feel the need to defend or "prove" that Dean has been purposely written as queer from the start, as if trying to convince people who will never be convinced is the gold standard of what's true in media. Because when you take that tack, you'll only ever be half right at best.

The homoerotic undertones were in SPN from Day 1 because Kripke likes that stuff, but Kripke certainly didn't intend Dean to actually be bisexual, just queercoded when it was either funny or when he felt like it.

Here's the thing though: straight people write or make queer art all the time without realizing it. Sexuality is SO much more fluid than cishets tend to realize, and the reason that you get these stories that have a really strong queer reading and creators who go "well I NEVER" is because those creators have the misconception that Straight Stuff and Gay Stuff really are two distinct categories. And they're just... not.

And it's super unfair that SPN specifically gets all this extra scrutiny when other things don't. Esp when there are so many queer writers in later seasons doing gay shit on purpose. And, hell, even if you assume that Jensen Ackles has a hardline "no I play Dean as straight" (which lol I doubt he has because I have eyes to see with), that... doesn't preclude Dean being queer. Because straight people create queer content by accident all the goddamn time.

Look, Diana Gabaldon might not think she wrote Jamie Fraser as bisexual, but she absolutely did. Charlotte Bronte might not have thought Jane Eyre is queer, but she's wrong. Any one of you can name a laundry list of obviously queer characters written by straight people who didn't mean to make them kinda gay. Dean Winchester is not that special in that regard.

In the end, yes, of course writer intent is a thing. The author is rarely truly dead. But often what makes it to screen is the definitive version of a thing, and if a creator's personal interpretation contradicts what makes it into the story, there's gray area that you have to interpret as the viewer.

And frankly what made it into the screen in SPN was gay as shit. There is no point in engaging with or "debating" people who choose not to see it or are too media illiterate to read any deeper than the thinnest surface level in the first place.

[diaryofageekgirl]

One person’s tags on this post:

1. Hi! I’m Kat! Destiel is my favourite ship in Supernatural, and I’ve been shipping it since I joined the fandom back in 2013! I also ship Wincest!

Wild how it’s not an either/or, have-to-pick-a-side sort of situation! Wild how people can like multiple ships and concepts within fandom, and the entire “you’re either with us or against us” mentality that has always kind of been here in the SPN fandom but has only gotten worse since the finale is absolute horseshit anyways!

2. “You should know that we hellers (gag) love Sam because he’s the number one Destiel shipper - ex-fucking-SCUSE me?!? Destiel may be my favourite ship in the show, but Sam is my number one favourite character, and there is nothing that pisses me off more than people acting like he’s just a shipper for Destiel, or that he’s not as important as Dean and Cas, or that he’s just the “obnoxious enthusiastic straight ally!” Fuck all the way off with that. If the only reason that you love Sam is so that he can be a fucking cheerleader for your ship, then you don’t love Sam.

3. About “wincesties” (gag) hating Cas vs. “hellers” (gag) not hating Sam - Wincest shippers do not equal bronlies do not equal bibros. Bibros is a term from the very early days of this fandom, when “Sam-girl” and “Dean-girl” meant that you had chosen a side in the ship fandom war (funny, how the more the more things change, the more they stay the same…). Being a bibro was the alternative to that - bi, as in 2, as in 2 brothers, as in liking them both equally and not choosing a side.

Bro-only fans, or bronlies, was coined by a user here on tumblr whose name I honestly can’t remember (which is probably for the best)… I wanna say around season 7-season 8 ish? Right around the time when the fandom was at its biggest here. Bronlies are… exactly what it sounds like: they only care about the brothers. Bibros has become conflated with bronlies because a lot of newer fans or people who only know the tumblr fandom and not all the other corners of the web that the supernatural fandom has been in don’t know the difference.

And there’s plenty of Wincest shippers who like other characters, as well as other ships, and who aren’t shitty people, like you’re claiming that they are. Hi, I’m Kat! I think I mentioned that already! I’m one of those people! Not to mention there are a ton of bronlies who don’t really ship anything.

4. “you should unfollow them and search therapy to heal and fix that toxic mentality because it’s going to screw up all of your relationships.” I am genuinely so fucking sick of antis treating therapy like a gotcha. Therapy is good! It helps a lot of people! But this is about the most demeaning, belittling, mocking way of phrasing that. Not to mention one fucking line earlier you said “if you are not part of their group and don’t want to be associated with them - because who in their right mind would be.” Nice fucking casual ableism.

5. Back to the actual point of the original post - I have a major problem with the mentality of “the actor ““““confirmed”“““ on twitter that their character is queer.” For one thing, they don’t really have the authority to do that. They aren’t running the show, they aren’t writing the story, they’re just playing a part. Their interpretation of their character can be wildly different from what actually ended up on screen.

On top of that, I thought we all fucking agreed way back when that Joke Rowling making Dumbledore gay after the fact wasn’t good enough. How is this any different? How is a set photo, from behind the scenes, that was release after the episode aired, of Jack’s registration form, that shows he wrote in his gender as non-binary, remotely canon, considering that there’s never any actual discussion or conversation or what the fuck ever in the show about his gender identity?

Or how is Lisa Berry using all pronouns for Billie on a couple of twitter posts supposed to count as Billie being agender or whatever specific identity you want to headcanon, when she is only ever referred to with female pronouns on the show and there is no consideration in canon whatsoever in regards to her gender identity?

How the actual fuck is Mark Sheppard saying he headcanons Crowley as pansexual, and specifically said “I don’t think he cares [about gender]. He just likes making people uncomfortable.” considered canon? As a pansexual individual myself, that sure as hell makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, sure, the pan character is sexually aggressive and regularly makes sexually explicit comments and constantly comes on to people for the sole purpose of making them uncomfortable. Thanks, I feel so represented! 🙄 /s

But the oodles of queer Sam meta and analysis that this fandom has done doesn’t count as canon - not to mention Jared supporting it for years, which by your own metric should qualify? I know that you’ve made another post apologizing for this one, and I appreciate it, but it’s trying to put a band-aid over a bullet hole. The combination of the totally dismissive tone of this post, plus the fact that you apparently didn’t bother to look up whether people have seen Sam as queer, just makes that apology feel hollow.

is there a reason why sam isn’t included in the header for this?

we chose characters that were canonically lgbt! either in the show or in deleted scenes or as stated by the actors (,: