#askboxery

[eisforeidolon]

I don’t think if I should, but I felt offended when Misha tried to pass Jared's favourite quote 'pain is inevitable ,suffering is optional'. Not that anyone has a copyright on that quote, but I believe he did it purposefully. Thanks to Jensen for standing up.

Yeah, a big part of the reason I transcribed that one is because it felt really suspect to me. Not just picking the quote Jared has been saying over and over when asked that kind of question, out of all the myriad possibilities? But then proceeding to shit on it and say it's wrong and make a joke of it and the question.

Like, I'm not saying anyone has to like that quote or find it inspiring. But after reframing the mutual set pranking to make himself a victim of Jared, after just recently rewriting two plane stories together to paint Jared as a maliciously careless asshole, on top of all the other weird bitter shit he's said?

It did feel pointed, and I don't give Misha the benefit of the doubt anymore.

[eisforeidolon]

Lest we forget, "Fan Fiction" was the first and only ep that Jensen flew down to LA to speak with Carver/Thompson about, because of the Destiel shit in it. Even Thompson said he was a bit worried he was getting fired, because again, while Jared and Jensen have met with the writers before, it was usually before the start of the seasons, and never in the middle of one after reading a script.

Yeah, not only has Jensen repeatedly said he never played Dean that way? When they decided to do an episode which only just mentioned the ship as part of the whole fanfiction thing? He went directly to ask what the hell they were doing in a way he hadn't ever done before [X]. Because he cared about his character and the story and wanted to know what the message was supposed to be, to make sure it wasn't something that didn't fit.

This is not somebody who has just never ~*considered the possibility*~. This is somebody who put a lot of thought and effort into crafting a character across fifteen seasons of a show. For a fair span of which, he did so while having to try and be patient dealing with "fans" at conventions who repeatedly made it clear they were too busy fantasizing about him having gay sex to pay attention to literally anything else. They've been shoving NSFW fanart in his face, demanding he read deluded essays about Dean's sexuality, trying to box him in with leading questions to make him admit Dean's bi and lurves Castiel romantically, labeling him a homophobe if he doesn't agree with them, and just generally telling him in a million ways they don't care about him as an actor or even about any version of Dean that isn't half their ship for a long-ass time.

Given those givens? If you think he hasn't been very aware of anything that would even hint at an other-than-brotherly relationship with Castiel in a legitimate way (i.e. not lighting or bacon or other shipper hallucinations of significance)? C'mon. So, no, rewatching the show isn't going to magically change his mind by showing him something he ~*never noticed*~ before. One, because there literally is no there there without shipper goggles welded to your face. Two, because we know of times where he took deliberate steps to make sure there continued to be no there there. Because that wasn't canon Dean's story.

[eisforeidolon]

The writers were aware of fandom wank, which is why a lot of the “Dean/Cass” stuff ends up on the cutting room floor. It’s like they’d write something that seemed fine on paper, the. they realize people will read too much into it when performed and cut it out.

That was some of it. Like the infamous fake heaven scene they thought would be so hilarious to fill with pictures of Dean - where Jared had to point out some fans would take it seriously as a hint to where the story was going. So they removed it because that wasn't the intent. Like the crypt scene were Jensen pointed out Dean would not say I love you there. So Robbie changed it to what he more explicitly meant in terms of it being familial affection by his own direct admission.

Hellers want to insist all those little cut moments are PROOF of a conspiracy to ~*cheat them*~ out of an intended D/C story the writers were trying to give them, damn the meddling network and producers! However, what all the details we've actually heard about show? Is the ship being a thing in canon was so far outside of the genuine agreed intent multiple writers not only didn't think about the implications and not only used it as a punchline? But usually immediately removed those supposed hints when anyone pointed out the prospect of it being taken seriously by fans. Of course, when you have fans so desperately searching for clues they can turn literally breathing in the same room into ~*epic romance*~ it's hard to remove everything unless the characters literally never interact (and then you end up with "negative space" meta, so there's no winning).

Sure, there's a deeper question there as to whether they thought that specific pairing was ridiculous in the context of the canon (absolutely) or they generally thought m/m pairings were only fodder for jokes (not cool). Except that's a whole different discussion, because either way? What is clear is there was never some intentional secret storyline in easily cut throwaway moments leading up to making D/C canon the REAL story of the show. And not just because the idea anyone would tell a story on tv that way is fucking bonkers.

The writers definitely became more aware as time went on about fandom wank in regards to the subject? Though I think it was complicated a bit by them also having some quote unquote writers join the team towards the very end who were desperate for attention and actively wanted to bait those unhinged fans, like Bobo the Assclown and whatsherface the minion underling.

[eisforeidolon]

Facts: SPN could go on w/out supporting / guest characters like Cass, Crowley, Rowena, Bobby, etc…

Facts: SPN could not go on w/out Sam or Dean. As they and their relationship with each other and other characters was the show.

It really is that simple.

Unfortunately, the blatantly obvious will never convince the intentionally self-deluding.

Despite Misha's comparative lack of screen time, despite all of their predictive meta consistently turning out to be hilariously wrong? They've spent years telling each other that AcTUaLLy, the show couldn't go on without Castiel! The focus shifted! Sam faded into the background because they were only actually paying attention to things they could pretend were clues to D/C! It totally was a romance, the network just changed their mind at the very last minute in an evil homophobic conspiracy! Pastry/ lighting/ bacon/ wardrobe/ eye contact/ random graffiti/ gross stereotypes/ intentionally removed scenes/ the 'negative space' where Castiel should be /whatthefuckever told me so!

Aside from stuff they blatantly just made up, all they have is randomly cherry-picked details you need a stuck secret decoder ring to believe both have meaning and are all connected into a story - that totes should have but somehow never did manifest itself into the actual narrative. Nevermind that if you watch the show which actually fully exists in terms of the details legitimately and intentionally put there? The arcs revolving around Dean & Sam are obvious components at the heart of every main narrative.

It doesn't matter. Because it's not about what was in front of their eyeballs, it's about belief. Which is fascinating in terms of group behavior and the development and reinforcement of shared delusions, but annoying as a fan that has to share a space with them.

[eisforeidolon]

Hang on, what did misha say about Jared again?? That moron...

Misha previously told two stories:

He forgot to lock the door on the plane bathroom and Jared opened it and took a picture, so he flushed Jared's phone (told on IOU with Rosenbaum).

He was on a different plane in the bathroom when there was some turbulence and it got ... messy (told at an earlier convention).

This past weekend, he conflated those two incidents and further changed the details so that while he was in the bathroom, Jared somehow convinced the pilot to do a zero gravity dive to take a picture of him covered in fluids. That is ... insane. Both because he already told those stories and the internet is forever so it's obvious he's full of shit, and because no pilot would ever fucking do that even IF Jared would ask because it is insanely dangerous.

Here's a link to a reblog of the previous post with links to videos of both the previous stories and the bullshit he said this weekend: [X].

[eisforeidolon]

MISHA IS SUPERNATURAL BIGGEST MISTAKE.

CASTIEL COULD HAVE BEEN AN INTERESTING CHARACTER, IF HE HAD BEEN PLAYED BY A TALENTED AND PROFESSIONAL ACTOR. ESPECIALLY PROFESSIONAL AND SERIOUS.

WE DON'T DESERVE MISHA'S LIES AND QUEERBAITING.

BUT I THINK THAT MISHA ONLY TALENTS ARE LYING TO PEOPLE AND QUEERBAITING HIS DESTIEL FANS FOR MONEY. THIS ARE THE ONLY THINGS HE KNOWS HOW TO DO.

DESTIEL ISN'T CANON. JENSEN SAID THAT SO MANY TIMES.

HE EVEN SAID THAT WHEN HE WAS ASKED ABOUT "THE CONFESSION 'S RESOLUTION".

HE SAID THAT THERE WAS NOTHING TO BE RESOLVED. BECAUSE EVEN IF THE "CONFESSION " WAS ROMANTIC, FOR DEAN NOTHING WOULD CHANGE.

DEAN ISN'T IN LOVE WITH CASTIEL. HE ADDRESSES CASTIEL AS DEAN 'S FRIEND AND ONE OF THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO HIM. BUT THAT'S IT.

JENSEN NEVER ADDRESSES CASTIEL AS DEAN'S POTENTIAL LOVE INTEREST.

JENSEN (AND JARED) SAID MANY TIMES THAT SUPERNATURAL IS ABOUT SAM AND DEAN AND THEIR DEEP BOND AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

15X20 IS THE PROOF OF THAT LOVE. WINCEST IS MORE CANON THAN DESTIEL WILL EVER BE.

I'M TALKING ABOUT PLATONIC LOVE OF COURSE.

I SHIP WINCEST BUT UNLIKE THE HELLERS I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS CANON AND WHAT IS JUST A FANTASY.

15x20 SHOWS TO THE VIEWER THE ESSENCE OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SAM AND DEAN.

SPOILER FOR 15X20.

SPOILER FOR 15X20

SPOLER FOR 15X20

DEAN DIES, BUT EVEN IN HIS LAST MOMENTS HE COMMITS HIMSELF TO ONLY LOVE SAM. HE SAYS HE LOVES HIM AND THAT IT'S ALWAYS BEEN THEM TOGETHER AGAINST THE WORLD.

" IT'ALWAYS BEEN YOU... AND ME". THAT'S WHAT DEAN SAYS.

THE PAUSE IN THAT PHRASE, THE WAY THEY EMBRACE, THE FOREHEAD TOUCH. EVERYTHING IN THE SCENE IS POINTING TO WHO IS WATCHING THAT DEAN GREATEST LOVE IS SAM.

THIS IS A CONFESSION. PLATONIC AND SO BEAUTIFUL. BETTER THAN ANY OTHER "ROMANTIC" CONFESSION THAT I EVER SEEN OR I EVER HEARD.

END SPOILER FOR 15X20.

OF COUSE DEAN IS ALSO SAM GREATEST LOVE, BUT I WANTED TO GIVE MY ATTENTION TO DEAN 'S BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS SAM VS DEAN BEHAVIOUR TOWARD CASTIEL IN THEIR LAST SCENE TOGETHER. THERE IS NO COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TWO.

WE ALL KNOW THAT SUPERNATURAL WAS ALWAYS ABOUT SAM AND DEAN AND THAT A LOVE STORY CAN BE ABOUT TWO BROTHER WHO SAVED EACH OTHER AND FOUGHT MONSTERS, EVIL CREATURES, DEMONS, ANGELS, THE DEVIL AND GOD FOR STAYING WITH EACH OTHER.

OF COURSE WE CANNOT SAY SAM AND DEAN WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT JARED AND JENSEN. THEIR ACTING, THEIR CHEMISTRY INSIDE THE SHOW AND OUTSIDE TOO, THEIR KINDNESS, IS WHAT MAKES SUPERNATURAL A SHOW THAT CHANGED MY LIFE.

I ALWAYS GET EMOTIONAL ABOUT THIS SHOW. THAT'S WHY I CAN'T STAND PEOPLE LIKE MISHA WHO ALWAYS SAYS SHIT ABOUT THE SHOW AND THE ACTORS ( JARED AND JENSEN)

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO MY RANT, SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH, IT ISN'T MY FIRST LANGUAGE, AND I HOPE THAT I DIDN'T ANNOY YOU OR BOTHERED YOU.

MAY LOVE AND KINDNESS ALWAYS FIND YOU.

I have to agree. Also, your English is fine and I definitely understand the need to rant about all this nonsense sometimes, that's why I've got this blog! <3

I do actually feel like Misha was a perfectly serviceable actor way back at the beginning. I even get why they decided to keep him around when he proved popular with the fandom. It was indeed proven a mistake in so, so many ways as time went on, though.

Yeah, first and most egregious is the kind of person Misha turned out to be - or at least turned into after so many years of fans blowing smoke up his ass. A bitter, entitled, ungrateful, lazy backstabber who is perfectly comfortable telling blatantly obvious and contradictory self-serving lies and nonsense. Whether that's about the ship or his relative importance to the show directly, whether that's skeevy sexual comments about Jensen/Dean, whether that's trying to paint Jared as some kind of evil bully that abused him. He keeps proving again and again there is no bar he won't limbo under.

Next is I think his performance on the show and what his continued presence on the show resulted in plot-wise from the writers. He was fine at first when he was just playing a non-human mysterious figure that only appeared now and then and had a major role in the whole structure of the apocalypse. He even had a pretty good arc leading up to the Leviathans. The problem was they kept him around as a "fan favorite" after that when they really didn't have anything for him to do but eat up screen time to give J2 time off. Would we have really gotten so much bad, circular angel politics if there wasn't a need to give Castiel something to do to keep Misha employed? I personally doubt it. Even worse than that, though? As time went on, Misha seemed to recognize that his only relevance was baiting shippers and wasting time and leaned into turning Castiel into the type of character he gets written as in so much bad D/C fanfic - a pathetic mostly human woobie who is completely useless for anything but the projection of bizarre teen romance fantasies that don't make any damn sense. Which culminated in that bizarre ambiguous queerbait he and Bobo the Clown cooked up for Castiel's exit. Which doesn't even touch his later seasons' presumable attempts at acting where his choices for Lucifer!Castiel & AU!Castiel & Empty!Castiel were all ... entirely made up of bad accents and gurning. It wasn't about any of those character's motivations or places in the narrative, it was about the laziest possible attempt to differentiate them from his normal character. Even in latter season's SPN, which IMNSHO had so, so many issues dragging things down, Misha's lack of interest in anything but the size of his paychecks and con earnings played into some of the worst.

Which brings us to D/C and the whole supposedly canon thing. Canon is literally what happened. D/C didn't happen, it's that simple. Castiel rambled some ambiguous bullshit about love and got sucked into the Empty while Dean looked bewildered and sad at him from several feet away. Misha can make up as many stories about what the character was totally thinking and how he was totally coming back in the finale and queerbaiting about what will totes happen in a revival, but not a word of it actually makes what Castiel said "I'm IN love with you". Nor does it magically manifest a reciprocation from Dean. What doesn't happen on screen but actors or TPTB say about the canon is often called Word of God. Which yes, Misha's does not outweigh everything Jensen and Jared and various showrunners have clearly said. Jensen might have gotten less confrontational about shooting it down over the years, but the underlying message hasn't changed. Meanwhile, not only do the details of Misha's stories constantly change, but the general message of his claims has flip flopped so many times. The show was about the brothers, no actually the brothers and the angel! He joked about wincest, no actually he'd never heard of it! He didn't want to say what that scene meant, no actually feel free to attack anyone who says it wasn't a homosexual declaration of love! There's more, but Misha's not worth the effort of looking them up.

As you say, at the end of the day, anyone watching the totality of the show and seeing how it ended? It's very obvious the center of the story was a platonic love story. A complicated one, granted, but Sam and Dean so many times made it very clear that it was them ... and everyone else. Except in the same way that acknowledging that doesn't serve the hellers agenda in demanding a continuation must center their ship so they can finally have visuals to go with their fanfic, acknowledging that doesn't serve Misha's agenda of fleecing them out of money for telling them it will happen for as long as he can get away with it.

[eisforeidolon]

I'M PISSED OFF BY MISHA'S ATTITUDE AND LIES TOWARDS JARED!

HE'S GONE TOO FAR. SAYING THAT THING ABOUT JARED AND PLAYING THE VICTIM WHEN HE IS ACTUALLY JUST A LYING NARCISSIST. I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW PEOPLE CAN STILL SUPPORT HIM AND BELIEVE IN WHATEVER HE SAYS.

JARED SHOULD REALLY SUE HIM AT THIS POINT FOR WHAT HE'S SAYING ABOUT HIM.

You know, I was trying to remember yesterday just how many times it's been now where Misha has surpassed himself in being a bitter, gross, ungrateful and jealous little troll to the point it astonished me. Like, did he really say that?!? Wow.

Like, it started out with the occasional sly imprecation and it seems like the more irrelevant he becomes and the more he's gotten away with? The more emboldened he's gotten to just tell more and more blatantly ridiculous and even potentially harmful lies. I kind of feel like at this point, until he openly says something so absolutely, undeniably putrid that J2 find out and cut him off, it really is going to keep escalating indefinitely.

I mean, I honestly find the fans letting him get away with it less baffling than him doing it in the first place. Because we've already seen that in their desperation to pretend getting canon D/C is the most important cause ever in LGBT+ history, they will believe anyone who tells them what they want to hear and try to throw anyone who they see as "in the way" under the bus. So, yeah, Misha could bitchslap their grandma and run over their dog and they'd still live up his ass. Talking any level of shit about Jared is a-okay with them, because they already want to believe he's evil for Sam existing at the center of SPN instead of their shitty ship. Not only that? But at the end of the day, they really have nothing to lose. Their wackadoodle online behavior isn't likely to have any impact on their IRL lives, and even in terms of online lives? For the most part, they could slink away from their batshit heller identities tomorrow and have a clean slate.

Misha though? Like, what the actual fuck are you doing, dude, you're not just burning real life personal and professional bridges, you're trying to nuke them from orbit. Sure, he's not getting any new roles because anyone in the business of hiring can see the caliber of his "acting talent" in the last several seasons of SPN. But is he really that confident he thinks no level of backstabbing is going to get his ass booted from conventions and any potential revival? Can he actually be stupid enough to have bought so far into the smoke his stans are blowing up his ass to think that he's actually as indispensable as J2? One line about how Cass is busy in heaven and boom, he's acceptably accounted for to the majority of the GA.

Even the nicest, most forgiving person in the universe is going to eventually say enough is enough. Basically accusing Jared of endangering his life to try and make his own actions of flushing Jared's phone look less shitty by comparison is ... I don't have words. How much lower can he even go? Unfortunately, I suspect we'll continue to find out.

[eisforeidolon]

Like 90% of the show revolved around Sam/Dean or from their POV. 10% were B-C plots for Cass, Crowley, whoever, so J2 could get time off. But just because 10% of the show had focus on other characters, doesn’t mean it was an ensemble. And not to mention the whole “found family” thing, like if Sam and Dean referred to someone as “family”, it was 9x out of 10 a death sentence. It was like another version of “sleep w/ Sam and die”. Family don’t end in blood, but it ends bloody when you’re in it w/ the Winchesters.

If you watch and pay attention to the entire show as a whole, yes, it's painfully obvious.

The problem is, as is so often the case? Certain fans only pay attention to what they personally are invested in. Sure, in this particular case, that's just (their imaginative personal reinterpretations of) a fraction of the show? With a show spanning 15 years, though, even a fraction is a lot of content. Easily enough that someone who wants to deceive themselves they're properly remembering 'the whole show' can.

So it doesn't matter that Misha was in a fraction of the airtime of a fraction of the episodes compared to J2. They only cared about the episodes he was in or they could pretend were about him, so he was a lead equal to J2! It doesn't matter that the Wayward herd and Eileen were in even fewer episodes and played only minor roles (if any) in the major arcs. They wanted them to be very very important, and the characters talked about family being more than blood a couple times across the whole span of the show, so found family was the major theme! It definitely doesn't matter Sam & Dean talked about their relationship as something special above and beyond just family more times than that, because they were tuning out/actively wanted to forget those scenes. And so on.

With a source material as extensive as the show Supernatural, there's always some extent to which fans' biases are going to distort their memory of the canon. But certain people really do take it to the next level. Which doesn't even account for the ones who know they're full of shit but believe they can change (at least the perception of) reality through never-ending spam campaigns.

[eisforeidolon]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Supernatural/s/NwUjmZnu8u

Hellers on reddit

"

I never thought I had to write this but I feel this topic hasn't been properly discussed. Every time I watch supernatural, especially these last seasons, I get so frustrated by this issue and I don't know how people feel about this. Because, how I see it, there is a Cas that's trying to do anything in his hand to protect the Winchesters, making mistakes or not, but I don't feel that it's reciprocated by them, at least not always. And especially Dean.

Dean's behaviour towards Cas is an issue itself. He has a very complicated and deep relationship with Cas, or at least he is supposed to have. I feel like Dean can sometimes be such a jerk towards the angel for no reason, even though what he might have done is not a big deal. The problem is, every time Cas dies, Dean is absolutely devastated and feels like he has lost the love of his life (which is more than reasonable), but when he somehow comes back to life, Dean goes back to "normal" and his tough guy attitude towards Cas resumes. Look, I really like Dean, and I get that he has been through a lot throughout his life, but Sam has also been through hell (lol) and he happens to be much nicer and empathetic. What I'm trying to say is that Dean cannot be a jerk to Cas and then cry over his dead body, because, honestly, that's just toxic.

Take the example of Mary's death. Dean blamed Cas for that even though the three of them knew how dangerous Jack could become. And then basically he became passive aggressive with him because he couldn't forgive him for something he didn't do (why is Dean so grumpy in the last seasons tho?). Cas is one of my favourite characters, and I love his innocence and his unconditional love for Dean (and Sam), but I also love an angel who knows their worth and who can smite the hell out of everything. Badass Cas is amazing but I feel we gradually started losing that aspect as the seasons went by. And that's why I loved 15x03 because Cas finally confronted Dean and decided to "move on". And even though I liked what they did in 15x09, I sometimes felt that Dean didn't deserve Cas. He was always there for the brothers but it looks like they took him for granted, or that he was just being used, and it's really frustrating to watch.

This is one of the reasons why I believe there should be a reboot. There has to be an actual conclusion to these characters' relationship, be it platonic or romantic. I need Cas to be properly loved, not some bullshit subtle "we care about you, pal" kind of thing.

Yeesh. That's A Lot.

Like, Sam and Dean also have fans who are convinced their poor helpless blorbo has never done anything wrong ever and is just So Wronged by everyone and the narrative at every single turn? But I swear it's harder to find Castiel fans that aren't like that. Then again, it's hard to find Castiel fans anymore that aren't hellers, which I think is definitely linked.

We could talk yet again about what a load of utter fanon horseshit it is to describe Dean's affect when Castiel dies as "absolutely devastated like he lost the love of his life". For the pure absurd exaggeration of how they take one single canon shot of Dean looking sad and then write thousands upon thousands of words "interpreting" it and thereafter consider their fanfic of Dean sobbing in devastation for hours over Jimmy's empty corpse actual canon. For how sometimes it's just plain obviously not true (pie festival lol). For the fact when he is genuinely upset there's ALWAYS other more devastating shit going on they pretend to be blind to so they can pretend it's ALL about Cass (the Leviathan/Bobby's death, Mary being sucked into Apocaworld/dealing with Jack, Chuck going full evil, etc.). But instead, this time, let's stick with the theme of poor wronged Castiel, Dean is so MEEN *sob*.

It's not just that the angel is "making mistakes or not" it's that he is consistently time after time after time? Making the exact same fundamental mistake: going behind the Winchesters' backs to "protect them" by keeping vital information from them or outright fucking things up worse by trying to handle shit on his own. After which he generally either tries to run away or share out the responsibility of fixing it to them. Gee, I wonder why they aren't oozing with gratitude?

Let's take the example of Mary's death, to start with. Yeah, they all know that Jack's gradually becoming dangerous. But only one of them knows that he is already at the point of killing a pet dangerous. It's stupid to pretend that's not an obvious, major escalation. But Castiel decides not to tell anybody it. That's a choice he makes, something he very much DID do. You know, kinda like how he wasn't really honest about how bad things were all through season 6 and his plans with Crowley. Kinda like how he decided instead of trying to go back and fix the mess he'd made of heaven, he decided to stay behind in Purgatory but lie to Dean about it. Nothing at all terrible came of those stupid-ass "protective" decisions, nope! No reason at all to be pissed off at his terminal inability to learn from his mistakes!

Which doesn't even get into how he was the one that let Sam out of the panic room, but berated the Winchesters for their part in setting Lucifer free without ever mentioning his own. Or how his first impulse after getting his memories back wasn't actually to heal Sam, whose wall/sanity he intentionally tore down in the first place as a distraction, but to run away. (There's a reason Cass stans/hellers frequently seem to be entirely amnesiac about just how Sam's wall broke.) Then there's how he decided he couldn't trust the Winchesters with the angel tablet. Don't forget that he could hear Claire constantly praying for help for years and did nothing. Or my personal favorite, how he went behind the Winchesters' backs to let Lucifer possess him and escape the Cage after all they went through to put the archangel there without a fucking single word of warning to his supposed friends that he's sooooo concerned with protecting! Then there's stealing the Colt and leaving them unprotected and unconscious outside the portal to Heaven. I'm not even going to touch all the whining he did in the final seasons about wanting to be a hero. I know there's more, but the point is, gee, what a faultless, helpful guy!

My overall point is not even that Castiel is The Worst. He's not the only character who makes stupid-ass decisions. I think there are, in some cases, understandable mitigating factors (YMMV)! However, given the amount of times he ran off on some whim of his own and went totally incommunicado or the Winchesters had to clean up a mess he made (or just made worse)? Framing his role in the show as if he was "always there for the brothers" (remember how when he said that the point was he was lying?) and was soooo uniquely underappreciated? Frankly, they showed plenty of appreciation for him by continuing to count him as family/a friend and ultimately forgiving him over and over. Rather than, you know, stabbing him through the neck like they would have literally anyone else who fucked them over so routinely as he did while supposedly trying to "help" and "protect" them.

[eisforeidolon]

I don’t understand why the hellers claim one actor will be that much upset and traumatised to redo a scene of character death? Dramatic a—holes!

Honestly, they just have a really fucking weird relationship with fiction and projecting onto the actors is part of it.

That's why they act like shipping their ship is a moral crusade against homophobia that's more important than actual LGBT+ people. That's why they made up weird fairytales to tell each other about how Dean committed suicide by rebar to justify claiming the show personally harmed them with its evil bad messaging. That's why they ignore everything positive Jensen says about the finale to insist he must totally be traumatized by it and want to pretend it doesn't exist just like they do - and why they're so sure he's sitting around writing songs about Castiel and fantasizing about making out with Misha in a revival.

It's not just being overly invested in their personal fantasies which were vaguely inspired by a CW horror fantasy show that ended four years ago. It's believing their opinions, feelings, and obsession regarding the show are the One Right Way to react to SPN.

So obviously the actors must feel what they do to the extent they do - unless they're evil homophobes taking part in the oppressive conspiracy against them!!!

[eisforeidolon]

Character growth in most TV shows is an illusion. Especially long running shows, because we are introduced to a character one way and the showrunners don’t want to stray too far from that. There can be small changes over the course of a show, but by and large characters don’t grow. The only time that happens w/ any significance is like Crowley or Rowena or Ketch going from antagonists to tentative / situational allies. But that’s mostly because it’s easier to turn an asshole into a good guy than the other way around.

There are exceptions, but for the most part, yeah. Especially when you're talking about the main characters. Usually, any change that happens is minor and incremental because nobody wants to risk changing the formula too much or the audience deciding the character(s) are now unlikable.

I think that was a big problem with season 10, where before it aired, they kept talking up how "dark" demon!Dean and desperate!Sam would go. Then, like, Dean did some karaoke and killed a scumbag and a few demons while Sam tortured a few demons and lead said scumbag to where he could make a demon deal. Even planning to go back to status quo afterward, the writers wouldn't take the risk of letting either one do anything *that* bad.

In general I'd say a place where change is more likely to happen is to supporting characters that become popular and then stick around. Which your examples of going from an asshole to a good guy fit into - although I wouldn't exactly say any of those examples were actually growth. Except maybe Rowena. They were more badass decay to justify keeping the characters around as part of the status quo in a way that wouldn't shake things up too much. Crowley, who was part of the story because he was such a savvy player, became an idiot. Ketch who was supposedly such a badass hardliner who didn't like the Winchesters spouted some absolute kumbaya bullshit about them as he died out of fucking nowhere. Only reason it's not the most absurd death speech in the show is ... well, you know.

But yeah, at the end of the day? Who the main characters are rarely changes that much over time. So no, it's not some huge, unexpected disappointment for the Winchesters to end their story without becoming entirely different people who could just toss aside the trauma of their lives and live a HEA apart. Without even addressing that what most of the people whining about Dean's "character growth" being discarded are talking about is the meta they hallucinated up from their scavenger hunt for secret clues he was bisexual and in love with a trenchcoat. As well as how they didn't really care what happened to Sam, so long as he was separated from Dean so Dean would surely have to latch onto someone else - it was totally Castiel's turn!!!

They wanted an entirely different show which this show made it clear that it wasn't at every single possible turn.

[eisforeidolon]

Do you consider Dean to be abusive to Sam?? I read a post saying the number of times he's punched him to vent his frustrations or control Sam, and how Sam is clearly used to it suggest it was like this when they were kids too.

So the thing is, if you go far enough into either the solo-Sam or solo-Dean side of the fandom, you run into those kind of fans. Who are convinced their fave is a poor helpless baby relentlessly abused and forced to stay with the other brother against their own best interest while being a veritable saint who has done nothing questionable ever.

Is hitting someone when you're frustrated or pissed off healthy? Of course not. However, the framing of certain Sam (and Cass) stans that Dean is constantly physically lashing out is both hardly accurate of to totality of Dean's behavior across fifteen seasons and pointedly amnesiac that while Sam is more inclined to lash out verbally, he has also hit Dean in frustration/anger, too. The whole first episode is them trading back and forth shoving each other around out of emotions ranging from mild annoyance to genuine anger. Even if we don't count him initiating the fight at the end of season four because he was high on demon blood (which...), he shoves Dean into a wall at the beginning of season five for doubting he might not be entirely over his addiction, and he does his own punching over the archangel box thing in season fourteen. Things like that are, of course, entirely different when Sam does it. For reasons. Which doesn't even get into the relative healthiness of the verbal stuff like his cajoling Dean to tell him about Hell and then throwing every insecurity Dean has over it back in his face later that season. Or how he always very pointedly wants to make Dean talk about Dean's feelings regardless of what Dean wants as his method of coping after a shared tragedy because he gets very weird and agitated about trying to "fix" Dean being obviously not okay.

I am not going to get into a whole long rant about the weird neo-puritanical impulses of current day fandom trying to entirely whitewash or blackwash characters (or ships) into Pure Good or Pure Evil according to whether or not particular fans like them other than to say it's totally a thing at play here. Which usually involves an absolute fuckton of over-identification and projection (see nearly every discussion of John Winchester, like, ever). I'm just pointing out that these are both complicated characters who sometimes make bad and ugly choices, that's ... a big part of what makes a good story, that they can also make good choices and be heroes while being flawed and fallible.

As to the whole underlying assertion about being abusively controlling? The Winchesters' childhood fucked them both up, but in really different - nearly opposite - ways. I am not at all saying that Dean can't be stubborn, bossy, or belligerent when he's made up his mind about something. However, Sam (and Sam's stans) often try to frame Dean not agreeing with Sam as bossing him around. It's all fine if Sam wants to do what Dean does. It's all fine if Dean agrees to do what Sam wants to do. But as soon as they have an insurmountable conflict of opinion? Several times Sam falls back into insisting Dean is trying to control him for not immediately agreeing Sam is right when Sam has decided he's sure he's right. He doesn't just want to be able to do what he wants to do, he wants to have the authority to make Dean agree and go along. And when Dean doesn't or he decides Dean won't? That's when he starts lying or sneaking around or taking off without a word - like he's back to being a rebelling teenager rather than an adult disagreeing with another adult. Which makes it easier for Dean, whose own issues do very definitely lean towards an overactive sense of responsibility for Sam and Sam's choices from his experience of their childhood? To fall back into treating him like someone being childish. Early on there's even a couple instances, like in season one when Sam characterizes his own choice to go on a revenge quest as Dean dragging him out of Stanford or in season five when he blames Dean for his being so willing to trust Ruby, where Sam tries to reframe his decisions as Dean's fault because he's so desperate for an authority to push back against when things didn't turn out like he was sure they would. Like, yeah, Dean has got some serious Big Brother Issues, but Sam has got just as big of a boat full of Little Brother Issues. Both sides of that are sometimes quite maladaptive and feed off each other. You get a far different result when they actually both commit to talking something out instead of falling into dumb behavior like this (and it being Dean's unilateral choices setting Sam off certainly happens its fair share of the time). Contrast how Dean reacts when Sam sneaks around with Ruby versus when Sam talks to him about his plan to jump in the Cage. Contrast how Sam reacts to Dean trying to stick himself in the box behind his back versus them working out a plan involving him going to confront Amara. And so on.

They very much push each other's deepest behavioral buttons, both intentionally and not. And extreme stans of one or the other have a tendency to convince themselves their fave is acting in a totally understandable and reasonable manner at every turn, while the other brother is an irrational, abusive, selfish fuck-up of an albatross around their neck. Hell, even without going to extremes, it can be very easy to sympathize with and fixate on all the positive attributes of and slights against your fave so much more clearly. Especially with fifteen years of show to remember. I can understand that to an extent, but I think abuse discourse is just plain ridiculous.

[eisforeidolon]

Well I’m coming back to this fandom at the wrong time I see? I genuinely cannot believe these people anymore. Selectively editing a recording that was taken without Jensen’s consent is just such peak asshole behavior I can barely stomach it. They will run over his boundaries and autonomy all day long if they can confirm their fetishizations of him to get off to, or virtue signal on. Is there smoke coming out of my ears? I think there is… I’m pissed

The latest seems to be that the person who uploaded it admitted to it being AI generated.

We've always said video or it didn't happen of their creative fictions about things Jensen supposedly said to hellers in ops/autos, especially when they're the literal opposite of what he says to a larger audience. Considering hellers have never been above trying to manufacture their own "proof" of their agendas, in retrospect it seems inevitable that we'd get to this point where they'd try to fake a recording in one way or another.

Whether we're talking about AI generating something wholesale or secretly recording the actors to cherry-pick what they said to share without context? It is gross and makes it clear they don't respect Jensen on any level, as an actor or as a fellow human being. He should just exist to be an accessory to their ship and if he won't talk and act that way, well, they'll do their best to find a way to invalidate him because who cares what he thinks?

It's not shipping the ship that makes hellers terrible people. It's consistently acting like they're in some kind of fucking QFanon cult where reality doesn't matter and nothing and no one is more important than getting validation for a fictional ship. Even if they have to make it up themselves!

[eisforeidolon]

Reminds me. Imagine in a revival, they replace Cass w/ a woman or one better a trans actor. I’d imagine the hellers, who were supposedly all about representation would react in typical heller fashion by throwing a tantrum.

They would. I'm sure they'd scramble a bit to find an absurd reason to justify why they were so pissed off about it, but they ultimately would. Just like every other time they've made it clear what they really care about is their ship, not any of the various causes they try to use to claim it's ~*so important*~.

[eisforeidolon]

Someone told me the girl at autos told Jensen she is a lesbian and joked that he’s her exception and that’s what he said back. He was flirting with her

I mean, that's not exactly a reputable source either, to be fair. On the internet, anyone can claim to have been there.

However, that said? We have years of seeing and hearing how Jensen interacts with fans at cons. Jensen playfully flirting with a fan (or validating a fan who told him some other story about their own sexuality) is a million times more in line with his past behavior - and therefore more likely - than him making a personal declaration about himself to a random fan. Whatever the previous conversational context was, pointedly not including it is very, very obviously suspicious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

Context is, as always, the sworn enemy of hellers.

[eisforeidolon]

Alrighty- Whaddya think of this?

I’ve been rewatching the show and am now at season 8. I shake my head at all the known moments in the show that hellers claim are canon ship bs, because you’d have to be stretch Armstrong to reach that far..

But something did nag me. There were times that Cas WAS the emotional support for Dean where I really thought it should have been Sam conversing with him. For the majority of the series we saw Dean be the caretaker, emotional support etc for Sam, and it never really came from anyone else- lest he was being manipulated by some evil person. However there were many times where that wasn’t reciprocated on screen. Cas would almost stand in for Sam when Dean needed someone, showed Dean a lot of compassion. (Please believe I’m being objective and not a stan in hiding). I think THAT dynamic confused people. Why didn’t they have Sam having those convos with Dean more? I mean, narratively I understand the need for Cas to move the plot forward with his specific role, but so many times it was an angsty Dean who I think NEEDED his BROTHER more than a convo with Cas. Now there are people who just wanted to sexualize Jensen/Dean and couldn’t possibly be linked the wincest as their puritan sensibilities just wouldn’t allow them. But OTHER fans seemed to have latched on to the dynamic of Dean and Cas because they saw Dean have emotional moments with him.

Now during my rewatch it pissed me off, because I realized that the writers were making some conscious choices to have Sam NOT fill that role for Dean. Like it seemed like they went out of their way at times to make Sam seem more indifferent to Dean. This is why- wildly unpopular opinion here- I didn’t like Sera Gamble! I think she isolated Sam away from Dean and had Cas fill in for Sam. That codependent brother thing I LIVE FOR, was kinda washed out during her seasons (in my opinion), but more so from one side. I think she didn’t really like Dean, period, but whereas I know Sam fans LOVE Gamble, I think she mischaracterized Sam a lot.

In my mind, Sam is just as in love with Dean as Dean is with him (whether that be wincest or brotherly is up to your interpretation). You remember when Rowena started really having a relationship with Sam? And then Jack, too? That was really the first time we’ve seen Sam have that type of side character interaction depth. It’s why Sam fans love those two characters because they related to Sam! Well, isn’t that why Dean fans loved Cas, too?

I dunno I’m ranting and probably make no sense, but I was definitely annoyed with the writers in quite a bit if my rewatch during seasons 4-7 because it seemed such a purposeful choice to NOT show Sam being for Dean what they chose to show Cas being. I think knot blurred the lines and did such a disservice to Sam. Ironically, I think Carver rectified this a lot! Even with the angst and separation, Carver’s seasons demonstrably showed the codependency and intense brotherly love. I prefer seasons 1-3 and then all of Carver’s seasons!

I couldn't remember any instances of Dean leaning on Castiel when there wasn't some obvious reason it wasn't a conversation with Sam. So I went through season by season, and ultimately, I think you have to look at what the plot arc between the brothers is. As I've said before, the one thing that I actually like about Dabb as a showrunner is finally dropping the constant circling back to brother conflict drama that, to me at least, felt more and more artificial. Even if we're talking about seasons 4-7, we have to start at the beginning, because I think the first three seasons are pointedly bringing the brothers back together closer than ever in preparation for all the apocalypse shenanigans to attempt to tear them apart.

In terms of Dean opening up, specifically, consider what happens in those seasons between them from Dean's perspective.

In season four, he comes back from hell traumatized only to realize Sam has been lying to him about using his powers and working with Ruby. When he asks Sam to explain because he's scared of the powers, Sam refuses to talk about it and says he wouldn't understand (4x04). So how can it be a surprise that when he wants to talk in the next episode, it's Jamie the bartender he chooses instead? Is it really strange he basically mirrors what Sam said about Dean not being able to understand when Sam confronts him about what Uriel said regarding him remembering hell (4x08)? Castiel (4x07) and Anna (4x10) conversing with Dean are more about their own fears and insecurities more than Dean's. When Dean does finally open up and is ready to actually talk about what happened in hell, it is to Sam (4x11). Except, it's pretty soon after that (4x14) where Sam throws it back in his face under the influence of the siren, calling him a weak, whiny burden who is just holding Sam back. Can it really be a surprise then that, again, next time Dean opens up it's to Tessa (4x15)? And then, when the doubts are basically exactly what Sam said, i.e. that the apocalypse really is too big for him to deal with and he is scared, he says it to Castiel instead (4x16)? Which I think is only validated to Dean when Sam says the same kind of thing all over again without the siren's influence when they fight in 4x21. They're in conflict and being torn in opposite directions, which is kind of the point. Actually communicating – if they both weren't too stubborn to do it – would basically halt season 4's entire plot in its tracks.

Without making this post five miles long, those kinds of things happen again and again in 5-7, too. Sam is literally not there to talk to when he leaves at the beginning of the season, and they don't get back together because they've actually sorted out all the shit between them from the previous events, but because Sam has realized he can't get out and Dean doesn't trust that Sam will continue to say no to Lucifer if they're apart. So when Dean opens up, it's to his hallucination of a therapist instead of Sam. Blow after blow follows thereafter. What they see of Sam's heaven being an entire absence of Dean. Everyone leaving Dean to grieve at Lisa's for a year knowing Sam is back(ish) the whole time. Soulless!Sam's actions, which (as unfair as it might be) Dean clearly had trouble separating out from regular Sam's. Sam's sanity hanging on by a wall, then being plagued by Hallucifer. Similar big conflicts and obstacles to frank conversation continue on into seasons 8 and 9, too.

I think you can fairly go fifty layers deep into what's going on in both of their heads in any of those instances and see where they're coming from, but Dean isn't going to be doing that as the one living it. From his perspective? There are a lot of reasons to not open up to Sam because of what's going on in their lives and how they each feel about it. So sometimes he does open up to others – which includes Castiel.

I definitely remember way back when I was a multishipper that a lot of D/C shippers said they started shipping the ship because Castiel didn't have that fraught history with Dean that Sam does with all the conflicts and misunderstandings. That's fine (although IMO it hardly held true for very long). However, to me it seems like Dean is just as likely to turn to a stranger (or the hallucination of one) as he is to turn to Castiel instead of Sam, so I don't really see it as some huge thing in the canon that really justifies thinking the ship is anything but certain fans over-investing in what they particularly like. I also think that Sam was just less and less likely to open up to anyone at all as the series went on – but when he does, it was also often with Castiel or Jody or Charlie or Rowena instead of Dean. Because the season conflict didn't rely on them being unable to communicate effectively with those other characters and the judgement of those other characters couldn't do as much damage if it was negative.

None of that even gets into the whole other issue of the underlying dynamics carried over from their childhood which also plays into things. Where Dean still sees his primary purpose as protecting Sam as his little brother rather than always seeing him as a true partner. Where he has self-worth and abandonment issues that make him unable to understand why Sam would value him and not be able to just get over his death. Where Sam is not only all too aware that Dean doesn't value himself and gets frustrated with that? But has spent so long fighting against what everyone else wants from him that he still sometimes treats Dean as a substitute for authority instead of a partner and pushes back at any disagreement with his (not always as) brilliant (as he thinks) plans as “bossing him around”? Where he also gets very agitated whenever Dean is not okay because he needs Dean to be okay to the point he insistently tries to fix it by making Dean talk when Dean isn't ready to. In short, they both have huge underlying issues that skew how they see each other and they're both stubborn as hell.

Then when you add on top of that how the writers had such a tendency to revolve the action arcs around Sam and the emotional ones around Dean as the viewpoint character that Sam's emotions and thoughts often seem like a mysterious locked box through large parts of the series? I do get why some fans can read that as Sam being indifferent to Dean, but I don't think that's the underlying intention or the case. Because of that focus choice, to a large extent we only see how badly Sam needs Dean when there's a threat of Dean not being there or Dean is taken away – but I would argue that we do really see it then. From not caring about Marshall Hall to wanting to try Doc Benton's solution to trying to suicide by demon to initially allowing himself to be manipulated by Ruby to taking on his Cage memories to the Rowena and Oskar debacle to how his montage life was entirely blurry except for his son and his grief over Dean.