#dean is as straight in november 2020 as he was in september 2005

[ladyluscinia]

You know what... I do appreciate the genuine "my bad", the sun is shining, I have an unexpectedly light evening, and Supernatural is trending due to actors getting gay married. I think I will say some nice things about Destiel today.

Introduction: Supernatural is the longest running American Sci fi / Fantasy show (and pretty much only beat in length overall by Doctor Who - which is kind of a unique case) with 327 episodes over 15 seasons. It ran from September 2005 - November 2020. Destiel, the main ship of the spn fandom, appeared in the S4 premiere on September 18, 2008 with the introduction of Castiel, the angel who quite literally pulled Dean out of hell and resurrected him. (Fun fact: the first Destiel fanfic was posted that day.) Castiel had enough compelling character work and wild chemistry with Dean in their first season to inspire the writers to change their planned arc of killing him off after 3 episodes to keeping him around and (infamously) adapting the conceived allied-angel plot of a different new character, Anna, that was going to be a potential love interest for Dean into Castiel's story instead. So at the end of S4 he turned on all of Heaven after Dean Winchester looked him in the eye and asked him to, and the next 11+ years were history.

Now I can quite literally babble on about in-universe Destiel forever, but the stuff I've actually been observing / joking about / commenting on while all this ship bracket posting has been going is the more meta-level negative perception of the ship, show, and fandom, so I think I'm actually going to just overview that.

---

So like... broad strokes, Destiel is almost more meme than ship at this point. And it's not a generally positive meme. Part of that is our fault as a fandom - we do love our joking about queerbait and homophobia and being annoying and how much we lose, and the show finale was genuinely terrible - but also there is whole running joke of people who actually finally do watch spn and then go "oh my god there is actually Destiel in this show" because people assume they know about spn from the general fandom consciousness and straight up do not believe us when we say it shouldn't be dismissed as homophobic queerbait. Because it's not.

If anything, Destiel is a unique and fascinating case study of the blurry line and interactions between homophobia, queercoding, queerbaiting, and telling a canonically romantic story - one that could only have been produced in its timeframe.

Since we're coming from the Sulemio poll, there have been a lot of mentions of the legality of gay marriage. This is particularly ironic, because gay marriage is legal in the USA, yes, but that court decision came down in 2015. When spn premiered it was legal in exactly one state and explicitly banned in nearly half the country. By the end of 2008 (start of Destiel era) that becomes two legal states and explicitly banned in over two thirds. Supernatural as a show and Destiel as a ship literally straddle pretty much the entire process of gay marriage legalization across the country, which ended in the summer of 2015 between S10 and S11 when the Supreme Court legalized it nationwide, including in the 14 holdout states that hadn't done so yet. And this shows. It's intrinsic to understanding Destiel.

Because you also have to understand that a lot of people worked on spn over a lot of years, and our fandom loves to know those people by name. In the writers room alone you have 4 separate showrunners and about 15 additional writers of significance (so more than one-off episode writers) who all contributed their own efforts and perspectives. Plus directors, actors, the network / producers, other crew... Supernatural as a show has no coherent stance on Destiel at any point in its run because the people making it have so many different stances - which is how we get the final 3 episodes dropping a canonical romantic love confession and then trying to ignore they did so, burying their confirmed gay angel (the famous superhell meme) and then un-burying him in the finale with an offscreen mention while they studiously avoid drawing attention to post-canon Destiel possibilities, and very likely accidentally giving a translation team a script / transcript from before they cut the verbal reciprocation to said love confession that they insist did not exist despite the translation team seemingly receiving it (y yo a ti / canon in spanish memes).

Early years Destiel was a lot of homophobic jokes + queerbait and the show was mostly homophobic about it, but at the same time we have Ben Edlund, beloved writer from S2-S8, talking on twitter recently about how he was definitely aware of and intentionally exploring queercoded possibilities with Destiel well before that could be anything but queercoding on a network tv show. And he wasn't alone! Meanwhile in the late Destiel era we have Bobo Berens, a gay writer who joined the show in S9 (still pre-national gay marriage!) and would steadily gain importance until he wrote Cas's love confession and worked insanely hard with showrunner Dabb and actor Misha Collins to get it in the show. Yet some of the homophobic people from the early years are still around through all of that!

Like - gay marriage is legalized in 2015. S11 airs (with a lot of Destiel subtext which is standard by this point) and behind the scenes showrunner Jeremy Carver is passing the reigns to final showrunner Andrew Dabb. S12 is Dabb's first season as showrunner and he immediately has Destiel market researched. The network presumably says no, so S13 they open with a five episode bit we call the widower arc where Cas is temporarily dead and Dean is literally a widower about it, ending with a Cas resurrection and Destiel reunion with set decor referencing the Romeo + Juliet movie from 1996 and camerawork showing Cas's return putting the light back on Dean's face after he just tried to kill himself for real because nothing mattered anymore.

You can't make this shit up.

At several points we will never be able to fully pin down (see: varying stances across cast and crew), Destiel became a thing that a significant number of the creators were pushing for in some shape or form. That's not queerbaiting anymore. That's queercoding in a canon romance when you aren't allowed to break the "plausible deniability" rules - no kissing, no "I love you" that doesn't get immediately maybe-platonic-zoned, no gay stuff that couldn't maybe be the warrior's bond or a joke (and ideally leaves the audience to fill in the punchline). You can actually do a lot inside those rules. See: the entire history of queer media.

And they did it. For years. Until the needle on "how taboo the idea of your male lead being gay is" had moved just enough to pull the trigger and film it becoming canon right before a worldwide pandemic paused production and gave homophobic executives a huge block of time, required rewrites, and the perfect cover story for basically anything they chose to do. (The spn finale lore is way too complicated to get into here - just know it's undeniable shenanigans happened.)

So we have a heavily queercoded ship that's not really "open to interpretation" despite the party line - as in written in arcs where one guy is filling the role of love interest in everything but name and the two characters function like a common law married couple in between getting paralleled to about every romantic relationship they meet - that manages to become canon despite being native to a pre-gay rights era show that has a huge historical impact on fandom culture. And then we have a broad fandom perception of it among people who have not watched the show as being a cringe queerbait that the creators hated and never took seriously which should only be known for how homophobic it was to it's fandom while we leave it in the past (where it belongs) and embrace real canon ships that were made with effort by people who wrote them with intent to tell a gay love story.

...now maybe you see where I was coming from with this meme:

Oh, and in this timeframe spn fans have also put over 116k Destiel fanfics on AO3 - that's around 45k more than 2nd place Sherlock/John Watson last I checked - and yet the prevailing meme opinion is that it's just another white guy ship between two people who barely come across as friends and most people only still like it for the meme anyway. It's not like Destiel is actually has value or is worth shipping in 2024 with so many better options out there.

It's cool to hate now, and people loudly and enthusiastically hate it in order to be cool. Which is why we laugh amongst ourselves through losing polls and also laugh at the random wildly uneducated Destiel opinions that get treated as absolute fact because some meme voter said them and doesn't everyone know Destiel was queerbait?

Anyway if I really wanted to throw some stones in these glass houses I'd ask where the beautiful canon yuri ship advancing us beyond the era of barbarous queerbait - the one that got officially married in their blessed canon - is keeping their official kissing gifs.

They have those, right? One of the perks of being real canon and married (since Destiel canon doesn't count).

...oh.

Oh?!?

You mean they didn't show an official canon kiss on screen despite making it super blatant that there was a non-platonic relationship going on here??? And then the anime studio after making it super gay by doing a political marriage plot from ep 1 tried to walk it back to being "open to interpretation" by downplaying the relationship in the final episodes and editing out parts of interviews that said they were married post-canon?????? As in your fandom had a brief QUEERBAITING SCANDAL due to NETWORK CENSORSHIP?????????

[nancylou444]

I'm probably deleting my Tumblr now that SPN is done, so here's 15 years of pent-up emotions (@chez-marie submit)

Two points (Really one point and several addendums): 

1) If you think this is worse than the final season of Game of Thrones, you’re a fucking idiot. Nothing is worse than that. 

2) Destiel is not canon. A ship cannot be half-canon. Destiel is not canon. Get over it. 

2a) If the only reason you hate the finale is no Cas, you’ve been watching for the wrong reason and I pity you deeply. Supernatural started with Sam and Dean, and it ended with Sam and Dean. Every single person involved in Supernatural has called their relationship the core of the show, so of fucking course it’s going to be the focus of the finale. Stop spreading hate because you didn’t get what you want - grow up. 

2b) Dean was never canonically bisexual, he was never canonically gay, he was never canonically queer. Lighting, food choices, clothes and the way a person sits does not define their sexuality. Most LGBTQIA individuals would be furious if you tried to tell them somebody was gay because of the way they sat in a chair, or that they wore a certain colored shirt. That’s not how it works, so get the fuck over it. 

2c) The only person involved in Supernatural actually supporting and pushing the idea of Destiel becoming canon was Misha. Destiel is not canon. Misha lied to you in order to advance his own popularity and interests. Apart from Misha, nobody actually involved in the production of Supernatural has ever supported or encouraged Destiel becoming canon. Grow up, realize you got played and get the fuck over it. 

2d) If any of you even so much as think about sending hate, threats, or any sort of malice to anybody involved in Supernatural for a fanon ship not becoming canon, you are deeply deluded, twisted and pathetic people. Seek help immediately. It’s a fucking television show. 

2d continued) Seriously. It’s a fucking fictional goddamn tv show and I’ve seen at least 200 examples in the past two weeks of Destiel fans posting threats of violence against anybody who works for the CW if their ship didn’t become canon. Grow the literal fuck up you whiny children. 

2e) Destiel not becoming canon does not mean that anybody in the show is homophobic. Calling a person homophobic and threatening to ruin their career because they didn’t bow down to a subsection of (quite frankly) rabid fans and abandon legitimate canon to do what the fans whined for is fucking disgusting. Grow up. 

2f) I’ve been watching Supernatural since the premiere, and I’ve been on Tumblr since about season 7, and I am quite frankly disgusted by the behavior of certain fans - and by this point in the post you should know who you are - so I’m gonna wrap this post up by coming out and saying it. 

The vast majority (Used to think it was less, but posts I’ve seen tonight changed my mind) of Destiel/Castiel fans are the most entitled, whiny, stuck-up, bratty, malicious bitches I’ve ever come across in my entire life.

Nothing matters except for what you want, and anybody who doesn’t do what you want is the worst person who ever existed.

Finale didn’t give you Castiel in every single frame sticking his tongue down Dean’s throat? Must mean it was the worst thing on television in history. Cas and Dean didn’t get married in heaven? Well, everybody must be raging homophobes. Castiel and Misha Collins aren’t worshiped as literal gods by everybody involved in Supernatural? Time to send out the death threats. 

If you truly believe that, fuck each and every last one of you. 

You’ve attacked, belittled, threatened and insulted anybody who disagrees with you - including Jensen and Jared - and that is quite frankly appalling behavior. 

To threaten total strangers because they didn’t do what you wanted is disgusting, and you should be deeply ashamed and embarrassed by anybody who proclaims themselves to be a fan of Destiel or Castiel and demonstrated or endorsed anything like that. 

Your behavior has been truly pathetic and insulting to everybody involved in 15 years of Supernatural, especially the fandom, and I’m quite frankly glad to be rid of you now. 

The end. 

[nancylou444]

I forgot if i sent it to u or someone else so i'm sending it again anyway

Please Read this to the end and then judge me.

I do not understand at all why you and all other anti destiels dont ship destiel and think that dean is straight and i hate you for that from the bottom of my heart. i mean cant you see how dean truely loves cas and gives no shit about Sam, his brother?and also jensen and writers ship it.

You are so stupid and do not deserve to live in this world period

Read this list below.it may help you take off your anti destiel colored glasses and Accept the truth:which in fact is that Destiel Will become canon.

Reasons Why Destiel Will Definitely Become Canon Before The Show Ends 101:

1.Jensen Ackles: Destiel Doesn't Exist.

2.Jensen Ackles: Because Dean is a lover of the LADIES.

3.Dean will always choose SAM over anyone else.

4.SAM and Dean are soulmates.

5.Castiel: you chose EACHOTHER.

6.Jensen Ackles' Unscripted Frustrated look into the camera in "Fan Fiction" episode.wink wink

7.Jensen Ackles: there wasn't a whole lot of dean and cas storylines in season 9.personally,i kind of enjoyed that.

8.Jensen Ackles: i think the whole dean and cas thing has gotten a little out of proportion.

9.Jensen Ackles: "destiel is real" is it?? Where?? Where is it real??

10.Jensen Ackles: What? What castiel? Nah just me and my pies!

11.Jensen Ackles: We sit down with the writers in a couple weeks. It boils down to these two brothers, that’s the core and the heart of the show, their journey, their fight for each other.

12. “You are homophobic if you don’t ship destiel!"

13.Dean Winchester is fuckin Straight.

14.Eric Kripke : I'm just really interested in guys, STRAIGHT guys who have a tight friendship,they are really fun to write...

15.Dean Winchester: I'm Dean winchester.i enjoy sunsets,long walks on the bitch and frisky WOMEN.

16.Dean Winchester : I dont swing that way.sorry.

17.Dean winchester : yeah sorry again pal i dont play for your team.

18.Dean sold his soul for SAM.

19.Dean died so that he could meet with Death and get SAM’s soul back which of course Castiel left in hell.

20.Dean gave away the Impala and was willing to die with a Croatoan infected SAM.

21.Dean breathed in the poisonous smoke, so that he would die with SAM.

22.Dean wanted out of an AU with Mary and Jessica alive, because AU!SAM didn’t like Dean that much.

23.SAM and Dean made promise to each other, made vows to each other really, in a church.

24.SAM and Dean choose each other over the world, anything, and everything, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

25. Dean refers to SAM as though HE is his spouse (”does he want a divorce?”, “Lucy”...)

26.Dean would rather live in a world WITH demons than live in a world WITHOUT SAM.

27.When Dean forgot everything else, including his own name, he still remembered SAM.

28.Dean : I can’t do it without my brother, I don’t want to 

29.Dean to Sam :You’re the ONLY one who could’ve talked me out of it 

30.Dean to Sam :There ain’t no me if there ain’t no YOU.

31.Dean to Sam :“Because whatever we have between us, love, family, whatever this is, they’re always going to us it against us.”

32.Dean to Sam: “You’re my weak spot SAMMY, and I’m yours”

33.Dean or Sam i dont remember: “All that matters now, all that’s ever mattered, is that we’re together.“

34. Dean to Sam :“Don’t you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you!“

35.Dean to Sam : “I made you a promise in that church, you and me, come whatever!”

36.The canon friendship between Dean and Castiel is toxic and borderline-abusive, full of lies, threats, insults, abandonment, beatings, and betrayals.

37. Sam, possessed by the devil himself, took control of his own body and beat Lucifer because Dean was there, because Dean didn’t give up even though he was hurt and covered in blood, because seeing Dean bombarded Sam with the memories of their life together.

38. Dean didn’t leave SAM’s bedside , didn’t bury him, didn’t burn his body, didn’t want to say goodbye, and how later he didn’t hesitate to sell his soul.

39.Dean decided not to go into a box, because SAM asked him not to.

40.SAM and Dean were the ones whom were mistaken with gay couple by several people if that matters.

41.SAM to Dean :“you always put me first. Your whole life”,

42.Dean to SAM: “I know where I am at my best, and that is right here, driving down crazy street next to you”,

43.Sam or Dean i dont remember:“you know what brought me back? You did”.

44.Dean’s siren-as admitted by the siren herself-was a copy of SAM.

45.Dean told a male cop "you're awsome".OMG!! He is bi!!!

46.Dean fanboyed over a male tv character.Holy Chuck!! He is bi!!

47.Jensen or Jared:“At its core, it’s the story of two brothers.”

48.Jensen or Jared:“At the end of the day, this starts and stops with the brothers.”

49.Jensen or Jared:“When it comes down to it, it’s about these two brothers.”

50.Dean told Castiel to get the hell outta bunker for SAM while he knew he didnt have his angel powers.Damn! Dean truely loves Cas!

51.Dean figured Castiel was too far gone to be convinced back into their group and bound Death to do their bidding. Dean’s order to Death was to kill Castiel where he stood.#couplegoals

52.Castiel blackmailed Dean by torturing SAM.oh dear god!!! What a True Lover!!

53.Castiel Betrayed sam amd DEAN with crowley.but that's what all lovers do Right???

54.This isnt some romantic show.

55. Castiel is a genderless celestial wavelength of light wearing a male vessel.

56.Dean's chemistry with Baby the Impala is far more noticable than the one with Castiel.

57.Sam even once asked Dean and Baby the impala to get a room.

58.The possibility of Dean and Baby the impala to get sexually involved and the two of them having sex in the finale full frontal is far more than the possibility of non existant Destiel to become canon.

59.Destiel shippers are only a tiny minority of the SPN fandom.

60.Jensen Ackles is fucking done with this shit.

61.Dean left Ben and Lisa for SAM.

62.Misha Collins is the only one who queerbaits.

63.Dean in "red meat" described SAM as the man he loved.

64.Dean sang in a colorful background.OMFG!! he is bi!!

65.Jesen ackles : because being with his BROTHER and doing that is the happiest he is.

66.Dean to SAM: "because i couldnt live with you dead"

67.What show you've been watching???

68.Jared : because that would have RUINED the show to make it about something it wasnt about.

69.Dean has kissed and had sex with an angel.her name was Anna

70.Sera Gamble said “supernatural is the epic love story of SAM and dean”

71.Cw_supernatural IG: it has always been two brothers and the open road.

.

.

.

*Manic laughter*

*Aggressively drop the mic*

*The door is over there*

*Boom! Suck it*

*It sucks to be destieheller*

You are very welcome

Btw I'm a Proud anti destiew and a logical SPN fan.

If You think I'm right,then Chuck bless your logical souls and if not,let me find some fucks to give....sorry,none was found.

The begining part was an example of a savage destieheller.it wasn't me😊ignore it.

Yours truly,anon.

=============================

Holy crap, that is one longass ask. An ask I was thisclose to deleting until I skipped to the bottom. 

💖💖💖💖💖

[nancylou444]

So insisting that a straight character is straight, is now considered queerbaiting?

And before you ask, YES, they ship that ship.

[nancylou444]

Why is it that those complaining about "queerbaiting" and "lack of canon representation" ALWAYS ship destiel?

🤔🤔🤔🤔

masterfully written, acted, produced, and directed show with absolutely no queerbaiting and 100% canon queer couples: canceled after two seasons supernatural: 10 seasons and counting

[nancylou444]

What the fuck is this moron talking about?

[nancylou444]

I'm sure Dean never described Cass as that.

And the only time they care about 'lesbian' Charlie is when she can be used as "proof" of bi Dean.

[nancylou444]

[nancylou444]

The trifecta

thinks Dean is bi

ships destiel

hates john

[nancylou444]

Your headcanon doesn't mean shit.

That WAS Castiel in seasons 4-6, not so much in season 15.

Oh we have a lot of legit reasons not to like Castiel AND Misha.

At least you realize Dean being bi is fiction.

[nancylou444]

Guess what this asshole ships.

RIGHT. 🙄

And yet my anti Castiel sideblogs are wrong.

Hypocrite much.

[nancylou444]

Too bad the handprint is gone. 

#spoiler alert #dean is straight #suck it

I don't know if someone said it before, but when Cas raises dean from hell, he leaves a handprint on dean's shoulder, right? But when he raises Sam from hell, he doesn't leave a handprint. Meaning Cas did that on purpose. Cas put the ultimate dibs on dean.

[nancylou444]

YOU: Nancy, what do they ship?

ME: Do you really NEED to ask?

YOU: I was just being polite. 😁

[nancylou444]

Now that we have a date for the finale, let me introduce a new tag:

#dean is as straight in november 2020 as he was in september 2005

[nancylou444]

(x)

[nancylou444]

I follow ao3feed-malec for awesome fanfic to read

So when I saw this, I was interested:

ME: This looks good. 

Then I looked at the tags:

ME: