#like jensen just finally said he see cas declaration as canon two minutes ago

[shedontlovehuhself]

Miss Jensen cheerleader proving my point about Jensen stans once again. Getting mad and posting a whole ass thesis length post about Misha saying "how dare he say Dean needs to show emotion to Cas! Such a horrible take! How dare he speak for Dean". And yet, defends Jensen's less than stellar takes on Castiel's confession. The double standards of Jensen stans on here truly are something!

[phynali]

more spn discussions, just skip this post y’all

 @queerbluebird​ thanks so much for engaging with my post/reply! i really enjoyed reading your response and i have a long reply here.

i’m responding to your post/reply here rather than reblogging it because honestly that thread is - so long. so very long. 

so first - 

i agree there is a difference between entitlement and what i would call, not promise, but instead “narrative follow-through”. A story that completely lacks narrative follow-through does end up feeling disappointing, or frustrating, or rage-inducing, depending on what’s happened. to me there’s a fundamental difference between critiquing a story based on follow-through and bad storytelling (which your post aims to do), versus say, creating hashtag campaigns about a character being silenced because and spreading conspiracy theories about a bad dub (among other things honestly).

and also - queerbaiting totally sucks, we definitely do agree on that.

where we disagree, i think are these two core points:

i do not see the narrative build-up that demands a follow-through. i do not see supernatural as having built up to the story that many destiel shippers seem to think was there, and no one has ever been able to point out to me any actual textual reasons that do craft that narrative build-up  

i fundamentally do not believe that destiel was ever a queerbait. queerbait involves active intent on the part of creators to tease a ship or queer representation in order to draw in $ from queer audiences without ever making it canon, so as not to alienate straight audiences. so, refering to point 1., i do not see the canon text as having laid the groundwork for a queerbait and those romantic tropes, at least not at any point in the past 7 years. and beyond the canon, the writers and producers and jensen ackles all indicated dean was straight, and that they were not writing a romance. if anyone queerbaited the fans, it was misha collins who kept teasing the possibility, and personally i would argue that was irresponsible of him. but that’s a different discussion altogether and tends to piss people off when it’s framed as such, because misha means a lot to them and it hurts to see the man who validated their feelings get criticized for the manner in which he validated them. so i’m gonna leave that aside.

beyond that, I want to engage with some of your specific quotes:

Supernatural loves to say “wait for it.” And I don’t think it’s entitled to feel betrayed if an author uses their story to say “wait for it” in order to convince you to stick with their story and then delivers the opposite after you do.

May i ask, where was the “wait for it” with destiel? this ties in directly to the queerbaiting. i indicated in my post/reply that while i see it from cas, there’s been little to no hint of any reciprocation of feelings from dean, and if anything the past 7 or so years have driven the point home that it isn’t happening. i personally am not able to see the “Wait for it” and that was the point of my question. without the “Wait for it”, i also can’t see the queerbait. 

I asked for specifics and while i totally get not having the spoons, you provided a few:

(off the top of my head for Dean though, the mixtape, his response to Cas’ death at the end of 12, subsequent grief arc, and reaction to Cas’ return in the front half of 13 rank highly. His reaction to Lucifer’s prank call in 15x19 might rate, but maybe just because it’s so recent.)

not trying to be unkind here, but i quite genuinely don’t see any of these examples as framing cas and dean in a romantic light, or as hinting at a “what if”. the mixtape is like.... okay, maybe. i had read that as being symbolic of something else, but i can see wanting to read it from a shipping lens. (i don’t however think i’d read it as baiting or “what if” - it was quite textually not framed that way. shipping, 100%, but canon build-up, not for me).

for the other examples -- grieving for someone you consider family? and being happy when they come back? that’s not shippy to me. i mean - contrast the grief he showed over cas’s death compared to his grief over, say, mary? or, less extreme, charlie? and nothing compared to how off the rails he goes when sam is dead or he thinks sam is. so i -- i just can’t see those as creating a narrative that demands a follow-through. and when your friend who is dead calls your phone? of course you hop to the door - i don’t know what is romantic about that. sam would’ve hopped just as quick if “cass” had called his phone instead.

and look - i see what is fun to ship about all that. if i shipped it, i’d be happily collecting these moments with a smile and grinning to myself about how cute they are and much they mean. but shipping it vs. it being romantically framed in the canon are two fundamentally different things. shipping doesn’t imply narrative buy-in or deliberation from the creator.

moving on, you also spoke at length about 15x18:

15x18 made the sort of statement that drew back even people who did exactly what OP said they should do, turning off the TV years ago. It wasn’t a quiet “if you’re still watching, keep waiting,” so much as a shouted “hey we’re gonna do this thing, watch this!”

i guess destiel fans vs. those of us who don’t ship it really see this as fundamentally different. because you discuss that moment as one which requires follow-through, and say that if this were heteronormative m/f love declaration, there would be that expectation of follow-through. not necessarily reciprocity, but more - more conversation, more acknowledgment, more something.

(i mean - if there was more, but that more was “hey i love you too but only platonically, sorry man” would that be better?)

but no - i actually just... disagree with your point on that front. i can see why you feel the way you do and i acknowledge that it can be read as the start of a conversation. to me though -- and clearly, now that the finale is out, how the writers saw it -- that was actually the end of a conversation. the end of, like you pointed out, 12 years. a 12-year conversation that ends in a gorgeous declaration of love, and specifically how love isn’t about being together, it’s simply about being - it’s about the fact that you love someone, and that feeling alone is the most beautiful thing in existence.

to me, that declaration can only be written and interpreted as an ending.  a sacrifice, a declaration, and a goodbye. so - while i kind of expected seeing more people in episode 20 and realize that didn’t happen largely due to covid - i’m not disappointed we didn’t see cas, because that culmination of his narrative (and then knowing he was with jack, after, rebuilding the heaven that he rebelled against and finally completing his narrative circle by fixing all the problems with it alongside the good god he sought to find all along) is kind of perfect. 

and i genuinely don’t think if cas was in a female vessel this entire time that that would change. maybe some audience members would feel differently, but i think many of us would see it for the end it was nonetheless. there’s plenty of stories with m/f ships that are one-sided and that character sacrifices themselves for the person they love, so i don’t see why this would be any different (except the bury your gays issue, but that’s a whole other and very real conversation about media tropes).

moving on to the series finale.

As many people have pointed out in praise of 15x20, Sam is the absolute most important thing in Dean’s life, his priority above anything and everything… And yet there, at the actual end of the world, Dean ignores Sam’s call and instead cries over the loss of Castiel. Dean’s loss of Castiel plays in tandem with the loss of literally the whole world. But we’re not to take that as a promise that Castiel means more to this story, or to Dean, than a couple seconds of wistfulness after the dust settles?

I... yeah. i don’t see what this even is arguing. that dean taking a minute to himself to grieve his best friend, who just died in part because dean decided to go hunt down billie (who was literally dying anyway). he’s hurting. there’s nothing about this that’s a promise - it’s an end. it’s grief. it’s the horror of losing someone you care about, and the silence that comes after. it’s fundamentally human in it’s pain. and we, the audience, are invited to grieve with dean.

so I mean - of course cas means more to this story. of course he’s meant more than a few seconds of grief, after 12 years. but just because that’s the last time we see him on screen doesn’t mean we don’t value his story, and celebrate how it too came full circle.

You mention cas as a sort of avatar for a different potential ending for the brothers, and highlight him representing:

An ending where higher powers stop yanking them around and they get to actually live in the life they’ve built for themselves.

So while i never considered cas an avatar for that, i do think we all wanted the brothers to have their freedom. “finally free.” so we can agree on wanting that end. but we disagree on whether it was delivered, i guess? because i feel it was.

you also talk about what you and many other fans conceivably wanted a happier ending to look like. can i -- i’m going to be totally honest. i have not seen a single person who’s critiquing the end saying “i just wanted sam and dean to grow old hunting together with their dog until they retire together and die of old age.”

would that be satisfying to those who are mad about the end? i personally don’t think so, but maybe my opinion is being coloured by the most vitriolic fans i’ve seen. if sam and dean got to have the life they wanted free of chuck, and dean didn’t die, and they kept going (or retired and opened a bar together!). maybe sam still had a kid, but again because romance wasn’t the point, the wife wasn’t important and they left her blurry still so we could interpret ourselves if she was a wife or a co-parent or a surrogate or what. maybe dean has a kid too, with a similar question-mark-wife. maybe we get a few images of them having a holiday with jodie and the girls. and then getting to heaven together in old age, greeting bobby with a beer, and going for a drive.

would that be an end that wouldn’t cause fandom uproar? i would enjoy it, soft an slightly discordant as it would be to me. i prefer the ending we got, bittersweet and heartbreaking though it was, but i wouldn’t be taking to social media to yell about it if we got a softer epilogue, so to speak.

on the other hand... would that still not be enough, at least not for so many of the angry fans? i’m genuinely unsure. it seems to me that so much of the ire is about destiel itself, even if people are pretending it’s about more and other things than that. not everyone, but like, a big portion of them. which leads me to believe that nothing short of dean and cas at least interpretable as together is what they wanted. if every other single thing about the existing finale was the same except that cas was the one to greet dean instead of bobby, and even with the same basic dialogue, without discussing the confession, but they have a lingering smile, and dean leaves to drive and wait for sam with the promise he’ll see cas later - 

if everything else stayed the same except who greeted dean, i genuinely don’t believe i’d be seeing almost any critique of the finale on my dash. maybe i’m cynical, but that’s where i’m at.

which is part of why i really struggle to believe that people are engaging in good faith when they critique the finale. because i feel like if it offered them either a) everything they’re purportedly asking for but still no cas and zero hint of destiel, vs. b) every other thing they claim to hate stays the same except there’s a wink and nod to destiel - i believe they would take the wink and nod. 

   On to some other things you raised:

But how can you know to walk away from a tragedy if the tragedy says “the end won’t be a tragedy, keep watching” right up until it ends in tragedy?

Oh i Get this. I hate thinking i’m consuming fun media only for it to rip my heart out at the end. i’ve literally - well, i’ve had a very unpleasant and distressing experience of this, actually. so i get it. also the opposite: i sometimes feel disappointed when i’m consuming media that is gripping and intense and painful, but then the end is too easy, too soft and happy?

BUT - supernatural never pretended it would have a happy end? the end was so. much. happier. than i ever expected. the Swan Song end was going to have Sam in hell being tortured by lucifer for eternity. according to something i read which i am fundamentally too lazy to link because who knows if it would have turned out this way but -- kripke was apparently going to have Dean jump in the cage with him at that end, if the series ended on S5? the ‘horror’ ending. completely devastating sacrifice for mankind (sam), and completely devastating sacrifice for his brother (dean). just -- oof. even if that wasn’t the plan and the series would’ve ended as the episode did - sam was still in the cage and cas was off waging war in heaven and dean was living every day knowing he was alive and his brother was being tortured.

i’m sorry if you thought you were watching a happier show. i know how much that hurts. that doesn’t mean the story was actually that happy though. sometimes, it’s on us as consumers to acknowledge we were misreading the media. i’ve had to do this. it’s hard, it hurts, but it helps you consume things healthier. i’ve had to do this growing recently, and i’m better off for it.

regarding the specific manner of dean’s death - that’s really not what my post was about and i’m not gonna address it here. i’ve talked about it elsewhere and so have others, and @lovetincture‘s original post spelled it out beautifully, in how human it was. i have feelings on how and why i loved dean’s death, and why it was the absolute opposite of what Chuck’s ending was and what he wanted (no blaze of glory), but i’ll leave those for another time.

They cast aside all the relationships they’ve built. [...] They lost/walked away from the life and home they built in the bunker. Dean got a season 1 death. Sam got a season 1 life.

I feel that there is a very huge difference between regression and progression when it comes to cyclical storytelling. And that difference seems to be missing from the ongoing discussions i’ve seen about this in fandom.

Coming full circle to season 1 does not at all mean that the development is ‘undone’ or that the story has regressed or that anything has been lost or destroyed. It can mean that, if the storyteller doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but in this case i don’t (personally) feel it’s a fair critique.

Dean’s death might parallel his s1 not-quite death from Faith, but the s15 result of that death is night and day. Dean is no longer alone. Dean does not go up to a lonely heaven filled with bittersweet memories, where even his canonical soulmate and him have wide gulfs between the memories they fill their shared heaven with. Dean dies a hunter, but he dies a hunter who literally saved earth and changed heaven and gets to spend eternity with his brother, side-by-side and together without all the pain and miscommunication, and he gets to see his family and loved ones too. he died having literally made the world so much better.

even without that though?

his story comes full circle, but dean’s character development isn’t about his death, it’s about the fact that in the first several seasons dean could hardly admit he cared without acting like his teeth were being pulled. he was too afraid of abandonment to ask for someone to be by his side. he was too afraid of rejection to let anyone in. and in the end? he asks sam to stay. he tells him that he loves him. he pours his heart out and says all the things that 15 years ago were stoppered in his throat, words trying and failing to claw their way free but his hurt and fears were too deep.

dean is free.

the point of dean’s story coming full circle to season 1 parallels was specifically to highlight this incredible development, not to undermine it. he is different. he is free. 

god it makes me tear up just thinking about how happy i am for him despite how gutted i was by that scene??

(i could write a similar analysis for sam, about how he left for stanford to escape his life and how his finale life montage bits were the opposite of that, but honestly this post is long enough already).

Destiel is loosely a part of that promise in the sense that Castiel is a part of that promise. The symbol of free will

You make a super interesting argument about Cas being a symbol of free will. I don’t have much to say about it, because I’m gonna mull it over, because I think it’s kinda cool and I’ve never thought about it.

That’s - all i’ve got. thanks again for engaging. i’m happy to continue the convo if you have questions or want to reblog/reply 

(though my followers might hate me omg, i’ve been spamming long spn meta posts for weeks now, it’s just been so confronting to see the ongoing fan reaction on twitter and how divided it is...)

[flyingcatstiel]

1of2 Tired of metas blaming executives / defending writers. Writers can write horrible endings. Proof - GOT, HIMYM, Lost etc. Executives didn't force those bad endings. Reading all these conspiracy theories feels like I am listening to Trump. Executives are homophobic but ok with incestous ending? I asked my SO (who never watched SPN) to watch SPN final with me. I quote him "didn't you say they are brothers. It almost looks like they are going to kiss - Ewww - is this what you want me to watch?"

2of2 Even if we look at bottom line - Executives - apparently don't care the fact that Destiel was trending FIRST world wide - in middle of pandemic, middle of historic US elections - such free publicity to gain more viewers and money - but they care about incestous endings which grossed out lot of people. I wish these metas and conspiracy theorists stop baiting people and stop defending writers. Even before covid - Dabb had intended for this bad ending with proof that only 30% will like it.

Oh, nonnie. If you have sent this just 2 days ago, I’d be there with you, all salty about metas defending writers. Today tho, after going through some serious posts about the CW involvement with the show, about Russian market, about professional dubbing practices I have my thoughts in different order. 

So, from what I’ve seen so far (barely past midnight November 26 in the US as of writing this). Jensen went to re record audio stuff for 15x18, most likely Cas confession scene. Now we have info from Latin America (2 separate dubs)  that Dean actually reciprocated Cas’s love declaration and only after that The Empty took Cas. Nonnie, this changes everything. The first thing so many viewers noticed and commented on was the weird way the scene was cut and how little emotions Dean showed. The running gag on twitter was that Jensen is homophobic and Misha strong-armed him into that scene. Non shipper said that it was platonic love declaration from Cas, coming out of nowhere. But most importantly, we, shippers were robbed from proper celebration of our ship going canon. After 12 years of sticking with the ship, they still took it from us. This is totally on the CW shoulders.

But also, this means that destiel was at some point greenlit by the executives to be reciprocated in canon. Until someone at the CW backpaddled in late September. The writers are not responsible for this, they are victims of these changes as well. Dean’s answer changes the emotional beats of several scenes in 15x19 in addition to the scenes that were cut. 15x19 has that strange montage at the very end which most likely was added to cover cut scenes, say like Lucifer, Jack and Cas scene in the empty? Because if Misha was in 15x19, that would mean that the prank call was never meant to be his last contribution. I mean, the disrespect to the fans, the writers and Misha, all in one episode.

And then there’s 15x20 which looks so weird that a lot of fans immediately said that it is a butchered episode. Thing is, we have no idea what kind of script was written pre covid, how much it was changed and when, and how much was cut out from filmed episode. I’ve seen posts sayin that the script for 15x20 was still in rewrites when they finished filming for 15x18. Which is very, very late for a shooting script. I personally think that Dean’s death was the thing Jensen disliked so much, but even then - we don’t know how it was framed in earlier scripts and how they arrived at that horrific scene in 15x20. 

I’m not saying that SPN writers are the most amazing TV writers out there, and I look forward times when we will be able to discuss all problematic stuff SPN is filled to the brim with, but. We just don’t know what exactly happened in the SPN writing room and how much executives meddled with it. COVID happened. Nothing of this is normal. This is why the most important thing right now is to pressure the CW for some answers. Look at them throwing Misha under the bus today. That tells you bunches how well they know fandom and how to manipulate us. 

Now about that incestuous scene, aka Dean’s death, and why homophobic executives would be OK with it but not canon destiel. Under the cut we go, mostly for space reasons. 

Ok, this is so funny but I actually just finished writing my second answer about wincest in 15x20 and had problems posting it and that’s how I learned that we broke tumblr and destiel went canon in spanish. Here’s my post, check it out bc I’m not repeating it  here. 

I think wincest, aka incest between two able bodied, adult male brothers is something casual viewer outside the fandom is not even thinking about. If it was sister/brother deal with intimate embrace, people would notice faster. But two masculine, 6 ft tall macho dudes during the death scene? Nope. Here comes plausible deniability which viewers also use to ignore anything “funny” between Dean and Cas. I’m glad that you and your partner noticed incest vibes, but, I’ve see plenty people even in destiel fandom being fine with such scenes between Sam and Dean. I’ve seen some destiel fans saying that they really loved 15x20, so, there are viewers out there for whom it worked. 

Now let’s look at the bottom line. TBH, I’ve no idea where to look? Where is the projected revenues for a show that is ending? You say that Destiel trending during pandemic is a proof that our fandom is huge, but. No one knew that we had such power! And trending on twitter is not something that translates into money easily. And it happened 2 weeks before finale. There’s no time to change finale anymore. I personally think that destiel fandom has been shrinking for past couple of years, since so many folks left due to bad writing and queerbaiting. But they came back for tweeting. At this point destiel is bigger than it’s fandom. I personally think that the CW would have benefited from canon destiel, but they made different call.

I agree with you that in general, fandom should not defend the writers so much and ought to be more critical about the stuff they write, but today, November 26, 2020, the game is happening on completely different plane. I’m pretty sure that we got a butchered finale, and I’m very much inclined to believe that it is somehow connected to their efforts to promote The Walker show. Maybe Dabb’s original finale was really bad, but show me the script then. If destiel was supposed to be reciprocated, then they might have gone overboard with bro love in Dean’s death scene. Only now, when destiel was one-sided, that scene becomes very wincesty seemingly on purpose. A good creative writing, in it’s finished form, is a very tightly woven fabric. You pull out some threads, you unravel whole fabric. And that’s what 15x20 is. 

2 days ago I’d be roasting metas who defend spn writers, today I want to storm the CW. (pitchforks anyone?) Destiel shippers were robbed, queer love story was censored, this should be the focus of or anger today, not the writers or actors. We can do both - demand truth about the Cas confession scene and roast original Dabb’s ending if we ever get it. 

ETA - after writing this up, I checked out some posts by blogs who debunk all conspiracies, including Spanish dub. They sound very convincing! But in that case we have to talk about long term queerbaiting that was taking place on this old CW show till the very last minute. Cas was used in promos for 15x17 he was not in. They (ppl who make promos) deliberately used Cas barn scene from 4x01 in those promos, then actual barn in 15x20 promo but somehow it is shippers who are delusional? Don’t start me on Song of the day. Angel with a shotgun for 15x19? What was that about? After 15x18 there was no official goodbye to Cas which made ppl to watch finale. Like? Even if the Spanish dub gets officially debunked by the CW and not some random blogs, we are left with the fact that destiel fandom was gaslighted during the last stretch of s15. And not only by writers.

And if this was the finale they so lovingly crafted and deemed to be good, where are the celebration of the SPN ending? Why we had to watch documentary before the episode? Why 15x20 was so short? Why Canada watched the episode first (and leaked spoilers online) They filmed after quarantine, the script had to be the usual length. And so on, fandom has been through all the things that didn’t match several times already. PITCHFORKS -> the CW