#the only canon spn content I care about

[eisforeidolon]

The thing with doing 'so and so consumes x media' content? Is that you have to consistently bring something to the table that is more interesting to your audience than them just revisiting the media themselves. It can be something like BTS insider information, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that big of a something. Just enthusiasm and surprise as a new viewer can do it. In-depth media critique can do it. Snark can do it in the right circumstances (though that doesn't really apply with a podcast you're selling to fans). Etc.

I haven't and am not going to listen to the Now & Then podcast, but from the people who've talked about trying it that I've seen, I get the impression Rob & Rich don't really understand that. Or they mistakenly think that listening to two middle-aged dudes who appeared in a bare handful of episodes yammer at each other is in and of itself a draw. Uh, guys? Tuning in for you specifically as opposed to deciding to see you at a convention they're already at are very different things.

I feel like they tried to bill the podcast as being an insider take, but they themselves aren't insider enough to do that so they're intermittently hosting some guests from cast and crew who were. Except they fill time between the guests with them doing a first time react to the show. Which could work ... except it sounds like they're doing it badly. They don't actually seem to like the show, but are trying to sell it to SPN fans who are, you know, fans. They frequently miss or fail to understand major moments, themes, and plot points. In short, they fail to make it consistently entertaining to the general audience they were presumably trying to pull. So most of the fans that actually love the show and were tuning in hoping to enjoy them watching it as a way of revisiting it? Have tuned back out. Which leaves who to give them money for continuing to do it? Oh, right, the weirdos who would happily throw money at studio janitor #5 or random non-speaking extra #207 if they told them D/C was real and canon. R2 haven't 'seen D/C is real, OMG!'. They've seen that they can continue to make money off having been on SPN without even bothering to rewatch the show and pretend to enjoy it! All they have to do is go down a checklist of 'D/C moments' and hint they can see how shippers would be into it and hellers will happily throw money at them. They'd already lost most of the fans who tuned in hoping they actually had interesting things to say, so why not?

All that is dumb enough, but Insisting this means that if Jensen rewatched the show he would totally [understand D/C was canon/make it canon] is an impressive level up in absolute batshit stupidity. Jensen isn't some rando who was in a handful of scenes in 10-20 episodes across 15 seasons, only trying to pretend he cares about the show for money. No he hasn't watched the entire show back over, but he's read every script, talked to the writers and directors, and every fucking thing (bar a few flashbacks/de-agings) Dean Winchester ever did on screen did it through Jensen acting out what he saw as Dean's motivations. Despite their constant self-delusion on this point, the GA and most of the fandom did not watch the show and think there was any kind of romance between those two characters. So insisting Jensen himself would entirely change his mind on who Dean was and what he felt despite his prominent role in determining exactly those things by watching the show back as a whole?

It's the same old fixated obsession with their own fanfic and denial of rationality that has lead them to make these same stupid predictions queerbaiting themselves over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ...

[samwinchestermydude]

My Supernatural Journey I guess

I actually did go into spn fully expecting to ship Destiel. I came into SPN after watching Merlin, and I had often seen Merthur (my beloved) and Destiel likened together. I barely knew anything about Sam. I only found out that Sam existed because I saw that he was being shipped with his brother on the Ao3 ships polls last year. I didn't know if Sam was important or not because I hadn't seen much content about him. So I ended up calling him the hippie brother mentally.

The only things I thought I knew about Supernatural was that it had some religious stuff in it, Destiel was canon apparently, there were demons and stuff, and John really hated. My impression on Spn was this horror show that was featured this really tough macho dudes but the show was supposedly kind of gay??

I also followed this one person way back for discussing this one video game. They were an ex-supernatural fan way back but left because they found discourse surrounding destiel to be to exhausting. They also used to be a big Sam fan and shipped wincest. I like found the latter to be like really weird back then but man the tides have turned.

So I turned on the Spn pilot with my mom in the same room one day out of sheer boredom. Back then I was still considering Spn as that tumblr show. And then the rest was history, and I lost countless hours of my life obsessing over the show.

So first of all, I only saw one brief glance at Sam before voting for merthur in the wincest vs merthur poll (I'd have probably voted for wincest now lol) so I didn't really know who he was. To me initially he just looked like the 2nd big, gruff dude with long hair. And then I found out that the sweetest looking boy with the floppiest bangs was that guy, Sam.

Also I thought Dean was the younger brother for some reason before watching the show (Probably because Jackles just doesn't age lol). So I was really surprised to see that the little kid in the opening scene was Dean and that the baby was Sam. Oh and I was totally predicting that John died actually in the opening scene and that something else was pretending to be their father lol.

I think I fell in love with the show right away. There was just something really believable and palpable about the brother's estrangement and relationship from the start and I just wanted to see how it developed. S1 is just filled with great horror episodes, and I started watching around October so it was just perfect timing.

So Things that Ended Up Suprising Me the Most/Other Things

I actually ended up really liking John in s1. JDM was just stellar in his all scenes and brought an emotional and sincere side to John. He's tough for sure but he doesn't hide his feelings about his boys. Like you can see the tears in his eyes when they reunite. Also his speech about how he wants Sam and Dean to have normal lives and how he's tired and so broken up after seeing all his friends being killed by meg never fails to hit hard. Do I think John was a good father. No. But he did care about his boys truly. And while I do understand Fandom's widespread dislike of John it is disheartening to see him reduced to this unfeeling caricature. John's problem wasn't that he felt too little; it was that he felt to much and he never really properly managed it and it ended up hurting the his boys.

I thought Meg and Sam would maybe end up being a thing and was like :(((( (because I just liked the bros being by themselves even though I wasn't a wincest shipper at the time lol) but I was also like go Sam if thats what you want ig? Lmao Idk I just wanted Sam to be happy even back then. Anyways thank god that never happened.

Me falling in love with Sam.

Dean. I always saw a lot about him but never found myself to interested in him as all I saw was Destiel content with him. But I ended up falling in love with his character so hard in Devil's trap. When he begs John not to kill him :(((((((((. I think Devil's trap is one of my favorite episodes for Dean. It's when I started to understand him and his loyalty to his family really touched me.

1x22 was also the episode that convinced me SPN was going to be a insane show. Like what a season finale. I feel so bad for the fans who had to wait to watch s2. I actually jumped up and said it ends like that?! The car scared me so bad.

Around s2 I set my foot in the wincest fandom. Back then I thought you guys were scary but in a good way. But I was also getting really into the codependency at the time so I found myself starting to seek wincest out because well you guys just get it. And then Dean sold his soul for Sam and I looked up wincest fic for the first time with the intent to read fic about wincest. Before it was reading wincest fic despite the wincest and then well all hell blew loose (sorry I just had to).

First wincest fic I read: half the man i used to be by dollylux. I wasn't exactly a wincest shipper then. But I thought it was fucked up and strangely fitting to Sam and Dean's relationship and fucked up lives. It was probably the fic that got me into wincest.

I had a bit of an internal rule I set for myself back then where I could only read Wincest fics that were about them being in a fucked and toxic relationship because I felt bad reading fics about an incest ship. So I guess in my mind it cancelled out because then I thought then I wasn't romanticizing the incest lol. Idgaf now. I read anything about Sam/Dean if it's good.

When You're Not Here by raziella was the 2nd wincest fic I read. I read it because it's pretty much gen but it does have some wincest leanings. It's a really good fic.

I gave up Destiel even before s4. It was around in S3 after seeing Sam slowly go insane that I realized I wanted nothing more than the two brothers together.

I just realized that even if Destiel was canon or not nothing could be as important to Dean than Sam was and vice versa for Sam.

I actually was anxious about s4 because I didn't want the show to change that much and drift from the focus on the brothers.

S4 and s5 were really difficult to go through for me. I thought they were great television but it was too painful. I felt horrible seeing what happened to the brothers and how they drifted apart.

S4 Sam hair was probably my favorite.

[soullessjack]

I’ve been on TikTok a lot because my FYP has been infiltrated by SPN and most people on there think he has the mental mind of a 3 y/o or a baby. How is this possible to think with his storylines? It doesn’t make sense to me. I wasn’t in the fandom, just an avid show watcher, and I saw him similar to Amara and how she’s an adult that grew up fast except he was just born grown but naive because the world is complex. So how do people get to him having a baby mind? It feels ableist to me but I can’t figure out how to articulate why (like when someone has developmental disabilities and someone says, “They have the mind of a _y/o,” when that person’s needs/skills/etc are more complex) and I was wondering if you could shine some light on why you think this happens. I don’t think people understand why other people have uncomfortable feelings surrounding baby/toddler/kid!Jack but I can’t remove it from accidental ableism. I’ve tried talking to people about it on TikTok but they either double down or say that it’s my opinion. However, I don’t feel like canon supports theirs. Thank you. I love you your posts about Jack and your insight. Good work.

hi, thanks :3

genuinely I don’t know, and I ask myself that every single time I go through spn tiktok lmao. the best I can figure is, for one, TikTok is the app where media literacy and nuance go to die like dogs. there’s no arguing with anybody there unless you get lucky (source: I’ve argued).

two, I think genuinely it comes from the over-saturation of baby!jack content in the fandom, both in and out of tumblr, and the extremely minimal amount of content where he’s actually treated with nuance and complexity. like, it exists, but only in very small circles that the majority of the fandom clearly ignores. from what I’ve seen most of spn-tok is focused on TFW or Dean or Destiel and don’t generally care about Jack that much, so it kinda makes sense that they’d just run with the most prevalent idea of jack and not really think about it in the long run, or when they watch the show.

a lot of the arguments I’ve seen literally boil down to “he wears Velcro sneakers” and “he doesn’t know [insert thing]” or just his general social awkwardness/unawareness (which Cas displayed all the time in the early seasons but never got outright infantilized for). like look at this:

and there’s millions more comments like this, unfortunately. I don’t mean to speak for everyone, but at least for me, the body language and specific mannerisms Alex put into his portrayal of Jack is what resonated the most as an autistic thing, naïveté and poor social skills aside of course. Like, he fidgets/stims constantly—

and none of this is scripted for him to do, either! Alex just decided it worked, and he was right!!

—and to see these very blatant autistic traits be reduced down to “portrayal of a child/toddler” is downright sickening, especially when plenty of other autistic fans have pointed it out and expressed to Alex that they relate to Jack and even asked if he had done it on purpose because it was so well done.

what I’m personally confused on is how many people will double down on jack being a child like it’s driftwood in the ocean. like, going back to my argument, I gave the other person multiple points in the show that make it obvious jack is intended to be an adult. Harper, the beer, any of the trauma he’s endured; the works. and all they had to say to that was “you do you I guess.” and it’s like what do you mean, ‘you do you’? I’m giving you actual examples that happen in the show, and I’m asking you to think ‘hey, maybe if jack flirted with a girl and talked nonstop about what it’s like to fall in love and have sex for an entire episode and had his dad offer to go to a dive bar for bucket-list hookups in the episode after, maybe he isn’t a child.’

but again, this is TikTok, so asking for any kind of self examination is asking for too much.

it just strikes me as odd. it’s odd and confusing and horribly frustrating that people are dying on this hill like it’s some kind of civic duty. like, why does it matter to you so much to see Jack as a child? why is it so important for you to think of him that way, that you just ignore canon evidence and autistic voices to make yourself feel right? what was even weirder was they were autistic themselves, and said they wouldn’t dream of infantilizing him, but here we are. their reasoning was “he’s literally 3 by the end of the show,” and that was it. And of course they weren’t wrong, but if you look at every time Jack or anyone else acknowledges his age:

D: “how old do you think you are?”

J: “3 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes”

Dean shrugs and lets him drink beer.

M: “You should be six months old.”

J: “I am…sort of.”

Mary shrugs and treats Jack like a teenager from there on out

M: “Do you ever hang out? I mean, with kids your own age?”

J: “Well, I’m two…enty. I’m twenty…two. I’m twenty-two.”

While the show acknowledges Jack’s actual age, it’s arguably on the same level of acknowledgment of Cas being literally older than time, because what people strangely fail to remember is that Jack is not completely human and doesn’t have the natural aging or developmental process that humans do. He’s three in the same way Vision is three, and Vision is already married with children. Beyond that, there are plenty of times when Jack is referred to as a teenager or treated like one, like Dean’s “he’s a millennial” joke in Last Holiday (wrongly termed but the intent is still there). Hell, even in the scripts they’ll directly say things like:

“Jack is spiraling out, a teenage powder keg,” (13x06 Tombstone, deleted writer’s draft)

“Kelly can’t help but smile, so impressed by the man he’s become, but not about to let him out of her sight,” (14x08 Byzantium, prod. draft)

that make it pretty clear Jack is functionally an adult despite his unnatural age, just like Cas or Amara or even Emma (also the added bonus that Jack explicitly hates being called a child or treated like one, but people literally reacted to that like “oh silly baby wants to be in charge like a grownup” so, like, I don’t even know what to do with that) (and banking off of that, every other time Jack is explicitly put into an adult situation, like flirting with Harper and literally asking Dean how to have sex, sooo many notes on that gif set were the same parroted “nooo baby boy don’t corrupt your innocent mind!! dean is such a bad influence 😂😂😂😂”, so the obtuseness is very intentional). I try not to be accusatory when I talk about the way Jack is treated in the fandom, as a general for online discussion and because I know it’s largely unintentional, but I really do think Destiel (and Sastiel) have some hand in it.

If you look at the majority of Baby!Jack content, it all centers around how domestic either ship is with baby!jack, how good Dean is with kids (baby jack) and how much of a sweet older sister Claire would be, etc. It’s all for the sake of domesticity. It’s the white picket fence family dream that canon TFW2.0 doesn’t really quite have. It’s to make Dean and Cas and Sam and Cas and Claire and Rowena and whoever else, a softer version of themselves. It’s never actually about Jack. He’s just the cannon fodder; the prop; the dress setting; the accessory. He’s there to make everyone else look better and to fuel them forward. No matter how much people want to argue that it’s “giving Jack the childhood he should’ve had,” we both know it’s not actually about him, because canon coming in with the steel chair again: Jack literally chose to be an adult. He hates being considered a child and has never expressed anything more than wanting to be a regular teenager. And like I said, people on spn-tok are naturally Destiel centered, so it’s honestly not very surprising that they just can’t let go of this content cow because it’s just too cute and wholesome and precious of course, despite it being rampant ableism and just generally annoying to people who actually do care about Jack in a deeper sense. Gag me. So maybe that explains the doubling down, but then what gets even more confusing to me is, like, you can have a domestic family AU that doesn’t rely on erasing a character to fit a specific image. You can have a domestic family AU without being ableist about it. You don’t have to do any of the things you keep consistently doing. You even fucking already it in the show! Canon TFW2.0 is dysfunctional on various levels, but so was TFW, and so were just Sam and Dean. It’s simply their dynamic, and it’s what adds to their family bond being what it is to begin with. Nothing you’re doing is something you need to.

I wanna stop before this gets longer than it has to be, but for one final thought I think the general lack of care for autistic people in any space is part of it, too. It’s why half of our representation is painfully inaccurate or egregiously offensive; it’s why fandoms of media with autistic/autistic-coded characters almost always rampantly infantilize them (cough cough SheRa). And like with Alex’s mannerism choices, it’s the distinct yet subconscious connection between autistic behaviors and childlike behaviors, because autistic people are so largely treated as incapable innocent children and cannon fodder for their autism warrior parents; both of which reflect like direct sunlight in Baby!Jack tropes. And it’s why people just don’t care enough to do anything about it, to heed any criticisms about the harm they’re doing, because to them it’s not harmful. It’s not a problem that’s doing any perceivably “real” damage because they haven’t been personally hurt by it (except when it comes to unfair Dean criticism or Sam or Cas criticism, because that’s clearly more important than ableist rhetoric and representation erasure), and probably because they already hold those views to autistic people in the real world.

The world at large does not care for autistic people, or disabled people in general. Nothing that hurts us is considered anything serious. Nothing that matters to us is considered valuable or worth respecting. And because of that, we already struggle in the real world day by day, so we turn to online spaces for connection and sharing our interests safely. We turn here for community, only to be met with the same indifference and rejection as the real world, because the same people we’re trying to avoid are here too, and then we have nowhere else.

•••

**im probably going to make this a separate post but I also want to talk about the weird cognitive dissonance that the fandom has with babyjack and how it’s pretty much considered “acceptable infantilization,” and how so many people in the fandom have said they want more complex jack but still engage with content that actively erases Jack’s complexity and relies on that erasure to make him what he is).

***edit: tags 4 reach, absolutely feel free to ask for removal! ik it’s out of the blue but you guys have had some of the better takes on jack lol @angelsdean @hauntedpearl @uh-ohspaghettio @queermania

[chiisana-sukima]

@nosammycomeon I moved here so I could go more in depth.

He didn't actually say the writers' room was writing destiel--afaik none of the writers has ever said that explicitly (although it's obvious which writers in the late seasons were in fact doing it, even without explicit confirmation). He said some stuff in a Then and Now additional patreon content interview question that got interpreted in a way he felt he needed to go back and clarify, which is what the tweets are for. The Then and Now content is supposed to be private for patreon subscribers only, but fortunately for clarity's sake, information wants to be free.

You can really see here how the complexity of communication makes everything Worse. Something I've noticed as an autistic person who sometimes finds communication difficult and pretty much always finds lying infuriating is that people in general have a relaxed view of facts. When someone makes [bald statement X] about almost any relatively nuanced topic, [bald statement X] is usually a stand in for a whole big set of information not formally in the communication that the listener is supposed to just understand the speaker means through context. But unfortunately everyone's understanding of any given context is different, so then often the speaker thinks they have communicated [huge set of context about X] but the listener thinks they have communicated [different huge set of context about X]. This is further complicated by the fact the speaker may be intentionally lying about [X], but it's often hard to know one way or the other, and by the fact that sometimes the speaker isn't lying, but doesn't themself understand what they actually believe the context of the statement they made to be.

Here, Edlund is pretty clearly saying as [bald statement X] only that in The End, Cas is ride or die for Dean and he got a note to change the wording because it was too obvious to be good writing. He was taken by some destiel fans to mean that he got a note to change the line because it made it too obvious that Cas was gay for Dean. This is clearly not actually what he said. BUT. To me, both Edlund's bald statement and the subsequent interpretative statements by destiel shippers are probably standing in for a lot of context that fandom is split on.

Cas' decisions in The End are honestly pretty extreme for platonic devotion. I mean, me, an aro, might be that devoted to someone platonically. And me, an aro, values highly the emphasis spn put on platonic devotion throughout the length of its run. To me, the context in spn is always 'yes these people are all platonically insane for each other'.

But lets be honest here, most alloromantic people are not used to thinking about devotion this way, and do not have it as a floating ball of context about spn or about life in general. They have the different floating ball of context that people only do this weird shit for each other if they are romantically in love. In the many cases of Sam and Dean's excessively devoted decision-making, spn uses the excuse that they are brothers (like that somehow explains it all. huge Lisa knows moment, i would not fucken do all that for my sibling).

But with Cas in The End, they don't even have that excuse. Cas just... gives up his entire family, his home in Heaven, his identity as an angel, destroys himself with drugs and cheap sex over the pain of simping for someone who no longer has the capacity to care for him, and then is all 'yep, I'll let you use me as meat-grinder bait without even the courtesy of telling me first'. And not to be all 'there's no platonic explanation for this' but given that it did indeed turn out that Cas canonically has been pining romantically for Dean in the main universe too and doing dumb sacrificial stuff because of it on the regular, and that most alloromantic people don't do world-ending platonic devotion, I think its very reasonable to assume that the destiel shippers are assuming that Edlund's bald statement about "its bad writing to be that obvious" includes the context "its bad writing to be that obvious about Cas being in love with Dean". And I think it's even quite reasonable to assume they are right and that was the context Edlund was speaking from within. His later clarifications don't imo negate that, because they all come with context we may or may not know too. Here is a post where the OP calls out some of that possible context. They are absolutely right imo that contending that Cas' speech in 15x18 could have been platonic reeks of corporate bullshit and impeaches any similar statements about other episodes considerably.

Meanwhile though, it's also true that Edlund didn't say anything explicitly about Cas being in love with Dean in The End and it is also reasonable to take people at their word. Spn really was primarily about platonic devotion. So of course people with a more platonically-minded set of conceptual assumptions will take the context as being "I said what I said and I meant it and nothing else", and they aren't actually necessarily wrong or acting in bad faith imo either. Because who tf knows what Edlund meant; we are all just isolated brains out here floating in our individual meatsuits and having confusing-ass, shit communication.

it's so obvious they knew all along that people shipped it… can't believe anyone would say otherwise.

So like, here's the other side of the destiel fans assuming a bunch of context that may or may not be the context that was intended. When people say "the writers didn't know about destiel", they can't mean it literally. Obviously the writers knew at latest by s10, because they acknowledge it on screen in Fan Fiction. But I think the ball of context around this is not unreasonable either. I think when people say this, the listener is supposed to understand that what they mean is "well of course the writers have heard about fan ships through the grapevine or whatever, but they never took any of that, including destiel, seriously. They never paid it much mind. Maybe they did some fanservice/cheap pandering once in a while, but they never meant it. They never queerbaited and they never intended us to take it seriously."

And while I think the evidence points to this not being the case, I do also think it's a reasonable position. The powers that be really have said multiple times over many years that "destiel doesn't exist", that they'd never heard of it, that "we don't pay any attention to what the fans are saying or change story elements based on what the fans want" (my google fu is failing me for that last one atm, but various writers and showrunners have said this multiple times), etc. The last one at least is CLEARLY a blatant, outright lie once you know enough bts information, but you can't blame people for believing it. These are professional liars; lying believably is their job. That people who believe them and are invested in a platonic reading of the show and often are-- not coincidentally--irritated at destiel shippers' insistence on reading thing (including sometimes ridiculous things) romantically would then go on to be impolitic/imprecise in their language on twitter or their personal blogs is pretty much just human nature.

[abi-cosmos]

Abi’s weekly Destiel fanfic retreat!

Fic recs: lowest hits

This week I went deep-diving into the lowest hits, and took a chance on some older stuff that hasn’t been tagged or talked about.  

Because the first one was 30k words, I didn’t get around to reading much more, but I’ll be back next week with others!

Then Shall He Reward Everyone According to His Works (Matthew 16:27) by Orithain and Rina9294.  Explicit. 30030 words. Originally published in a 2011 zine and set in a season 4-5 canon divergence, this is truly a relic (and not in a bad way!) of the time. There’s a note that indicates it may have had editing before it was published to ao3 in 2015, but what I enjoyed about this fic was that Dean is very circa S1-3, but with Castiel (eg. flirty and wanting to bone the hot angel who will only visit him in his dreams). There’s not a lot of tags to help you decide if this fic is for you, but it contains: temporary major character death, in a very Supernatural way. A few jokes/comments that have aged as well as some of the jokes in early SPN. Explicit sexual content. 

Set Yourself on Fire by trinityofone. Explicit. 2279 words. This is surprisingly sad and got me in the feels. Endverse!Cas is using his last moments to visit Dean in his sleep. 

Writing prompts!

Feeling bored and uninspired? Have some one word prompts:

Coffee. Thunderstorm. Yellow.

As always, HYDRATE because water is super important, feel free to message me with any fics you find, or writing you do, and take care of yourselves. 

[sidecarghost]

Destiel fluff is [watching westerns on Dean’s laptop while sitting up in bed together] [eye rolls when Dean is being frustrating or Cas is being obstinate] [holding eye contact to tell each other things they can’t properly verbalize] [shoving each other into walls and pinning each other] [Cas growling and Dean sucking hickeys into Cas’s neck] [wrestling each other to the ground without either of them giving an inch to the other] [pinching and biting and groping being indulged in by both] [Dean being touch-starved and Cas wanting nothing more than to hold on to Dean forever] [relaxing on the couch with Dean resting his head on Cas’s lap, and Cas carding his fingers through Dean’s hair] [a rerun of a Dr. Sexy episode playing on the tv that has Cas complaining about unresolved plot holes and ooc absurdity] [Dean arguing against Cas’s reasoning because he enjoys pushing Cas’s buttons] [Cas getting worked up until he realizes that Dean is deliberately goading him] [Cas shoving Dean off the couch and Dean laughing over Cas’s prior righteous fury] [Cas raising an eyebrow at Dean that kills Dean’s laughter and has him gazing back at Cas until his lips go dry] [Dean licking his lips and the heated kisses from Cas that follow] [meeting Saileen to go bowling on a double date where upon Sam and Dean get very competitive about beating each other’s scores] [Eileen getting the highest score because she is a badass, and Cas getting the lowest because Cas would rather have Dean rub up against him to show Cas proper form than knock over a bunch of wooden pins] [holding hands walking back from the farmer’s market on a breezy day where Cas’s trench coat is tousled by the wind] [lightly kissing each other’s knuckles while holding hands] [Jack drawing pictures in crayon of his family that are hung on the fridge] [Jack drawing Cas with rainbow wings and Dean with black Batman wings] [Dean stopping himself from telling Jack that Batman has a cape and not wings because the wings look badass] [Jack drawing Sam and Eileen playing catch with Miracle] [and Jack drawing Kaia and Claire carrying decapitated vampires to burn in a bonfire that Jack drew himself standing beside roasting marshmallows] [Cas falling into the habit of calling things awesome and Dean falling into the habit of saying something is not of import] [Dean nuzzling his face in the crook of Cas’s neck while Cas bakes] [Dean planting kisses along Cas’s neck and nipping at Cas’s earlobe] [Cas humming while Dean is kissing him] [Jack collecting fresh eggs from their chickens to cook pancakes] [Jack using his god powers to put out a stovetop fire when he can’t find the fire extinguisher] [Dean telling Jack that he will teach Jack how to cook] [Dean cooking for Cas even though Cas doesn’t need to eat] [Cas savoring every bite of food that Dean cooks] [Cas being grumpy if he is awake early, because he is not a morning person] [Dean being careful not to disturb Cas, when he gets up at dawn to take Jack fishing] [Cas finding a fresh pot of coffee after waking up, because Dean set the coffeemaker’s timer to brew before he left] [Cas texting Dean emojis to express his happiness and love] [Dean responding with an emoji keysmash because Cas always smiles over them] [Cas weeding their vegetable garden when Jack and Dean get back home] [Dean showing Cas a photo on his phone of the really big fish that Jack caught, because Jack wanted to release the trophy fish to go back to its family] [listening to the Led Zeppelin mixtape Dean made Cas on a stereo cassette player Cas purchased from a thrift store] [Cas bringing his mixtape and stereo outside to play quietly every time he is tending to their garden, their chickens, or their honeybees] [Cas letting Dean pull him away from his work, so they can lie beside each other in the shade of a tree and watch the clouds roll by overhead] [falling asleep nuzzled together in mid-afternoon cradled by blue sky and green grass, while rock music is still audible from a cassette tape playing on a loop in Cas’s stereo]

[eruthiawenluin]

It would be nice if people cared about saileen as a stand-alone ship instead of as an extension of destiel

I’ve said it from the start but you all could not be more transparent about your pair the spares attitude

[eisforeidolon]

I feel fans should be able to interpret shows and characters any way they want but it really bothers me that shippers die on the hill of Dean is such a closeted bi sexual and Sam is the biggest heterosexual out there. I love these characters because they are extremely toxic and codependent on each other. The story would not be the same with out that. Why would anyone look to Supernatural to be their all time gay representation love story when it most obviously is not. it just blows my mind how out there Destiel shippers are and how much they truly hate this show and hate Dean without even realizing it. I need someone to figure out how we can get rid of them from this fandom...LOL

Yeah, IDGI either. Fandom is supposed to be about just having fun however you want with the building blocks from the canon + your imagination. It's not even the main point that they're hilariously bad at interpretation, project too hard onto the characters to even see them, can't understand context to save their lives, pointedly ignore a million things that directly contradict their agenda, and too much of their so-called proof is actually gross backwards stereotypes about sexuality and masculinity (neither of which they seem to understand very well at all). If they were just having fun with it, who the fuck cares? Sure, it's annoying, but a lot of fandom is annoying because it is so specifically tailored to things not everyone is gonna like. There are other canons with fans who are fine admitting they just like playing in the canon world but not the canon itself that much.

No, the problem is hellers are not content to just enjoy their non-canon interpretations in fandom. They feel entitled to flood any and every tag associated with the show, trying to demand their interpretations be considered indisputably canon fact because ... reasons ... and anyone who doesn't agree with them is A Bad Person because ... they say so. Their ship is the greatest love story (n)ever told, the best representation evar in media! It's the only important thing about SPN - and if they couldn't change the canon, they can change the fandom narrative! The fact there's actually no there there under their overblown thousands upon thousands of words of inept meta is why the very suggestion it's not canon, that someone doesn't see it as the greatest thing ever, that maybe Dean is actually just a heterosexual instead of putting on an elaborate performance of one or even that Sam might not be the straightest character ever written? Is taken as an attack upon their self-declared status as the real main audience. Which makes sense, because they never were. SPN was anything but subtle as to what its actual focal relationship was.

To some extent I get how they echo-chambered each other into believing their ship was/would be a thing in canon. If you just look at the size of the piles on piles of cherry-picked nonsense they accumulated over the years without actually engaging your brain to see how variously flimsy, out of context, or how many other more sensible interpretations there were for any of them? If you wanted to believe and surrounded yourself with others who did, too, and kept talking each other up, spending way more time doing that than watching the show? It's no wonder some of them ended up with really skewed expectations.

What I don't get is how they're still going this long after the show ended. SPN is over and there's no more 'Well, next season for sure!' to promise themselves. There are increasingly more stories out there now in a variety of media which are centering deliberately, openly LGBT+ characters and relationships they could invest in championing! Hell, just saying screw canon and burying themselves in writing their idea of "better" fanfic is a perfectly reasonable way to deal with disappointment, no matter how self-inflicted. Instead, they're still here making up elaborate conspiracies about how SPN was something other than what it blatantly obviously always was - because admitting they were wrong and the only thing they ever liked about it was their own OOC fanfic very, very loosely based off of it? Well, that's more than a bit embarrassing in light of how long they spent campaigning and how vehement they were about it totally being not just A Thing but The Most Important Thing Ever. So I don't know what would actually get them to move on, they clearly love being miserable and wrong and pretending to be martyrs over it far too much for me to comprehend.

[bloomeng]

wanted to share this bc i completely agree

i like Con he seems like a nice guy, but something i notice often with actors/writers/etc. who suddenly gain big followings is that they too are often super excited about the part they get to play in all this, but when the balance between audience and production get thinner things get out of control.

specifically in this case we have him revealing information that technically isn’t canon and was likely cut for a reason. the thing about writing and generally just production is that there’s a million different powers at play and thus a lot of different reasons things get cut. and usually revealing the cut content doesn’t go well. ofmd isn’t anywhere near alone in this issue, i see it somewhat frequently. but ofmd is unique in that a lot of the stuff cut was specifically catering towards fans— ie: the underwater kiss, the boyfriends line, the darker elements of ed and izzy’s relationship, and now the tattoo. and because this stuff is so fan service-centric the backlash tends to be overwhelming. it’s easy to say well s2 was bad and it was cut for censorship and sure that might be a reason, but things like this get cut all the time, we just don’t usually hear about it.

personally i think izzy’s background being cut was totally justifiable, we barely had time to juggle everything else and we don’t need to know his tragic backstory to understand his whole deal. esp adding (likely) sh scars. that’s such a loaded topic, not something you can just casually address, and something that would’ve cluttered an already overfilled plot. things like that need time to be properly explored.

the way i see it is that the best stories focus on what needs to happen in a narrative not what an audience wants to see. especially in script writing, because you’re constantly writing with against a time limit, every scene should be progressing the story (unless it’s comedy). you don’t need every detail of a character’s life for their writing to be effective. in fact often times too much context can distract from the narrative and disrupt the emphasis. and i think when people talk about things “feeling like fanfiction” that’s what they’re identifying. fanfiction is perfect for and literally designed to just give people what they exactly want to see. it can explore places that traditional writing can’t and that’s valuable but when it comes to effective storytelling generally if you only write what audiences want to see it just ends up a mess. especially because audiences will always have conflicting opinions. it’s how we end up with endings like spn and sherlock. which this isn’t solely the issue of ofmd s2— i don’t even think it was the main issue— but i feel bad for the people who worked on this show when people overwhelmingly complain about how cut content shouldn’t have been cut.

fan service is great in moderation but too much and you sacrifice the impact of the story.

this isn’t about ofmd but i feel even worse when fans leak cut content. i see it a lot in video games and it always irks me because sure as a fan i’m gonna naturally have opinions but we will never know all the reasons things might’ve been changed. basically the industry is complicated and i’m not saying all changes made are good—bc they’re definitely not— but i think it’s important to remember that most of these people working on these projects are probably trying their best to balance things that we the audience are not privy to.

circling back to Con and his sharing of this info; the man totally means well and i don’t even think sharing this detail is necessarily this giant mistake— at least i hope he doesn’t get harassed over this— but i do think it exemplifies how this problem can quickly get out of hand. same with samba sharing a lot of bts footage. i think it’s very endearing to see how much the staff care about what they’re making. again as a fan i get why it’s fun to see but i also wish for the sanity of everyone we would just have a little more of that divide between audience and production.

but yah this is a big part of the reason i have a hard time participating in the vaguely (sometimes more than vaguely) parasocial relationship with actors. fans and actors alike mean well but it makes me cringe. esp when situations arise where they accidentally play into a popular fan theory and people take their word as canon. say it with me: actors are not writers. if it’s not addressed in the canon of the show it’s not canon.

something something don’t fly too close to the sun.

it’s wild to me that they took the time to apply a hidden tattoo to izzy every day and never utilized it in the show

[remythologise]

I don't have twitter and I'm seeing posts but a lot of them involve knowing what I'm looking at...can you pls explain the latest spn/Jensen news, pretty please?

Sure! Explanation of the events of the past week (some of these dates might be relative to my timezone, apologies for any errors):

JUNE 24: News breaks that Jensen Ackles and Danneel Ackles’ production company has a prequel in the works focusing on John and Mary Winchester; entire fandom displeased

Fandom ire at the prequel focusing on John and Mary momentarily overshadows the fact that it seems like Jensen Ackles has the rights to Supernatural (!!!) and has ‘five shows in the works’ of which this is only the first

Showrunner is Destiel fan-favourite Robbie Thompson, responsible for such Absolute Banger Episodes as ‘Meta Fiction’ (see more here)

A lot of blowback from absolutely all sides of the fandom - BiBros et al mad that it focuses on Not The Brothers, Destiel fans mad it focuses on Not Resolving Destiel, everyone largely mad it focuses on John Winchester (widely regarded as abusive) and the ‘epic love story’ of John/Mary (canonically forced by cupid magic)

Various cast members including Misha Collins, Jim Beaver, Jake Abel, Ruth Connell and Julie McNiven reply to the article with comments indicating they’d like to be involved

Eric Kripke tweets that Jensen and Danneel are ‘the perfect people’ to take control of this story and Jared is ‘too busy Texas Rangering’ to be involved

JUNE 25: Jared Padalecki tweets about being left out of the loop on the prequel; absolute chaos ensues

See this ask reply for a list of tweets, events and reactions

I’ll also add that this gets large enough to get coverage on Vulture, Variety and other news sources

Robbie Thompson retweets his tweet from 2019 saying ‘I ❤️ you #SPNFamily’ in response to… everything

JUNE 26: A scramble for Jensen, Jared and Eric Kripke to do PR damage control on the Jared issue. Meanwhile, Misha Collins does his best impression of this scene from the Lion King to promote GISH

Eric later deletes all tweets about the issue, which is VERY funny. Man can’t handle the heat!

Very funny contrast between Jared’s ‘have a talk, as we often do’ and Jensen’s ‘miss these talks'

Jensen later changes his twitter header and bio from Supernatural/Dean Winchester to The Boys/Soldier Boys which IS somewhat unfortunate and perhaps deliberate break-up related timing

Jared tweets that he ‘doesn’t want anyone to receive hate or threats’ which is like… Jared YOU started this, YOU tweeted this to your millions of followers

JUNE 26: Jensen Ackles does further damage control by tweeting ‘Canon? we got you’ and linking to this article about what the show might hold, which points out the Problems of John Winchester

See article for further details but this implies Jensen actually does care a lot about doing right by the fans and the narrative canon

This, combined with the fact Robbie Thompson is running it, convinces most Destiel-side fans that the show Might Be Better Than Expected and one CW-approved stepping stone to greater things

BiBros are furious because article is written by ‘known Heller’ Natalie Fisher, who is friends with writers such as Meredith Glynn and Robert Berens

Meanwhile, Steve Yockey references the ‘Steve Yockey is dead?!?’ tumblr meme on twitter in a reply to Ruth Connell

JUNE 27: Gen Padalecki posts an instagram story which may or may not be shady commentary on Jensen Ackles

However, yesterday Danneel Ackles also promotes the Padalecki MLM product on HER instagram - can I just say I simply love the use of a) product promotion and b) instagram stories as tools of warfare and diplomacy

JUNE 28: Various scripts drop thanks to the team at tumblr’s spnscripthunt (go support and fund their efforts if you can!)

Notable changed content includes Castiel telling Dean to ‘parent’ Jack in 14.16 and Castiel texting emojis to Claire in 12.16 (possibly an in-script joke about Dean being attracted to a poodle?)

JUNE 29: News breaks that Chaos Machine Productions was started as ‘Free Will Entertainment LLC’

The name was apparently changed in October 2020 - was that as a result of the 15.19-15.20 filming? Or something else?

The idea that Jensen set up a company called ‘Free Will Entertainment’ to continue telling the story of Supernatural is honestly BONKERS. A lot to unpack here to do with the textual and metatextual narrative of Supernatural that I don’t have time to get into, since there’s about twenty wild implications that could be speculated from that name alone

Stock price on ‘Jackles’ Sexy Silence’, conspiracy that Jensen didn’t like the ending of Supernatural and was quietly plotting to take the narrative under his own control, to bring Dean back to life and possibly to canonise Destiel, reaches historic high

The fact does not go unnoticed that, through coincidence or not, Jensen and Danneel registered the company on a Thursday very close to September 18, the Lazarus Rising/Castiel Anniversary Date when Dean was saved from Hell

JUNE 30: Misha Collins makes a social media post with Castiel art for the last day of Pride Month

Twitter post liked by Robbie Thompson

On his instagram, Misha also puts music on the story of ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’ a song made famous by Elvis and then subsequently Destiel AU Fanfic Twist and Shout

“The song was initially written from the perspective of a woman as “Can’t Help Falling in Love with Him”, which explains the first and third line ending on “in” and “sin” rather than words rhyming with “you” - Wikipedia knowledge obtained via @jurisffiction

Falling… sin… But we don’t have time to unpack all of that-

JUNE 30: 8.17 Goodbye Stranger script excerpt surfaces with Dean’s ‘I love you’ to Castiel

Fandom has long known that the ‘I need you’ was formerly an ‘I love you’ because Jensen believed Dean saying it in that moment to Castiel was out of character - but we did not have the script to prove specific changes

Additional ‘I forgive you’ not included in the episode - the original scene reads as very romantic, since this was Dean absolving Castiel for past crimes and telling him he loves him in the moments before death, as well as ‘I love you’ of course being what ‘broke the connection’ of Naomi’s control

Notably this episode written by Robbie Thompson, the very man Jensen and Danneel chose to helm their next project

JUNE 30: Misha Collins misses his blanky text

To cap all this off, Misha Collins texts fans a selfie of himself at ‘the spare room at Jensen’s apt in Vancouver’, saying he ‘misses his blanky’, implying he has spent many nights there

It has been an open secret that Misha basically shared Jensen’s apartment in Vancouver since around 2018 due to [redacted dubiously obtained information] but it’s never been publicly stated (to be clear, this does not imply anything other than friendship, as actors in Vancouver often share accommodation and Misha had previously couch-surfed at Jared and Jensen’s places)

Cockles shippers go wild. Does the ‘blanky’ refer to Jensen? Was there a reason to send this on the last day of pride month? Will this man ever shut up?

Hope that helps! May this wild carousel of News About A Show That Ended Eight Months Ago never end!

[givemearmstopraywith]

technically i dont have anything against fanfic as long as its kept in its proper place but objectively i think that considering it a form of literature by arguing that its more inclusive than mainstream lit is incredibly insidious and ignorant. for one thing it is stripping both writers and readers of their ability to engage critically with texts in favour of reducing all text down to core parts- is it queer? is it diverse? does it fulfill the right quota of moral markers for me to consume it and reassure both myself and the audience of my reading that i am the “right” kind of consumer? 

this is problematic for a number of reasons, including that it presupposes that the value of all art- not just fanfic- is based on moral content and its ability to be consumed morally, which is not a new way of thinking but, when it has been shown up in the past, has usually developed alongside moral panics. attributing a moral value to a work of art, which is not created out of morality but out of creativity, is the first step towards censorship. we see this in a variety of circumstances throughout history, none of which are things we should try to emulate.

for another its insulting to the queer and bipoc writers who pursue traditional publishing, and do so successfully. when i see arguments concerning the importance of fanfic, it very typically falls into the rhetoric of the fact that it represents the stories of underrepresented or historically marginalized groups, but what actually are the most popular fanfics on ao3? according to screenrant the top five are:

castiel and dean winchester

sherlock and john watson

derek hale and stiles stilinski

bucky barnes and steve rogers 

draco malfoy and harry potter

what i am seeing is that fanfic is primarily concerned with white cis men. there is not a single person of colour or canonically gay person in that entire list. and yes, you may argue about the transformative power of fanfic, but creating a fantasy narrative in which a white cis male fulfills a certain number of quota in or outside of a fantastical narrative (you can’t tell me that a/b/o developing in the spn fandom was a big win for gay people) is not progressive, nor it is actually addressing issues of systemic oppression. especially when the consumption of fanfic, outside of fanfic, seems to turn into people who almost exclusively consume only YA lit because its more “diverse” that literary or adult fiction, which is completely and categorically untrue and symptomatic more of laziness on the part of the consumer than it is a lack of representation in publishing. 

there was a tipping point in fanfic culture in the last decade or so where it ceased to be a collaborative safe space for people and instead became a crutch which is now being used to bash anything deemed morally subversive or averse by what appears to be a consumer base of people who reduce all art and text down to consumable parts according to a fairly benign standard of morality. it is turning the act of reading from something which is meant to broaden and transform experience into something which feeds itself the same formula repeatedly in favour of keeping personal experience almost entirely in stasis. fanfic is not transforming literature, it is rather disturbingly allowing consumers to not interact with anything unlike themselves while simultaneously having the more disturbing effect of bringing continual attention to massively successful, corporatized storytelling like marvel and harry potter instead of the truly marginalized stories and diverse authors people claim they want to read but simultaneously claim doesn’t exist for their consumption. 

what it comes down is that people dont care about diversity: they care about what keeps them comfortable.

[orionsangel86]

Following the release of the pilot of that bloody Winchester prequel yesterday, a lot of people have been excitedly posting interviews and articles on it and starting up the meta and spec again. I thought I'd be able to avoid seeing it on here but this is the SPN website so clearly that was a bad assumption.

Thing is, I genuinely believed I was okay. This year has been SO GOOD for me for healing the wounds that SPN carved into me. With OFMD, WWDITS, The Sandman, IWTV, and now Good Omens 2 news I have been happily existing in a little joy filled bubble everytime I come on Tumblr.

I just scrolled past a post which had screenshots of an article from Robbie Thompson on the Winchesters. I thought I'd read it out of curiosity. I shouldn't have.

It brought everything back. Talk of the Winchester brothers and how "theres no Dean if there aint no Sam" and how they arent changing a damn thing about SPN canon, and how we will find out where Dean is, with the writer speculating he's telling the story from heaven...

I don't know why, but it hurt.

It was like something had decided to prod really hard at the old SPN scars, the ones that never really healed right to begin with, and are still jagged and tender even after 7 months of solid healing thanks to only consuming media that actually respects me as a person.

I haven't felt that kind of pain since Jared Padalecki last opened the hole in his face to spew bullshit about how the finale from Hell was so perfect and right for the brothers *gags*.

It wasnt even a bad article, but it acknowledged things I had tried to erase from my head. God. Im so fucked up. That horrible show fucked me up so much. I wanted to just shut down tumblr and mentally check myself out for a bit and put on the Dreamcast on spotify or something, but I had to get this off my chest, even if people read this and think im fucking moronic for caring so much and wasting energy on this stupid show and why do I care right?

7 fucking years I devoted to that horseshit show. 7 fucking years I held it in my heart and adored it even though the whole time it clawed and carved at me and hated me because I wasnt the audience it wanted.

One little article and I feel like ive been triggered even though that word should be far too strong for something as stupid as getting emotional over a TV show. Im having a minor breakdown in my living room at 10pm on a Wednesday night in 2022 over fucking SPN.

I dont even know why im openly admitting this on the spn website when I know its gonna subject me to hate and a whole mass loss of followers but I had to get this out. I had to write it down. Its so difficult to express how this show makes me feel. I dont wanna be the one you all roll your eyes at and call a negative anti but I also don't understand how everyone else seems to have slipped so easily back into old habits.

I wanna scream at everyone not to be fooled. But I dont wanna stamp on other peoples joy either. So I guess I gotta remove myself from the equation here. Fool me once etc etc.

Im gonna have to unfollow some long term mutuals, especially those that arent tagging content. If you correctly tag every winchester related post and reblog then at least my filters will block them, but if they slip through im gonna have to unfollow. I cant be having 10pm meltdowns over SPN at this point in my life. Not when there is so much good stuff out there to be focusing on instead.

[vaicomcas]

My Castiel Manifesto, Intro

I have made some postings of commentary about narratives on Castiel that I have strong (probably unpopular) feelings about.  They are called My Castiel Manifesto, Part 1-6.  Tags should make it clear the color of these posts. I am still completely flabbergasted at why I even care about all this fictional stuff.  But it’s like a compulsion, like something choking me that I have to spit out.

I am new to social media and I am finding it very challenging; specifically, it is very difficult to voice unpopular opinions without appearing like a troll, or disrespectful, or picking a fight.

For example, I do completely understand why people would ship destiel, and how the show did have plenty of substrate to make that realistic; and why it would be important for many people who really see the show that way and feel that way, including the LGBTQA+ community, and I support that completely and sympathize with their anger and disappointment, but I personally don’t like Dean’s treatment of Cas and feel bitter about the “Dean and Cas are so in love” narrative.  Yet, it feels strange to voice it, like I am being contrarian or worse, homophobic. Or at least letting petty personal feelings about fiction get in the way of greater social justice.  There is also something disturbing about defining yourself with what you disagree with.  ( Edited: I wrote this when I was a naive newcomer to the fandom.  After some months on Tumblr now I think it is wrong to equate “anti-destiel” with “homophobia” and I no longer support destiel nor the notion that somehow the shipper fans “deserve” to have destiel be canon (not that I care about canon)-- it was a destiel brainwash because when I first started searching for Castiel content online that was the ONLY opinion that I found.  I am far more bitter and anti-dean now. I left the original post in to show the effect of brainwashing, how easy it happens, how reasonable it looks on the surface. )

But my feelings just won’t stay quiet and so here it goes, nobody will see it anyway.

Part 1: "You changed me" (not)

Part 2: The Profound Bond is not all there is to Castiel 

Part 3: "I do know what blind faith is" 

Part 4:  Dean is America, Castiel is Immigrant 

Part 5: Unrequited Love 

Part 6: One Final Question 

Additional manifestos:

Castiel does not need to be fixed

“I won’t debate logic with you”

The machine who didn’t want to be

My Crowstiel awakening

My Crowstiel awakening part 2

Castiel was systematically punished for his power

Dean’s performance of grief

Castiel’s rebellion and punishment

Castiel’s Courage

Alternate version of Castiel’s confession

Dean Winchester is the true evil God of SPN

Justice for Godstiel

Algorithm for Character Assassination

[spn-season-16-chronicles]

SPNews

10th March 2021

Oh boy, when you think the heat dies down spn hits yet again. And Destiel trends yet again on hellsite. This time thanks to franch dub. It contains Cas saying "Because i felt you cared about me, and that i cared about you too, I also cared about sam, and of course jack, but if i loved this world so much, it's only because of you. You changed me Dean." and "je t'aime" that can be, and in fact in this case is, used as romantic declaration of love. Dean on the other hand says "Don't do this to me(!) Castiel". Fandom proclaims Destiel canon yet again, and claims that Cas' words mean Dean loved him too.

Preorder of limited edition crew members souvenir book containing pictures from set . Premiere announced for July. Most likely same book Jensen showed during the panel. Fandom shook by the content used as promo that included TFW 2.0 in rebuilt Roadhouse and band Kansas playing behind them (on the left) and Dabb's description of still terribly awful and surprisingly close to the end product finale, with cast members photoshoped into the picture (right) - as always, click for better quality.

Fandom reacts to Misha joining Cameo, reactions ranging from negative, through neutral, to positive. People joining Misha's Cameo fan club in large quantities. First requests are submitted. Theme of 30k phone bill for app letting Misha text the fans surfaces during the proces of coming to terms with cameo, as many consider Misha getting rid of free texting metod. He got rid of cameo DM option instead.

Kim Rhodes calls Misha chaotic neutral, refuses to persuade him to use tiktok, scared of potential consequences.

What will happen tomorrow?

And now weather

[dotthings]

Let’s talk about why Dean dancing with a lamp is subtext, but it’s subtext that supports textual arcs. Dean dancing with a lamp is not random. Meta on why Dean dancing with a lamp is part of the build of a textual arc for Dean, thematically, which also connects to his relationship with Cas. This symbolic moment being tacitly about Destiel will only feel like reaching if you ignore context, ignore canon, ignore long arcing, ignore textual material surrounding it. This isn’t just me talking about a ship, this is an important arc for Dean himself emotionally and the way canon’s working, Cas has become the star player in this specific emotional Dean arc about yearning. 

Here are some canon quotes. I could just leave these here and not write another word of meta because the canon wrote it for me. But I’ve added some further commentary to spell out clearly what I’m getting at.

Dean in 8.14 “Trial and Error” by Andrew Dabb:

“You see a light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel. I don't. But I tell you what I do know – it's that I'm gonna die with a gun in my hand. 'Cause that's what I have waiting for me – that's all I have waiting for me. I want you to get out. I want you to have a life – become a man of Letters, whatever. You, with a wife and kids and – and – and grandkids, living till you're fat and bald and chugging Viagra – that is my perfect ending, and it's the only one that I'm gonna get.”

Dean in 10.16 “Paint it Black” by Eugenie Ross-Lemming and Brad Buckner:

“You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it....Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time.”

Sam and Dean in 11.04 “Baby” by Robbie Thompson:

SAM: Really? You don't . . . Ever want something more? DEAN: I'm sorry, have you met us? We're batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don't ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But . . . Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

Sam and Dean in 13.23 “Let the Good Times Roll” by Andrew Dabb:

DEAN: But on a beach somewhere, you know? Can you imagine? You, me, Cas, toes in the sand, couple of them little umbrella drinks. Matching Hawaiian shirts, obviously. Some hula girls. SAM: You talking about retiring? You? DEAN: If I knew the world was safe? Hell, yeah. And you know why? 'Cause we freaking earned it, man.

Sam and Dean in 15.08 “Our Father, Who Aren’t in Heaven” by Eugenie Ross-Lemming and Brad Buckner:

DEAN: Look, man, I didn't want to say anything, okay, 'cause I was kind of in in a bad place, and, uh, yeah, I didn't want to jinx it or whatever, but, you know, I tried the family thing, right? SAM: Yeah, me too. And that's not for us. DEAN: No, not really. But I'm just saying if it was to work, Eileen, you know, she gets it. She gets us. She gets the life. She's hot. SAM: Dean. I mean, I'm not even- DEAN: Look, all I'm saying is you- you could do worse, okay? And she could certainly do better. Like, so much better. I'm happy for you, Sammy.

Dean and Garth in 15.10 “The  Heroes’ Journey” written by Andrew Dabb:

DEAN: You know, I gotta say, aside from pincushion in there… this is pretty nice. GARTH: Yeah, better than I ever thought I'd get. I mean, hunting -- I figured I'd be dead before I'm 40. You know, go out young and pretty. But now I've got a great wife, great kids. I guess...sometimes things work out.

Dean in 15.10 “The Heroes’ Journey” by Andrew Dabb:

Dean, wistful, watching through the window as Garth and Bess dance: You know, I always thought I could be a good dancer if I wanted to be.

Ok, let those roll around in your brain for moment. 

Now: CONTEXT. CONTEXT. CONTEXT.

There’s this long running arc about maybe Sam and Dean could each find a significant other, not white picket fence, but...something, with someone already in the life, who gets their life. There’s Dean’s move from despairing and believing the only ending he could have, the only ending any hunter could have, is dying with a gun in hand, to Dean’s enthusiasm for the concept of retirement, Dean’s wistfulness about finding a significant other, for what he thinks he can’t have, and he starts the cycle all over again, if he can’t have it, then he wants Sam to have it, so Dean encourages Sam with Eileen. Saileen, the Dean-blessed, Dean-approved Sam ship. Dean ships it. And that is how the canon is trending, complete with Sam and Eileen kissing goodbye and saying “this is real” and even God himself saying their feelings were real, “that was all you,” even if God manipulated events around them. Which is an overt mirror to Dean and Cas and Dean’s expressly stated doubts about what’s real and what isn’t, and Cas telling Dean “we are.” 

Much the way Sam has been witness to Destiel, and has often pointed out Dean’s Cas feelings. Dean’s got a front row seat to Saileen and approves; Sam’s had a front row seat to Destiel and approves. 

Let’s throw in Robert Berens’ work in The Trap here, since that’s relevant to this specific topic as well, because why did Sam and Dean in the potential future timeline where they’d killed Chuck give up and cave in to their vampire instincts? The world being overwhelmed with monsters...and losing Eileen and losing Cas. It’s right there in the dialogue. I’ll give you the quote and everything:

Sam and Dean in 15.09 “The Trap” by Robert Berens:

SAM: You want to quit? What's happened to you, Dean? Ever since -- DEAN: Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we've ever cared about? Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy? Ever since I had to bury him in a Ma'lak box? Ever since then? Yeah. You know why? 'Cause the monsters -- they're everywhere. Everywhere! What we do -- it's not even Hunting anymore. It's whack-a-mole. We don't even save people. Every friend we've ever had is either dead, or they got wise and they packed it in. SAM: Jody's still fighting, and Bobby -- DEAN: Bobby has a death wish, and you know it. And Jody -- ever since what happened to Donna and the girls, she does, too. And after Eileen... so do you.

“Ever since” Dean had to bury Cas in a Ma’lak box. “After Eileen...so do you.” 

So there’s this canonical long, long thread across multiple authors (and those weren’t even all the quotes, I’m sure people could dig up more) about Dean in particular yearning towards finding a significant other, some contentment, with someone who already is in the hunting life, who gets it, who understands.  

An episode that flat out shows how losing their significant others is the final straw that rips out Sam and Dean’s last will to fight, and they lose themselves, and after they’re turned into vampires, they just...give into the darkness. Where Sam gives up their shot at destroying the big bad because losing everyone they love is too high a cost. Where losing Cas makes Dean lose hope, where losing Eileen sends Sam into a death wish mindset. Sam and Dean don’t just need each other. That’s not canon, it never has been.

And then right after that, along comes meta episode The Heroes’ Journey. Sorry if you don’t like The Heroes’ Journey, but it’s what the canon did, it’s textual, along with everything else I’ve pointed out here, and in among the crackish humor are some real emotional narrative points. 

In The Heroes’ Journey, Dean gets to see Garth’s life. Garth found his significant other, Bess, and she’s another werewolf. Now, Garth’s life resembles the traditional white picket fence idea a lot more than what Team Free Will are headed for. Garth has a big house with a porch, and he’s a dentist. He’s also a werewolf and his wife is a werewolf and his kids are werewolves because Bess is a pureblood werewolf, Garth didn’t exactly leave the life, and he helps Sam and Dean on a case. But nothing’s been indicating to me that anyone in Team Free Will is headed for that kind of settling down, with a house, becoming a dentist. However, the canon has been practically shouting now, as we near final episodes of SPN, to make the point about a desirable outcome--some kind of stability, contentment, and a significant other. Dean gets a front row seat to seeing a hunter can have that. Garth’s a hunter who turned into a werewolf and he can have that. 

When EP’s talk about how they aren’t headed for a white picket fence or driving off into the sunset or settling down, none of that rules out them finding...something...with someone, and some form of stability and contentment.  Nope, I can’t really imagine them in the suburbs becoming dentists. But canon sure is putting up big neon arrows to...something. Think outside the box. This isn’t about the white picket fence. 

And in The Heroes’ Journey, Dean, conked out on the good gas so Garth can fix his teeth, has a trippy dream where he dances with a lamp.

Rewatch the ep. Look at how the dance is choreographed not just the use of light, because that’s a clue too. The whole dance could have been Dean and Garth being dancing bros, but Garth fades off the stage, and Dean dances alone...until he grabs the standing lamp. In a season where Dean and Cas’s relationship is an A-plot, define it how you like, it’s A-plot. Their breakup and their reconciliation, which played like a marital breakup and reconciliation, are tied to major mytharc beats. In a season where a long-running textual theme about Dean’s developing hope for retirement and his wistfulness about “things...people...feelings...” is getting further play. Where Dean and Cas’s relationship continues to be one of the show’s most central ones.

Dean dances with a lamp. While his emotionally fraught, intense close relationship with Cas--A BEING MADE OF LIGHT--has a long-running arc and recently more and more textual level content spelling out the sublimated romantic interest in small words, while there’s an arc about Dean’s yearning for that stability, contentment, a significant other.

CONTEXT. 

We don’t think Destiel’s “going canon” because Dean dances with a lamp, it’s that Dean dancing with a lamp is kinda loud serving as reflection of canon textual arcing. Sometimes subtext adds a layer. Sometimes subtext is directly tied to the surface layers, an echo, a highlighter.

I’ll just be over here, crying because Dean danced with a lamp.

[italwayshadtobeyou]

Hey y’all, I’m returning to Tumblr after a long time off, but completely new to Tumblr SPN fandom, and I’m looking for moots. Unfortunately, the current tagging cluster system is sabotaging my attempts to find people with similar preferences, so I’m hoping this will cross show up in some nice people’s search results if the tags fail me again. (Note: I follow from my main, @brunnismemorybank .) This account may contain NSFW text and canon-level suggestive/violent images. No DNI/DNF, but minors please don’t send DMs.

Things I like:

Dark canon-divergent AUs (Endverse, Boy King, actually-scary Deanmon, etc.) and case fic

Fic, edits, and meta for gencest, Wincest, Samruby, & Samwena

Some of the more nuanced depictions of John, Mary, & Bobby-- where they’re as screwed up as Sam and Dean, but they’re still trying to achieve something good

Sam Winchester. Sam Winchester possessed by Lucifer. Sam Winchester being a semi-accurate Biblical antichrist.. Sam Winchester mourning Jess. Sam Winchester in love with Dean. Sam Winchester needing comfort. Sam Winchester kicking ass. Just SAM WINCHESTER.

Continuity in canon. For me personally, continuity is like David’s harp... Ahhh.

Things I dislike:

Stupid retcons that assign Sam and John’s relationship to Dean, change the date at which they learned about certain monsters, or make hash of monsters’ and spirits’ established powers and weaknesses.

Stupid people who can’t tell the difference between AUs and headcanons

Misha & Cass. I try not to put too much wank on this blog, but I block Misha- & Cass-related tags, get salty about untagged content, and have no patience with minions trying to spread false rumors or organize boycotts. Same with Destiel and hellers.

RP. No shade if you like it-- I just get annoyed when it breaks up my own  dash.

RPF. If there’s only an occasional post, I’ll just block your tag for it; however, like with RP, following an RPF-heavy account would waste my time.

Anti-shippers. I was raised by right-wing fundamentalists, & I’m not interested in exploring the mirror version of that experience. 

Everything I know about the upcoming prequel, except for the fact that they somehow snagged the competent Robert Ulrich as their casting director.

Mpreg, A/B/O, watersports, scat, age regression, and all-human, role-reversal, or different-sex/gender AUs.

Personal info below the cut, for people who worry about weirdness cooties:

Floridian by way of Alabama, raised in the country but now in a city, white, bisexual, agnostic, female, classical liberal, pro-shipper, occasional activist for animal welfare & privacy, gender-critical feminist, homeschooled (K-12), BDS supporter, Millennial, autistic, spoonie, gardener of native plants, and... IDK what else... brunette? Public identification isn’t my strong suit. That said, I don’t consider fanblogging activism, and therefore I don’t really care which of these boxes you do or don’t tick, as long as you’re polite & don’t try to convert me.

I currently own the dreamsofghostsandstars.net website, which I plan to shutter at the end of the year. You can find my fanfiction at dreamsofghostsandstars on Ao3.