#there's the parasocial aspect that everyone always talks about which makes it really easy to get invested

[turtlespancake]

every now and again i come across fantastic art only to find out it's some minecraft thing and every single time i ask myself "what IS it about minecraft letsplayers that prompts this" even though i know perfectly well what the answer is

[septembersghost]

do you think Jensen is okay...?

hey <3 so...I almost didn't answer this, but I also don't want to ignore you because that feels wrong, and everyone's talking about this, so let's talk. anything here is complete speculation just based on things we have witnessed with our own eyes for the past few months, take it with a grain of salt and know I could be way off-base, and anything I say is with care and respect for Jensen as a human being first and foremost.

it hasn't been a secret that I was very hurt and upset-to-angry about the prequel news, and other things that have circled around that, so again I want to emphasize that you can respect/appreciate someone while also disagreeing with them, questioning their choices, or expressing mild criticism (criticism being very, very different from outright hate). I'm saying this upfront to thus put it entirely aside. I also want to be clear that this is just based on...nearly sixteen years of observation and it's hard to separate my emotions from that because that was formative and is impossible to detach from entirely. people can yell about parasocialism but it's difficult to not be invested after that long a space of years, you know?

Jensen's seemed a bit off to me a number of times since March and I think there are many factors as to why that could be the case, most of which we're likely not privy to, but some of which we do have pieces of. the more personal aspects of it that I am aware of aren't things I want to discuss about him publicly because it doesn't feel fair to do that, but let's talk some of the professional angle. I absolutely don't believe for a moment that he's taking anything out on anyone due to the finale (because that would lowkey be socipathic, for one thing), but that's primarily because I think he's honest in the emotions he's shared about it and his insight into it post its airing (and even before it aired, really, in some of the interviews he did). we're holding onto uneasiness and frustration he expressed long before it was filmed, and while I disagree with him on the finale in a few ways too, that also doesn't alter other aspects of my point of view. he is a professional and, by all accounts we have ever gotten, caring and generous, SO I don't think for a second he's...trying to get revenge? whatever weird narrative fandom is spinning...on Jared for the finale. (how the hell does that even make sense? do better, fandom.) Jared didn't write the finale, Jared controlled nothing about the finale, and Jensen knows that. the loss I think they might respectively have felt, or be feeling, is more to do with the show itself ending as a place of constancy for them. honestly, I could spend time digging up a million different quotes from interviews for you to read, or I could just show you these:

and there are endless examples of those moments, none of which were performative, all of which they earnestly shared.

the reason I bring this up specifically is for my next point. the ending of the show was a kind of death, as endings of massive chapters in our lives always are. and it HAS to be disorienting and strange to go from that ^ to an entirely new set. fandom really underestimates what they were talking about in those moments - acting is an intimate artform, it requires trust and inhibitions to be lowered and reliance on the person you're performing with. they had been together for so long (Jensen said there was no one else he spent more time with), nearly 16 years, that suddenly having that severed and having to adjust to distance and doing new things is going to feel off-balance at first. that level of understanding and intuitive ease with another person, knowing they've got your back, knowing how they'll react and what you can add to the script and to moments of your characters to flesh that out further is rare. losing that assurance and comfort would not be easy. so you have to adjust to that loss and that distance, AS WELL AS having to experience the farewell to/loss of Sam and Dean, which was very intimate and layered with both sorrow and fulfillment for them both, along with saying goodbye to the other close people in the cast and crew that they'd known for so long - and they didn't even really get to do that, because of the pandemic. the wrap party, the final farewells, all the normal fanfare that would happen with the end of a 15 year running show was basically frozen in place and then didn't happen. thus the closure of those rituals also didn't happen, and we often need those things to feel a sense of moving on.

I think the possibility exists that losing the home and safety and love of the show, and adjusting to their own dynamic changing, has hit them in varying ways and in waves. and then last week happened, and we don't know exactly why or how it happened, but there was hurt and misunderstanding there. people are saying he's just homesick and that feels somewhat dismissive of the things that have recently occurred. a bunch of mistakes were made last week and into this week (I don't want to spill all the tea at you, but there have been numerous things that could've been handled differently), on just, like, a basic PR level, and I cannot imagine that's how he wanted this to go, and I'm sure he's aware of certain reactions from fandom, as well as whatever he's discussed with anyone on a personal level.

that post was very unlike Jensen and I don't think it's harmful or invasive to admit it, because he chose to post it. you put something like that on social media and you are sharing it willingly with anyone in your audience. if it had just been the photos, they'd be easy for fandom to dismiss as him blowing off steam after a long night or whatever - though I feel he has a lot of excuses to scream at the moment - but the caption was intentional.

I defended Jared when he was being dragged and harassed for having an emotional reaction on the internet as if it was an unforgivable sin because I found that very harmful and unfeeling, and because I value genuine human reactions and HONESTY, and that's all that was. he had every right to respond publicly to news he received that shocked him publicly, it's super weird that people refuse to see that as a natural reaction. there was also a really gross ableist aspect of it where people were shaming him for mental health reasons, and the...dismissal of emotion by calling it a tantrum or whatever...nope I just can't do that. I'm not here to silence or police feelings. they have both been VILIFIED by warring sides of this fandom and it's unconscionable. seeing them called names and absolute fabrications spread about both of them has been really unsettling. I'm going to lend the same empathy here in regards to Jensen's post - I don't think it's fair or considerate to judge him for having a reaction, nor do I think the obvious emotional aspect of it should be dismissed. he said he was going through some shit and trying to cope with it. it's fairly straightforward that he was feeling some level of stress or hurt or anguish and needed to let it out, and I certainly don't blame him given the past nearly eight months that WE'VE endured just as fans. I want to scream into the void way too often! I've cried an embarrassing amount! and I have shit happening in my real life too, which has made every other grief and frustration and pain that much worse. we're human. we feel. events that happen to us are interconnected. sometimes you've just gotta let that out. sometimes you have to do it by expressing it vocally so that people are aware you're going through it. sometimes merely letting it out helps. the toxic masculinity aspect of saying they should both shut up and deal or never show us any honesty or any vulnerability is not good.

so, no, I don't think he posted that purely for funsies and I do believe he was giving us a little insight into a moment of his headspace, and I respect that he needed to do it, and appreciate the unvarnished wording of it. I am some random nobody on the internet who's just dearly loved a character he played for what amounts to the entirety of my adult life, but I don't know him and can't speak for him and it's not my place to publicly speculate beyond this which is already SO LONG, I'm sorry. I think he was going through it, and he decided to share that for a moment. I never wish misery or hurt on him (or anyone who's never done anything to deserve it), and I understand why fandom was distressed and a bit worried to see that today, as was I, but hopefully...idk sometimes the mere acknowledgement that you're dealing with stuff is helpful in getting through it. I do hope he's okay overall.

[electracraft]

Thanks for recommending Casey Aonso's shipping video, I feel like everyone involved in fandom culture should take a step back once in a while to evaluate our behavior as fans. I see some posts sometimes and I have to take a step back to remind myself we're talking about real people, because holy shit, the amount of reaching and projecting in shipping is so overwhelmingly obvious sometimes, especially with younger and newer fans. But that video reminded me how terrified I am for d+g,,, I love their dynamics, especially how non-toxic they are with e/o, but the fandom is getting HUGE and I can't help but fear they'll reach a breaking point in the future, we've seen it happen before and I would hate if their friendship got fucked over due to harassment from fans, like srs, dream replied to that one tiktoker on twitter and everyone was losing their shit on the tl, and don't get me started on the shit people post on tiktok. I know they've been friends for years and you can't really treat these situations equally, but the fans are all the same jfjfjfj Idk I'm just afraid the type of fandom culture and reputation dnf is building rn will come back to bite them in the ass in the future lol D:

Sorry for bringing negativity to your blog, it's just that the video really got me thinking, but you can ignore this if you want hehe love ur blog :*

hi, don’t worry i’m always down to have a discussion, and this is kind of a topic that i brought up myself, so i’m happy to talk about it :)

i love casey aonso and i liked her video, but she focused on the toxic aspects that come from shipping when the people involved are actively against it because it impacts their lives negatively. and it is completely understandable. but she didn’t talk about anything similar to dnf, a situation in which the content creators are very open about their consent to shipping, which in my opinion makes a very big difference.

having concerns is valid, and i agree that we should always step back from the fandom to avoid creating an echo chamber that can bring to crossing a line.

but we shouldn’t forget that dream and george have been friends for years before doing youtube and streaming together. they are obviously very close and i don’t see this changing any time soon. so i really wouldn’t worry about their friendship (also because frankly it’s none of our concern to speculate about this kind of stuff, if it becomes too much of a problem they will address it), but really more about the fandom and the direction it’s taking.

here on tumblr it’s very peaceful, but i assume it’s not the same on other platforms. and while dream and george’s friendship isn’t at risk at all in my opinion, we basically know for a fact that if one of them were to get a girlfriend she would not have a great time. maia flirted with george on twitter once and for more than a month probably all her twitter replies were about george and dream, and she also got hate for this. this is obviously only a small but very annoying part of the fandom, but the thing is that it’s not an issue that you can easily solve. especially in a fandom that is this big and that grows this fast. content creators can address it if it becomes unbearable, but as fans there’s no much that we can do about it other than avoiding engaging with it. 

and i don’t even wanna know what it’s like on tiktok... but as i already said my opinion is that it’s not our place to be concerned for dream and george’s friendship or boundaries, as they can set them themselves and have known each other long enough to do this. what we can be concerned for is the fandom spaces that we are in and how we engage with them, because it is easy to overstep and create an environment that even if it’s not against the content creators boundaries, can become still toxic for other reasons (ex when “shipping” borders the line of fetishization, when the parasocial relationships are taken too far etc)

sorry for the long rant, i don’t know if this makes sense but i will excuse myself by saying that english isn’t my first language lol