worrynoodle

[worrynoodle]

I finally took the leap and I'm reading my first destiel fic right now and it very cleverly points out that Dean always had to be the protector for everyone. But with Cas being an angel and being powerful and able to take care of himself Dean can finally let his guard down and be the one being protected for once. He can feel safe. And I was like 😲

i love love love human!cas destiel fics but have you considered that the perfect endgame for dean is having a superpowered boyfriend who can give him twenty orgasms in a row and never die

[worrynoodle]

As a baby fan I'm so grateful for you and I mean it.

while i do love that november 5th is like a reunion for everyone who spent time in the destiel trenches, i do think it's important to acknowledge and appreciate those of us that are mentally ill enough to still be blogging about supernatural every day for the past four years

[worrynoodle]

This was a great read!

"Throughout [season 15]. . . Dean is placed at the very center of his family’s struggle for freedom. This is not accidental, and it’s tied to the importance of the inherently queer themes. The very fact that conformity needs to be pushed upon Dean specifically implies that he, just like Cas, is distinctly “other.” The heart of season 15’s story is about all of the characters questioning who they’re meant to be, but it is especially positioned as the question of “Who is Dean Winchester?” The answer is the point to all of this, and just as Dean needs to find certainty in the truth of his identity, so does the audience.

We are shown how Chuck tried to make Dean forget, eliminate, or doubt parts of his identity to get Dean to conform to his expectations and act out a predetermined ending. In the real world, the network/executives needed Dean to be a certain kind of character that conformed to their expectations in kind, and to fit into the ending they wanted for him. Ultimately, Chuck won, and so we know those executives were successful in denying Dean a story in which he lives openly in his truth. This makes it all the more evident that the answer to “Who is Dean Winchester?” – understanding the totality of this character’s identity – is worth knowing, as well as why it was silenced in the end.

As Dean struggles with this aspect of his journey, it calls attention to the details of and nuances in his characterization. If a higher power has been controlling the story the entire time on some level, what is real? Who is Dean as a person? Does he know, and do we know? The answer is abundantly clear when the show is examined as a full body of work.

From the very beginning, Dean Winchester has been a character tied to classic elements of American masculinity. He was introduced with a superficial veneer involving those elements, but almost immediately the early episodes provide a look at the complexity of his character underneath it. Over the years, that complexity was further explored, and he came to embody a study in things society would often have us think should be incompatible contrasts: the gruffness and grit of hunting life and its associated masculine iconography, paired with his open and deep emotional care for the world; unabashed love for classic rock, superheroes, and horror movies, as well as unabashed joy connected to TV dramas, chick flicks, and childhood favorites like Scooby-Doo; life on the road with a muscle car, but the desire for a home base with creature comforts he can make his own; motivation to always help people, but the clear longing for balance with personal domesticity and relaxation so he could save not only others but also himself.

As a whole, his character functions as an effective deconstruction of toxic masculinity and stereotypical American heroism. And while much of Dean’s most masculine traits and interests are said to come from his father’s influence, part of his journey is loving those parts of himself on their own merit not because he ever had to but because he wants to. He is not his father, and he redefines those valued parts of his identity so they are his and his alone. He also crucially learns to recognize and joyfully embody that those masculine traits were never all that he had to be, working through and overcoming shame and hesitancy along the way. The result? He’s “good with who he is.”

He and the audience are encouraged to see that there are no rules his identity and interests must subscribe to, on a micro or a macro level. The message is to disregard predetermined destiny or duty. Free will means his life is his to determine, his family can be what he makes of it and how he defines it, and what he needs and wants do not ever have to be mutually exclusive. Dean’s journey is about freedom from outwardly-imposed limitations–whether those limitations come from his father’s example and the God altering his story, or from the pervasive societal ideals and network/executive interference outside of it. Dean can and should contain multitudes, all at once.

In this way, Dean’s story is a powerfully queer narrative that acts as metacommentary. In the fullness of its execution, it is also specifically a deeply bisexual narrative.

The not-so-hidden truth is that Dean is canonically a bisexual man. His story was afforded something that’s rare for most characters and almost nonexistent for queer ones: fifteen years of lengthy, nuanced development. As part of that, the well-established media tools of queer subtext and queercoding were used to makes Dean’s bisexuality clear as crystal, and sometimes it’s even overtly textual to a startling degree. The valid canonicity of the deliberately full picture is indisputable. Over the course of the show, he flirts with and is flustered by both women and men; has crushes on female and male celebrities; is tricked by both women and men who feign attraction to him; enjoys sex with or mentions enjoying sex that involves women and men; and makes niche queer pop culture references. Dean’s various and nuanced non-platonic relationships with both women and men are also often central to his plotlines and instrumental in his character development, including Cassie, Jo, Lisa, Benny, Robin, Crowley, and Lee. (Each is deserving of its own essay.) And, as the very fun cherry on top, he proudly sings in front of bisexual lighting in the final season.

Again: Dean’s identity journey is about how he can and does contain the capacity for multitudes, and it’s part of what makes him such a compelling character. He can like “this” and “that.” He can be attracted to women and men. Or, as writer Ben Edlund and director Phil Sgriccia said in a DVD commentary, Dean has “the potential for love in all places.”

Whether or not Destiel was a factor, the above would all still be true and intrinsic to who Dean is. But of course, as an extension of all of the above, it’s abundantly clear that Dean is written as being in love with Castiel to the point of desperation.

Implying or insisting that Cas is in love with Dean in canon but not vice versa – simply because Dean’s love is not conveyed through an explicit “I love you” – is the equivalent of bragging about missing every moment, line of dialogue, parallel, and romantic arc that indicated otherwise for at least a decade’s worth of storytelling. Until or unless the documentary we deserve about the making of this show is ever allowed to be made, we’ll never know for sure exactly where and when Destiel crossed over from “fortuitous dynamic with interesting hints of potential” to “baked into the plot by the writers with intention.” But you can keep looking back at the show’s canon, and at every turn it holds up in the big and small details: Their divorce arc is in season 15. Cas makes the deal with the Empty in season 14. Dean’s widower arc mourning Cas is in season 13. Dean gives Cas a personal mixtape as a romantically-coded gesture in season 12. Amara uses Cas’ heart to find Dean in season 11. Dean and Cas are paralleled to Cain and his wife Colette in season 10. Their split in season 9 is treated like a breakup, and Cas gives up his army to save Dean. Dean hallucinates Cas like a mourned lover and helps break Cas’ brainwashing in season 8. Etc., etc., etc.

The cohesiveness is a triumph. The endless list of plot elements, romantic arcs, and significant moments that form their love story are not accidents or inconsequential details, nor are they one-sided. They were constructed to build upon each other and the show at large. Dean’s side of the story was not allowed to culminate in the way that every narrative cue indicated it should have, but the writers are clearly not to blame for that. We can see that Dean was forced by higher powers into becoming someone he isn’t and denied the chance to express who he truly is, because everything in the story cleverly tells us that was the case.

It also doesn’t mean that what is in the show – all of the subtext and coding and storytelling that blatantly points to Dean’s bisexuality and his love for Cas – somehow “isn’t enough” or “doesn’t count.” Dean’s bisexuality and the reciprocity of Destiel are not somehow less canonical simply because the expression of both was heartbreakingly denied the ability to be brought to full explicit fruition. By the same metric that we can know Cas is canonically in love with Dean, the reverse applies – and the same people who wrote Cas’ love and took its culmination as far as they could also did the same with Dean’s.

–THE PURPOSE: The Significance of Real-World Censorship Part 7 of the Chuck Won analysis

[worrynoodle]

I remember growing up on sherlock doctor who and by extention supernatural and I think a lot of people forget how hard the community at large had to (and still has to) fight for queer representation. I was very young and repressed myself then, but looking back I remember how frustrating this was for the fandom, even if I wasn't a part of it yet.

They never said this stuff explicitly, it was always implicit because that's all we had. So things like the looks they give each other, the way Dean reacts when Cas dies, the closeness they have, all that was the way it was said. They made it that way so homophobes wouldn't freak out.

It isn't all sunshine and rainbows now by a long shot, I mean half of queer shows get canceled, but you see all the deleted scenes and things for Dean and Cas and know somebody was fighting for their life to make it clear.

Wishful thinking but I hope we get some kind of season 16 or movie someday (I like how it ended but with all the waves of new fans idk 🤷🏻 could be fun) that is brave and gives us explicit and not implicit destiel. Really not counting on it tho.

Thank (chuck? Jack?) For Misha

Antis keep shrieking "DESTIEL ISN'T PART OF THE SHOW" when a) it was queer coded as part of the canon text for many years as mutual pining and the most requited unrequited love story ever b) ultimately got open and loud confirmation from Cas's side and an EP stayed on a whole extra year, for the final season, just so he could write Castiel's very gay love confession to express his very gay love for Dean Winchester and Dean is queer coded as bi and and in love with Cas but thought it was hopeless. Dean unfortunately did not get to make an explicit canon declaration but showed how he reciprocated and already loved Cas many times over the seasons for anyone with an astute eye and comprehension of how Hayes Code methods work in an oppressive Hollywood system.

I suggest people who believe Destiel "isn't part of the show" try paying attention to the actual show.

[worrynoodle]

Fr tho he and Benny had something going on. Brokeback mountain in purgatory istg 😅

I watched that and I was like destiel who??

Dean had more romantic relationships with men than women on the show. Can we just. Can we just think about that for a second

[worrynoodle]

Everyday I am plagued by all these deleted Castiel scenes I keep stumbling upon

What do you mean endverse!cas was supposed to say "The only thing I think we have left, Dean and me, is each other. If Dean says it's time to go out in a blaze of glory, win or lose, so be it. I'm in. But then, that's just how I roll."

I'm mad about this. We deserve a whole do-over 😅

[worrynoodle]

Any fic recs for the first time cas laid eyes on dean? Like in hell?

[worrynoodle]

I just can't wrap my head around why

The #SaveQueerStories Campaign starts today!

Take a look at the absolutely baffling statistics of the cancellation of Queer shows HERE!

[worrynoodle]

I need amazon/mgm to LISTEN and UNDERSTAND me right now.

If we are only getting a 90 minute Good Omens movie (which I'm still salty about but I'm also excited dgmw) then I expect them to pull out all the stops.

I want:

DVD release of the movie plus season two (box set of all three seasons)

special features on DVD

-Behind the scenes (including tours, makeup, hair, costumes, sets, etc.)

Commentary preferably by the stars

Gag reels

Deleted scenes

A "the making of" type option

Merchandise, merchandise, merchandise (which, the sweaters might be a good sign) I'm talking posters, funkos, figures, special print books, clothing, accessories, all of it

Possibly more script books as long as no proceeds go to you know who

Another TV guide to go with the dvds

Like... cmon. That'd all be to their benefit. If you aren't giving us our 6 episodes, can't we have some special treats lol

[worrynoodle]

I love this so much because so often they're drawn the other way around. This just captures a peace that they so deserve. Their heaven.

😴 Well-Rested💤

The most comfortable and safest spot for an angel to rest: Right at his demon's side, with his head on a silk pyjama'd chest. Bonus if there's head scritches💕

(This is December's ρατreοn mini print! I still have some spots left✨)

Patreon

[worrynoodle]

I got a tattoo today! It was my first

[worrynoodle]

remember that time during s12 there was an entire episode heavily emphasizing the fact that angels are inherently genderless. like they spent time and effort driving that point home. and also that humans can form very deep, emotional, sometimes romantic connections with angels. and that it's even possible for them to create offspring together. Humans And Angels. and this was all leading up to a very dramatic and intense story arc of Dean mourning Cas' death, where he essentially lost his will to live. because of the loving bond that Dean, a Human, had with Castiel, an Angel...

but it was all in our heads, right guys

[worrynoodle]

I just want all of tumblr to know that if nobody else does... *I* read your tumblr username. And most of the time, I involuntarily and lovingly make this exact face:

It's a specific type of joy.

[worrynoodle]

What happened, what did they put in the water, to make all of us 23-24 year olds decide to finally watch this for the first time in 2024?

Is it some kind of mind control?

A new wave of supernatural fans

What are supernatural fans called?

A fun collection of posts part 2

(part 1 here)

See ya when I find ten more 💙💚

[worrynoodle]

I'm sure this has been said before. I mean seriously it's been four years, so surely someone has said it, but I'm brand spankin' new to this so I wanna say if for ME.

I can totally see Destiel as Canon. As in, even IF Dean is straight (which being bi myself, I like to think of him as bi), Castiel isn't human. He's a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent about the size of the Chrysler Building. So I see it as completely possible that Dean could fall in love with him regardless of his vessels gender. And that would explain why they kept it ambiguous (which I prefer if the other option is denial). Because he has these feelings but isnt quite sure what they mean in the context of their lives. Which is why I like the theory that Cas's confession dumbfounded him in a deep way. That maybe it awoke the realization that he loves Cas back but he's losing him again. And the fact that he doesn't even stop to think when Lucifer tricks him to get let in. He goes running like a man chasing his love down in a chick flick airport. Even just the idea of one more chance. So yeah, I love it. And I finally GET IT. I GET what you all have been saying for years!

I have been devouring all the destiel content I can get my hands on now that I finished the show. 😅

Dang I actually have to say this don't I? One: my opinions have no bearing on canon or your headcanons, I'm not that powerful. Two: if you don't like what I have to say or who I ship or whatever, just block me and/or scroll past. You don't have to let me know, I will just block ya. Three: It's just a show - a great show, yes! A meaningful show, absolutely! But I promise it's not that serious! Four: this interpretation is coming from someone who watched good omens first, so I don't really see angels and angel gender the same way as if I hadn't come from that first so to reiterate point one, it does not affect you or your ships or how you watch the show or how you see Dean or how you see Castiel.

I really thought that in the year 2024 we'd be past the kind of comments and reblogs I've been getting but I've heard that the supernatural fandom could be like this so I want to make myself clear: I don't want to hear it. And if you don't want to hear MY personal (emphasis on personal) opinions on some fictional characters of a television show that ended almost half a decade ago, please just block me. That's not what my page is for. I don't pick fights, I don't argue, I just block you and delete comments. That's that.

[worrynoodle]

The fact that

"Dean. I'm here. I'm hurt, can you let me in?"

Is the last thing Dean hears in Castiel's voice makes me ill. He goes RUNNING. I hate it

[worrynoodle]

THE SUPERNATURAL CONVENTION WAS IN NASHVILLE A FEW DAYS AGO AND NONE OF YOU THOUGHT TO TELL ME???

YALL

I LITERALLY LIVE 45 MINUTES AWAY???