#i also really love the 'if spn were as queer as it should have been' type fanons

[eleonkraken]

Other than it being bad, the ending of superantural has also fucked up my relationship to destiel fic because the only thing I wanna read now is widower era dean with cas coming back from the empty years after he died

There's just something so captivating about the idea of dean only figuring out cas was the love of his life and already functionally his partner after he dies and taking up a widower role in a new community with people who never knew any different.

and cas coming back only to realize that dean's whole perception of reality has shifted in the time he's been gone

I could chew on this premise forever

#and yes i still read destiel fic #i started watching spn in 2012 or something in order to be able to read and appreciate the fic #and the fic is still the thing i most appreciate #i also really love the 'if spn were as queer as it should have been' type fanons #supernatural #destiel #spn

[charcubed]

I'm curious, what are the main reasons why Dean is your favorite canon bisexual in media? Love your meta and that video btw

Ooooo, anon, thank you for the kind words and for giving me an excuse to talk about my love for bisexual icon Dean Winchester <3

I'm going to be really annoying (sorry) and quote part of my meta first. It summarizes and articulates many of my thoughts on this. And then to further answer your question I'll add a bit under it!

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.

[...]

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.”

I wanted to include the above verbatim because it spells out something specific: Dean's narrative is bisexual in its bones. Supernatural evolved to become a queer text, but the specific ways the show and Dean as a character evolved are very intertwined with and informed by the fact that Dean is a masculine bisexual man. SPN is a story that was not meant to be about being queer, but as it became about freedom through free will, those themes were then leveraged and emphasized in connection to queerness because of Destiel. And by the end, the free will narrative and Dean's journey as a bi man are utterly inseparable, because Dean's fight for true freedom is tied to his love for a man and their untraditional family in a way that higher forces are trying to hinder.

You cannot cut out or edit or remove Dean's bisexuality from the story, or several narratives and plot lines (not just Destiel) would at minimum be misunderstood or at maximum fall apart. And yet, simultaneously? Dean's bisexuality is also far from being the sole important thing about his character because he is written with such nuanced complexities and across so many years of material.

Of course, add onto this the overall unique situation that surrounds Supernatural as a piece of media. People talk at length about how there will never be anything like it again, including me; that's obviously true from multiple different angles and for multiple different reasons, with Destiel being prime amongst them. But a related yet distinctly significant branch of that topic is there will never be another bisexual character who is written and evolves quite like Dean.

Was Dean supposed to be bisexual from the very start, out of the mind of Kripke? Who can know for sure, but probably not. Were certain writers and members of production deliberately putting more queercoding and subtext into Dean's character/story from the very start? Who can know for sure, but potentially yes, and certainly the answer becomes unarguably definitely yes the farther you get into the show. That's part of my love and passion for him too, because all of that is deeply unique and incredibly cool.

Dean's bisexuality evolved in a way that (against all odds) actually feels organic, seamless, and like it's simply a part of his character that's been there all along. The effect when you look at Supernatural as a whole body of work is that Dean's always been bi, and his expressions of and acknowledgements of that part of him ebb and flow depending on situation–which is a very relatable notion for many queer people. And as those writing the show became more committed and certain about that piece of who Dean is, so did he, in nuanced and subtle ways skillfully embedded into his story by design. It's bafflingly, impressively cohesive; gives him an incredibly realistic feel; matches his overall character growth; and rings true to his demographic, age, personality, and experiences.

Dean and his story and the situation(s) surrounding both are simply incomparable, and that will be true forever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...also. Well. I simply love him, y'know? For even more reasons unconnected to this. How can you not, right? :')

Thank you for asking, and thanks for reading this bi Dean manifesto!

Putting my video that you mentioned here for anyone who's not watched it:

My new magnum opus, please stream, etc.

(or watch on Tumblr here)

#bisexual dean winchester #dean is bi #bi dean meta #bi dean winchester #dean winchester is bi #supernatural #spn meta #char writes things #God I LOOOOOVE HIIIIMMMM #dean #anonymous #yes I used like 5 dean is bi tags. I'm valid. leave me alone

[kajaono]

Why comparing the ending of GO2, OFMD and SPN with each other is a) disrespectful toward OFMD and GO and b) takes not into account the big steps we made in LGBTQ representation

During the last days I saw many jokes: Ha ha, every gay person ends up in super hell after their confession." First at all: Of course, if you only take a brief look they all seem the same. Castiel confesses and is sucked into the empty, Ed confosses and is left behind by Stede, Crowley confesses and has to witness Azi leaving him behind. Is there a theme here? Most definitly. But imo the only thing those scenes have in common is the Leaving-part and the confession-part, everything else is so different.

Let me walk you through it. First Destiel, the blueprint, some of you might call it:

I am glad they made Castiel canonly gay and confirmed his love for Dean eventually? Yeah but everything about this was a mess. We had 11 seasons of queerbaiting first. Then he confesses his love, immeditaly gets killed off and is never really mentioned again. The End. Making his love for Dean textual was neither a win for the queer community nor brave nor good storytelling. It was cheap move: "Look how inclusive we are", while actually including gay suffering and bury your gays. This was just a bunch of straight writers and a homophobic studio knowing it is their last season and making actual zero effort to give their queer character a happy end or proper storytelling.

This is nowhere like the endings OFMD and GO gave us.

So why are OFMD and GO different? I will look at them here seperatly and then add a small summary at the end. First OFMD, just because it was aired first.

OMFD

First at all, you need to see the ending in the context of the whole show. The whole show is 100% "Yes Homo". We have non binary, poly, bi and gay people who get treated incredible respectful, human and full of care. This first season always had a very clear end: Stede and Ed will confess their love to each other. " This was never: "Ugh, actually Castiel should have died ten seasons earlier and we actually have no clue what to do with him. He only sticks arounds because fans like him. Here, he is gay, can we NOW finally kill him off?" And don't forget Dean was quickly the next one to be killed by a rusty nail.

Gentlebeard wasn't a simple teary "I love you". It was a well crafted love confession, with a beautiful kiss. This show made a huge step forward in gay comedies imo. With OFMD we finally have a mainstream show that showed that you can write a comedy with an all queer cast without the jokes being about queerness. Its not like ODAAT. I love that show, but Elena always needed to crack a joke about her being a lesbian. But not OFMD. This show said very clear: "We might be all gay here, but the real joke is that they are shit pirates." It showed that it works. Gay topic do not need to be touched carefully, and not every queer character needs suffering or a coming out arc either. This show showed that gay people can just be... be who every they want. And I am sure many shows will follow.

But Stede and Ed were also split up, i hear you say. Yes, but them being split up is part of an story arc. The authors have already confirmed that this show is planned for three seaons, we just finished part 1. This seperation is hence not permantly. Actually quite the opposite. The authors knew how quickly queer shows get cancelled and still took the risk to seperate the main couple as a cliffhanger. And you know what? OFMD showed that queer shows can survive that. It even increased the demand for the show. Like it would have been for a straight couple. It is super common thing to end straight shows with the main heterosexual couple being split up and one rushing to fix the mess. - The end- Some straight shows do that every season finale. (*cough* Scorpions *cough* what?). Also Castiel ending in super hell was permanent, no turning back. This here? In OFMD everyone runs into each other the whole time, no matter how big the ocean is. They will be fine.

Good Omens 2

Good Omens started out completly different then OFMD but kinda has the same outcome as OFMD.

This whole story started as a book about two best friends. And even when it got adapted into a show and the lead actors said: Actually they are in love" But the author still said: "I want to honor the story I wrote with my friend. They love each other, yes, but what kind of love is up to you. Here they are, having a happy end. Everything else is up to you". But then we all asked him for another season. And he started writing it and suddenly had the whole creative freedom. And he saw how big the demand was for queer representation in an major prime show (or in general) and realized times have changes and said: "Fuck it" and just... did it. This is also so HUGE compared with Destiel. We have asked the writers and actors for years to make Destiel canon. They only laughed at us, mocked us and later used "eye fucking" as a joke term in their script. But only going there, after 20 years and taking no risk. Neil did none of those things. He saw the fans, the queer fans, their theories and then just did it.

In the past many showrunner said: "I don't want to make them gay. Its not the story I want to tell/It wouldn't fit the character" Neil proved them wrong. And this is also a huge step imo. Because even today we have really little showrunners who see their fans asking for a queer main lead/queer main lead romance and just doing it. Most showrunner do it never (Supernatural, Bridgerton) or after a lot of bargaining (The Witcher). Neil showed that it doesn't ruin your story. If you care for your characters and know your characters and feel that they want out of the closet, then let them out of the closet. Some showrunners should realize that sometimes the happiness of their characters is more important then their own plan.

And I really hope many showrunners will follow Neils example. Johnlock? Sprik? Idk how many more: "Male friendships where just written differently back then. They are just best friends:" I can witness before I go crazy. I hope Crowley and Azi are only the first to walk out of the closet, I hope many more will follow.

TL:DR. Comparing Destiel with OFMD and GO2 is disesteeming the huge steps we made in LGBTQ representation. If Ineffable Husbands and Gentlebeard would be a straight couple noone would compare them with each other simply because they broke up during a season finale. And this shows how much work we still have to do regarding LGBTQ representation. Now we need to get a renwal, because we are just getting started

#good omens #ineffable husbands #ofmd #destiel

[thegeminisage]

WRATH OF KHAN breakdown

i watched this movie with catherine maulthots six days ago and liveblogged it incoherently on a notepad file on my phone because No Way was i opening this devils website when spock could die any moment. i am recording my experiences here for posterity

firstly i did know going in that he was going to die. this made me wracked with anxiety. more on that later. actually when kirk walked up and was like ha ha arent you supposed to be dead i almost lost it .5 seconds into the movie

absolute first thing was that we werent sure whether or not the thing in the beginning was a test. absolutely LOST MY MIND when i realized it was the kobayashi maru. every ten seconds during this movie i went "omg an aos reference" even though i knew it was really the other way around. somehow i thought mister perfect tos jim wouldn't cheat on the test so when they sort of hinted at what he did but didn't say it i was FROTHING to know more

bones's gay little posture. that's it that's the whole bullet

bones coming to jim's place at night was like the opening of some retro gay porno. DELIGHTED to find out that jim's allergies were not in fact an aos fanon but based in both aos and tos canon (re his little old man glasses)

mad that all of the movies seem to flirt with whether or not james t kirk should retire or captain a starship and then never resolve that question ever. it's like will shatner's insecurity about aging was leeching into the very script. girl we ALL KNOW what he should be doing so either shit or get off the pot

birthday gifts cute though. oh my fucking god. a book and glasses and he shows up with both repeatedly throughout the film

khan's tits were amazing. even as an asexual, even queer as a two dollar bill, i am full of admiration for what he had going on. he was rockin it

when they put the little worms into chekov and terrel cathy was like "omg THATS why they called them khan worms" and then i got to say "omg spn reference" instead of "omg aos reference" and we were so excited she wasn't even mad about it. also, they were so gross, oh my god, i couldn't look, she had to tell me when it was safe to unhide my eyes

meanwhile we're also mercilessly mocking the oversight that allowed khan and chekov to know one another. how did that plothole make it into production

EYE personally was very shocked at the amount of non-annoying women in the movie (two??). i liked both saavik and carol though i had to google to see if saavik was a human or vulcan. VERY cute that spock gave her the wheel to fuck with kirk specifically even though anyone but kirk being captain is so WEIRD. spock can be acting captain but not actual captain!!!

i ALSO knew from spoilers that carol had had kirk's fucking child which i may have accidentally also ruined for catherine so when a woman with an adult son mentioned james kirk onscreen we both became a little. unwell.

khan's "i shall have him" this sort of sexual tension is one of many things missing from into darkness. NOT that i want to see b*nedict c*mberbatch have that with anyone bc he is quite literally so ugly i have to cover his face with my hand when i watch into darkness but they should have cast a better person as khan and then made him have sexual tension with kirk.

cathy on the khan worms coming out of chekov's ears: wow, i love that! me on the same thing: i hate it

khan's "i wish to go on hurting you" no comment

khan yell REALLY GOOD. glad to see some things never change. william shatner was like i have been and will ever be a huge fucking ham

when carol marcus went "can i cook or can't i" i decided to go ahead and start liking women again. nature is healing, etc

if i had seen kirk pop that apple in his mouth while talking about how he didn't like to lose before i wrote gambler's knife. well. the fic probably wouldn't have changed much but my brain chemistry has certainly changed now. i can't explain w human words. AAAAAAUGH

spock's line about "sauce for the goose" was so out of character we had to check the transcript and make sure that was him speaking and not kirk. "sauce for the goose"??? sir, you're a vegetarian

the cgi was surprisingly good in whatever version we watched. it really holds up, which is ironic considering we had 20-minute vistas of it in the previous movie, where it was just okay

spock's death. i cried all the way through. don't text.

i did have a vague idea of what was going on when he melded with bones bc you literally cant avoid spoilers but i didn't have Details so i was very shocked for a second until i remembered

SPOCK'S FUNERAL. oh he would have been insulted to hear jim call him human!!!!! but he WAS

kirk trying to run away from his kid was really good. if i hadn't been blinded with tears i would have really enjoyed it. didn't like the "you've never faced death" bit though bc OBVIOUSLYYY he was on tarsus iv.

anyway then they panned to the coffin and i was like SURELY HES GONNA POP OUT AND SAY SIKE but he didn't. he didn't and i just had to live with that. and we had planned to watch search for spock immediately the next day but fate intervened and i had to skip it TWO DAYS in a row and nearly died. the end.

also, i didn't realize the book spock had given kirk was the one he quoted at the end!!!!!!! really horrible.

#personal #star trek blogging #wok lb #GOD!!!!

[witchgreen6]

Saw the Bishagate video for the 1st time & I think he knew exactly what he was saying...

I am a late comer to Supernatural & all the behind the scene 'drama'. Having read about 'Bishagate' on Tumblr, I was curious to see the actual video where Misha makes his infamous 'I am all 3 statement'. I was expecting it to show him stumbling over his words & blurting out 'bisexual' by mistake (when in fact he meant to use a word such as 'ambivert'). But the video shows that this was no 'misspeaking'! he purposely uses the word 'bisexual' then pauses for effect to give the audience time to catch up with what he has just said, he looks a bit nervous and seems to be breathing heavily the smiles then says 'I am all 3''. He then uses the term bisexual AGAIN shortly after and says that it would have been weird of him to ask the audience about how many of them were bisexual from the start so he (bizarrely) chose to start with asking them about being introvert/extrovert... I mean WTF? how did so many people in the fandom/media actually believe & accept for a second his explanation that this was 'accidental' slip of the tongue, that things were 'out of context' and that he never meant to use the term 'bisexual'. He absolutely used bisexual on purpose and knew exactly what he was saying... So the only explanations I can think of for this mess is that he ever thought it was ''funny'' to pretend to be/joke about being bisexual to get some attention/publicity which is rather crappy (I am queer & I really don't appreciate that type of 'jokes') or he really meant what he said and for whatever reason decided to get back in the closet. Neither options are actually showing him in a great light & I find all this rather disappointing. I will continue to love the Castiel character but being asked to swallow this nonsense by the actor who plays him is not happening because it defies all logic when you watch the actual footage. The statement that Misha then put out on social media is also problematic because it starts with a claim that is simply not true: ''My clumsy intention was to wave off actually discussing my sexuality''. Again the video footage contradicts this. A fan asked a question about the Covid lockdowns and what Misha had learned about himself during that period which leads him to saying he discovered he was more of an extrovert than he thought. The fan's question made no reference to sexuality. Misha brings up bisexuality out of the blue, you can even hear someone in the audience say 'where did that come from?'. So if a statement starts with a lie, it is hard to then read anything else that it contains as truthful. Celebrities, like anyone else, don't owe others details about their sexuality but they do have a responsibility not to appropriate queerness as a marketing tool if they are not queer or to treat it as a joke. SPN has a long history of queer baiting and Misha should know better than to continue that sorry tradition. On the other hand if the reason for this mess was that he felt uncomfortable with the attention he received and decided to backtrack then that's incredibly sad. I also think that him claiming the network asked him to continue to pretend to be bi is misleading: instead it is very likely that their PR people pointed out that he had dug a rather large hole for himself and that the best way was to keep quiet, let the media interest die down & decline to comment further on his sexuality from then on. Because there was no way PR-wise that Misha could avoid a negative backlash if he had to admit that this was yet another queer-baiting stunt from him/he thought that joking about being bisexual was appropriate. This would also have brought the SPN existing queer baiting/homophobia issues under the spotlight and bring in more bad publicity for the network. To conclude I wish I had just continued to enjoy Supernatural, flawed, geeky but still funny & often moving, rather than look into the behind the scene (the conventions drama, the questionable behaviour/statements made by some of the actors) because it coloured the show negatively for me after that.

#mishacollins #bishagate #supernatural #liarliarpantsonfire #queer #queerbaiting #spn #castiel

[cassierobinsongf]

hey, how’s it going. I made this side blog when i had 2020 dean winchester induced brain fog (i also literally had a concussion and then post concussion syndrome for months, so brain damage in the realest sense). thinking about dean winchester occasionally still makes me feel things…but lately it’s giving that “i got on mood stabilizers and dont like bts anymore” tweet. still, destiel 4ever obviously. i rarely post on here anymore, but here are some core tenets of this blog:

1. Supernatural is a white supremacist show on every single level.

2. i’m interested in dean in a gender studies way, but also in a rawer more emotional teenage connection way and also i’m a sucker for gritty family drama and kids who had to grow up too fast and every painfully twisted sibling dynamic ever written. i think the groundedness of the undercurrent of very complicated familial abuse and how extremely real that feels is actually the only emotional glue holding the show together.

3. I named this blog after cassie because she was a rare compelling and somewhat humanized woman of color on this show—who was tragically underused and existed in a horrifically racist one off episode, but still in a show riddled with misogynoir and every fucking flavor of racism and misogyny, she stands out to me as someone worth highlighting. plus she had sweet sexy fun bi4bi vibes with dean

4. Ok i’m bored of making this list. Basically i was gonna say as we all know there are lots of delicious concepts in supernatural, but none of them were ever delivered on to their maximum potential or carried through consistently. I guess the interesting conversations to me mostly lie in the wells of potential and the innumerable swing and misses on the show. With that being said, there is absolutely nothing serious about supernatural. To all the creators and everyone involved: you are not serious people.

5. about me: i’m an iranian american dyke in my 20s. i think super online white queer people are typically pretty annoying. i’m not interested in being a part of “spn fandom” this blog was just my own little chronicle of a breakdown and an outlet during an extended hard time. i don’t believe in dnis, but a lot of you are really racist and out of touch and i will not hesitate to block you. ok! now that the annoying people have left, i will say i do love talking to the mutuals and other smarties! feel free to message or reply to a post if you have relevant (good faith) thoughts. you can also find me on my active main blog @dykesaira

6. how could I forget? do not talk to me about actors…i literally do not care…unshackle your minds and stop paying attention to them

7. and of course! Destiel is real. source: it happened to me

8. I’m interested in studying the American Studies element/aesthetics of Americana and the cultural interpreting/mirroring of the show. my posts about how the us military loved the show and how sam and dean operate as cops fall into this category. but so do a lot of my thoughts on the role of music in the show and what the soundtrack SHOULD have been like

#tous.txt #ive always dreamed of having an incredibly organized and cool tagging system but i am not that guy

[dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3]

Top 5 shows?

Sure! This one is a little tough, since I don't watch shows much anymore, but I'll go with ones that have been most influential to me over the years, as well as the ones I've been interested in recently. ^-^

(Just a note, but I'm going to have this list be only live-action shows, not cartoons, since that would be too difficult to decide if I had that in the mix. Let me know if anyone wants to know the top 5 cartoons, though!)

Ask me my “TOP 5/TOP 10” anything!

5. Hm... I guess The Witcher should be on here, since it's one of my favorite recent TV shows. It's not super influential to me over all, but I do really enjoy it and want to see where it's going. ^-^

4. Hmmm... this is harder than I thought, oof. It also doesn't help that I always forget every single show I've ever seen when people ask me my favorite shows 😅😅😅 Ahh, but I guess Umbrella Academy? Though that one may be lower than Witcher, not above, but honestly whatever. Umbrella Academy is a good show, but it's definitely got its flaws. Incest anyone??? Oof. I did really like how they handled the whole Viktor thing, though. Obviously I don't know how respectful it was overall, but to someone who is cis, it seemed like they let Elliot say what he wanted to say about it, which is refreshing.

3. Our Flag Means Death. I ADORE this show. I love it when shows genuinely do representation and it was such a good romance that was written out. I sincerely hope that season two has a canon asexual character, maybe even aro/ace (though showing a relationship between an alloromantic ace character and someone who is not ace would be amazing too). But even without that, any queer representation brings us one step closer to all queer representation, which is a win for everyone really.

2. Supernatural. Now, this doesn't mean that I necessarily like Supernatural (SPN). I mean... I do like parts of it, but SPN is hella rough. I likened it to a soap opera in the end, where it just keeps going and elevating far past where it should have ended. However... it definitely was influential to me growing up. Even still today. I learned about GISH (The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt) because of SPN, and that's how I met most of my friends. It also did have some good moments, and the first few seasons with Cas are legit my favorites. Seasons 4-6, really. After that, the only thing really keeping my attention in the show was Cas. I did stop watching the show around season 10, but picked it back up three years later with season 13, since I was just curious as hell as to what was even happening anymore. The last season (and especially the last 2-3 episodes) were VERY rough, but it was... decent enough.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, easily. I was absolutely obsessed with this show when I was a preteen-teen. I watched the episodes on my little DVD player when my family was technically homeless for a month when I was 10 (we had to leave our last apartment abruptly since the landlord used mold killer on some mold and it made my mom [who is disabled and has bad lungs] extremely sick, leaving us without a home for a month while my dad tried to find us a decent apartment that we could move into quickly. Luckily, my grandpa has a lot of money and paid for us to stay in a hotel for that month, and then agreed to pay rent for us to live in a nice, somewhat expensive apartment, but it was still stressful for a 10 year old), which was a comfort. I didn't finish the series then, since I didn't have season 7 (my dad didn't like that season and so never bought it), and only had some of the DVD's for the early seasons, but I still enjoyed it. However, I got really into the show again when I was a teen, watching all the episodes religiously when I was about... 13, 14?? I ADORED Spike, since I always liked the ''redeemable bad guy'' character type. Which is one reason I like Mondo, ha. But it was just a show that was there for me when I needed something to focus on. I had health issues during those years, so anything that helped me escape was appreciated. SPN was similar, though I got into that show when I was older, like 15-16. I watched every episode (after season 3, since I HATED Angel. Still do, when he's on Buffy at least. On Angel he's fine, but the whole ''old vampire in love with a teenage girl'' thing was not it for me. At least Buffy was an adult when Spike began taking an interest in her) multiple times. Also, one of my earliest memories is of Buffy. I vaguely remember watching the episode "Once More with Feeling" when I was like... 3 or 4, eating gum on the floor of my old apartment while looking up at the old TV, no context for the show but enjoying the music. Also, yes, I meant eating gum. I knew you weren't supposed to swallow gum, I wasn't stupid, but I thought if you just ate little pieces at a time it would be fine. I liked the concept of gum, but disliked the strong mint flavor, so biting off small pieces and then swallowing it was a manageable amount of mint. I was an... interesting child.

Well, that's it! Hope y'all found my rambling interesting, ha. ^-^ Thanks for the ask!

#Ask answers #These always get so long oof

[quietwingsinthesky]

Omg no don't be sorry! I think it's great that your AU is about recovering from trauma, spn characters more than need it & I think a large part of the fanbase [queer young adults whose teenage comfort media was spn] also deserve to see that kind of catharsis ♥️

<3 there's definitely a lot of catharsis involved lmao. a lot of the decisions for the outline of the au are based off of things i saw in the show that. didn't make me angry exactly but did make me go, okay but why. why is this how it goes.

maybe it's just because i'm a kripke era lover above all else, but that part of the show really got it, you know? it went Here Are The Cycles. You Do Not Have To Become The Next Cycle. You Can Choose Something Else. as flawed as those seasons are, and as dark as they get, they're constantly outlined with a sort of hope, you know, "hope's kind of the whole point". which as the show goes on, it loses that. most of supernatural is just perpetual low points with no reprieve, which is required because they're always upping the stakes, making the situation worse to keep us invested, but at a certain point... why? is this the story we're telling now? that actually, it's inevitable, there is no fighting, there's no redeeming side of love only the horror and the damnation of it, life sucks and rocks fall and everyone dies now go home?

it's fine, to me, that that's the story supernatural ends up being. it's even fun sometimes. i like doom and gloom as much as the next person. but it is not really how i'd like this au to go, if i ever write something substantial for it.

(actually, if we want to talk about things supernatural did that actually made me angry on a storytelling level, uh. it's childish. it's very. s5 got something right when they said, fuck it, god doesn't care. he stepped in once and he thinks you should get your shit together from here. you can leave voicemails but he's not listening. there's no malice there, just. indifference.

and then by s15, actually, it turns out that god is an evil mastermind who hates You, Specifically, who has no redeeming qualities and has just been fucking the winchesters over because it's fun.

and we cannot really separate here that god is also supposed to be. well. a dad. the ultimate concept of A Dad. s4-5, hell even s11 to an extent, have a much more nuanced view of this. it feels more mature, both from the religious and the daddy issues standpoint. s15 feels like someone didn't go to therapy long enough to realize their parents were people too.

so on that point, i don't think god is the final boss of the marie au. i don't think there is a final boss of the marie au. it's just the consequences of everyone's actions, slowly rolling into each other. if god is a villain here, it's because supernatural gave omniscience to a flawed, insecure man who has been re-enacting his betrayal of his own sister for millennia through his own children. which is still fucked! but it's also not evil for evil's sake.

(no more evil for evil's sake in marie au. that's why lucifer is being reset to factory settings. will he still have to live with all that he's done, even if it wasn't entirely his choice to do it? yes. but he'll live.))

adhsjahdjshk im rambling now. this au is so self-indulgent and v much still in the vague outline stage. im just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.

#ask #marieposting

[impostoradult]

I finally figured out why it feels like Supernatural murdered a unicorn (AKA why you need to STOP telling me to watch Black Sails)

I’ll start by saying, everything everyone else has been saying CERTAINLY bothers me: 

- the queer-baiting - the bury your queers - the undermining of Dean’s character arc  - the wasted opportunity for a certain kind of overall narrative closure - the flat out disrespect to Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles

 All of that bothers me tremendously. 

But there has been something else rather ineffable about this that has left a horrible taste in my mouth that I couldn’t quite pin down until last night. Bear with me, if you will, because this will require some set-up. 

*** This is not the first show to ever disappoint me in a spectacular fashion, nor will it be the last, I suspect. And one of the ways I’ve always coped with that disappointment was to remind myself that there will be other stories, other characters, other chances to get it right. (”It” being any number of things from just pure narrative emotional coherence to not burying your queers to not stringing along your queer audience and then yelling fuck you to them on the way out) 

But somehow that assurance -- that there will be other stories, other characters, other chances to get it right -- has rung particularly hollow in this instance, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why until yesterday. 

I kept asking myself, why do I still have this feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach, like something was lost here that can never be recovered? 

Because something was lost here that I am doubtful can ever be recovered, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else talking about this aspect of it at all. 

***

A few months ago, TV critic Maureen Ryan did a great interview piece with Mike Schur (of Parks & Rec/The Good Place) discussing the death of long-form TV in the streaming era. They explore how the longer seasons and longer runs of traditional broadcast/cable TV provided an opportunity to tell particular kinds of stories that you simply can’t when seasons are 8-10 episodes and series typically run 2-4 seasons (thanks Netflix).

One key thing we’ve all lost in this new era of highly condensed TV storytelling (and of prestige TV narrative styles)? The traditional (several season’s long) slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance. Not only is there simply no longer the time or space to write such romances, it has also come to be seen as hacky, manipulative, cheap, artistically impoverished, low-brow, a embarrassing vestige of the era before TV became art™. 

Everybody is trying to be Fleabag now. No one wants to be Frasier. (”It’s really more like a 10 hour movie” they all like to brag)

Obviously TV still has romances, even ‘drawn out’ romances. But ‘drawn out’ in 2020 is like 2-3 seasons, maybe. More commonly it’s like half a season. Take Schitt’s Creek. The number of episodes between when David and Patrick first meet and when they first kiss? Seven. Seven episodes. Half a season. If you watched it live, it took less than 2 months for them to move from introducing that dynamic to consummating it. And I’m not bagging on Schitt’s Creek; I think the David/Patrick’s story is very lovely and well-written. 

But Niles & Daphne (Fraiser) had to wait 7 years and over 150 episodes before they finally got there. Josh & Donna (The West Wing) had to wait 6+ years, and 145 episodes. Mulder & Scully (The X-Files) had to wait 7 seasons and 143 episodes. Booth & Bones had to wait...you see where I am going with this. 

And my point is (and I can’t believe I never realized this explicitly until now): there has NEVER been a queer slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance of that type on TV ever. EVER. 

I’m going to say that again, because I think it bares repeating:

There has never been a queer, slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance that fits the 100-150 episode paradigm of delayed gratification on TV. 

Not ever.  

I can’t think of ONE example  Not a single, solitary one. And I know queer TV pretty well. Arguably the closest we’ve ever come is Legend of Korra, and that ran 50 episodes, a THIRD of the length of old school will-they-won’t-theys like Booth & Bones or Josh & Donna. 

Queer people have had a fair number of canonical romances on TV by now, even fairly long running ones. But we never got a primary/front-and-center romance that you had to root for for 100+ episodes before you got any kind of canonical consummation.

That is a particular kind of TV experience that queer people and queer characters were just 100% shut out of until it was too late. And because of how the TV landscape has changed in the last 10 years, I don’t know that that opportunity will ever come back around in our lifetimes. 

***

Dean and Castiel are/were a legacy of an earlier era of TV, an era that still contained the possibility for a will-they-won’t-they of that particular mold. There were other shows that could have also filled this gap at one time - Rizzoli & Isles, OUAT, House MD, etc. But one by one all of them were killed off, their queer romances unrequited, until Supernatural was the only one of its’ generation left standing. 

And they should have acknowledged that they were a species about to become extinct. 

There are plenty of other valid and compelling reasons Supernatural should have gone full Destiel, don’t get me wrong.

A) It would have been the most emotionally satisfying ending to the series and to those characters (and that would have been reason enough). 

B) It would have stopped the manipulative queer-baiting of the (disproportionately queer) fanbase (and that would have been reason enough). 

C) It would have been queer representation of middle-aged men, of bi men, of queers who came to their queerness later in life (and any/all of those would have been reason enough). 

D) It could have been a glorious subversion of the bury your queers trope, considering how often they’ve died and been resurrected (and that would have been reason enough). 

But point E) on this list is the reason this one hurts in a singular way that no one even appears to be acknowledging. 

Almost all of the other wrongs and missed opportunities contained in this Supernatural debacle have the possibility of being rectified (at least to a degree) elsewhere. I can and I likely will get more bi male characters from TV as time goes on. I can and likely will get more middle-aged queer characters. I can and likely will get more queer characters coming to their queerness later in life, and starting queer romances later in life. I can and likely will get more queer characters who aren’t killed cheaply and prematurely. I can and likely will get more genre TV shows with sprawling myth arc plots that are resolved in a coherent, satisfying way. I can and likely will get Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles involved in other projects that value their work and their talents. 

All of those other things are at the very least POSSIBLE, and many are even likely. 

But a queer 100-150 episode slow-burn romance a la Mulder & Scully or Niles & Daphne or Booth & Bones? That is the one baton Supernatural dropped spectacularly that no one else even has the possibility of picking up again for the foreseeable future. (They don’t even write those types of romances for heterosexuals anymore!) 

Seriously. It was a TV unicorn. And rather than letting it run wild and free, they stabbed it with a rusty nail. 

***

Given the monumental shifts in the TV landscape that have occurred in the last decade, I don’t know that TV will ever go back to the slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance spanning 100-150 episodes. Today it is a miracle if you can get ANY show to last longer than 50 episodes in the first place. 

And that is the piece of this that makes it feel (to me) like they murdered a unicorn.  

Because queer people have gotten a lot of things from TV, and they will get a lot more as time goes on. But that one? That one could very well be a totally extinct species.

That is the larger missed opportunity here that has left this feeling especially hollow and destructive. That is the thing that makes me balk when people tell me to go watch Black Sails or Pose or whatever other prestige TV show is doing this representation ‘better.’ Because that’s not really the loss I am mourning here. I KNOW there is ‘better’ representation elsewhere.  

But the will-they-won’t-they/slow-burn romance is a qualitatively unique thing that queer people literally just never got. Ever. There is no substitute, no alternate, no other show I can turn to with that kind of build-up and pay-off for a queer couple, and there probably won’t be in my lifetime. Not unless the TV industry undergoes another monumental evolution similar to the streaming revolution that shifts the incentives back to telling those types of stories again. 

All those shows you want me to displace Supernatural with? None of them can give me the one thing I uniquely wanted (and could have gotten) from Supernatural. THAT ALTERNATE SHOW DOESN’T EXIST. It doesn’t exist. And I have no reason to hope it will ever exist in my lifetime. 

So stop telling me to look somewhere else; you don’t understand what made this one a unicorn. 

***

Addendum: The only other possible show that could perhaps fill this gap is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (re: Mac/Dennis). But I’m hesitant to say it exactly meets that criteria, for a number of reasons:

1 - It’s far less serialized relative to Supernatural and (except for a handful of stand-alone episodes) very little of the story is grounded specifically in Dennis/Mac’s romantic dynamic (unlike SPN, where it is absolutely central to much of the narrative)

2 - IASIP is fundamentally satirically in nature/tone which makes it much harder to have genuine romantic pathos (not impossible, but harder) 

3 - All the characters on IASIP are fundamentally crummy people who you aren’t exactly supposed to root for. Which doesn’t mean a romance between two of them can’t have its value/charm/worth but it’s not the same as when it is between characters who unequivocally deserve nice things/happy endings

#Supernatural #Destiel #queer representation #sorry this is long

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

#supernatural season 15 #spn finale #speculation #destiel #destielgate #the ending was not the ending #fuck the cw #trust the story #we were robbed

[castiel-left-his-mark-on-me]

Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!

Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."

It was a wild time haha.

In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.

We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.

After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.

Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.

Who isn't being optimistic though?

Jared Padalecki.

When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"

As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.

However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.

The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.

Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.

The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?

In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.

But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.

So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!

💖💖💖

#omg #I don't even know if this makes sense #this took way too long to write #j2 #cockles #long post #spn family #so glad you see you back again my dear #welcome to hell #it's hotter now

[myaimistrue]

del myaimistrue’s underrated destiel fic recs! (part 1)

these are all fics i’ve read and realllllllly enjoyed, and they’re all ones that i don't often see people discussing on here. bc of that they all either have less than 10k hits OR were published pre-2015 OR both. i hope you all like them, and if you do, please consider giving the authors some love and leaving a comment saying so. we fic writers live off that kinda stuff :)

list under the cut, organized by word count!

I Know! Straight Out of a Telenovela, Right? by @credentiast

quick 800ish word meta joke about y yo a ti. so sweet and domestic and lovely. i read this right after it was uploaded and have gone back to read it multiple times since then. always makes me smile!

strap the wing to me by a_good_soldier (aka @s11e17)

as i’m sure we all know, basically everything a_good_soldier writes is wonderful. this little 1.9k bit of sweetness is one of my personal favorites of theirs, and is sorely underrated. a bit of conversation between dean and cas about how much cas loves him. nothing like holy devotion to a human man!

The First Thing There Is by bendingsignposts

cas seals off dean's memories as part of the effort to stop michael, and amnesiac dean immediately realizes that cas loves him. 5k of really sweet, in-character moments and a healthy dose of humor.

Eyes Like the Texas Sky by RogueTranslator

do you hate john winchester? do you want to read about dean’s queer awakening and how that relates to his love of cowboys? do you love sweet stories about finding love and acceptance in places you didn’t expect? this 5.6k fic is for you! dean tells cas the story of the first guy he ever had feelings for, and boy is it sweet and heart-wrenching and wonderful.

Nothing Equals the Splendor by RurouniHime

7.8k fic in which 15x20 was all part of a djinn dream. perhaps my all-time favorite finale fix-it (which is why it’s on this list despite having like 12k hits shhh) featuring full-powered angelic cas blowing out all the lights in the bunker when he and dean have sex. beautifully written and so sweet. and the sequel is also great--highly recommended as well

Telemetry by scifive

DEAN STUDIES FIC!!! 9k set during the first seven episodes of season 4 that actually addresses and deals with dean’s ptsd and trauma from hell. dean’s voice is absolutely perfectly in-character. also it’s pre-relationship destiel but the moment with them at the very end is so tender and lovely.

the pie isn’t a metaphor (it’s just pie) by noviembre

9.3k post-canon fic in which dean and cas get comfortable with their relationship and bake some pies together. it’s a very soft little story that features dean being head over heels and cas being beautifully sarcastic.

Talk Therapy by shara

9.3k of dean figuring out what he wants from cas and how to be in a relationship with him. sex-focused, but intentional about what details are shared so it feels very natural and sweet. cas is so steadfast as dean tries to unlearn what he’s been taught his whole life.

it’s such a mystery (the way you know me) by fleeceframe

another memory loss fic, except it’s cas this time! 10k words about cas getting hit with a temporary memory loss spell and his rediscovery of love and friendship. straight up this one made me cry happy tears. fleeceframe writes beautiful stuff, and this one is no different--the language is just gorgeous.

killing time by orestespdf

11.2k post-canon fic. it’s kind of a day in the life of dean and cas in the lake house they’ve made their home that doubles as a cas character study. very cathartic and romantic.

Kingdom Come by ahurston

17.3k cas comes back from the empty fic featuring a road trip and lots of cas introspection. dean and cas’s interactions are so so so in-character the entire time, and the final moments of the story are absolutely perfect. one of my personal favorite fix-its.

a certain light by flightagain

24.3k au in which cas works at a gas-n-sip and dean’s a customer that comes in a lot, with a supernatural twist! this story is so gorgeous and gentle, and dean and cas’s relationship is portrayed beautifully. if you’re a cas fan, this story is his from pov and nails it in a way that i think is really hard to do in an au. 

Peace And Good Luck to All Men by KismetJeska

31.3k human au in which dean is anna’s boyfriend she brings home for christmas, and he and cas immediately click. i am not a big au person, especially when it comes to angel characters, but this fic is so genuinely in character and still hilarious. also a long time fandom classic.

Everybody Needs the Light by opal_bullets

46.5k words of another banger by opal_bullets of poet dean fic fame! actually i might like this one just a little better which should tell how great this one is. it takes place pre-series. dean stops at an old motel in minnesota that cas is running, and something strange is going on… this fic has one of the most interesting conclusions i’ve read in a spn fic and there is such a cool atmosphere to the whole piece. highly recommended if you’re a fan of mysteries and/or supernatural’s angelic dynamics and/or pre-series dean.

Smells Like Roses by orphan_account :(

53.8k words. an absolute classic. seriously, if you haven’t read this, ESPECIALLY if you’re a dean girl, it’s a must-read. set in season 5, dean has a vivid djinn dream of an entire life he spends married in domestic bliss with cas. when he gets pulled out of it, he struggles to readjust and focus on the coming apocalypse. dean is so in-character and so heart-breaking. def a dean thesis fic with a healthy side of destiel sweetness.

The Hanged Man by ellispark

87.6k words. PARK RANGER CAS. literally need i say more?? if that alone hasn’t sold you, the story is that he finds dean out in the woods after someone has tried to kill him, and the mystery unfolds from there as the two of them grow closer. the plot is really interesting and in-character despite being an au. also, if non-verbal dean is something you like/find interesting, you will really love this fic. absolutely worth the read and frankly deserves more hits!

#there will definitely be more lists i after this one #i read a lot of fic #if anybody has any specific requests i can also look into that--i'm not afraid to brave the main spn tag on ao3 if need be #del's fic recs #is the tag i'll use ig #deancas #destiel #destiel fic rec #deancas fic rec

[green-blue-heller]

🥺 I hope ur not mad at me 🥺

But I'd really love you to analyze that video!

- Warm hugs Ma'am 💕

It’ll take me a bit. I’ve only seen it once so I have to rewatch it and then put my thoughts together.

And it may not be until sometime over the weekend or early next week due to my work schedule.

But I do want to point out that I don’t think something from 2014 is what we should use to formulate our opinions of Jensen.

Back then he was very much “I am Dean and Dean is me. So anything I say about Dean would be assumed about me. And I cannot insinuate that he is into dudes!”

But I also think that there was the dichotomy of Misha playing into it with fans so we wouldn’t stop pushing and fighting for it, and Jensen was the one trying to give us realistic expectations.

I don’t necessarily think these may have been his opinions. But writers, directors, and heads of studio have said “No, this isn’t the story, no that’s not this character.”

We, the fans, kept being told we were crazy - by people in charge of the show. That it was never going to happen.

That’s been the company line since Misha graced our screens back in 2008.

And Jensen is nothing if not a company guy. He’s going to give the company line because that’s what he’s been told to do.

And we know this because he made a five year exclusivity deal with WB for his production company. Because he wants SPN. So he needs to stay with the studio who owns the rights to the program.

The one thing to remember about him is that no matter what he has said about his character, he has always been supportive of fans and people. To me, that says a lot more about him than the narrative of a fictional character he had no control over.

They’ve done multiple charities and attended events to support the LGBT+ community.

And he’s always been very relaxed and comfortable at these events. Just as he was in the photos that surfaced when him, Dee, and Steve went to the gay bar the one year after FBBC’s Christmas party lol.

It’s also been made very clear that CMP is interested in telling queer stories.

Mr. I’m-the-one-holding-up-the-rainbow is about as straight as said rainbow lol. But when you’re not “out” it can definitely be easier to fall back on the “safe” stance.

Unlike Misha who has publicly announced at cons that in the past he’s been pulled aside and reprimanded for publicly saying the show is misogynistic and that it can be problematic.

While he loved SPN and being Cas, being an actor was just another job for Misha. It was a means to an ends of what he really wanted. Which was to make a difference in the world, no matter how small.

Now, back to Jackles.

The show gets announced that it’s ending. And we see a completely different Jensen after that.

One who seems much more open to Destiel.

Because that’s where they were told the story was going. He even said he made choices based on that.

He had the confession filmed on his own phone so he could go back and remember it as Jensen and how it happened in real life and in their character life.

They were both so so proud of that episode and that scene.

Then it all went to shit.

And now, here we are.

#misha collins #jensen ackles #destiel #cockles #tinhatting #SPN stuff #anon #anons welcome

[charlie-minion]

Could the same SPN finale make a little more sense with some additions/changes?

I’ve had the idea for this post stuck in my head for days now, but with every new conspiracy theory and every new eventuality in the fandom, it became difficult to cool down enough to write something less ship-related and more narrative-focused.

What Supernatural and non-SPN fans have to understand is that a lot of us have expressed disappointment and frustration after 15x20, not because of Destiel (that’s just one part of the whole problem), but because the finale doesn’t make sense. Everything was leading up to something beautifully crafted until the end of 15x19. Beyond that, it’s hard to understand what happened. The story rendered all the character growth irrelevant, invalidated the themes of free will and “family don’t end in blood”, regressed to the original brother codependency they spent 15 years trying to overcome, made a queer non-binary character in a male vessel and a deaf female character basically disposable, and kept the show’s reputation of queerbaiting and misogyny until its very last breath.

That’s not going out with a bang! At least not a positive one. We all were ready to mourn Supernatural, but we wanted to feel proud of its legacy, and somehow TPTB managed to tarnish that legacy in less than 45 minutes. What a way to ruin the other more than 13,600 minutes of story!

It doesn’t matter who is to blame (The CW, Robert Singer, Andrew Dabb). It doesn’t matter why it happened (homophobia, censorship, marketing for Walker, bad writing). What matters is that at the end of the day, the finale that aired is what we got and that’s going to hurt for a long time. It hurts even more when we realize that the same finale could have easily made more sense, even without being perfect.

That’s what I want to do in this post. I want to show you how things would have been less jarring (for the fandom), while still keeping the goal to please the general audience.

Before I begin rewriting 15x20, I have to mention that I talked to my conservative boomer sister about the finale. She hasn’t watched the second half of season 15 yet (she’s waiting for Netflix to have it), but she’s been watching the show for a long time (she introduced me to it 8 years ago). She’s the perfect example of a viewer from the general audience. Loves the show but doesn’t give a second thought to it and definitely isn’t paying attention to character development or themes. Doesn’t engage with fandom, actors, or any of the show’s social media. Pure GA! When I told her the series finale had aired, she asked me about it and I refused to give her spoilers. Because of that, she told me the ending SHE wanted. She said she would be happy with either of two possibilities: the boys retiring and finally living a normal life OR they going to heaven and finding peace at last. She saw Sam and Dean as a unit, which means: both retiring or both going to heaven. AND she saw Cas as part of that, too. She wasn’t so sure about Jack. And for her, we could use the “Eileen who?” and it wouldn’t be a joke. She didn’t remember her.

NOW IT’S TIME TO WRITE A NEW VERSION OF 15X20 (KEEPING 15X18 AND 15X19 EXACTLY THE SAME AS THEY AIRED). This will be a very long post:

The opening remains almost the same. No “Carry on my wayward son” to induce feels. Too soon and too predictable! (Reasoning: Everyone was expecting it to play right there, so it would bring more tears at the end)

In the opening, after the scene where Jack says “People won’t need to pray to me or sacrifice to me”, we also see the scene from 15x19 where he says “I won’t be hands on”. Then we see the rest of the opening as it was. (Reasoning: People needed to be reminded that Jack would NOT intervene and that’s why later on, he would NOT save Dean).

We get the same montage, but when Sam takes a break from his morning run, we see him reading a message on his phone. A simple: “Hey Sam, what’s new?” from Eileen. Sam smiles fondly and begins to type a response we don’t get to see. The next scene continues the same, Sam making breakfast. (Reasoning: A text was a very simple way to show that Eileen was alive and still in communication with Sam).

The montage slowly ends as Sam enters the library (not after he sits down). He seems to be talking on the phone but we only hear an “I’ll tell him. Bye”. As he walks towards the table, he tells Dean: “Charlie says hi. Mentioned something about Stevie’s perfect scrambled eggs we have to try.” Dean’s answer is “Awesome!” (Reasoning: Just ONE line was needed to unbury Charlie and her girlfriend. ONE LINE).

Sam sits down, opens his laptop and everything continues the same. The title card shows for the last time.

YOU SEE? In the first 4 minutes they could have acknowledged that THREE WOMEN were alive and safe: Eileen, Charlie and Stevie. It wasn’t hard! Don’t blame bad writing on Covid! Now let’s continue.

Sam and Dean arrive at the Pie Fest just the same. Dean goes to get some “damn pie” and Sam takes out his phone. He dials and when someone picks up, he says “Hey, Jody, how are ya?” We don’t hear the rest of the conversation. The scene moves to Dean coming with his 6 portions of pie. Dean sits down and Sam tells him, “Talked to Jody. The other hunters haven’t had much work lately.” “That’s good, isn’t it?”, Dean says. All we get from Sam is “Yeah.” So, Dean looks at him and asks “what’s wrong?” like it happened in the episode. (Reasoning: Again, a couple of lines to make sure the people that were killed in 15x18 are safe and remembered by the boys in 15x20. Why is this important? Because they’re family!)

The conversation about Sam’s sad face happens the same. Sam is the one that mentions Cas and Jack. (Reasoning: Because this episode was so Sam-centered, it’s obvious he was the protagonist in the finale. If we see him communicating with Eileen, Charlie, and Jody, then it’s NORMAL, even expected of him to be the one to bring up Cas and Jack). Without these additions, it’s harder for people to understand that most of the finale was NOT from Dean’s POV but from Sam’s.

Dean’s “if we don’t keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing” stays the same. (Reasoning: I believe it’s necessary that the show sticks to the importance of “letting go” and “what is dead should stay dead” for the first time ever because the message is “even when you lose someone you love, you can still find some form of happiness and keep living, for you and for them, because that’s what they would have wanted”. Bringing someone back means “I can’t live without you”, and that’s just more codependency. It’s how the demon deals began in the Winchester family –Mary being the first one to do it. This would explain why Dean didn’t ask Jack to bring Cas back, as he asked Chuck. He understood Jack was NOT going to interfere anymore and accepted it. Besides, when Cas saved Dean from hell, Dean thought he didn’t deserve to be saved. This time that Cas saved him, Dean finally feels worthy enough to accept that YES, HE DESERVED TO BE SAVED ALL ALONG, just as much as he deserved to be loved by that angel of the Lord. In this scene, Dean also says that the pain is not gonna go away, which means that from HIS PERPECTIVE, it still hurts that Cas is not there. The problem is that the finale is not showing his POV but Sam’s.  

Sam pies Dean on the face just the same. (Reasoning: That part was just to avoid ending the scene on a sad note).

Everything related to the case happens exactly the same. (Reasoning: At this point, people don’t really care about the MoTW, they care about Sam and Dean).

NOTE 1: The case is important to show that even when the Winchesters are finally free of Chuck’s influence, they CHOOSE to keep hunting. It isn’t something they do out of revenge or because it is their destiny anymore. Maybe they were forced into the life at first, but they’ve learned to find joy in saving people. Being hunters is who they are. However, the fact that a job application was shown on Dean’s desk is also important because it means he was willing to explore what else was there for him besides hunting. Maybe he could find a balance? Maybe he was thinking it was time to quit? We will never know! The thing is that Sam only finds out about it when he goes into Dean’s room after his brother is dead, so maybe that’s when it hits him that Dean wanted to explore his options, and Sam starts to think it’s time for him to do the same.  

NOTE 2: I believe the masks the vampires are wearing is something we can blame on covid. If they had their faces covered, it was easier to use people from the SPN crew for some scenes, instead of using more actors unnecessarily.

NOTE 3: When Sam and Dean arrive at the barn, we get 3 visuals to remember Cas in the same scene (those are for the fandom, not for the general audience): a) the barn, obviously; b) the bag that resembles Cas’ trenchcoat so much that many people thought that’s what it was; and c) two feathers hanging on Dean’s right when he opens the trunk.

The scene with the throwing star happens the same. (Reasoning: The episode is still told from Sam’s point of view, so it makes sense that he fondly sees his brother as a man child).

Jenny the vampire? Uhhh… I mean, it’s not the best piece of writing I’ve ever seen, but it’s not the worst, so okay. That stays the same. (Reasoning: There is none, but she’s not what really ruined the finale, so whatever!)

Dean still dies impaled on a rebar. (Reasoning: OK. HERE ME OUT!!! I hate as much as everyone else that Dean is killed. I think it’s lazy writing, but that’s what we got and I can’t change that in this re-write, so if killing Dean is what we have to work around, then, memes aside, death by rebar is better and here’s why. There’s no one to blame for Dean’s death: no Chuck (the boys were willingly hunting even after Chuck was defeated), no vampires (they were all killed and were no real threat, so it was impossible for Sam to begin a quest for revenge against all vampires. What was Sam going to blame? A rebar? Can you kill it? Hunt it? NO. It was an ordinary death, a stupid accident. Just like any person can die at any moment by slipping on a banana peel. Is it a good death? No, but it’s good to know he doesn’t die trying to save Sam or Cas, because Dean Winchester is NOT willing to give up his life in exchange for anyone else’s anymore.

Sam takes out his phone and says he’ll call for help, but his phone is more visible to the audience. He dials and it’s almost to his ear when Dean stops him and Sam hesitantly hangs up. (Reasoning: People have complained that Sam didn’t call an ambulance, but actually he tried to. It’s just that people missed that part, maybe?)

After Sam puts his phone back in his pocket and says “OK” to Dean, he adds, “I’ll pray to Jack”. Dean’s immediate answer is: “No hands on, remember?” “But Dean”, Sam says, and Dean interrupts him with “OK listen to me” and tells Sam what to do with the kids they rescued. (Reasoning: Jack is God now and how come Sam didn’t remember? The viewers remembered, so it was necessary to include a line that ruled the option out and that showed Dean didn’t want Jack to intervene. The rest was fine).

The lines “You knew it was always gonna end like this for me. It was supposed to end like this, right?” disappear completely from Dean’s monologue. (Reasoning: This is the most problematic part of Dean’s dying speech. He fought God and earned free will, he is no longer controlled by fate or destiny. Accepting that he is supposed to die on a hunt regresses his character development and denies his desire to keep living. This was a total mistake and should be removed).

Instead, if going to heaven is the ending TPTB wanted to give Dean, at least he should say something more empowering. Sam tells him that both of them are going to take the kids somewhere safe. Dean answers and the scene follows like this: “No. Sammy, we made our choice, didn’t we?”, he smiles with difficulty. “We were free to write our own story and we did. We decided to keep saving people, hunting things. Because it’s what we love despite the risks.” (Reasoning: If Dean’s going to die it doesn’t have to feel like it was always meant to be that way. He should die knowing that he exerted his free will until his last breath).

The rest of the dialogue between Sam and Dean happens almost the same. Except that instead of Dean saying “‘cause when it all came down to it, it was always you and me. It’s always been you and me”, he says “’cause when it all came down to it, we’ve always had each other’s backs. Always.” And instead of Sam saying “Don’t leave me”, he says “I still can try to save you.” (Reasoning: It sounds way less codependent without diminishing the importance of their love and support for each other).

Besides, let’s change Dean’s “I’m not leaving you” for “You don’t have to be alone. You’ve still got family.” The rest stays the same word by word. (Reasoning: Dean reminds Sam that “family don’t end in blood” and there are still lots of people out there who love Sam and will be with him).

“I love you so much, my baby brother” stays exactly the same. (Reasoning: Dean always had trouble to express the big L word. I always believed and said many times that before Dean could say “I love you” to Cas or any other character, he had to say it to Sam. So, this is important as part of Dean speaking his truth).

The last part when Dean insists Sam tell him that it’s okay stays the same. (Reasoning: It’s the final moment when the codependency cycle breaks. No more running in circles).

The forehead touch between them stays the same. (Reasoning: I think I would do something similar if my sister were dying. I know there are w*ncest shippers out there, but it shouldn’t matter because the moment feels appropriate for that kind of goodbye). 

See? There are changes but not too many. That’s why I’ve been saying that it was easier to get it right, yet they still managed to screw it up.

The second montage stays the same. (Reasoning: Life goes on, but of course Sam has to mourn).

The call about a case in Austin remains the same. (Reasoning: It’s the only part of the episode where someone from the found family is mentioned, so I think that Donna’s name is perfect in that moment. However, without the other additions I’ve made in this re-write, that off-hand mention feels too little. Its purpose was to tell the viewers that if Donna was alive, so were the others, but the way the episode was executed gave us an isolated Sam, incapable of having friends and a family without Dean).  

After 30 minutes of Sam’s POV, let’s finally see the last bit of Dean’s POV that we’ll ever get.

Dean arrives in Heaven and Bobby receives him. All their conversation stays almost the same, except that after mentioning Rufus and before saying “and your mom and dad…”, Bobby adds an “Ellen and Jo let me borrow their place”. (Reasoning: If you’re gonna put the man outside the Harvelle’s place, at least mention them for Jack’s sake!).

Besides, after Bobby tells Dean that Sam will be along and that time in heaven is different, Dean gives a small smile and says, “Well, there’s no rush. I want him to have a long, happy life.” Bobby answers with: “I would expect nothing less from you, boy” and tells him he got everything he could ever want, etc., just like it happened in the episode, and finishes by asking “What are you gonna do now, Dean?” (Reasoning: It’s important we know for sure that Dean is NOT codependent anymore and that he doesn’t expect to have a miserable afterlife just because his brother is not there yet).

Instead of saying “I think I’ll go for a drive” Dean says, “I think I know what I want” and walks towards baby. Bobby still tells him to have fun. (Reasoning: “Know what I want” is ambiguous enough to help us introduce the last piece of the puzzle, the one thing Dean’s wanted for many seasons and has never been able to express).

 The biggest change is coming:

Dean gets on the Impala and has a moment of silence while he contemplates the wheel. He begins to pray: “Hey, Cas, you got your ears on? I hear you’ve been busy working on this updated Heaven with Jack. You were right about him, Cas. You had faith in him and he saved us all. You could always see the best in everyone, even when they couldn’t see it themselves. Even when I couldn’t see it myself. There’s so much I want to tell you. Maybe you can visit sometime. I hope prayer’s still a thing up here.” (Reasoning: Dean’s side of the confession was unaddressed and that was terrible writing. If there was no way to get him to speak his truth textually, at least take him as close to it as possible).

We listen to a flutter of wings and a “Hello, Dean” from the back seat. We don’t see Cas, but the camera shows us Dean’s cocky smile and he says “Took you long enough.” He turns around slowly. End of scene. (Reasoning: The flutter of wings confirms that angels have their wings back and ties that loose end. The final “hello, Dean” was highly anticipated and it made sense. If Misha couldn’t be there to film, for whatever reason, or if the problem was the kind of conversation Dean and Cas would have, then don’t show it, but leave the door open. Let us know that the two characters were reunited and will talk, but whatever Dean has to say is so private that it’s not for us to hear, only for Cas.  

We finally hear “Carry on my wayward son” and get a montage that begins with Sam playing with his kid. Then we see Dean driving, super happy, and Sam living his life to the fullest. We still get Sam’s Blurry Wife, BUT… we see pictures of Eileen in the living room (not just of John, Mary, Sam, and Dean). We also see photos of Jody, Donna, Charlie, and AU!Bobby. (Reasoning: FAMILY DON’T END IN BLOOD).

The scene where Sam is wearing the party wig and looks miserable inside the Impala is cut and nobody talks about it ever again because it never existed. We get a scene of Sam teaching his son how to fix the car instead. (Reasoning: First of all, don’t give Sam a life where years later he’s still in pain. Second of all, the fucking wig was a crime).

Sam’s dying scene stays the same. The only thing is that his son signs a couple of phrases to him before actually speaking. (Reasoning: More confirmation that Dean Jr. is Eileen’s son).

We hear the final “Evanescence-like Carry on my wayward son”. Again we see the photos and there’s family other than the Winchesters there. (Reasoning: Obvious at this point).

The rest is exactly the same. The show began with two brothers and it’s okay if the last scene is with the two brothers reunited in Heaven. At this point, the other parts of the story are acceptable enough for us to feel happy that they get to see each other again after years of a happy (after)life.

Now look me in the eye and tell me this was too hard to execute. I still think that bad writing is a thing we can’t deny here, adding to the possible meddling of the Network. Maybe Dabb wanted us to hate the finale because he couldn’t get away with what he truly wanted. If that was his intention, then kudos to him. He and The CW really gave us a finale that only 30% of the fandom liked.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this and it helps to give you some peace of mind. In my heart, this was the finale we got. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t drop the ball either.

#supernatural #15x20 #spn 15x20 #spn finale #rewrite #dean winchester #dean deserved better #cas deserved better #destiel #the characters deserved better #we deserved better #it was easier to get it right #yet they screwed up big time #alternate ending

[nealcassatiel]

Supernatural and Russia and the mess of Television Legal Contracts

One of the most important aspects of a television series’ life cycle is its distribution. It is in the stage of distribution when the production companies/studio recoup the largest amount of costs.

By looking at who distributes the show, as well as which companies stand to gain the most from distribution profits, we can gain greater understanding of the various complex agreements and finances at play.

Viewing Statistics in the USA, Russia, and other International Territories

Let’s take a look at where Supernatural is distributed, and it’s popularity in the countries in which it airs. 

After the US, in the past 30 days, Supernatural’s next biggest market is in Russia. The next is in Brazil. 

This got long - more under the cut (I’ll be talking about cuts shortly)

In Russia, Supernatural has been in the top 0.2% watched shows in Russia (link) . This is also the case in Brazil. 

In 2019, a modest survey was done on urban and rural Russians asking them what foreign television they watch. Supernatural was the 6th most mentioned foreign television show (link).

In 2017, Supernatural was three times more popular in Russia than it was in the US (link - this article has just a whole other host of information about it being popular amongst urban and rural US residents, as well as popular amongst both Republics and Democrats, however i haven’t looked further into that data so not going to discuss it much here)

So selling Supernatural to Russia and airing it in Russia is going to bring in a lot of revenue for The C*W and the production companies. That is a lucrative distribution territory and of a huge amount of importance to the network. Russia will air both new episodes, and reruns. Of course, if Supernatural made a queer love story a central premise, then execs are going to get scared that not only will the finale may not be aired in one of their biggest, if not their biggest market: Russia, but that the broadcasters who distribute the show in Russia might also pull the rest of the show and stop broadcasting reruns too. That’s a shit tonne fo distribution profits gone for The C*W, and who knows, maybe their relationship with Russian broadcasters who air their other shows will be on the rocks. After all, trying to sell gay tv to Russians right now is, sadly, never going to happen. This is not an indictment on the Russian viewers, but me saying that the show won’t be sellable to Russian broadcasters if it is too queer.

A huge huge majority of US Supernatural fans are progressive and wanted the more queer focused and found family ending. But the C*W and Warner believes that there are still enough US fans who don’t want something that progressive to be shown. They also know that one of their biggest markets is Russia, and Dean being shown to be bi will not go down well there. I’m just speculating, but The C*W may have looked at those chunks of audience who give them money and decide that they only care about those profits. 

The frustrating thing however, is that no matter the power of Russian Supernatural audiences, looking at the other progressive countries and the popularity of Supernatural there - these numbers as a collective outshine those of Russia. So maybe Russia isn’t that important. Or maybe all The C*W needed to think was ‘we don’t want to stop profits from our biggest international viewership’ and so they never even went further and thought about the collective viewership of the audiences from progressive countries. As I said at the start, distribution is where the companies who invested into making a show recoup the most costs. All the money that comes from distribution is incredibly important.

DISTRIBUTION AND CO-PRODUCTION AGREEMENTS

The writers, the crew, the actors, don’t really get the distribution profits. They may get small cuts of things or bonuses here and there, but they’re all essentially employed by the production company. It is the production company and studio who has sunken money into making the show who will get a cut of the distribution profits. So the production companies and co-production companies, the creator (maybe still if they had a good agent when they first sold the pitch), the network are all going to be the ones to care about how much a finale will matter to profits from showing reruns in less progressive countries. Dabb is an employee - he personally will be paid a fixed sum which is given to him by the production company. He does not care if SPN can’t be aired in Russia - that has no personal affect on him. He was paid to showrun the series and he’ll get nothing more even if it becomes the most watched anti-gay homophobic celebrated show in Moscow. He has no financial reason to cater to anyone. He’s just an employee. 

But if information like this, the knowledge that for multiple years TPTB have wanted Supernatural to cater to a non-progressive international and national audience for the sake of distribution profits, then the show should have never have taken the narrative to a place whose ending could not be green-lit.

If for the sake of these pofits and other secondary rights, for the sake of appeasing rural/southern USA viewers, and trying to keep an audience for Walker, The C*W derailed the final two episodes, then I still don’t fully understand why the ending was heading towards destiel when all of this distribution finance information has been known for many many years. 

It makes sense why such a terrible finale would happen, but it doesn’t make sense why up until episode 18, the entire narrative of the show was leading somewhere completely different? Why were the writers of SPN heading straight towards one thing, if they knew they always knew that they’d have to have a completely different ending? 

The Right of Final Cut / Final Cut Privilege

The answer may lie in the fact that The C*W wasn’t really paying that much attention to SPN, they couldn’t really see all the subtext, but suddenly the subtext all was going to become text and they were all twiddling their thumbs and looking for something to do during COVID when the industry shut down, so they suddenly got way more involved. 

Let’s quickly clear up who The C*W is and how they relate to SPN as a company. Supernatural lists The C*W as one of it’s distributers, but lists Warner Bros Television as a production company. When SPN started it was made by The WB (which is now The C*W). It’s all under Warner Media anyway, but we can basically say that Warner Bros Television (listed as a co-producer of SPN) is the sam as The C*W who is listed as a distributer of SPN. They’re essentially the same so The C*W is both producing and distributing SPN, as well as owning the format rights to the show - sorry that’s all complicated anyway The C*W are the big dogs who own Supernatural and have done from the beginning back when they were called The WB)

Essentially, The C*W have a co-production and distribution agreement for SPN. The power they have from that first agreement when they bought the show off Kripke is almost certainly still MASSIVE today. They are not only the ultimate distributers, but the ultimate producers with all the agreements and all the rights. 

Anyway, back to that first agreement: This was Kripke’s first big deal, and he almost certainly gave Warner Bros/The C*W a whole host of creative control in exchange for them sinking a shit tonne of money into making the show. Which makes me wonder if The C*W has something in entertainment law called “the right of final cut/final cut privilege”. If a studio or distributer has sunken a heck tonne of costs into making the series and are the ones who most need to recoup the distribution costs, then in their contract they may try to give themselves the ‘final cut privilege’ - essentially, this is the final edit. There’s the Director’s Cut, but then after that there is the Final Cut. The Final Cut is what is broadcast. Nowadays, most series and films don’t allow the directors to have final cut privilege anyway - it’s fairly rare from my understanding (one of my hats is a television legal contracts assistant, and all of these contracts still confuse me even though it’s an element of my job - I’m not trained in this outside of work so i apologise if this isn’t clear). The studio or distributer doesn’t even need to clear their final cut with the writer/director/producer. They can just do it. Cut it up and broadcast it, because they’re allowed to in their contract.

So with the finale episode being so short, a mess of montages, Carry on My Wayward Son versions back to back, a narrative mess, the pacing completely off, some scenes way too short and others way too long - this really could insinuate that the stupid clause of ‘the right of final cut’ was utilised by The C*W and without the need to get the permission or allowance of Dabb or even the other production companies, they edited everything they didn’t like out of the finale, citing their contract and the fact that they’re the ones who need to recoup distribution costs, and they don’t want to piss off large swathes of their national and international audience.

In Conclusion

So positives? Well, now that SPN is done and dusted, if there is a spin-off then this shouldn't affect distribution deals in Russia or Brazil. If whoever buys the format rights for Supernatural, allows The C*W to still sell the old series distribution rights, then market the new season of SPN not as a new season but a spin-off, then this will give them more freedom to not cater to the conservative international and national audiences SPN was beholden to due to distribution profits. What I’m saying is - a spin-off could free itself from catering to anyone who isn’t progressive. The old audiences can carry on showing reruns of SPN and completely ignore the new ‘fake’ gay spin-off. They can say that it’s a different production company, a different network - and therefore not the legitimate show. Great. Free SPN. 

A new format agreement could also mean that the new producers could ensure that not the distributer, but the director, or the new trusted production company themselves gets the Right of Final Cut. If another agreement is made, please please please take that right away from The C*W/Warner. 

The difficulty in getting the SPN rights would be caused by the mess of a Format Agreement to even get those rights... Supernatural is co-produced by Kripke Enterprises, Warner Bros. Television, Supernatural Films, and Wonderland Sound and Vision. I’m assuming Kripke Enterprises and Supernatural Films may be under Warner Media (as Warner Bros and The C*W itself is). If Jensen wanted to produce the new spin-off then his new production company is under WB/Warner Media too... so. Disentangling meddling and shitty Warner Media execs from a spin-off would be difficult because they own everyone. 

All in all, it’s easy to see now with that mess of a finale that this was caused with whoever has “The Right Of Final Cut/Final Cut Privilege’. And I HIGHLY doubt Singer or Dabb or any mere employee on the show has it. It’s more and more obvious to me that this power lies in the hands of The C*W/Warner and they didn’t even try to loop Dabb or the main cast in when making the final edits. I’m sure the C*W started to get involved at episode 19 and in the development stage of episode 20, but i’m certain they had a hand in the disastrous final cut. 

I hope we’re able to pry our beloved show out of the hands of those who don’t care about its narratives, but have more power than anyone to change the show’s narratives. Thanks for coming with me on this essay/me working out this complicated mess. It’s 00:50 and I'm super tired so I hope all this makes sense. Television contracts confuse me and I work with them so i dunno how clear any of this is. 

Anyway - I hope it was totally boring.  

#spn #supernatural #spn statistics #spn analysis #fuck the cw #fuck the finale #viewer statistics #i dont know if i find contracts interesting or dull #i haven't worked with contracts since covid happened #so i may be kinda rusty on my knowledge #but hope this was of interest nevertheless and sorry for any legal errors #supernatural finale #spn finale #tv industry #industry stuff #final cut privilege

[sidecarghost]

Kripke: Family (as a source of trauma)

Sam and Dean’s brotherhood and the dichotomy of loving your brother while also disagreeing with him on almost everything at a fundamental level.

Azazel fostering a group of special children to serve in his holy war, and John raising Sam and Dean as soldiers for his holy war.

Filial piety taken to the extreme where any agency is given up. Meg’s blind faith in Azazel and then Lucifer, and Michael’s blind faith in following through with God’s plan for the end.

John Winchester’s legacy of hate and revenge being passed down to his children, Sam and Dean.

Dean, Cas, and Micheal and the consequences of absentee fathers and their sons hopelessly trying to gain approval from them.

Found family that helps emotionally support each other with team free will Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Cas vs the toxicity of the family you are born to. Similar parallel to fate vs free will.

Gamble: Identity (roles we assume vs our authentic self)

Souls as the fundamental particle that establishes our internal compass, but also capable of being lost or weaponized.

Assuming a role at the cost of being authentic:

Dean and Lisa where Dean tries to be a better father to Ben than John was to him

Cas as God where Cas tries to be a better God than the father he never met

Sam as soulless where Sam tries to be a better hunter than John, Dean, or the Campbells ever had been

And Leviathan becoming better capitalists than humans (authentic chameleons that live their best life by assuming whatever form let’s them be the most effective predator)

Carver: Oppression (being a hero to some makes you a villain to everyone else & the only force strong enough to cure oppression is love or total annihilation of the oppressors)

Abuse of power at all levels: Hell, Heaven, Earth

Monsters are shown to be morally complex and an oppressed population

The MoL is a defunct organization of humans that oppressed monsters.

Sam and Dean as the inheritors of the MoL legacy of oppression. They are never redeemed and carry on killing monsters until the end of the series.

Cain saves his brother Abel from damnation, but the cost doomed millions. His only escape was conquering the mark because of the love of one woman.

Naomi overriding the free will of angels by reprogramming them to keep them kowtowed to her agenda for heaven. Cas is able to conquer Naomi’s reprogramming because of the love of one man.

Metatron ejects the angels of Heaven forcing them to live among the people heaven has oppressed in the name of God. The show frames Metatron as a hero and a villain because good and evil can be subjective.

Rowena as the narcissistic mother that sees Crowley as a failure because of her own failings, and attempts to emotionally manipulate and influence his role as king of hell. Eventually Rowena is redeemed by developing genuine love for her son and team free will.

Styne family as a dynasty of white supremacists trying to make a race of superior humans. Their reign of oppression ends with their annihilation by Dean.

Sam clings to faith and hope in a righteous God even though he has suffered his whole life. Sam’s relationship to faith is never resolved through the end of the series.

Light oppressing the Darkness. God’s only sister was kept entombed by her only brother. Love for each other was the only force strong enough to stop their suffering.

Dabb: Fuck if I know???? (Cw: racism, suicide ideation, rape, incest) Dabb era is the most racist era of a very racist show. Other eras were problematic, but at least they attempted to tell a story based on an interesting theme. I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a theme for Dabb that the season wide plots feed into (calling it plot is a misnomer because there really is none in s12-s15, that shit cannot be consumed serially).

Destiel is shamelessly queerbaited, because Dabb has found that the queer and queer ally portion of fandom responds favorably to these crumbs.

BMoL as oppressive but now also British, and a new bunch of white people are added to the cast, because in the Spn universe Britain is solely populated by white people.

Lucifer keeps appearing to antagonize the protagonists, even though his relevance as a legitimate antagonist ended 7+ seasons ago.

Lucifer rapes a woman by posing as her lover. This results in the birth of the Messiah and death of the woman. No one ever seeks justice for Kelly, instead they endlessly obsess over her fetus.

The actor cast as Jack, the Messiah, is yet another white person in a cast full of white people.

Alternate universes are found that are like the main universe but way more boring.

Crowley is killed because Dabb is out of ideas for the character.

Sam and Dean are only interested in finding a way back to the apocalypse universe because their mom got stuck there. They express no desire to find a way back to help the universe where humans are being exterminated. They have completely given up on altruism and are living it up as privileged white people in their bunker mansion.

Black archangel Michael is villainized and loses any of the moral complexity that white archangel Michael exhibits.

Kevin Tran (one of the few recurring PoC), reappears in the Apocalypse universe just to blow himself up as a suicide bomber.

Archangel Gabriel was being kept imprisoned by Colonel Sanders who moonlights as a prince of hell. Does any of this mini arc impact the overall narrative? No. Just more white men added to the story because Dabb can’t figure out where to take the franchise.

Mary Winchester is fridged, yet again, by another yellow eyed supernatural being, so a singular family member can go into a vindictive rage about it.

Canon bisexual God is villainized. I would say for plot reasons, but I have yet to discover anything in s15 resembling a plot.

Main universe Kevin Tran (who sacrificed everything to devote his short life to helping Sam and Dean) reveals that God sent him to Hell all those years ago. Kevin is then doomed to wander Earth as a ghost until he goes insane. At which point, white guy Sam is probably going to kill him sending him back to suffer for eternity in Hell.

Billie, a black woman, becomes Death, a primordial entity and a stronger force than God (will reap God in the end). She is villainized and killed by white men for being committed to keeping the universe in balance and adhering to the natural order. No one seeks justice for her.

W*ncest is shamelessly baited because Dabb has found the portion of fandom that prefers bros as soulmates responds favorably to these crumbs.

Romanticizing suicide in a meta attempt to inform viewers that this show has lived past its useful shelf life and keeping it alive is a punishment to be endured.

Spn Prequel: ??? Not to jinx the prequel but at least it should not be worse than Dabb era.

#Spn in a nutshell #eric kripke #sera gamble #jeremy carver #andrew dabb #bob singer #robbie thompson #jensen ackles #Spn prequel #anti andrew dabb