#if you're a heller and didn't participate in this shit this obviously isn't about you

[torturedpoetemotions]

Hello! I've been following your blog ever since the finale of The Winchesters and really love all of the metas you've done, they're all very well made.

I have a question about your thoughts on The Leak. I saw that you had made 2 vague posts about it and how the SPN side of tumblr has been treating it, namely poorly (to speak in delicate terms). I'm currently writing a piece about why potentially this attitude is going on, and why it is so pervasive. I'm asking you since you have obviously been in this fandom far longer than I have, and would like to get a second opinion from someone who may potentially have a more comprehensive view on this issue.

However, I completely understand if you don't respond to this as this is an issue that deals heavily with spoilers. I just thought you're 2 posts about it were interesting and would've liked to hear more from you about it as someone who is a diehard heller yet doesn't agree with what's been going on.

Hi hello. I am finally answering this since Good Omens 2 is now out. I didn't want to draw yet more attention to the leak ahead of time, but the time is come so here I go.

There are a lot of overlapping things factoring into some Hellers' overall reaction to the Good Omens leak and Good Omens 2 in general, but I do not have the bandwidth nor the desire to give anyone a crash course in Heller History & Psychology. It mainly comes down to the fact that Hellers, especially those who've been with the show and ship for years, are wounded more than most of us would like to admit by years of queerbaiting, and a bit defensive as a result.

Many of us are in our late 20s, early 30s, or older and grew up without ANY positive representation at all. What little visibility queer people in media were allowed to have was steeped in themes of deviance and tragedy. And the few truly joyful depictions of us that did exist were not accessible to many of us in our communities, especially before the advent of widespread internet access. As a personal example, I only saw the film Big Eden (2000) in the last five years. I didn't know it existed before then!

Queer representation only became more normalized on television once I was well into my 20s. And even then, it was only normalized within very specific limitations. A character could be introduced as queer or have a Queer Life Script type of story. But the majority of these characters were still steeped in negative stereotypes, and it was basically unheard of for a show that didn't set out to be inclusive to suddenly make one of its main characters queer in canon.

(Tangent: I still remember the first time I saw an unexpected queerness reveal on television. Two men were staring intensely at each other in the midst of an argument and I jokingly said "now kiss" at my television screen. And then they did. And after about 5 seconds of wondering if I had magical powers, my entire brain was rewired forever (it was an episode of Cold Case).)

The point is, it was really easy for a long time for general audience members and fans who didn't like Destiel as a ship to tell us we were stupid and crazy for shipping it, because they had the entire history of film and television in North America backing them up. Not to mention the cherry-picked comments of certain actors over the years, and the behavior of moderators at conventions. And many anti-hellers took full advantage of all that, and still do, and don't acknowledge at all the role that real homophobia plays in supporting their stupid little one-sided ship wars.

All of this to say, Destiel fans have every reason to be defensive and prickly.

That being said, I think malicious spreading of the GO2 leak untagged and unwarned-for was extremely shitty. Ruining something important for someone else because we couldn't have the thing we wanted is childish and self-absorbed beyond belief. Shitting on actual, canonical queer representation because it isn't the ship and show you wanted it from is just shitty, full stop.

And for what? It's not like Warner Brothers is going to wake up one morning and say "wow those Hellers really shit on every other queer rep on offer, guess that means it would be lucrative and smart from a business standpoint to resurrect a cancelled show just to give them canon Destiel after all these years!" But then let's be honest, there's no logic behind this kind of behavior. It's just meanness, bitterness, and spite. And while I sympathize with the bitterness, the meanness and spite are inexcusable.

Finally, the veiled-to-explicit accusations that Good Omens was trying to somehow supplant or copy Destiel are unspeakably stupid.

For one thing, I can think of few things further from "trying to be like Destiel" than taking a queer interpretation of a work that was not really intended by its authors and running with it full speed ahead. Supernatural is an example of how homophobia makes a story worse by flattening its characters and wasting its potential. Good Omens the show is an example of how a willingness to embrace queer interpretations of a story can give it new life and dimension.

So if anything, that's an inversion of what happened with Destiel! Supernatural is a straight man's straightwashed fanfic of a censored version of a queer story. It was forced into the closet at every turn by a homophobic network despite the efforts of queer and queer-friendly writers to course-correct throughout its 15-year run. The sheer number of bisexuals SPN took inspiration from only to straight-wash and queerbait for as long as it did is almost as ridiculous as claiming that a show that did the opposite of that was trying to emulate it.

I also find it stupid because Good Omens the book was published fifteen years before the fifteen-year hate crime that is Supernatural ever aired a single episode. The elements of queerness that the show teased out and expanded upon existed back when Eric Kripke was still what I can only imagine was an insufferable teen proto-filmbro making some poor underpaid high school English professor take up drinking to cope with his hypermasc Americana edgelord bullshit in every essay.

Much like when SPN fans started yelling that Matt Ryan's Constantine was a ripoff of Supernatural and Castiel, this is just embarrassing. If anything, the inspiration for Destiel came from Good Omens, not the other way around.

As for any worries fans express (in their adamant denials) about the Ineffable Lovers "replacing" Destiel, I have to ask...for who? Pretty sure no diehard Heller is going to burn their Castiel handprint patch from Stands as a sacrifice to the gomens gods to prove their loyalty. And anyway, nothing is ever going to approach being the "new Destiel" without at least a dozen years of will-they/won't-they slow burn angst and enemies to allies to enemies to friends to coparents to lovers shenanigans. It's just implausible! We can't even get a show to have five whole seasons anymore nowadays.

I know Destiel is important to Hellers. I'm a Heller. It's important to ME. But we aren't doing ourselves or anyone else any favors by acting like every star-crossed queer love story that comes along is somehow copying or devaluing Destiel. That is just laughably untrue. The Ineffable Lovers will never be Destiel, sure. But who ever said they were trying to be? I thought the whole explicit canonicity bit made it pretty clear that wasn't the case.

TL;DR: Hellers including me all have terminal brainworms from being gaslit since we were impressionable teenagers by Eric Kripke and all his successors, but that's no excuse to intentionally spoil big moments or be shitty about other shows giving their audience canonical queer rep. From the bottom of my Heller heart, grow the fuck up besties.

#supernatural #good omens #ineffable lovers #destiel #ship nonsense #spn fandom #hellers #if you're a heller and didn't participate in this shit this obviously isn't about you #but truly some of us do need to open ass remove head about this beloveds #ask box #anomyous