#IF ANYONE SAYS IT I'M GOING TO SCREAM!

[bumblingbabooshka]

In 'vis a vis' Janeway doesn't mention B'Elanna in the list of people who're worried about Tom which implies that B'Elanna didn't report the fact that "Tom" grabbed her arm, called her a disappointment and broke up with her (as Janeway definitely would have mentioned it as evidence of him acting strange if she knew about it) which makes sense on several different fronts but also makes me scream and cry loud enough to break glass.

[chaggiehearts]

An offering for the fallenwings tag 🤲🏻 I love them sm

I always draw Lute with the softest expressions ever whenever I draw her looking at Vaggie pre fall :') the sweeter the love, the more painful the betrayal ig

Bonus because I've made a couple more frames for the animatic and I loved how this one looked :D (and it kinda looks like the continuation of the doodle since I basically redrew this old doodle for the animatic lmao)

[jula483]

[sharky-is-not-here]

Repost because I found out how to make the animation smoother :D

[zimszim]

the scene where the doctor tells kate that he doesn't have kids yet is such a crazy ass thing to say just randomly but i love how when kate tells him that she never knew he had a granddaughter based off of the stories her father told her as a child, he tells her "I was a different Doctor back then, Kate. Great enigma. Still can't shake it off. I'm trying." which is so heartbreaking and it crushes me because it's already so apparent how badly he wants to change from this closed off, holds everything in his heart and then one day he'll die type of person. he wants to be better than that. for himself, for his friends. and he fails sometimes too, he gets closed off, like in rogue, he just tries to move on but ruby doesn't let him. but even that, he doesn't hug her fully, with all of his grief and fear. he's still holding back, but he's trying. and it hurts him. he's trying to be open and truthful and with that openness i feel like he's realizing just how painful life is without all those fortified walls up, how deeply grief can seep into him, but inversely, how fierce he can love and hate and fear and hope!!! everything is brighter and burns hotter when those barricades are down and its for the best and worst

[softquietsteadylove]

there can't be enough thenamesh reunion fics!

may i ask for more?

Gilgamesh yanked the Warrior back by the shoulder. She tried to regain her balance but he slammed his fist against her head, creating a gust strong enough to rattle the ship windows. She went down softly.

"Oi!" The Mind Reader was quick to respond to his fallen comrade. They all had a sense of togetherness that Gilgamesh admitted he found absent within his own team (himself, the Soaring Eternal and their Prime).

Ikaris took advantage of the team's sense of protectiveness. He grasped the Speedster's armour collar with his hand, using her as a shield against the puppeteer. He fired his eyes into the dark haired one's armour, sending him through the wall. Then, the Speedster was nothing but a burden.

Gilgamesh winced as she was thrown headfirst to the ground. Ikaris wasn't stronger than him - he knew that for a fact - but he certainly acted more brutally.

"Come on," he muttered in his accent, dragging the body of the Speedster behind him as he floated over to retrieve the Mind Reader as well.

Gilgamesh stared down at the Warrior Eternal. Her body was also limp, but he could feel the Cosmic Energy thrumming within her veins. He could practically feel the rhythm of her heart, if he let himself imagine it. He didn't know what made them so different, according to Arishem.

"You want a hand with 'er or what?" Ikaris snarled at him, piling both of his catches under his arms to bring back to Ajak at the helm of the ship. He was probably just going to sling her over his shoulder, or worse, drag her.

"Go ahead," Gilgamesh grumbled, kneeling down to her. She was his defeat, and his responsibility. Ikaris floated ahead, even banging the Mind Reader's head against the door frame in his lack of care.

Her face looked so peaceful.

Gilgamesh caught himself trying to move her hair away from her face before sighing. He slipped one hand under her arm and shoulders, and the other under her knees. She folded into his grasp so easily he wasn't sure if she weighed anything at all.

"Gil."

He stared down at her, ready for another fight if she was waking again. But as he drew his arms in, all she did was relax against him--him, the enemy. He couldn't imagine why.

But her head rolled to the side, and her tiara even met the cold, hard shell of his chest plate. And yet she had a little smile on her face, as if there were no place she would rather be. He adjusted her a little before making the trip to the head of the ship as well. He did have the courtesy not to smack her head against the door, at least.

She kept calling him Gil.

No one called him that. He didn't even think of himself like that. His name was Gilgamesh, and he was the Strongest Eternal, sent by Arishem to retrieve rogue Eternals who had been tainted by the Deviants of Earth. He had never met this woman before.

But his heart ached in his chest as he carried her.

He felt conflicted fighting her. He had felt awful knocking her out. And he had felt so protective at the thought of Ikaris laying a single hand on her.

"There he is."

Gilgamesh walked in with the Warrior Eternal in his arms. He held her gently, just briefly looking at the other two piled on the floor like litter.

"Well done," Ajak said, observing the difference in technique between him and Ikaris. She waved her glowing hands.

Gilgamesh stepped back slightly as the woman in his arms floated up out of his embrace and upright. The lines of her energy signature formed around her, creating a golden cage in a sense around her.

"These will hold them until we arrive at the World Forge," Ajak clarified as the three bodies floated to their places around the statue of Arishem.

Ikaris joined Ajak again at the front window, discussing their strategy. Those two seemed close but also at odds, in a weird way. Gilgamesh turned away from them, back to the blonde.

She was beautiful.

He wasn't a traitor just for thinking so. He walked closer, looking up at her floating just off the ground. The signature of her Cosmic Energy was weaker, but he could swear he still felt it calling out to him. It was like they were cut from the same cloth.

He reached up, tucking some hair behind her ear and out of his way. It felt familiar, in a terrifying way. Her eyes didn't even flutter. Not that he wanted her to wake up.

Gilgamesh looked back at his teammates, but they were whispering among themselves. They weren't any more concerned with him than he was about them. And that was just fine. They were a team, not some cobbled together family unit.

He looked up at her again. Thena. That name had been pulsing in his head since he saw her. He wasn't sure how; she was the Warrior Eternal, deadly and traitorous. That was all he knew about her. Except her name. And that she had a sweet sounding laugh. It echoed through memories he didn't have.

He hadn't even realised he was reaching up until his fingertips met her cheek. He didn't know what he was doing. He had no explanation for it to himself, much less to his team, let alone the woman herself. Her skin was soft.

It seemed impossible, but he could have sworn to all the stars in the sky that she leaned into his touch, however much she could. He didn't press his palm to her skin. That felt...wrong--like he had no right. Just looking at her felt like a betrayal of some kind. "Thena."

The Warrior's sandy coloured eyelashes fluttered. Maybe she was stronger than Ajak had assumed. She couldn't open her eyes, but he knew they were green (somehow). "Gil."

That name again. It made his whole body burn, like his chest was on fire. He stood back from the Warrior calling for him--someone. He didn't know who she was calling out to, but it wasn't really him.

"Gilgamesh."

He turned towards his Prime, and his fellow Eternal at the window. It seemed so cold over there. He nodded, walking over silently. Only when he was further away did he realise he had been holding the Warrior Eternal's hand.

"Are you prepared to hand them over?" Ajak asked.

He frowned, "why wouldn't I be?"

Ajak was silent, but Ikaris freely scoffed at him, "y'seem awfully soft on the traitor. There's no need for the gentleman routine with faulty scum."

Gilgamesh clenched his fists at his side, but he forced himself to remember his place. "I'm curious, but I'm not confused about the mission."

"Good," Ajak concluded, ending the conversation for both of them.

Ikaris let out one last laugh at him before floating off again. Did he have to fly everywhere just for the sake of it? He could walk just fine.

Gilgamesh tried not to seem like he was watching keenly as Ikaris walked by the prisoners again. Ikaris also looked up at the Warrior Eternal, and Gilgamesh tried not to yell at his teammate to keep his distance from her.

But Ikaris kept moving, and Gilgamesh wasn't eager to admit that his chest loosened. His eyes left the figure of Thena floating limply. He blinked, finding Ajak staring at him. "What?"

She looked back at the Warrior Eternal and then back to him. "You know her."

He shook his head. "We were briefed on all of them. She was a better fighter than I could have imagined. I think that deserves some respect."

Yes, he had respect for his fellow Fighter. She seemed very much his equal, all agility where he was sturdiness. He wanted her to be treated with respect and honour, just like any good warrior.

He wanted her to be handled so delicately a flower would weep with envy.

"I agree," Ajak sufficed to say. She gave him one last look before leaning closer, "keep your mission in mind, Gilgamesh. Whatever the traitors try to whisper in your ear...remember their deception."

"I will," he assured his team leader before she too departed. He stayed at the window, looking into the vast nothingness where eventually the World Forge would come into view. He looked over his shoulder.

It wouldn't be long until he could ask her why she called him Gil.

[exausta-verytired]

this is far from the worse one it's the example I give for not being explicit but like I fully internalized the word "nymphet" when I was young I thought that was a real thing and a normal way of refering to myself because I could tell there was something different between me and the normal happy kids but I didn't know how to say "adultification, religious racism and anticomunism made men objectify me and the fact I was already 'broken' made them comfortable enough with just being another rapist instead of the first one" so I just used that instead

[settsu-hyodo]

the ikkayumi dynamic: part 1/???

[sleepy-shutin]

daily reminder that you can be a system without trauma, but you can't have DID without trauma. it's fine to call yourself a system without being sure you have trauma but if you're looking into DID specifically, you will have to come to terms with the fact that you have trauma.

[makeyouminemp3]

I'm not the first to say it but I'm gonna say it anyways cause why the hell not, right? if we're gonna take the stranger things' logic of nancy jumping in after steve being known as an "unambiguous sign of true love" or whatever, then wouldn't that mean robin is in love with nancy cause she jumped in faster after nancy than nancy did for steve or does that logic only apply for just hetero ships?

no, I'm not over this 3 months later and I never will

[dandunn]

'don't ship that, ship THIS'

'why are people focused on THAT when they could look at THIS'

'bad media literacy nuance reading comprehension-'

'why is NO-ONE writing fic about-'

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

in my head I'm just screaming at my sister STOP GETTING ON MY CASE ABOUT THE THEATRE BOY all the time

[charcubed]

I keep seeing posts that are like "interpretations of bi!Dean and gay!Dean are equally valid!" and I used to be like, sure, straight!Dean is definitely wrong but beyond that, see him how you want, who cares.

But now (esp after the Last Call script) I just don't understand the gay!Dean truthers? I follow quite a few on sm, and when I initially followed them I was like "they accept Dean is queer, that's good enough for me." But now they're really starting to get to me and it's not really worth arguing about to them, but I wanted to rant to you about it, cuz you get it.

The script literally included "gorgeous women" in the bar. Dean has canonically been sexually AND romantically attracted to women. He's based off THEE bisexual Neal Cassady.

Like I'm not really trying to defend m/w relationships (lol) but why do even queer ppl insist on erasing his identity when it's so clear? Why do they have to take that away?

Gay!Dean in AUs is one thing, but in the actual, textual canon of the show, Dean is bi. And no, gay!Dean and bi!Dean are NOT equally valid interpretations. And I don't think I'm an asshole for saying that 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sorry it took a few days to get to this. Work and life have kept me busy and tired!

Unironically and non-sarcastically, Anon, I'm glad you've seen the light and seem to understand this topic more now. You are, of course, entirely correct. And you're not an asshole for saying it either.

I'm going to take this opportunity to answer your (potentially rhetorical) questions, and also bounce off of you and lay some stuff out about this topic in general at length for the first time–despite the fact that it may turn me into public enemy #1 again. I am already hated for non-combatively voicing these facts on Twitter (this thread tends to be considered one of the "ground zeroes" of the nonexistent "debate" lol), but I have avoided being dog-piled on Tumblr so far, so... fingers crossed I can miraculously keep it that way!

My hope is that anyone who is predisposed to taking this topic very personally just moves on instead of attacking me (or subposting me?) for any of what I'm about to say. I'm also not forcing anyone to read this, before anyone's like "that's way too many words" or "it's not that serious lol."

I do think this topic is important. I've made the decision to publicly spell out why. And if anyone doesn't want to read it, that's their prerogative.

To your questions, Anon:

I think a lot of this comes down to a fandom-wide problem (all fandoms recently, not just SPN) of not understanding the difference between headcanon and canon, the dimensions as to why that distinction does have its uses and its necessity, and the value in both. I'll get into this later.

But in this fandom specifically, based on observation and lengthy conversations I've had with a dozen long-time fans who are my friends... I personally think it's maybe a new dimension of viewpoint that's branched out from a holdover of "all interpretations are valid" being the party line people have clung to a very long time. (That’s also true in other fandoms, but I think it’s especially true here.) It's a form of solace people don't want to deviate from. No one wants to be seen as or feel like the ~jerk~ who's ~invalidating another person's view of canon~ in response to someone else's knee-jerk reaction of hurt. This is a fandom with early-2000s cultural baggage and context, where people dealt with feeling like the "crazy fangirls" who shipped Destiel and dared to call out queer subtext. Misha's "You're not crazy" tweet exists for a reason. I do feel like a lot of well-meaning people–aside from misunderstanding or being ignorant to the analytical roots of this topic and why they absolutely matter–just know what it feels like to have their thoughts on queer content in a show feel "invalidated," and they don't want to be perceived as doing that to other people. And/or: they’ve felt invalidated before (in this fandom or others!), and so they’re hypersensitive to anything they perceive as doing that to them again, especially if they tied personal identity into the projections they’re making onto the media they enjoy.

I understand that people don’t want to seem ~mean~ or make waves. I also don't want to seem mean or be mean, which is why I try to be as clear as possible whenever I talk about this and I never go after people directly (or interact/reference any of the many subtweets from people who openly talk shit about me. haha). But the facts shouldn't be seen as "mean"; they are simply facts. And yes, they absolutely matter.

Because the thing is... none of the above has any bearing on the nuances of the topic at hand, the indisputable fact that Dean is bisexual in canon and that claiming otherwise is erasure, and the truth that none of this should be seen as a threat to people's headcanons. 

These are all things that people should understand, and I will not apologize for knowing that and saying it. Misunderstanding this–making the false claim that “all interpretations of Dean’s sexually are equally valid as long as you see him as queer”–is an act of bisexual erasure in this context, and it often (unintentionally!) plays into biphobic talking points. And yeah, in my opinion, that’s something people should care about because it’s worthy of both personal and fandom examination. It is, in fact, why “representation” matters at all.

Let’s not kid ourselves: the bulk of this fandom-wide discourse is about Bi Dean vs Gay Dean. So, y’know, that’s the bulk of how I’m going to address it to just get it all out there.

Right out the gate, let me clarify this: I am not saying–now or ever–that those who are self-proclaimed “Gay Dean truthers” or argue that “Dean being gay in canon is a valid interpretation” are deliberately coming from a place of malice and the intent to contribute to bisexual erasure. By all means, I’m sure most aren’t! Nonetheless, intent does not equal impact. I’ve even seen people say “I’m a Gay Dean truther and I’m bisexual, so how could I possibly be contributing to bi erasure by arguing for Gay Dean?”  But in this situation–as in any other–no one is immune from unwittingly perpetuating harm, even including bi people. And it’s important to understand why that is.

“Interpretations” are not opinions, not all are equal, and they do require some level of skill. This is not a personal attack, or a moral judgement on anyone, or somehow a threat to people’s enjoyment of a favorite character. It is just fact.

Gay Dean is not a valid possibility in canon. There is no lens that justifies an argument of it with canonical basis. I have to break down why, in order to sufficiently express why claiming otherwise is a harmful position to take, so bear with me.

(No, this is not an invitation for a Gay Dean truther to treat this like a “debate” with me or waste time writing out a counterargument. Please just exit the tab if you’re somehow here battling that urge.)

For someone to say that Dean is gay in canon, here is an incomplete list of what has to be erased, ignored, or explained away:

• His sexual attraction to, romantic love for, and relationship with Cassie.

• His sexual attraction to, romantic love for, and relationship with Lisa (whether or not one thinks she was ever the ~ultimate love of his life~, attraction and love were present.)

• His stash of and enjoyment of porn that includes women, which is referenced many times.

• The moments where he was seduced by a female-presenting monster.

• Each and every time he made a reference to or joke about his attraction to women.

• Any fling he ever had with a woman on screen, and the enjoyment he had in the process.

The man is canonically sexually and romantically attracted to women, and he has acted upon that and even enjoys that about himself in wildly diverse contexts. It is a blatant part of the text of the show. (The fact that we are at the point where this is somehow a main point of contention rather than his attraction to men does make me feel a tiny bit insane, to be honest.)

Now, in my experience (which I don’t claim is comprehensive!), the people who argue for Gay Dean tend to explain ALL of this away under some form of universal umbrella of Dean being “performative,” a variation on compulsive heterosexuality they ascribe to him. The claim or explanation tends to be that Dean was performing a mostly-faked attraction to women based on his father’s expectations and outward pressures he received in the culture of his life. Moments are often cherry-picked out of context to support this “reading.” 

Who is Dean supposedly performing FOR, even in the moments where he acts on his attraction to women when he is alone? How does this explain his significant relationships with women like Cassie and/or the legitimate visible enjoyments he received from those interactions, as well as his flings with women throughout the show? How does this explain things like the Last Call script, where Dean is very clearly written as attracted to “gorgeous women,” a factoid that is not only very clear on screen but also (of course) written in literal black and white?

(There are no sufficient answers to these rhetorical questions. Once again: please do not waste time trying to give me any.)

And what evidence are Gay Dean people using for comphet or performative Dean? The “evidence” is often a misread of canon, pointing towards the consistent theme and false goal presented in the text of the show of characters’ efforts to strive for an “apple pie life,” aka a heteronormative ideal family. Gay Dean people misrepresent what this theme and through-line in the show is actually about, which is the totality of learning to accept your life rather than striving for something ill-fitting, that what you need and want need not be mutually exclusive (family life including fulfilling romance + hunting life can coexist), family is what you make of it and how you define it, and there are no true limitations on what all of this “should” be. While these themes are inherently queer, they are not about narrow performances of masculinity, femininity, or sexual identity, but about making space for ALL forms of all of the above–AND about identifying what it is that one wants and thinks they can’t have.

Namely, for Dean, that’s a version of settling down in a life that fulfills him in every direction, with an open and honest mutual relationship with the person he is in love with. This latter point would be true whether Cas was a man or a woman (though the fact that he is a man of course adds further dimension of interest to the story). Dean doesn’t think he can have a romantic relationship / family that lasts, and by later seasons that yearning is a key part of his character. The times it didn’t work out for him weren’t because those other people were women, but rather because the “lesson” he internalized from traumatic instances of loss is that hunters don’t get to do ~the love thing~ or get the settled down life. This is stated in the text of the show multiple times, and that’s also why Dean seeing examples of hunters who made any kind of balanced life work (especially masculine queer hunters like Jesse and Cesar) is pointed and purposeful. To say it’s about comphet instead (with no sufficient canon evidence that supports that) disregards a key point that’s central to Supernatural’s story, and in my opinion it disregards it to its detriment.

For Dean’s journey in particular, it is about freedom from limitations of structure, and knowing that he contains multitudes. The things he got from John–loving classic rock and loving his car, for example–are no less core joyful parts of Dean simply because they originated from his father. Dean can love classic rock and still occasionally love a Taylor Swift song, for example. He can love cowboy movies and manly movies, and also enjoy chick-flicks. It’s the idea of learning that there are no limitations, not that masculine interests are not inherently something he loves for himself or that aren’t important parts of his identity. It’s an expansion to openly include more, not a switch or a narrowing. The same applies to his sexual attraction and his queer identity. He can be attracted to cowboys and bikers, and also be attracted to gorgeous women. Him being attracted to / loving women does not mean he cannot and does not feel attraction and love for men; likewise, him being in love with a man does not mean he wasn’t and isn’t attracted to women. 

(“Last Call,” as an episode, exists in part to drive the totality of these points home, and emphasize that Dean’s attraction to men is something he’s known about himself for most of his life and acted on previously. So is most of the queercoding and queer subtext applied to Dean–which is specifically coding him as bisexual. His attraction to men is sometimes established or made clear because it echoes his attraction to women, etc. etc. Dean’s canonical attraction to men is a whole other post.)

So here we come to why saying otherwise and trying to shoehorn a comphet narrative onto Dean in canon is harmful:

Aside from the fact that to claim Dean’s joyful attraction to women is performative is to cut out chunks of the story and is thus not supported by canon, and it relies on making assumptions about and projecting onto the text… unintentionally or not, the implication is that bisexuality is not queer enough, or that being gay is somehow “queerer” and thus more compelling and a preferred concept, and that attraction to different genders is a heterosexual / straight trait requiring removal. No one is queering a text in a more revolutionary way or unlocking a ~secret good Supernatural~ by making a bisexual man into a gay man. That’s simply not how this works.

“Preferring” an argument for Gay Dean in canon requires explaining away or misreading all of those moments Dean has with women, essentially replacing them with trauma or suffering or discomfort that–in my observations–also sometimes rely on stereotypes of gay men. It also involves potentially preferring to twist them into behaviors Dean must have universally put himself through not out of genuine joyful desire but at minimum because he felt like he “should” or at maximum in an attempt to “fix” his “gayness,” even when no one was watching. And it points to the pressures Dean experienced about living a life that fit him fully–pressures that exist not just in his world, but also in our patriarchal world and society–and it implies that queer people can’t authentically experience attraction or love to someone of a different gender, because maybe they’re actually just “performing” the heteronormative ideal. As in: a “visually queer” relationship is the end goal, right? For Dean, that’s an m/m relationship... so surely m/f matters less, or maybe it can’t be a genuine and significant part of a queer person’s life.

Once again: I do not think any of this is intentional on the part of Gay Dean truthers, nor do I think it’s done with malice. Nonetheless, these harmful biphobic viewpoints permeate these conversations and misconceptions when people say these arguments are valid.

There is no canonical basis for explaining away all of Dean’s moments with women, and the story does not provide or point to any kind of cohesive narrative reason to do so. YES, people absolutely experience comphet in real life, and those experiences are valid and exist. YES, real gay men can and do sleep with or have nuanced romantic relationships with women before realizing they’re gay later in life. No, that does not mean that’s how analysis of a fictional character in a fictional story always works, especially in regards to a story built over time like Supernatural’s unique approach and the way it was molded to place queerness and specifically bisexuality at the core of Dean’s story.

Ascribing comphet to Dean in canon–or making any other insufficient justification for explaining away his attraction to women–is personal projection. And yes, it is bisexual erasure.

This is not a position fueled by personal hurt for me, as I would say the same here whether or not I was personally bisexual. It is an acknowledgement that these conversations don’t exist in a vacuum, and that’s something everyone should care to understand. I know what comphet storylines look like in fiction, and I know they are worth defining as such, and in other fandoms I even defend that very loudly. This is not the case here, and to say it is requires mental acrobatics that are objectively unsupported by canon... and invariably insisting otherwise perpetuates one of these harmful biphobic viewpoints whether or not one realizes it.

To say Gay Dean is a legitimate read of canon–which it is not–supports people who are erasing his varied sexual and romantic attraction to a different gender simply because they’ve decided they want to ignore that. “I like the idea of Dean being gay” does not mean that he is gay in canon, and writing meta to that end is a problem. It’s not an invalidation of someone on a personal level or some weird variation of homophobia to say that, and I do think people should maybe examine why they seemingly like the idea of him being gay more than him being bi, or why they staunchly defend it (or any other “different queer reading”) as a possibility. 

I understand there may be the urge to be like “is it that serious” or “this is just a CW show,” but to that I would say… then why are we all here?

Clearly, most people do still care about queer representation on some level and understand that queer subtext is present and acknowledge that Dean isn’t straight... hence the origin of this new prevalent concept of “as long as you say Dean’s queer then it’s fine.”

But in any piece of media, the text is the text is the text. The text can also be compelling, and fascinating, and contain value whether or not it’s an exact reflection of you personally as a fan and as a person. Sometimes there is arguably even greater value in being able to find reasons to relate to the humanity of a character or in a story even though elements differ from who you are personally. It is an exercise in empathy, and it is a pillar of why humans tells stories to each other to expand our viewpoints, and it sometimes results in examining the sources of that empathy. It’s why “representation matters”: not just so we can see ourselves, but so we can see others, and find reason to empathize despite differences. There’s unquantifiable power in that, and it’s also why the diversity of queer experiences and identities should be championed and acknowledged both in fiction and in reality, not turned into a monolith. Our solidarity amongst our individual queer differences and identities is our truest version of strength and authenticity. We are not all exactly the same, and that’s a good thing. When care is taken to specifically convey that in fiction, it is worth not only acknowledgement but also defense.

So: do we or do we not care about why representation is important, and why these sorts of conversations should exist at all? About censorship of queer storylines, and diversity in the queer community, and solidarity in differences? About bisexual men, a vastly underrepresented group in fiction, and the specific censorship that affected Dean’s bi story accordingly? And about how these viewpoints people can place onto fiction through fandom-wide conversation–like implying Dean is ~queerer~ if you say he’s gay, or that you’re somehow sticking it to the CW and “straight culture” if you suggest he’s gay–can influence biphobia that translates into ways people see bi people in real life?

In other situations even in this fandom, people understand the value of diverse queer experiences. No one would dare to say that “you can argue Charlie is bisexual in canon because as long as you say she’s queer it’s fine.” Charlie is a lesbian. It’s very, very clear, and she shows and states that she is only attracted to women. Dean’s attraction to women in canon is equally clear, and is part of his bisexuality. Why is erasing that defendable?

Look: it is people’s God-given right to write whatever fic they want about “what if” variations of Dean’s sexuality through a different lens. It is not their God-given right to make things up about canon and call it analysis.

It is a universal truth that fandom is always going to take canon and mold it into other versions that they love, for their own personal reasons and in ways that have value to them. That’s why transformative works like fic exist, and it’s why fandom is awesome, and I’m glad people use aspects of their favorite stories to tell other inspired stories that are of personal significance to them. But the word transformative is used for a reason: it’s an alteration of canon. It’s not a bad thing or a personal attack on people to say that.

There is a difference between understanding canon and writing actual meta / analysis of the show, and writing AUs for ones own enjoyment and fulfillment. (This is true on AO3 or on Tumblr/Twitter. I often see posts that are positioned as “meta,” but again, are just cherry-picked weirdness.) These differences are important, as is understanding how headcanons and fic affect surrounding conversations and fandom perceptions. And this fandom seems to have a very big problem with understanding the difference between these things, while taking it extremely personally in a negative way when people try to explain why the difference matters.

Confusing analysis and transformative fandom does a disservice to both, and denying the value in the former is not only a form of anti-intellectualism but also removes some of the beauty in the latter. If we can’t distinguish and differentiate between canon and headcanon, we can’t discuss the value in understanding the canon, nor adequately discuss the artistic value and power in creating derivative variations from it in personal ways. Both are different, both are equal, both are vital, and insisting the distinction is needless hampers conversation across every space. And nowhere is that more true than when one is discussing queer representation and queer censorship, like in the case of Supernatural. Again, why are we here? Why do we care? You cannot argue for and discuss the problems of censorship sufficiently if you don’t understand what was censored–and in Dean’s case, that was his love for Cas and his bisexuality.

I leave you with this (probably unneeded) analogy:

Imagine Dean’s a zebra.

(Sorry, EDS community; not that kind of zebra.)

People are trying to say “Dean is a black and white hoofed mammal <3″ and well, that’s accurate, but that doesn’t mean him being a zebra isn’t its own unique thing. A whole bunch of people are looking at him though and saying “well I prefer to say that Dean’s a black and white horse,” because they like that viewpoint better. Close enough, right? A black and white horse is basically a zebra, right? And then there’s the people who are like “I think Dean’s a cow!” and it’s like, okay, no idea where you came from, but whatever.

The point is that those are all entirely different fucking things. They’re different animals. Someone wanting Dean to be a black and white horse doesn’t make him less of a zebra. Pretending otherwise is absolute nonsense.

This debate/discussion/discourse is equally nonsensical. That is the logic (or illogic) that applies here.

Just because Dean is “queer” doesn’t mean any queer categorization underneath that umbrella suddenly equally applies.

Dean is bisexual. And he is “queer” because he’s bisexual.

Those are the facts. 

And for the love of God, please... I really don’t think I’m an asshole for saying it.

So, to whoever made it this far: please do me the courtesy of not hating me for it or trying to bait me into a fight. 

I’m tired. Thanks.

----

EDIT: Couple of good additions!

•  @doctorprofessorsong added some good details about how some of these harmful biphobic concepts translate to real life, and real things that bi people struggle with.

• A lesbian anonymously sent in her perspective as someone who enjoys gay Dean headcanons/fic and agrees with this post, and agrees that the fact that Dean is bi in canon is important.

[ectonurites]

almost 4am can't stop thinking about the meaning of the idiom 'to have blood on [someone's] hands'—to be responsible for a person's death—combined with the fact that Zach is the one we are specifically shown with Daryl's actual blood on his hands (once for real and once in a dream)... Not Josh who had been holding the sword Daryl fell onto, but Zach who took the sword out.

[emangel2718]

Political rant in tags.

[major-fukkup]

Ahhhhhhh there's this guyyyy at work and I've been like 97% sure for a lil bit now that he LIKES likes me and we friended each other on FB recently n he just messaged me asking if I'm married or have a boyfriend and AHHHHH now I have anxiety I told him no bc it's the truth but I don't know what to say next if he asks anything else 💀