#Meta.me

[myvisualnotes]

poetics. #meta.me

[selfihateyouithink]

Hi ! A few years back, I asked you how to obtain an official autism evaluation. I finally had my result a few months ago and it was positive. I'm indeed autistic. Without people like you I may have never even knew that I was displaying symptoms of autism. So thank you ! Also, I'm three or four seasons behind on SPN and I want to binge watch all of it before the last one aires but I'm scared to see Cas suffers like always. I hope he has an happy ending at least. That's all I want.

!!!!!!! I’m so happy for you (and so sorry that I took so long to answer this - I’m not on Tumblr very often anymore). It’s always better, in my opinion, to understand yourself in things like this. If you don’t know you, it’s hard to show you, y’know? Like. It’s hard to know what you want, what you need, what you should expect and ask for from others. I’m so glad that you took my help and found yourself out like that.As to Cas, uhhhhhhhh. I wish I had good news for you, but. The last few seasons have been pretty brutal to him and his most focal relationships, and honestly, I would stop watching, if I were you, after 13x06 at the latest. I stopped at 14x06, myself, which is horrifying to describe (but if you want the spoilers, just find my tag for that episode - it’s recent). It just gets worse and worse - especially with the advent of Jack - until Castiel is most of the time, barely recognizable, and never given the respect he deserves.I don’t plan to watch S15, for a reason, honestly. I don’t think the show respects the reality of Cas, as the queer neurodivergent person he is, or as the integral part of Dean’s life (at least, if not both Dean’s and Sam’s) he is, at all, so I’m mostly just holding on until the series is over and I can try and deal with the cathartic release of all those disappointed expectations they’ve been teasing us with fulfilling for a decade.(I’m sorry to say that, I doubt he’ll have a happy ending. They may, at most, give him one where he’s written as content, but Castiel, as he was and as he would be if they respected him as he is, is suffering in silence beneath that contentment. Where there’s fraternity instead of queerness, angelhood instead of humanness, etc.That’s the primary reason I stopped watching. Jack is/was the embodiment of a path chosen away from anything that would make Castiel genuinely happy [literally, in a couple of cases] - as opposed to what the show wanted to do with him that was heedless of who he is, and what he wanted or needed - and I couldn’t stand to watch that happen to a character who’s so me.)

[selfihateyouithink]

This show really turned this moment into a way to mock fidget spinners by having the only allistic play with it, juxtaposed humorously with Sam being a “smart guy”, and all y’all can fucking talk about is how ‘cute’ it is, AWW JARED. I love how little this show or fandom cares about autistics. Except I don’t. I hate it.

[selfihateyouithink]

Having Thoughts, about how Helga/Arnold probably led directly to a lot of the fervor for Draco/Harry 

[selfihateyouithink]

What do you think about the argument that Dean is abusive to Castiel in canon? How would you refute that statement?

I wouldn’t. I don’t think he isn’t, by a lot of metrics, including my own a lot of the time. And I never argue something I don’t think is true, not ever, even if it would “help my case”. (I would, argue, it’s still probably the best relationship either has ever had. But that sad statement, relative to other relationships on other shows that aren’t defined by such frameworks and get to be healthier, is on Supernatural for setting up the situation they set up to begin with for them all. Among other things.)

I would argue, I also don’t think it exists in a vacuum. I don’t think it’s organically part of his character anymore. I think it is a box he wants to break out of, that the writers are forcing him back into, repeatedly, so as to prolong the series by making the journey towards a satisfying ending full of growth stretch out. (A good bit of this, is forcing his toxic relationship with Sam to stay the same so that people will keep tuning in for the same, stale Brothers Shit, which makes it impossible for them ever to have healthy individual lives themselves.)

I would point out how the narrative has established lots of opportunities for him to learn from that and make amends and change, lots of opportunities of him wanting to, and then, for cash-grabbing, terrible writing reasons, as per literally everything else they do, they’ve fucked it up, and he has stagnated and regressed and stayed the same, because they won’t follow through. They never follow through, especially when it comes to Dean’s relationships and Dean’s own personal growth. (So typically, fandom does it for them. We can see the box. He is not shaped like said box anymore. We write what would happen if they opened it and let him step out. They keep him inside it by sheer force of institutionally-empowered will.)

(I would also point out how many borderline abusive tropes [violence, neglect ala ignoring phone calls to enhance misunderstandings or whatever, lil semi-insulting banter, etc.] have been used in straight pairings that have then been followed through with, and ended happily and healthily because they began with a mutual reaction to each other and respect for consent. I would point out that more often than not, the use of them to begin with, is a symptom of attempted dramatization [especially in focal romantically-coded relationships] and suspense and comic relief and such. 

And then I’d point out that Supernatural is not a good enough show to do any of that delicately–keeping the characters’ verisimilitude in mind and treating them like people instead of devices, instead of making it hit like a hammer. Particularly with the irritating, artificially mischaracterizing addition of queerbaiting, that revokes most amounts of emotionally sincere, character- and relationship-related progress that typically follows dramatized violence and/or arguing and such, in many other pairings.

The latter is definitely a huge part of said box, and, the biggest part of the reason that Dean is repeatedly written as abusive, to me, instead of just like fighting with Cas or whatever, in a healthy fashion that will be resolved [see: Buffy and Angel], is because the resolution part, requires dealing with what they’ve established between them as part of their relationship, while the tension, confusion, mistrust, and separation tropes and the like, lets it perennially remain, unresolved, and “not too gay”.)

[selfihateyouithink]

oh my god have you seen yaelstiel's response abt jensen changing the line? 'dean had to comfort claire, it's okay to alter the truth a little' she had to repeat it wasn't autobiography of truth OH MY GOD i can see her barely not saying "sam erasure!!1!!"

#Long post.

Eh, no, but I’m not surprised. 

And then five minutes later, “I love my Destiel shippers :).”

Like she isn’t part of that TWO BROTHERS!!! faction, who will do literally anything to invalidate the importance of Castiel’s existence on the show. Who’ll whine about poor Sammy not getting ALL THE GLORY AND PRAISE AND LOVE cos Precious Martyr Sammy got the Big Moment falling into the Pit so he’ll forever be the Christ figure. “SAM ERASURE” because Sam isn’t THE ONLY PERSON WHO SAVED THE WORLD. “DISRESPECTING THE BROTHERS” because Sam and Dean weren’t the only. Actual. complete. bullshit.

Insidiously false neutrality ftw. I’m real tired of it too, anon.

And like. “Alter the truth.”. Cos Dean definitely isn’t telling the truth, RIGHT? 

About how Castiel has acted in ways that have saved the world several times, about how that’s his legacy as much as it is theirs, about how if Castiel had never taken Jimmy–not by choice either, but because he was forced to do what the angels wanted, and they wanted him envesseled on Earth–in S4, nobody would have been there to help them resist the angels, to be on their side in S4, to help Dean stop Lilith in 4x18, try to blow the whistle in 4x20, try to undermine his being required to get Dean to obey in 4x21 as much as he possibly could, and try to stop Sam by letting Dean get to him before he could kill Lilith in 4x22.

About how if Castiel didn’t still have the body that looks like Jimmy’s, he wouldn’t have been able to save the world–the world–by saving Sam and Dean from Zachariah, twice, in 5x01 and 5x04, by leading them out of Heaven before he could catch them in 5x16, by grabbing Adam before the angels could in 5x18, by trying to stop Dean from surrendering (yeah shitty, abusive way he did it, but it still qualifies as ‘an act meant to save the world’) also in 5x18, by destroying the Croatoan warehouse with the boys and cutting off Pestilence’s ring in 5x21, by going with Dean to the battlefield even when he was sure there was no chance in 5x22, by facing off with THE BIG HEAVEN BOSS and THE DEVIL and getting himself killed just to give them the five minutes they/Sam needed to distract and overpower Lucifer (the last of which is why Sam had the opportunity to do his big heroic Jesus-like Martyr Moment of falling in the Pit and dragging Michael with him at the last second using a stunned Lucifer’s strength).

About how he spent the entire next season doing literally everything he possibly could, constantly in danger and depressed and isolated, losing friends, losing himself, trying his damnedest just to make sure Sam and Dean didn’t have to deal with that Battle hanging over their heads again, in S6. About how he was the one, despite everyone’s fucking protests and attempts to stop him, who killed Raphael in 6x22, and his angels in 7x01, to stop the Apocalypse Part Deux from ever even coming close to happening, as in, to literally SAVE THE GODDAMN WORLD SINGLEHANDEDLY.

About how he was mired in PTSD and depression and anxiety, he was fucking terrified of Leviathan and more so, of his own possible accidental, well-intentioned harm, and yet he still made the unimaginably difficult choice to go with them to Richard Roman Enterprises in 7x23. And how he was the one who knew which Dick was the real one, who stepped in front of Dean to protect him from him, who held Dick Roman still while Dean stuck the bone in and ‘cut off the Head’–saving the world from Leviathan.

About how he, however Pyrrhic these victories were (like S7′s), was trying to lock the angels up, off of Earth, to save the human world from their battling in 8x23. About how in 9x09, he joined the war again, against many of his actual wishes, because it was endangering the world having the angels’ conflicts going on like this and he needed to be ready. About how he was the one who technically saved the world from Metatron–no matter his primary intent to save Dean and get the angels back home, by A) turning the angels against him using the P.A., and B) breaking his power source, in 9x23. 

I’m just saying. Dean isn’t fucking altering a goddamn single iota. They would have lost like 99% of the battles they’ve been in since he took Jimmy without him, and Dean knows that, so YEAH, Castiel was able to save the world, just as they were.

For once, Jensen and I are in total fucking agreement on that line change. 

Because first of all, Dean does fucking know that Castiel has saved the world, a few times now, working with them (or not). And as that one post said, he would, indeed ‘praise the bae’ for that, because he’s seen it firsthand, seen what Castiel has done, what he’s given, to get the job done. The Bros fans might find it hard to believe that Castiel was essential to saving the world, but Dean does not.

And second of all, he was trying to comfort Claire, but he was doing it with his truth, with sincerity. He’s not fibbing to her. He thinks it is worth it that Jimmy’s gone, if Castiel was able to save the world. That’s what he was taught, and sometimes it’s still in there despite how the world has worn him down into ‘fuck it let the world die if it wants to’ or (better than the former) ‘I deserve to be happy even if the world suffers a little’–in (t)his universe, it’s the world’s well-being versus your happiness, your sense of self, your family and your stability. The world. nearly. always. wins.

That’s why it’s important to point out that he doesn’t just say, “Castiel was able to save the world.” He repeats, again, “The world.” (”All of them.” - 5x11.) Because that’s one of two ends (the other being ‘protect Sammy’ and even that was taught to him as contingent on Sam not being dangerous to the world) he was told is always worth the means–especially if it only penalizes yourself, and when it comes to Castiel versus Jimmy, he believes it, and he thinks Claire should believe it too (this time).

[selfihateyouithink]

Do you think the last seven and a half people that still pretended Sam isn't Abel are doing OK right now? lmao

Lmfao, nice one anon. I’m going to go with ‘no’ and ‘good riddance’.

It’s been seven seasons and we really shouldn’t have to still have the argument that Castiel and Sam have separate while both legitimate positions in Dean’s life as people he loves (and “people who love” him—HIS WORDS) in different but similarly intense ways.

We really shouldn’t have to. And the more the narrative shoves down the throats of the people who feel we should that they’re wrong, the better.

—-

Let me reinforce it one more time, just in case it still matters, as this episode has seemingly pointed out it will.

Sam is Abel. Castiel is Colette. Cain practically outright said it (and paused very intently to taunt Dean**, ala Metatron with Cas in 9x23, about just how much it’d devastate him to kill Castiel—yet again bringing an amatonormative focus to their bond). Please find another argument to have, codependency stans. Or, maybe, after seven fucking seasons, let it go? Let Dean save himself and be happy, with the support of more than one: the brother-child he loves, and the best friend he’s in love with.

(** Before you even bring it up, “the one you couldn’t survive” has nothing to do with how Dean loves Sam best so Sam’s Colette and the one and only and Dean’s Sammy Sammy Sammy and Sam is everything and Castiel barely exists and blah blah blah blah BLAH, and everything to do with codependency, how Dean was conditioned to build himself around Sam, and thus losing Sam would disintegrate that self he’s built and leave him nothing but the Mark’s influence [especially after Castiel was dead? Sam would be the final straw for Dean to lose himself entirely]. Fucking duh. …Also I’m pretty sure Cain’s actually wrong about that to some degree, or will be, eventually, judging by Dean’s slow but apparent progress in building a separate self.)

[selfihateyouithink]

First of all, this is missing the point, as do most of those "stop using your ship as the vehicle for rep" posts. Mutually inclusive they may not be, but better representation they are inclusively. Fuck tragic queers. Fuck tokenism. Fuck that shit. The most respectful thing that could be done right now in SPN for queer people is to deliver on the narrative they subtextually have already established but thus far not yet textualized--with a happy ending, preferably, and without canonicity premiering during Demon!Dean.

Queer!Dean will never be less relevant because the romantic (/sexual) pairing already baited in which he is involved is canonized alongside his sexuality. Never. Never. Queer!Dean in a canonical queer!coded relationship that's been walking the tightrope of text exponentially more by the season will only increase the value of the representation, because fucking like it or not, a huge part of the baiting is from that relationship as well as Dean himself over many, many seasons.

Second of all, THIS is really missing the point. Like, really missing the point, in the biggest way, and frankly, this person should fuck off about talking about "romanticizing" anything if they consistently get it this wrong.

Because here's what we're "romanticizing".

--

Imagine you walk into a hospital.

A man's brother is dying, but they're trying some painful treatments to keep him alive, to get him back; the man can't take his brother's screams so he walks out into the other room where they're more muffled.

You walk into the room and see him and a clearly upset for him other "man" standing by themselves, fairly close, the first man visibly struggling not to cry while the other looks at him from over his shoulder with mournful eyes, opening his mouth to speak and hesitating, clearly not knowing how to comfort him.

The former man tries to engage the latter in conversation, clearly not wanting comfort before he's first apologized for how he alienated him, how insensitively he treated him, because of his focus on his dying brother. The latter dismisses this immediately, not even feeling it needs forgiveness because it's forgotten, of course, and instead tries to comfort him more, looking sadder all the time when the former tries to dodge this, eventually offering an actual solution to this, because maybe that'll actually be of some help more than just kindness.

The more they talk, the more you can tell, by their closeness and the way they look at each other, by the words and gestures, that they care a lot about each other. The former man's devastation over his unfortunate helplessness to remove his brother's suffering & the way he blames himself clearly breaks the latter's heart, and you can't help but think they make a great couple, supporting each other like that, alternately the other's rock or the one who relies on the strength, respecting each other's feelings in apparently equal measure even when one of them seems so much more desperately in need.

In your own chair in the room watching this, you marvel at such a sweet moment and hope they get to have more of these when one of them isn't in such a terrible situation; think it's really romantic, this wonderful interdependence and compassion they have, and hope the brother approves, imagine he does approve, since they're so clearly good for each other even when everything else is bad. You picture them standing hand-in-hand by his bed while he recovers, and him taking strength from the strength his brother can offer because he had the best support ever.

-- 

Now, fucking tell me, you would respond to that with offense, because romance can't exist while someone's family is in jeopardy and/or the mere act of noting its loveliness among agony is romanticizing the bad situation.

And when you can't tell me that, shut the fuck up unless you admit your entire purpose is to unfairly demonize Destiel shippers for seeing the romantic side of two male characters showing each other love and respect, empathy and comfort and compassion, forming a mutual support system they both sorely need, when a brother and friend is hurting and they can only watch and feel his pain.

[selfihateyouithink]

Hey I saw your response to that really awful blog about J2 not queerbaiting and I was wondering if I could ask you some advice. I'm a shipper who is confident that Destiel has a shot at canon. But I've come across many blogs (sometimes queer shippers) who have given up hope and, usually quite angrily, demand tptb be "held accountable" for what they think is actual queerbaiting, holding up as "evidence" the same story parallels and subtext that you and other meta writers (1/2)

(2/2) Believe are possible signs for Eventual canon destiel. Sometimes they can be as hurtful as non-shippers, and I just want to shake them and scream “wait and see!” So how can I, as a straight person, engage in discussion with less optimistic, possibly queer shippers on this thorny subject without coming off as a raging asshole, or should I just keep my mouth shut?

First, you absolutely must realize that you have no conceptualization (though you try /Cas voice) of what many queer people deal with, the hostility and erasure we have seen and thus been trained to expect and accept as certain. You must, must remember that all of our anger, our fear, our predicted disappointment, is as valid to us as the grass continuing to grow, and queer representation in the heroes, emerging from a narrative that has already been as hostile as Supernatural, is like a tree blooming in winter in its being possible but not predictable for us, for existence in general as we have lived it. Do you get what I mean? Be glad. Be glad you are not as aware of how much entitlement we have to muster just to ask for this romance to be realized, how much pain we go through in our faith. And understand you can’t feel what we do, so you have to listen to what we feel and not question it because you don’t relate.

You see the love story’s inevitability, the teasing PR and the structure and the of course they’re in love, without necessarily the same debilitating anxiety and cynicism we have been taught since before we even knew we were queer was the only way to survive the world we’re in: a world that hates us, if it even knows we exist. That’s where a lot of that comes from, from we queer people watching Supernatural. We are preparing ourselves for the worst because we have so much more investment than straight people can ever put in the possibility of textual representation in Dean/Cas and we have learned from a long tradition of “I think this one might actually be—no, there’s that girl-boy story (and ‘haha my super close guy friend and I could never be that!’) as always.” to expect never to get what we want. The more we want it, the more we have to steep ourselves in skepticism to protect our own health.

(It’s like we’re staring into the Mirror of Erised, and you can listen to us describe the beautiful aching desire’s achievement as we see it, but you can’t possibly be where we are in wanting it. “Men have wasted away in front of it—even gone mad.” We have to protect ourselves from the devastation of yet another disappointment— to look in the Mirror and say “that’s very likely impossible”, to you, to ourselves, to deal, sometimes.)

So when you come into the discussion and try to force optimism, you have to realize that you can never get to the same place of terrified hope we have lived in our entire (while we were about being queer: some of us wanted rep before we knew it was like us, some of us only figured out the deficit a while after we realized who we were) lives. You have to realize you will only meet entirely justified defensive anger if you try to tell us our feelings are invalid because look it’s so obvious. It’s not obvious—it could never be obvious to us, because it’s queer and queerness is so frequently made invisible to anybody but us for the protection of the status quo.

I say, offer the evidence before you offer another thought process: be like, “I know it’s totally possible this isn’t gonna happen, and wow, it sucks even beforehand that we don’t ever really get to know for sure with stories like this, but maybe? It still might be a thing? I saw some stuff that might ease your mind a bit, here.” Don’t play the “you just don’t see it, you’re too close to it!” game some play, like we’re just so irrational, we should just think about it more and stop reacting or freaking out so much. Do not under any circumstances tell us anybody involved with Supernatural is not homophobic or for sure cares about us as much as anybody else, because you don’t know that and there’s lots of evidence to the contrary in-text.

Validate our feelings first, because yours, as I said to that ass aligning with the shittier of straight people (J2 among them) in my post, are not as relevant and should not ever be put into competition with ours in a discussion that really only affects us, our community, with any kind of lasting impact. Straight people will find other queer ships, but the kind of representation issue—the kind of possibility—offered by Dean/Cas doesn’t arise every day for queer people.

And at the end, note and understand—sympathize with the fact that, some people may not change their minds or be eased by any amount of evidence. We’ve been trained to brace for a blow from popular media, and Supernatural especially has been very hostile to us before (Charlie notwithstanding). If people want to leave, want to hate the show, want to dismiss the possibility of us ever getting what we’ve fought for, what we deserve (fuck that “they’re so entitled” BS—entitlement is a mark of self esteem, and we queer people deserve a shitload more of that than we can usually access in this hateful world, okay) after we’ve been baited since S5: let them, do not try to convince them past a certain point, do not. at all. tell them they’re wrong when you don’t know yet.

Some people gotta get out, or distance themselves by hatred, and they’re more than fucking allowed—they’re entitled.

Above all, what I’d say is…react more than you aggress. Don’t go into a conversation with a pessimistic queer shipper with expectations that you’ll cure them of their exasperated disappointment: listen and try to be sensitive to them, keep in mind that you can’t get to the mindset they’re in because you aren’t them, validate their emotions, offer suggestions, evidence, not condemnation or frustration with their anger. Be careful with this conversation, straight person, because we are frequently much more raw from this continuous, year-spanning, conversation about how we get to feel about this than our jaded outlooks, frustrated fury, and numb sarcastic (witty and dry!) cynicism would often suggest.

And last of all, if someone tells you to shut up and do nothing but listen. Shut up. Listen. I’m just giving you a bit of a handbook based on what I know and have seen of other people (and lol I’m autistic in the often very social fail way, so take it with a grain of salt): I’m only one queer person in a vast sea of canon-hopeful Dean/Cas shippers, and you’ll learn how to deal with them individually much more effectively if you listen to them. We’re not a type: we’re people, individuals, and not everybody will respond to you in a way you expect or desire. 

Feel free to come back and talk to me some more, let me know how it goes! I could always learn more about how to deal with people, queer or not, as much as you could.

[selfihateyouithink]

(1/4 )So i guess you heard about a person getting band by Cliff because inane J2/bibro people spread lies? lmao I'm sorry love but I'm going to use to you know to let of my steam. I'm so fucking done with them. I'm done with people going to "mine so disappointed in the spn family" STOP IT it's not the "spn family" this shit always has the same root; Wincest/bibro/J2 stans. Who did fire Misha campaings, threw things at him, excluded him from gifts and celebrations, shame other companies

(2/4) for vaguely taking about Destiel, make sock accounts to make Destiel shippers look bad, boo queer people out publically, bully queer shippers out of events; its wincest bi bro fans. Stop ereasing their shittiness and brush it together with the rest of the fandom. Every part has it’s good and nice parts, no doubt, but they have crossed the line like no other and they STILL GET FUCKING AWAY WITH IT. How can they make sexist, homophobic comments, lie, manipulate, harass and abuse and

(3/4) nobody is fucking saying a thing but like Destiel shippers complain about queerbaiting and everybody is “OMG FUCKING DESTIEHELLERS RUINING EVERYTHING HARASSING WRITERS!11!”. When Jensen gets a twitter it’s “protect him from queerness” and not “protect him from misognistic wife hating queerphobes”. “BUT NOT ALL WINCEST BROTHER FANS” yes, then where the fuck are you? While all parts of the fanbase may have done and said some shitty things

(4/4) it’s nobody else but them that has taken things this far and it needs to stop. They are the poison of this fandom and bordline fucking dangerous. I cannot believe how much of their behaviour is motivated by petty anti ship/character hate, homophobia and jealousy with an additional god complex jfc.

I was actually just talking about this on Twitter, cos yeah, I just woke up, and factions of fandom managed to make me feel so tired again in fucking seconds after I did.

Feel free to use me in this way right now. My steam is equal to yours, I bet.

Cos here’s the long and short of it by my count:

What do they fear? Queer representation. Talk about queerbaiting, about misogyny, ableism, racism, dyadist cissexism/transphobia. Addressing the trauma of the brothers to let them have a healthier relationship (lest they gasp be unable to romanticize the abuse!). Having a female season regular! Having anybody gain as much importance as their precious fucking brothers/J2. Calling out either the brothers or J2 for doing terrible things. They fear that shit, they want it shut down. They’re terrified of losing their supremacy in this fandom, and normally I wouldn’t use that word outside of activism, but like, that’s what they’re doing, they’re protecting that.

What do we fear? Constant fucking harassment, abuse and silencing. Hate campaigns, campaigns to get “Cas” fired so the brothers have no one to rely on but each other, violent campaigns against Misha, people who want to knife us at our own con, and unjustified exile from a con for doing nothing but daring to be there and ship Destiel—even if you’re the kind of person who does believe there is a #SPNfamily (lol no #Notafamily, sorry love, there isn’t one and there really has never been one, unless it’s one like the angels, stabbing each other out of selfishness framed as righteousness) and wants to protect it with anti-bullying campaigns.

Even the kindest, sweetest Destiel shipper can’t fucking escape this crap (and I could’ve told you that; niceness won’t win any anomalous favor with these people if you still ship it [and/or want canon], no matter what they say). Slander/libel. False impersonation. Public and private bullying of all kinds (and yeah I’ve experienced this; I’ve even had people respond to me talking about Jensen being queerphobic and effemiphobic in that infamous 7x17 discussion of the “gay” scene with attempts to shut my fucking Twitter down), which I guess I said already by saying “harassment, abuse, and silencing”. It’s disgusting, and it makes me tired. 

"Entitlement" is really a thing they should be painting on their goddamn mirrors instead of aiming it at us, these queerphobic, violently oppressive and abusive, complete and utter bags of shit.

And yeah, they’re dangerous. They’re scary types of entitled, like the MRAs of this fandom (or Naomi for those of us playing the SPN home game :)) who think establishing order by abusing those who resist problematic shit into silence so their faction can reign is making the fandom “nice”. And I, too, am tired of us all being painted with the same brush, “all parts of fandom do bad shit”, when the extremist part from that end is clearly the ones who are often holding the brush while simultaneously pushing the envelope of being terrible people in both public and private sectors.

Edit: to these shitfucks, those fans have gotten really fucking good at covering their tracks, so it’ll take a bit to get the evidence, but I guarantee you you’ll look like the shortsighted assholes if/when it comes out. You’ll be on the wrong side of this, as usual (and god, you’re predictable; I knew when I answered this you’d be on my ass again, being the Ions of fandom).

P.S. “You don’t have evidence.” No, maybe not yet, with covered tracks, but we do have a little fucking thing called established past precedent.

Edit 2: to this asshole: funny how “it’s the Internet” and “so far up her ass” applies to our very evidenced history and thus, educated belief, of these people doing shit like this but not to, oh, them covering their fucking tracks after doing it and getting away with it. Suck an egg.

Edit 3: to this naive, naive person: just because they responded with much overzealous protection doesn’t mean that the risk was legit. It means that Clif’s buddies, the JtB crew, exaggerated more than we even would have expected about what Emily might do. Not surprising.

[selfihateyouithink]

I just think you really don't get me. at all. I never said it is okay to hate someone. never said it's okay to hate destiel shippers. I have no problem with the ship. I believe the brothers can fix their relationship. and please, remind me when Sam did something abusive to Dean in the last three seasons?

(If you want this private, let me know, but I’m gonna post it if you don’t.)

#Long post. #Slurs. #Casual ableism cw. #S10 spoilers.

I’m trying to, but I see you talking about how “sad :c it is that Destiel shippers hate Sam cos of their ship” instead of saying “no, actually, disliking Sam does nOT mean they ‘brought the hate on themselves’” and it’s deeply upsetting? Like, would it kill you to admit that having Sam hate on your blog at some point after he’s done something particularly awful* doesn’t mean you deserve hate for your ship? I doubt it.

(And it’s really not that simple either. A lot of Sam hate, as I sent Asks to you about, comes as backlash from the overbearing expectation of Sam stans of prioritizing the character in fucking everything. “Sam erasure” and “Dean and Cas comforting each other in 9x10/5x14 while Sam is tortured is romanticizing Sam’s pain!” and various other bullshit that tells anybody who prefers Dean and Cas as individuals, and/or ships Dean and Cas that anything they do that doesn’t think Sam first, all else later, makes them a bad fan and/or One of Those Shippers. At some point, you reach the extent that you want Sam nowhere goddamn near you because you are so tired of the Sam-centric guilt trip you get from everywhere and you just want to not care for a moment about what someone else wants you to do with/feel for their fave in order to justify what you do with/feel about yours. Tell me why your fave is likable instead of why he’s “better than me” while demanding I like him and he’s the most important in everything and I might be inclined to think on it some more, but I’m TIRED of liking Sam [most] being some kind of fan card that Sam stans can give me or take away.)

It’s not a one-way street, okay*. 9x12’s scene was fairly awesome and progressive in their relationship, but 9x13’s scene was really abusive, and no, the fact that Sam was fighting back does not make it okay or not abusive? It’s a pattern that’s existed since the first season (and before, in SPN time). “Jerk” and “bitch” being habitual for them, for instance, are indicative of a long, long tradition of back-and-forth abuse about each other’s personalities (and part of the reason it’s being transferred to Crowley is to make Crowley an embodiment of everything bad about the relationship before they start to fix it, hopefully by killing him). 

(*If you want examples from before S9, maybe look at the way Sam treated #Benny, one of the only friends Dean has made without Sam being around and without really being mutual with both of them. Yeah, okay, Sam’s slightly justified by Dean killing Amy, I guess, but where was the conversation asking why Benny was different to Dean, in a tone that didn’t suggest he’d disbelieve everything Dean said? Dean at least listened to that explanation before he went after her. There’s other stuff, too, subtler stuff, but I think Benny and 9x13 are enough for now.)

Dean makes disparaging comments about hippie Sam doing yoga or whatever; Sam makes disparaging comments about Dean’s ability to read things like GoT. Sam has always been just as abusive as Dean is, because it is the relationship, not the two of them themselves, that causes the abuse: they’re really not as awful to anybody else as as they are to each other (at least, without extenuating circumstances, like humanity hanging in the balance in S5 and S6). It is the fact that they did not choose this kind of constant, inescapable loyalty because they enjoy each other as people, and are so chained to it and resentful of the cage [and the other brother who KEEPS them there] they’re in because they feel obligated to stick around even when it’d be better for them both to leave, not to mention the fact that they don’t actually like parts of each other’s personalities but they can’t really say cos they’re stuck with them, that makes them both abusive.

Everything big bad that they’ve ever done to each other (with the exception possibly of one scene, though Sam did later reveal that part of the whole demon blood thing was to feel stronger, like he wasn’t just the little brother anymore) was because they are chained to the relationship (parent!Dean especially) and they resent it and each other for it (and like I said, that makes it even worse for them that they don’t actually like a fair bit of the way the other one is, cos they can’t say it, lest they make it harder to bear each other). The way to break the cycle they’re in is to break down the conditioned bond they have now and then they can figure out if, given the choice, they’d want to stick together anew. Cas and Dean have made that choice again and again without having to be obligated into it. Can Sam and Dean? Until they know that, until they want to be around each other instead of having to because “they’re family”, both of them are going to continue to abuse the other—in different, maybe, but still impactful ways.

It’s not as cut and dry as “Dean’s the abuser and Sam’s the victim”. The culprit here is the relationship. Look at Dean Smith and Sam Wesson, for instance; do they treat each other like that? No, because their relationship is (for some part at least—Zachariah was definitely working them toward it) by choice, without the toxic parentified codependent/counterdependent conditioning forcing them to bond and stick that way in a very specific way, with a very specific dynamic that fucks them both over. Those AU boys don’t resent each other and thus don’t treat each other with controlling words or actions or passive aggressive verbal/emotional/physical abuse. Maybe someday, once the bond they have now is disintegrated for their own good and they can feel free to choose each other (or not—that’s the important part, the choice is not weighted so they can’t say no), they can be that in this universe. Time will only tell whether they can fix the relationship (though I, too, believe they can, and undoubtedly will—seeing as, like I told you, it’s proven to be extremely lucrative).