#and misha says we can write our own endings

[winchester-reload]

I have a few thoughts about the Winchesters finale, and though I wasn’t gonna weigh in on this, it turns out I needed to write this down to get it out of my head, so here we go.

I understand that Misha was approached to be included on the show and that there was a “scheduling conflict” that included multiple conversations with Jensen. Here’s my interpretation of that: 

I believe Cas was supposed to make a cameo in episode 13 to tee up the confession resolution—this was always the episode where they were going to crack open the “surprise twist” even before learning they would only get 13 episodes total. In the original scenario, episode 13 would have been the hellatus episode rather than a finale, leaving room for everything to come to a head with episode 22 instead. It’s then they would have given us the actual Dean and Cas reunion. This would have wrapped both stories nicely with each group going off into their own respective sunsets—their own happy endings, while still leaving all the room for the new crew to explore more seasons; all along, we see, The Winchesters was about Dean and Cas as much as it was about Mary and John.

When they didn’t get the back half of the season picked up, I assume they feared it would be more dangerous to show a Cas cameo without getting to address the confession, so Misha likely opted to be left out instead. With the only hint to Cas being Dean’s line that he was looking for his family when he found the Akrida, then directly drawing the parallel that Jack and Bobby were “family.” The core crew for Dean has always been Bobby, Sam, Jack, AND Cas. And he wasn’t looking for Sam because he was still on earth. So who’s left? You might be compelled to believe he was window shopping AU versions of his parents, but he confirms he ran into the Akrida in this world and then sought to interfere with the order by approaching John in an effort to prevent it from spreading to Sam's world. (Why Cas would be AU hopping, idk. The boy is really afraid of being shot down, I guess.)

It goes far to explain the vast narrative parallels we saw reflected in the Monster Club crew if it was intended as a setup for the confession payoff. It honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense otherwise. There’s no reason these people should be living Dean's experiences and regrets every episode unless the writers wanted the viewer to be thinking about the lessons and resolutions in how they relate to Dean too.

Additionally, as this has been a largely uncontested take, this is Jensen's well-funded fanfic come to life. Complete with the embracing of many of our favorite fanfic tropes and emphasized by Dean’s own words throughout the season. Because this is an obvious embrace of that “write your own story” fan side, I believe the reason Dean couldn’t even say Cas’ name in the episode is because they were going to change the spelling from “Cass” as it was in the show proper to the fan-adopted (and more accurate) spelling of “Cas,” which would have appeared in the subtitles and later the script pages.  And even that little thing right there would have been a huge giveaway to the whole game. And a very dangerous thing to do if there wasn’t going to be enough time for follow-through. 

But the truth is, this isn’t a game for many people, and the harm that can be caused by good intentions is just as real. It also begs the question: why should this be so difficult? The answer is it’s not. Edging forever isn’t fun. It’s torture. I understand there’s an art to storytelling, but your audience is weary, and trust has been violated too many times. Even still, the flip side of that coin is honest to god respect for DeanCas endgame means taking the story and the reveal seriously. It’s a tightrope walk. And one that Robbie somehow managed to keep balanced after the finale, without it falling either way.  Also we also need to consider the possibility that Jensen did pitch a full-on destiel love story spin-off but got shot down, opting to couch it in a more CW-branded world instead. He’s mentioned over half a dozen pitches were rejected. It's up to you whether you want to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

But, I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t know that we will ever get that resolution we crave. Even Robbie confirmed The Winchesters were always meant to “go it alone” after the first season. It’s hard to imagine Dean popping in there to fuck around again after that handoff. But the dude is clearly a very restless sea-faring*, swoopy-haired mofo right now, so I’ll leave that one up to the SPN multiverse and the new Mr. Superwholock’s magical universe-traveling impala. (This show used to be about what again? *looks at notes*.) And FWIW, if they do get green-lit for a whole second season or are allowed to move networks, I believe a good-faith effort will be made to tie the narrative parallels we saw in season one to some real Dean and Cas resolution. If there gets to be a world where John *might* not turn into an abusive dick, then this possibility has to be true too.

For the record, I enjoyed The Winchesters, all the new characters, and the doors the finale opened for the possibility of more. I would have been fine half-watching it with no promises, empty head no thoughts, but I got my clown** suit on again, and though I mostly kept quiet, unlike last time, I did regrettably manage to drag a few friends down with me yet again.  Though the spec sessions were epic, and we did get some art out of it—it still rocks the boat when the base level expectations were only 1. Dean alive, and 2. seeing Cas again. 

But for anyone, like me, upset by the (likely unintentional) Cas-baiting or anyone still reeling about why this stuff can hit so hard, here’s an interesting article about the way our brains respond to fictional characters. Tl;dr: There’s nothing wrong with you. This is science. And while you’re at it, take a look at this article about the very real power of disenfranchised grief over character loss.

Ramble on, fam. And take care of yourselves.

<3 Jackie

*Um hi he appears as a sailor? Literally, on a show with a story Dean is writing whose audience is looking for a resolution to a conversation between two people who’re famously the “most shipped” characters of all time? That’s not an accident. That’s intentional. And it’s another reason why there might be a bitter taste in your mouth. These nods came without resolution, so it still feels dirty, despite the brilliant Easter egg.

**I hesitate to say “clown” here because the lesson on episode 12 was that the clowns were the ones who chose a self-induced limbo rather than face some personal hard revelations. That sounds more like a certain closeted character than it does the people cheering him on, and that felt like an intentional nod too.

***obviously, this is my own rambling spec as I try to reorder my thoughts in the wake of the finale.

[itsclydebitches]

With all the talk about Blake's bisexuality lately, I wanted to revisit the stream where this is "confirmed." I think it's really important not only that Blake's sexuality hasn't been confirmed in canon yet -- a fact which RWDE fans have explained ad nauseum and I won't rehash here -- but that our external "confirmation" is so tentative that it still leaves room for doubt. And that right there is the problem.

That video includes:

Arryn initially ignoring Blake's sexuality as a similarity between them because she "wasn't sure she was allowed to say that." If this were a 100% confirmed, established, 'We planned it from the beginning' bit of characterization, there wouldn't be any hesitation about what they're "allowed" to discuss in a stream. I'd understand the hesitation a little better if Blake/Yang were getting confirmed in the upcoming Volume and the crew was avoiding spoilers... but that wasn't the case.

"I think it's pretty obvious." You're either confirming a fact or you're not. Why the emphasis on what the audience should "obviously" be taking away? And as established, after the Golden Age of Queerbaiting there is no "obvious" reading when homophobic writers and executives can dodge a confirmation at any time.

"I confirm nor deny canonically, but in my headcanon? Oh, that's a whole other story!" This is LITERALLY dodging a confirmation. We are told outright that the crew cannot confirm that Blake is canonically bisexual, but they do support it in their own, RWBY imaginings. That's great! That's also, as explicitly stated, not canon.

The video link I could most easily find is attached to a RWBY Reddit thread titled "Arryn has basically confirmed once and for all that Blake is bisexual." There should be no "basically" in that sentence.

This is why so many fans are wary: because these kinds of "obvious" implications without an explicit confirmation is the definition of queerbaiting. That's what you do if you want your audience to stick around without actually producing a queer relationship. You put a blush here, a forehead touch there, a nudge-nudge-wink-wink from a VA, a comment about bisexual bobs, a ship-inspired song, a "Wait and see ;)" and, and, and ... and then you end the show with nothing ever coming of it. Or, it's a last moment addition so the writers never have to actually write the relationship. This is why Supernatural was (and in many ways still is) the most overt example of queerbaiting. It's not because fans saw the potential for a relationship between Cas and Dean, but the writers never capitalized on it; it's because the writers LOADED the story with "obvious" references and innuendos, spent YEARS having Misha, Jensen, and other cast members talk about the "obvious" love between them... and then just continued on their merry way for fourteen years, doing nothing with it, before throwing out a one-sided confession + death in the final hour. Fans were taught precisely how "obvious" a queer character can be without actually existing.

As a bisexual woman watching RWBY, I want confirmation of this relationship and, furthermore, I have more hope for one than I would have a decade ago. I'd be more willing to put my money on these "obvious" references amounting to something in 2023 than I would have back in 2005. But those of us who are old enough to have been active in fandom during that time know that just because many shows have gotten better about their queer rep doesn't mean that every show is going to follow in their footsteps. I do wonder how many fans who take a "basically" as undeniable confirmation are on the younger side, with "younger" meaning... under 25? Because I can't imagine anyone who was immersed in popular media back then coming in with such confident takes built on so very little, or having such faith in a company with RT's reputation. We've been blessed with the likes of She-Ra, Owl House, Steven Universe, The Last of Us, and a wealth of other stories that have fought for and/or introduced queer rep, and I wonder if those raised on that bounty literally can't picture a show that would tease a popular ship so extensively and not bring it to fruition. The unexpected downside of getting more canonical rep is that there's a generation of viewers who are ignorant -- or at least appear ignorant -- of the history that gave us shows like Supernatural, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Buffy. And if you're older still, you're familiar with the age of television when a canonically queer character wasn't even a possibility, but that didn't stop writers from both building the show around fans' desire for representation. Sometimes that was done kindly with coding that, legitimately, was the most they could hope to air and showcased the writers' own desire to diversify television... and sometimes it was cruel.

I've said a hundred times that I hope Blake/Yang shippers aren't hurt in the way so many older fans have been, either due to deliberate queerbaiting, or RWBY getting cancelled before a relationship can truly develop. We all deserve to have such prominent confidence in writers treating their queer characters well. But we can't allow hope or personal certainty to blind us to reality, not when that's resulting in a completely unnecessary antagonism within the fandom. And the reality is that no, Blake hasn't been confirmed in the show and her "confirmation" outside of it does not meet many fans' standards -- for very understandable reasons. I can say categorically that I have never seen anyone erase Blake's bi identity because that identity doesn't truly exist yet. The ambiguity of her attraction to Yang is precisely why queerbaiting is a problem and why RWDE folks call so loudly for a 100% canonical relationship: it's too easy to shrug off such moments as a "sisterly" thing, to use the unfortunate words of Arrowfell. And if you scoff and go, "What? Sister don't act like that!" then you don't understand queerbaiting. You don't understand the history of shows writing THE most "obvious" coding you've ever laid your queer little eyes on and then going nowhere with it. That's the point. That's the point! The entire point is to make the relationship as "obvious" as possible so that fans will stick around, praise the show, celebrate rep early, push everyone else to watch it...

...and then fall apart when the relationship never happens.

I hope to god that's not RWBY's future, but after three years of just a single hint each (hand-holding, blush, Blake's fury over Yang's "death") and the lack of hints in the Volume 9 trailer, please don't go after fans who don't have unwavering confidence in the girls' queerness being canonical. Posts that acknowledge Blake's attraction to men, ambiguous attraction to Yang, or point out the comparative wealth of straight confirmation compared to the queer coding aren't attacking queer fans. Those posts are written by queer fans who know precisely how quickly the "obvious" ship can get tossed aside. Or worse, the queer character never really confirmed as queer in the end.

RWBY can ditch Blake/Yang. They can shrug and say that a bi Blake was just Arryn's headcanon -- weren't you listening when we said it wasn't canon? They can make sweet apologies and explain that they never intended the animators to make that so romance coded. You know, just like they never meant for Clover to wink at Qrow. Real talk: I personally can't imagine having this much faith in the show after that fiasco. We got the EXACT same kind of coding (wink + bashful look + "obvious" romance tropes like their opposite semblances) and the ending was Clover dying a bloody death, Qrow hating him, and the writers backpedaling from the idea of an attraction like nobody's business. That set off SIREN alarms in every RWBY fan I know who understands queerbaiting history, but so many others appear ignorant to the warning signs. I'm not saying examples like this means we won't get queer rep in the title team, I'm saying it explains others' hesitation. RT has made no promises, is not beholden to their fanbase, and does not have a good history with its queer rep or its queer employees. If you're a queer fan who has confidence in bi Blake in the face of all that, fantastic, more power to you, but those who are wary aren't your enemy. They're also queer fans, just those who have been burned enough in the past and have learned not to put their whole heart into what they might not get. What we're likely to get? Probably, but you know what they say about counting chickens...

I just wish fandom was better about learning from these past experiences -- listening to older fans and acknowledging that history with an open mind -- rather than learning through another awful, first-hand experience. Though I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that this never happens, I wonder how many RWBY fans might be fruitlessly warning others someday if their queer rep crashes and burns.

[rennerator]

A little bit of what I am feeling

So, based on this post here:

I was going to write this as a reply to it, but I thought it would be better as my own post here. (It is a BIG POST)

I agree with what the anon was saying there and I wanted to add my opinion to it.

And, just to clarify, this is NOT a "competition" or anything like that!

I LOVE Jensen, unfortunately whenever we have the opportunity to interact with him about Supernatural (sadly, only CE cons nowadays, here is hoping for a breath of fresh air on JIB), the topics of Destiel or even CASTIEL are almost never brought up (excluding that Cockles panel that we had cause that happened on the spot when Misha brought it up to answer the question), and yeah, multiple factors can be pointed out, like the panels, and the person accompaning him on those, and the audience, and PR, and the company... Sadly, there is ALWAYS something… I am just TIRED of, in the end, it "relying" on Misha to be the one that talks/answers about anything related to Destiel AND with it, him always getting the short end of the stick and the hate when something goes wrong, he could just NOT talk about it and not interact with it, some may say, but that is the thing, if he doesn't then who will? Jensen doesn't get involved with the subject on his panels because of the envirionment and the company there... The panels are mostly focused on J--2 and Sam and Dean (Creation probably having a say on this) which DEFINITELY doesn't help cause then the other side think that they are on the right and that even J--2 support them and also think that it is only about their sibling ship...

I also don't understand how they (Creation) continuously do that B*rn Photo OP ROMANTICIZING Dean's death if Jensen himself has already said that Dean's death is something that he still struggles with... They (Creation) veto LOTS of things, why not that one? Because we ALL KNOW that while the OPs can say that they are asking for it as a "Brothers moment", it is so NOT about THAT at all! (according to some of them, sooner or later those two are going to kiss, in fact they can't wait for that to happen, it seems...) And unfortunately, I saw the latest one of those, that happened on this weekend's con, and... Yeah... So what gets me is that THAT is allowed but to talk about a CANON moment (at least from Cas' side) that happened on the show, is not, cause it is uncomfortable... SERIOUSLY, are you telling me that talking about a gay angel is more uncomfortable than those Photo OPs?? (Again, this is relating to Creation and the vetos)

Jensen doesn't NEED to confirm Destiel from Dean's side if, for any reason, he can't or doesn't want to(although it is CONFIRMED to me THAT they BOTH LOVE EACH OTHER and NO ONE will take THAT AWAY FROM ME), I just would LIKE to HEAR his thoughts about it like the normal thing that it is, if not as lovers AT LEAST as BEST FRIENDS.... Instead of it being seeing/portrayed (by Creation) as this "BANNED THING" that should never be spoken about…

The way we have been treated (at least it feels that way to me) is like we are INSANE, we are DELUSIONAL, we FORCE our SHIP, we are THE HORRIBLE AWFUL fans that are ALWAYS ruining it... The SPN production ALREADY said "F* YOU, you don't matter" to us with that HORRENDUOS FIASCO OF A FINALE, but THEN to be "forced" to hear about how the Finale was PERFECTION and it was the BEST THING that happened to Sam and Dean and all that (PR or not), when they KNEW that the Finale HURT LOTS of FANS; to CONTINUE to be TREATED LIKE we DON'T MATTER, like we are NOT WORTH talking with or about unless it is for jokes; to exclude us and the characters that we like; and make it that there is ONLY Sam and Dean and "everything" related to them is allowed, but almost EVERYTHING related to Destiel/Cas/Misha (even some fanarts and questions) is not; and how fans of Destiel/Misha/Cas are treated badly not only by the other side BUT ALSO by the organizers, when they put people that are DEFINITELY AGAINST them as handlers for the things that these fans will be interacting with... It HURTS us EVEN MORE... Punishing US and making US be seen as the ones FORCING it on them WHEN THEY were the ones that made it happen, is not fair…

Misha was THERE for US, he LISTENED, he ANSWERED, he TALKED to us, he MADE US FEEL SEEN, he made us feel like we MATTER, he SUPPORTED us and OUR ARTS and OUR LOVE (at least, I FELT all of that)!!! He received SO MUCH SH* ALREADY JUST BY DOING THAT, BY STANDING BY OUR SIDE... Why is HE the one that is ALWAYS gettting THE HATE? Why is HE the one ALWAYS at FAULT??? THAT is SO NOT FAIR to him, one of the ONLY ONES that had our backs for all this time and that FOUGHT for us and HE is the one that "fans" don't think TWICE about ATTACKING and saying HATEFUL things to and being horrible to…

Don't get me WRONG, I am NOT saying to hate on Jensen, nor that it is all Jensen's fault, NOT AT ALL, HATE IS NOT THE SOLUTION and it is NOT all his fault EITHER!! I just WISH he would able to show us, fans, more support, I wish he would try (talking to Creation maybe?) to make a LITTLE TIME for us, and to TALK to us, NOT in a TOXIC OPPRESIVE ENVIRONMENT where if you say Cas/Misha/Destiel name in it (or even ask a question about just Jensen/Dean) you will DEFINITELY at least be the target of hateful glares and "ruin the mood" AND will not even receive an honest answer most of the time… But in an environment that we could feel like we belong, we could feel safe, a Panel with Jensen and/or someone else, not necessarily Misha, but at least a Panel where Jensen can talk freely about other things that are not just the boring "same old same old" just to please THAT audience, but I THINK that it HAS to come from HIM, he needs to be the one that wants to do it, you know, and sadly, I can't help but feel like he is comfortable with what he has right now... Being it because of the contract that he has, his projects, being it because of the industry in itself, or other things that might factor in. I am still hopeful that MAYBE we will FINALLY get that when that whole "division" thing happens, but, like, we shouldn't have to "wait" until then when there are others basking on the luxury of doing whatever they want and how they want it disregarding common etiquette and respect... And the little moments and confirmations that we get whenever someone gives Jensen an autograph item that has Destiel in it or a Photo OP with something related to Destiel and he smiles or says something about it are CUTE and LOVELY but I don't think they are enough, they still make us (at least me) feel like a secret, a thing to be "ashamed" of when we are only acknowledge there, at that moment…

I just wish people would be MORE considerate of Misha and of EVERYTHING that he has GONE THROUGH for us, EVERYTHING that he has DONE for us , for us to feel at HOME, for us to feel LOVED and that WE MATTER and that OUR OPINIONS MATTER, and that OUR LOVE MATTERS!

Sorry for the rant, but I just wanted to let this out of my chest. EDIT: Just a little bit of editing here, I want to make sure that people understand that the topics related to the change/choices in panels and the "being uncomfortable" parts are regarding CE (Creation) not Jensen, because the company is the one that makes the schedules and decides mostly what is vetoed and what is not! They are the ones that should make sure the environment that fans are paying to be in IS a SAFE ONE! English is not my main language, and I am sorry if sometimes my point might come across as rude or something like that, it is not my intention at all! My PMs are open, feel free to come talk to me about any doubts on what I said here! I LOVE THOSE TWO GUYS so F* MUCH and I just want happiness for them and for us! :)

[clairenatural]

destiel, 1.4k. another post-series (15x20 coda?) of the Heaven reunion, this one with trueform!cas :)

“Cas helped.”

Dean looks up at that, and Bobby is looking at him with an easy smile, and Dean waits for the inevitable rush of oh God does he know—but it doesn’t come. He starts to understand what this “at peace” thing is all about.

“Yeah?” he answers, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Is he, uh. Here?”

Bobby turns his smirk back on his beer bottle. “He’ll be along.”

Dean looks from Bobby to the impala, sitting clean and shiny in front of Harvelle’s, and then on to the dirt road that stretches off into the distance. He nods, begins to stand. “I’m gonna go for a drive,” he mumbles to Bobby, who just nods absently and watches him leave.

The Impala is warm, familiar. Grounding. The keys are on the passenger seat, on top of the same box of cassette tapes he’d had since he was 26. He’s glad to have it with him—he hopes Sam is taking good care of the real thing. He hopes Sam has Eileen riding shotgun, Miracle panting in the back. He smiles. They’re all in good hands.

Dean turns on the stereo and the opening bars of Ramble On fill the car, and he realizes the tape playing is the only one that hasn’t been in the box from the beginning. It makes his heart ache—he’s not meant to be listening to this alone. More than anything, though, it reminds him what—who—he’s driving to.

He’ll be along.

Dean drives for what feels like hours but could only be a few minutes—and time doesn’t really exist up here, anyway. He just drives, and the scenery around him shifts with every passing mile, and he doesn’t know where he’s going but he knows he’s driving until.

Until ends up being a field off the highway that opens up in front of him as he turns the bend. The sky darkens as he pulls up, and it’s a clearer night sky than he’d ever seen down below, and it looks just like one of the fields Cas would always make him pull over at on the way back from a hunt, just for a few minutes, just to see the stars.

He pulls the car into the shoulder and steps out, walks until he’s in the middle of the field, and stops. He looks up—but he is up, and how do you pray to a place you’re already in?

“Cas—” he starts, but he’s barely done with the syllable before a cold wind blows past him and he feels something behind him. A presence. Him.

Okay, so maybe he was overthinking the praying part.

Dean turns slowly, and all his breath leaves his body at the sight of the angel before him. He doesn’t know what he was expecting—he’s in Heaven, obviously, and angels, well—this is just what they look like. And this angel, well—

Castiel is towering. Approximately the size of your Chrysler building, Dean remembers. He’s many-headed, a mass of wings and eyes, a being made of pure light. Dean half expects him to start with be not afraid, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t say anything—and Dean isn’t afraid. This is right, he thinks. This is beautiful.

“Castiel,” Dean breathes, the full name leaving his lips for the first time in years, and the angel glows brighter at the sound of it.

Hello, Dean. He speaks without speaking, as if the words are being projected straight into Dean’s mind. His whole body reverberates with them. You’re early.

Dean smiles, and it’s a bittersweet thing. “Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t too eager to get up here, either.”

He can’t explain what, but something about the angel feels sad.

“You, uh—last time, you kinda left in a rush. Didn’t let me say anything,” he continues, both to shut down any more death talk and also because if he doesn’t say anything now he’ll chicken out for another century.

My apologies. I wasn’t intending on seeing you again.

Dean throws both his arms out. “That’s the point, man! You can’t just drop something like that on a guy and die.” There’s something almost absurd about chastising an Angel of the Lord in his true form, but Dean doesn’t care. His whole damn life had been absurd.

There’s a silence. Dean can almost see the way Cas would be shifting on his feet, if he still had feet to shift on.

I’ll try not to do it again, he says, finally, and Dean can’t help but grin.

“Yeah, you better not. At least not without letting me tell you that I love you too, you asshole.”

There wasn’t much sound to begin with, but any ambient noise around stops. For the first time since he arrived Heaven is silent, except for a low buzzing he slowly realizes is coming from the being in front of him. He suddenly remembers sparks of electricity and shattering lightbulbs.  

You love me?

Dean laughs again, nervous now. “Yeah, I do. I mean—I have. You know. For…a while.”

There’s another moment that is too still, too quiet, before Castiel moves—something that could be a wing reaches out for him, and Dean should be terrified, but he’s not. He lets the light touch his cheek and closes his eyes. It’s warm. It’s pure.

Slowly, the light-wing becomes more and more solid, more and more hand-shaped, until Dean feels the weight of a human palm on his face. He opens his eyes and meets familiar blue ones. He grins. “Heya, Cas.”

There’s still an apprehension in Cas’ eyes, which Dean hates. “You love me,” he repeats, out loud this time.

“Yeah,” Dean confirms.

“I don’t understand.” Cas drops his hand from Dean’s face but Dean catches it in his own, links their fingers together.

“It’s three words, Cas. Pretty self-explanatory.”

“But you said it to my true—to me.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah, dumbass. I love you.”

Cas is still staring at him like something isn’t clicking. He takes a deep breath. “Dean, you know that—what I said, just saying it, that was enough…I don’t need you to—"

“Hey, Cas?” Dean cuts him off, and he stops rambling. “You know what you said, about wanting something you can’t have?”

Cas nods.

“I’m telling you that you can have it.”

Cas blinks at him, and then it’s like everything slides into place, and he’s grinning and reaching back up for Dean’s face, and then—then they’re kissing. Dean is in literal Heaven, kissing an angel, and it’s—well. It’s perfect.

When they finally move apart, it’s not far, and Cas doesn’t drop his hands. Dean leans their foreheads together and they stay there, breathing together, until Cas breaks the silence.

“I was going to come back.” Dean has his eyes closed but he opens them at that.

“Hmm?”

“I was going to come back,” Cas repeats, louder this time, pulling back enough to look Dean in the eye. “Dean, I promise—Jack needed help repairing Heaven, but after that I was going to come back to you. And Sam. I just didn’t expect—”

Dean gets it. He does. “Hey, I didn’t either.”

Cas shakes his head, as if Dean isn’t getting it. “Yes, but, if I had been there—”

And nope. No. They’re not going there. “Cas,” Dean cuts him off, stern but not unkind. “It’s okay. You weren’t, and it happened, and that’s—it’s okay.”

“Is it?” Cas is staring at him, earnest and sad, and the sadness is heavy, and—well. No, it’s not.

“It’s not—I ain’t too thrilled about being dead, alright? But it also ain’t your fault, and I figure I’ve got an eternity to mourn myself, so…” Dean tightens his hold around Cas’ waist. “Can we just. Have this, right now?”

Cas smiles at him, and it’s still sad, but it’s a start. He strokes his thumb along Dean’s cheekbone. “We can have it forever,” he promises. 

Dean smiles back as he leans in again.

[naruhearts]

I’m done keeping my composure.

Sorry, this will be a LOADED post! (And I’ll be repeating the points others have made)

for real, to everyone being nasty and telling heartbroken fans that “Dean was always supposed to die get a grip you’re just butthurt etcetera etcetera—” F you royally.

How dare you police the brutal feelings that’s been embroiling us since the Finale That Must Not Be Named aired. 

The show you think you all watched, the show you all believe was the same SPN from Season 1-4, changed at some point. Kripke wrote his original vision, put it to screen, saw it through in S5 as he intended, and closed the door on that era.

In 2008, Supernatural was adopted and inherited. As you know, there was a supreme paradigm shift post-Kripke era. The show FLOURISHED (we won’t talk about Gamble thanks). It evolved, transformed, grew beyond trauma-induced self-worthlessness and toxic masculinity and endless death and hegemonic social ideals and conservatism and repressive anti-revolutionary ideas. Castiel, the iconic favourite and beloved staple of the series portrayed by Misha Collins, was introduced in Season 4 as the core lead character, and he ushered in a brand new era of Christian mythos that SPN took advantage of. Longevity SKYROCKETED. Audiences were INTERESTED. SPN amassed an incredibly groundbreaking fanbase infused by non-nuclear principles. A massive subversive wave began, fighting the Status Quo of the times since 2008. It’s precisely why such an abysmal ending to a show of extensive Freud-Jungian metanarratively meta META complex stature and social POWER will render us totally and unbearably broken for years to come.

Point is, DEAN WINCHESTER NO LONGER WANTED TO DIE. HE WANTED TO LIVE. HE WANTED TO SIT ON THE BEACH, PLUNGE HIS TOES IN THE SAND, AND SIP UMBRELLA DRINKS WITH HIS BROTHER AND HIS BEST FRIEND. He said this in Season 13. And then, a season later, he told the ghost of his long-deceased father — the source of his deep-running trauma and the figure of self-reductive authoritarianism permeating his arc since Season 1 — after being questioned why he didn’t pursue the Nuclear Fam, that he already has his own: his brother Sam, his adopted child Jack, and Cas.

Dean’s best friend Cas. Oh god, Cas, who made his inevitably permanent mark on Dean’s soul beyond allyship. Castiel, renamed to Cas, God’s -iel removed by Dean. Dean, the human spark that lit the fire of pre-existing autonomy in the inherently rebellious angel who was, this entire time, the catalyst for free will in God The Writer’s puppet show. Their friendship set on goddamn fire. I can also write paragraph upon paragraph about my love for Cas while devastated tears stream down my face, but I digress—

Cas’ romantic love for Dean pushed our main Heart of SPN to love himself. Love is free will. Free will is also love. Of note, Cas’ love confession in 15x18 was supposed to offset something so vastly important and fundamental...to maybe (read: most likely) pull the trigger on SELF-TRUTHS in conjunction with free will. And The Great Anticipated Follow-Up to the episode penned by the passionate Berens should have included (read: seemed like it was going to be) Dean, closeted trauma survivor in love with his best friend, being given the opportunity to do it right: to SPEAK HIS TRUTH, and then that very singular opportunity was STOLEN so grossly. After poring over it for days, I refuse to believe we made their years-long story up out of thin air, spun it out of fantastical-delusional dream cotton candy, because we DIDN’T. IT WAS REAL.

As I said in another post: “I’ve just been feeling physically ill for the past >40 something hours with the terrible knowledge that 19/20 undid years of vital progression towards healthy interdependence, autonomy, and a positive endgame, where Sam, Dean and Cas close the ring of found family in final empowering self-fulfillment...where Dean, no longer repressed and set free, is able to use his words and speak his truth as a queercoded trauma survivor, henceforth confirming and self-affirming his own bisexuality since S1 by reciprocating — by telling Cas that he always loved him, too, loved him endlessly, which would have altogether divested Supernatural of its cult status and catapulted it into global worldwide significance as the longest running sci-fi genre show in American broadcasting history that actually dared to defy and, by proxy, empower LGBTQ2IA+ everywhere who found profound personal meaning in Destiel through VALIDATION,” — found themselves mirrored in Dean and Cas’ respective character journeys individually and as each other’s queer love interests.

THIS IS WHY DEAN WASN’T MEANT TO DIE.

THEY WERE SO ESSENTIAL, NOT JUST TO THE OVERARCHING STORY AND HEALTHY INTERPERSONAL THEMATICS OF MODERN SPN, BUT ALSO TO THE SOULS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD WHO FOLLOWED THEIR JOURNEYS, HOPED FOR THEM, ASPIRED TO BE LIKE THEM, TREASURED THEM, WEEPED FOR THEM, AND FOUGHT FOR THEM, LIKE YOU AND ME.

Heck, how could anyone think Sam Winchester had a well-deserved characteristic ending? He didn’t. Dean’s brother was shafted so badly. He stopped hunting when seasons ago, he had canonically accepted that he no longer wanted an apple pie life. He simply...turned the lights off in a resoundingly empty bunker and left — abandoning his dead brother’s room — never to return (he did return later to get the Impala, family photos etc, I mean this symbolically)...as if — dare I say it — Supernatural itself eerily told us, in the negative-spaced pitch blackness, that the organic show and the wonderfully complex, matured characters we’ve grown to love weren’t going to survive or be revisited...that it was all going to perish, and that they no longer gave a single shit about their own show, which, to me, is the worst cardinal sin, because how dare they throw Team Free Will, an immovable and indomitable and passionate found family they built from the ground up, a found family CHOCK FULL TO THE BRIM OF LOVE AND LIFE RAGING AGAINST THE AUTHORITARIAN MACHINE IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE FREE WILL, under the bus no matter who is to blame. Growth was stomped on.

Then Sam married a faceless wife who wasn’t his textually established (and deaf) love interest Eileen, named his son Dean Jr., and grew old miserably, still mourning the passing of his older brother, shaken and sombre. Back to square one. IT WAS ALL ANTITHETICAL, even OUTSIDE a shipping context, and I ripped my hair out at this point in sheer disbelief.

This 15x20 ending would have fit somewhere between S4-7. Now? IT DOESN’T FIT. IT’S A JAGGED PUZZLE PIECE THAT DOESN’T BELONG ANYWHERE. IT’S THE FOREBODING UNKNOWN STRANGER IN ITS OWN LAND, BOTH LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY. This kind of ending was basically an illogical, unsound cluster of metastasized cells that, to me, ruined the viability of previous seasons to sustain bold praise and respect and dignity and rewatches and classic nostalgia in such insidious ways.

Dean Humanity Winchester and Cas, after everything they’ve been through, were silenced and lost in death, ripped apart from each other, unable to love each other the way they deserved, because of disappointing, vile incompetency and homophobia. The greatest love story ever told, again obliterated in less than 60 hollow minutes.

You know what this tells your audience, CW SPN? Death without self-growth is the way to go, and no one is allowed to forge their own path to freedom.

HOW INSULTINGLY HARMFUL IS THAT?

I don’t think I’ll ever stop grieving.

We all deserve answers.

[steveyockey]

do you think that -- if they WERE planning to do gay angel press initially -- part of the reason they didn't might have been the (reactionary) bury your gays backlash from fans and non-fans? in which case. twitter rly does ruin everything. :/

I’m not tied to this but here’s a hypothetical to work through that at least provides a theory on the lack of gay angel press (probably not very different from any other theory on this website but just writing it out for continuity),

okay. pre-pandemic. the arc of the final few episodes seems to have been set and 15.18 was the last piece, pending jensen’s approval. roadhouse heaven ending was a go — presumably featuring a cas cameo among other various and sundry friends. approving 15.18 introduces a problem by way of the fact that cas has just confessed his undying love for dean and there’s an expected response. but it’s fine! you don’t actually need that, you’ve been baiting fans for a decade, you can work your magic one more time with a lil wink and nudge and never have to deal with that again. ambiguous “to each his own” ending, you talk up the gay angel on one side and the bronly-ness of the last hunt on the other; everyone walks away happy. you have successfully threaded the needle of finishing off a twelve year queerbait without “caving to the fans,” high fives all around.

15.18 gets filmed. the angel is gay gay. the footage is. we don’t know what the footage looks like. there could be anything. maybe there’s a kiss with tongue. ends up not really mattering because the pandemic happens and they have to stop shooting and stop airing. no idea how much changes in 15.19 (clearly SOME stuff considering we know the folks who got chuck snapped in the silo were supposed to be shown back in the flesh and that got cut). 15.20 has to change — so roadhouse heaven becomes three person heaven (plus the cast and crew, who were already on set so no, this is not proof they could have brought a crowd of actors anyway, it’s just. weird. I don’t like this decision. strikes me as authoritative like WE told the story not YOU. anyway). putting cas in three person heaven makes winking and nudging a lot harder to do and would make the absence of an actual substantive response to the confession uhhhh very obvious. so you have to cut cas. and then maybe you have to cut other references to cas in 15.19, maybe you cut some emotionality from dean’s side in 15.18, maybe you straight up insert the moment in 15.20 where dean tells sam to stop being an eeyore about cas’s death! we don’t know how much was changed, but there was at least the opportunity at this point to dull dean’s response to the whole thing so the absence of cas in heaven is more palatable. it’s the bronly ending, but you already gave the audience the gay angel. and the gay angel is alive and building heaven with his son! no more cashing in on the queerbait but still cashing in on canon gay.

it’s november 5th. 15.18 airs. it trends higher than the biggest election “of our lives.” holy shit! gay angel! but of course the issue is the people responding aren’t the people who have been watching the show. they don’t have context for what’s going on and “turbohell” catches on. fuck. did you kill the gay angel? of course not, he’s in heaven with his son! lisa berry can post her goodbye instagram to her character because obviously billie’s dead, she’s the villain. she’s not expected to come back. but cas is... cas is different. and he’s not dead and you won’t be taking any questions on this until we get to the end, when everyone can settle down. so you have your actors gush about the episode, you leave everyone on pins and needles so they’ll come back for two more, and then! well. 15.20. cas is “alive” technically. dean is dead, as you always planned. some people are happy, some people are middling, and some people are fucking pissed at you because apparently by not outright killing off the gay angel you promised them the gay angel was coming back. any clarification you would offer here would unspool your entire plan — gay angel on one side, brothers on the other. erasing cas isn’t the same as killing him, but you can’t say that (though misha basically did in response to the rogue translator shenanigans). killing dean wasn’t even supposed to be about cas, but now everything is about cas. you took him out of the story completely and he’s still managed to take over. and all you can say is, well, it’s always been a story about brothers.

this obviously doesn’t account for everything, such as what the fuck was uriel’s actor doing? why the fuck did the show actually give us the instructions for how to get someone out of the empty and not do it? and there’s an infinite number of things that could have happened that I would simply never guess not knowing specific onset dynamics and money decisions. whatever happened that caused this clusterfuck really does suck for everyone in that writers room who was on team gay angel because, as I have said in the past, 15.18 only works due to at least four years, if not seven or more, of consciously writing the angel as gay. I hope bobo and yockey and even misha feel personal satisfaction at a job well done, but god if a single fucking interview could at least let us indulge in the victory with them. anyway, all of this is to say, yes I do think the bury-your-gays of it all definitely plays into it (and I would say, again, linking this to it chapter 2, it’s significant muschietti and co decided to make richie gay over eddie; people who haven’t read the book might not know that eddie like. literally drinks mineral water. in the 80s. he wears gucci loafers. he marries a carbon copy of his mother. stephen king would never admit to writing a gay man but that was a gay man. but eddie dies! eddie always dies. so they had some good sense in giving the gay story to the one who lives and leaving the dead one holding all the coding). and I definitely think randos on twitter making fun of the confession did not help matters. but I also think the decision to pull press cannot be extricated from the rubble of the last two episodes and everything they promised but never delivered. literally a single second of cas in the finale would have been their golden ticket! that’s far more than what jj did for star wars! but they got played at their own game by, of all things, an international pandemic. somehow a very supernatural ending after all.

[quillquiver]

On SPN, Burying Your Gays, and Being Heard

I am shaking, I feel sick, I feel like I’m insane. And did I run a little wild with the theories? You bet. But you know what didn’t help? The botched clusterfuck that was this entire goddamn finale debacle. How was I supposed to believe anything they said in panels when M&G dialogue would leak saying the exact opposite? How was I supposed to grieve and move on when there was nothing from the cast and crew? Nobody said anything! And any info leaked just destabilized what we already knew or directly contradicted what we’d been told. In light of that, how was I supposed to trust anything anyone said? One rogue translator reciprocated the love confession and I was practically sold, because there were so many questions surrounding the English text that this was something good, something that logically fit, and something I wanted to hold onto. 

Because they hurt me. This is about so much more than one episode or a ship; for years queer fans have seen ourselves in these characters and been told that we were crazy. That we were reading too much into it. I’m not sure how people get upset and offended when a storyline that doesn’t exist... doesn’t exist! said Guy Bee (2013). And then, after all of that, they turned around and said magnanimously, you have your version, I have mine... and that’s okay. But it’s not okay. It’s not okay, because that doesn’t erase what came before - that doesn’t erase the baiting and the gaslighting, and that invalidates everything we felt in the time leading up to that episode. It gave them an open window for all the subtext that came after. It allowed them to brush us off.

And then we got Cas’s love confession. I watched that scene about 500 times. Added to the rest of the season - to the fandom avatar being presented as successful and intelligent, to arc being the death of the author - I felt seen. Really seen, by a show that made it its mission to erase me. I had been okay with Cas dying at first because I had been sure the romance arc would carry through. I had been convinced that after everything, there was no way they would give that to us and then take it away.

But they did, because this is Supernatural. To anyone saying this is not bury your gays, I implore you to read up on the Hays Code. This link is to an amazing queer history podcast and the episode that covers it. In short, the Hays Code was a legal document that came about in 20th Century Hollywood during the puritanical war on the American entertainment industry,  and it stipulated what was not allowed on screen. Not all of it was queer - there’s a whole section about kissing - but what the Code is most remembered for is that queerness was not allowed on screen. But queer people are resilient, and so they started testing the waters... and it turned out that you could in fact code queerness into a narrative, as long as it was subtextual, or as long as the queer character died/was punished, or both. The point is that the character is not allowed to live their truth openly. They are buried, either in the ground or punished in the narrative. The former is normally what we refer to these days, because the latter just doesn’t really happen anymore.

Until Supernatural. 

Castiel is immediately punished for speaking his truth - and please don’t tell me he leveraged that punishment and so he had agency. Literally the only thing that could make him happy was confessing his feelings, and so the Empty deal was directly related to this idea of queerness-as-punishment. That being said, Bobo wrote a beautiful scene. Cas’s confession was a love letter to queerness and coming out... but everything that came after buried him. Castiel may have ended the series alive but he was effectively written out of the last two episodes, and that means that he actually never really got to live his truth. He was silenced by the narrative - that is punishment. 

Dean is a whole other can of worms. Does one rogue translator confirm canon bi!Dean? Or do we have to read our own version of the text? The fact that we even have to ask these questions firmly places us in the realm of queerbaiting. Were the writers trying to get bi!Dean approved but were unable to? I have no idea, but queerbaiting requires proof that the writers encouraged a reading they had no intent of following through on, and we certainly don’t lack in evidence of that. Not from this writers room, but from those of previous eras. Did these writers try? They might have, but the funny thing about queerbaiting discourse is that there has never been a show to bait this long, and I’m making the call that even if you tried at the end, you baited me with half the ship and all the years that came before. 

Of course, the narrative leaves open the possibility of bi!Dean so if you do read the show that way, that means Dean also falls into the bury your gays category; if you read the show this way - which many of us do - the mere suggestion that Dean Winchester was bisexual was enough to punish him. And he was punished. We’ve all written extensively on this, but he was given a random death, on a case his father never finished. All that growth, all that time spent having him accept himself, love himself, that was all taken away. He died the way he always thought he would: as a tool, in service of his father, protecting his brother. He had always believed he’d been a body to throw on the sword and in the end that’s all he was. And when he gets to Heaven? He’s also silenced. He barely speaks in the episode except to monologue during his death, and that is 100% Sam-centric. He is scared. 

It was horrific to watch. I sobbed so hard my roommate was seriously concerned. 

I had been fully prepared for Supernatural to end disappointingly. I had figured everything would end with a huge heaven reunion because white, straight, cis-male S&F writers love the idea of death as a reward, but instead of being disappointed I felt like I had witnessed a slaughter. Every single one of the queer themes intrinsic to the show: found family, resilience, speaking your truth... were gone. And I know we’ve talked about this too, but it bears repeating, because in doing this, in writing the queerness out of its narrative, Supernatural effectively looked every one of us queer folx in the eye and said: you are not important. You don’t matter. All of that stuff that came before is all good and well, but what really matters at the end of all things is blood family. It’s two brothers in a car. Life sucks but at least we get to die and go to paradise - real paradise, that your angel buddy died for and then made for you and who we never hear from again.

I felt insane. I felt cheated. I felt humiliated. I felt devastated. I still feel all those things, but listen to me. You have been heard. Not by Misha Collins, who is a great guy, but doesn’t get it. Not by Jensen Ackles, who is a similarly great guy, but also just doesn’t understand. And not by anyone else who worked on this show. 

You know who heard you? Me. The people who follow me. The people who follow you. We saw each other, and heard each other, and we gave each other a leg up. We made memes. We wrote fic. We drew fanart. We made gifs. All for ourselves and all for each other. We broke Tumblr multiple times. We donated over $60,000 USD to multiple different causes. We got multiple hashtags trending at multiple different points, and today kept it up because we demanded answers and then we got them. There were at least 5 articles written about the show today. We made that happen. We made people listen. 

Supernatural didn’t deserve me, and it didn’t deserve you. It didn’t deserve Dean. It didn’t deserve Cas. It didn’t deserve Misha and Jensen. But this show ended with a bleak, awful message and we turned around and showed them that love is loud. So what about all of this is real?

We are.

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

Maybe I have been reading too many theories; maybe I just believe what I want to believe, maybe I’m completely wrong in all of this … maybe. But even if I am, even if WE ALL ARE, I really don’t think it that’s what matters anymore. This whole thing has been triggering from the start for so many people, and the CW has neglected to comment on any of it. At first, I didn’t expect them to. Supernatural wasn’t the first disappointing series finale in history, and it certainly won’t be the last; but so many new things have come to light since then. So many unexplained moments and conflicting stories have risen to the surface, and they obviously know how this fandom operates (the episode ‘Fan Fiction’ proves they do) so they couldn’t have been that surprised when all our questions started flooding the internet. Yet, the network has been silent, the show runners have been pretty silent. All we’ve seen is the complete lack of explanation paired with a few of the actor’s desperate attempts to defend their characters—which is heartbreaking because the characters and the actors HAVE NEVER BEEN THE PROBLEM.

I can completely understand why Misha sounded defensive and hurt in that video; because he sees this fandom that he loves and considers family, causing an online riot over something he’s personally involved in. It breaks his heart to see the LGBTQ+ community feeling rejected and attacked through the aftermath of a scene he filmed. He saw his departure as Castiel as a beautiful moment that supported queerness and speaking one’s truth, and now, something completely different has been extrapolated from that scene. I understand why that’s upset him … but sadly, I don’t think he quite understands how much bigger this whole thing is now. If the 15x18 confession was standing alone-- no other episodes to expect anything from, no more show to interpret, then I don’t think we’d all be hurting right now. We were all shocked and saddened when that confession happened, because Cas was gone only a moments later; but we were also elated that he was finally so open and honest, and that Dean heard him. He didn’t say “I love you too” but he heard him and he asked him to stay, he begged him to live. That would have been enough for me personally, but we had two more episodes to watch at that point, and we all expected that the show would find some way to honor that moment as well as the characters involved; but it didn’t. It barely acknowledged that any of it happened, and then it went on to ignore the entire series’ message of “Family Don’t End With Blood” by pretty much only focusing on the importance of the Winchester bloodline and nothing else. By doing that, it not only excluded Castiel and his breathtaking and beautiful confession, it felt like it excluded all of us. We all felt like part of that show—we all identified with someone beyond the brothers. We were its family, and it just-- cut us out.

So, when the Spanish dubbing happened, we thought “Maybe we weren’t supposed to be left out!” Maybe, just maybe … we were always meant to be there and something went wrong along the way. And the only place where all these conflicting stories, all these theories, all these mixed messages seem to meet—is at the CW network’s front door. But instead of answering when we knock and bang and scream for them to, they apparently stay locked up tight leaving the actors to feel responsible for us; and they’re not.

Misha Collins—you are not responsible for us or for our hurt feelings. You and Jensen and Bobo and the rest of the cast and crew did wonderfully and tried your best, and it seems like you fought for what’s right—you fought for us when you could. Whatever happened after that is NOT your fault, and we love you so much no matter what.

I want the CW to put this to bed. I want them to open the door and give us the explanation we’ve been asking for. If we’re all wrong, if this ending was always the plan (to some degree) then I think this fandom is mature enough that we can suck it up and walk away (we have before). But if there is anything, and I do mean any little detail that the network blatantly overlooked or pushed aside for the sake of ratings or money, then I think they need to own up to that so we can all move on. I know they won’t re-write the ending, and they won’t reshoot scenes; obviously that will never happen … but they can admit that for being a network that is supposedly “all about inclusivity”, they were rather narrow minded at times when it came to the finale of their longest running and most beloved show.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask, and I don’t think any more of the actors need to try and answer for them.

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

I am getting a lot of asks about Misha's separation, so I figured I'd collect what I want to say in a single post rather than turning into an ask blog.

There's an excellent kdrama called Matrimonial Chaos starring Bae Doo Na (you may remember her as Sun from Sense8) and Son Seok Koo (who played her Sense8 love interest, Inspector Moon). In it Doo Na's character has divorced her husband and is writing a children's book based on her own relationship with her ex-husband, who she still co-habitates with because of their financial insecurity.

One day, in a thinly veiled attempt to determine if she and her ex are going to reconcile, her editor asks her how the book will end.

She says, "I feel like it should have a happy ending, but--"

"What is a happy ending?," her editor interrupts. "Living together again? Getting back together? Is living together really a happy ending?"

"Huh?"

He turns to her and very deliberately asks, "Why do you think parting ways isn't a happy ending?"

And the message is clear: people get divorced for the same reason they get married -- to be happy.

My husband and I were married for 24 years before we separated during the beginning of the pandemic last year. It's not a shame. It's a damn success story.

24 years when the average marriage only lasts 7! 24 years of growth and commitment and excellent communication and polyamorous loving. 24 years. 3 brilliant children.

People want to give me condolences, but I know I deserve congratulations.

The truth is, relationships are hard work. I still love my husband, and he still loves me. We literally separated at a time when our marriage was the best it's ever been.

But because it was so good, we had the grace to acknowledge that romantically, we had simply grown apart. We knew through decades of experience that the little and big ways we unavoidably kept hurting each other weren't going to change. We were just different people than we had been, and that's okay.

It's better to separate and stop the hurt. If you really love your partner and see that some fundamental part of who you are keeps hurting them, some part of you that you either can not or will not change, then isn't giving them the freedom to go and heal the most loving thing you can do?

In another scene in Matrimonial Chaos, they say, "There is no sin in drifting apart, only in beating each other up over it."

So, please, for the love of all that is holy, give the man some space. I'm sure Misha and Vicki did the best they could with what they had for as long as possible (because that's what we all do). Stop acting like their separation is the death of love or some terrible tragedy or writing RPF in your heads when the truth is you don't know him.

I know we sometimes feel like we do, but that's just our parasocializing brains being stimulated. We don't know jack, and we really don't even have enough of a window into their lives to even speculate.

[hopefullystillatheatrestudent]

The One Where Jensen Ackles Confirmed Cockles in 2016(????) No. Seriously. For real.

this is a DOOZY. strap in folks.

DISCLAIMER: this is chock full of rps. if you are against cockles/jenmish in any way, this post is not for you. however, if you’re like me, ummmmm...

alright. so. we are REALLY in it now, cockles truthers. and make no mistake, i DO NOT want to undersell the significance of what we have found on this glorious day in 2021.

BUT HEY! DISCLAIMER FIRST, THOUGH IT SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING! do not EVER bring this to jensen and misha’s attention. do not comment disrespectful things on social media. when cons/panels start again, don’t ask them questions about it. ever!!! that’s super weird, for one thing, and for two, they won’t give you the answer you want anyway! so, yeah. just be decent, y’all. let’s continue. 

so my dear mutual @green-blue-heller made this post today and i promptly lost my mind. in it, they link this video:

undefined

as far as i can tell, it’s from VegasCon 2016 but was only unprivated on january 24, 2020(dean winchester’s birthday??? wow ok) for some reason, and we have overlooked it until now. to whoever it was that posted it, THANK you for my reason for being and this delayed gratification five years later. anyway, let’s get into it.

right off the bat, those expressions in the thumbnail kind of tell you all you need to know about what we’re venturing into. i have to thank BOTH jensen AND j*red for being ridiculously transparent. i mean...j*red purposefully avoiding eye contact with jensen and looking at the ceiling with his eyebrows raised sky high? jensen hiding his face in his hands, smiling and blushing like a fool, the misha face™ & grin???

so let’s break down what happens with timestamps and everything.

so! i looked up what the question was, i scoured through the entire Vegas Con video, and here it is:

‘My question is for Jensen and Jared. You guys are both happily married, and I noticed that many people had a hard time explaining how they know their significant other is the one. The one they want to spend the rest of their life with, the one that they want to be with, and so, I wanted to ask you guys, how did you know that your current- who you’re with now(audience laughter cuts the rest of the question off and it’s unintelligible)’ ….i’m solidly guessing that the end of that question boils down to ‘was the one’. (....i...uhhhh....have some thoughts on how this question affected jensen, and i will be going into them later.)

Jared: *laughs* Jared, Jensen. When did you first meet your future ex-wives?

*both of them laugh*

Jared: I’m just kidding-I get what you’re trying to say and thank you, um...I, uh, I guess my current wife, uh-

*both laugh again*

Jensen: (sarcastically) Let’s start with her.

Jared: (repeats) Let’s start with her. I, uh, I...you said something kinda, uh, amazing in your question, which is that a lot of people have a tough time or a difficult time explaining to their significant others or to themselves what it is. And I guess I feel that I have no way to possibly explain it to myself or to her... I remember that I had been in a relationship and that I was single and I was like ‘I am not interested in getting in a relationship’ and then she and I went on a date and I was like, ‘I can’t go anywhere else. I’m not interested.’ So, that was kinda what, um, what started it for me *clears throat loudly* Uh. Yeah, I just feel like (searching for words) she makes me a better person-there are a lot of people that make you a better person, and so that’s not enough, I don’t think-or maybe it is, who knows-um...I don’t know, I can’t really...if I could explain, I’d be a poet.

here’s where things start to get interesting. before jared says ‘If I could explain, I’d be a poet,’ Jensen’s face looks like this:

stoic, thoughtful, composed. and then AFTER jared says that his face makes THIS little journey:

go watch it for yourself. this man is ridiculous. in terms of body language? he gazes up and AWAY from jared. it is a private thought, he is not sharing in jared’s joke with him, if at all. it is his own personal musings that make his face LIGHT up like that. this fool looks lovestruck!!! this fool is lovestruck!!!

now, i think it goes without saying, but there is an obvious cockles reason that springs to mind for this reaction. (hint: misha is a poet. that’s it, that’s the reason.) i don’t think jared intentionally said this with misha in mind, but jensen’s thoughts IMMEDIATELY went there. whether or not this is because he was already planning on answering and hinting at his relationship with misha before jared says this, which i think he was-you can certainly see the wheels turning in jensen’s head before this moment-his brain involuntarily makes the connection and it shows in his glowing smile. after that remark...jensen’s gone. he’s whipped. and he HAS to say something about it. 

continuing from where we left off:

Jared: ...and I would love to be a poet. (thought it would be fun to mention that at this point Jensen catches what his face did and immediately looks over to Jared and WIPES the expression of his face...but it’s too late, because someone recorded it, i saw it, and now i’m writing about it five years later)

Jared: But uhh…

Jensen: (interrupting) Just tap me when you want me to take over. 

i think that jensen is simultaneously joking and is also more than ready to say what he’s been composing in his head diligently for the last thirty or so seconds. he has made up his mind, and is now ready to drop the bomb on us.

*audience laughs, Jared playfully swats at him*

Jared: Uh… *thinks in silence for a bit* It’s really difficult, it’s really difficult. She makes me feel safe, she makes me feel loved. Uh...when...I’m in a position where I don’t love myself, I know she loves me, you know, um...she’s just an awesome, awesome lady.

*audience claps*

alright! so in terms of my OWN analysis for what’s happened up until this point, the conclusion i have come to is that there was something in the question that was asked that sets jensen’s mind off about misha, and i think it was the ‘the one’ comment. if we’re putting our cockles goggles on, jensen doesn’t HAVE a ‘the one’. he resents thinking like that. i’m also very intuitive, and i get a sense that jensen is an honest person and can’t really tell a convincing lie. i mean...we all saw that horrible airbnb debacle, right? and his slip up when he accidentally confirms that misha woke up and said ‘i miss (maison)’[which how would you know that unless you were...nvm] and became a stammering mess and had to sit down and cover his face. and that misha is always the one to take the lead when it comes to denying clothes sharing, for instance. jensen has never ONCE attempted to explain that away, because i don’t think anyone would believe him, and i think he’s incapable of doing so because he’s not a dishonest person and can’t lie easily. i’m the same way, so to avoid telling a lie i always speak partial truths, and i’m 99% sure jensen is well versed in this talent as well. oh, also, just to really land my point....we all know how he feels about the finale because he can’t make himself speak well on it. he’ll gush about 15x18 and the PEOPLE BEHIND the finale, but he has not uttered one. positive. word. about the actual finale itself. i mean, we all know what he thinks about it. in his own way, he has made his rage glaringly obvious. and i think he’s doing that exact thing here, where he resents the implication that daneel is the only ‘one’ for him, because that’s simply not true, and he can’t and won’t lie about something like that. 

i watched it back again and wrote notes on jensen’s body language as he’s processing the question. here they are:

from 0:13 to 1:21, jensen: 

looks down - tenses face - searching eyes, lost in thought - jared’s comment brings him out of it but it takes a second - fidgets, adjusts clothes, looks at jared - bites the inside of his cheeks and moves tongue around his mouth(pacifying gesture) - eyes start wandering away from jared, looks down and tenses face, looks back at jared - then looks away, eyes and mind far from the panel and pondering the question itself - somewhat wistful expression, gears clearly turning in his head, lips pursed, stops reacting to what jared is saying, fingers start fidgeting, eyes have moved downward as he is lost in thought - something shifts in his brain, he looks to the ceiling, fidgets and adjusts his clothing, squints and seems to resolve an inner thought - slightly comes back down to earth with newfound resolution - and then jared’s ‘i would be a poet’ comment happens while he’s coming down from that

i mean, this obviously doesn’t necessarily mean anything huge(yet), all it shows is that this question took a lot of thinking for him. when you compare it to how jared kind of just dove in? 

anyway; so then jared’s done, he slaps jensen’s thigh to indicate it’s his turn, jensen makes THAT face you see in the thumbnail, jared’s eyebrows raise, jensen looks down and scratches his forehead, and then makes the statement of a lifetime. 

here’s the link for this next part

Jensen: Ummm..I kind of feel like there’s two types of people ..uh..in regards to marriage and the, the one. Uh, it’s the ones that just, just know with an absolute and, and have a certainty of like, this is the one for me, unequivocally. And then there’s those who are, you know, I don’t know, I’m scared, but I’m willing to take that leap of faith with you. And, I kind of find myself in between both of those(...types of people). And uh, and so, it can be a scary endeavour, and it can, and it will certainly have it’s ups and downs, um, but I think it’s a, uh, it’s a bond, and it’s a connection, and it’s a friendship, and it’s a ride, and it’s a journey that, uh, if you’re willing to stick it out with one another, can be an amazing, beautiful thing and I’m glad that I picked the partner and the teammate that I have, so.

i’ll give you like a second to recuperate before we dig in. 

let’s start with both jared and jensen’s body language first, because it wasn’t even the words that clued me in, it was whatever the hell was going on with jared’s face. 

i really wish i could gif, but i can only attempt to convey the SPEED and VIGOUR with which jared snaps his head toward jensen. 

these pictures are objectively hilarious because you can see the entire mental journey that jared goes on. he was aloof and kind of relaxed because he was done, it’s jensen’s turn now, he’s surely not gonna out himself with this question right? and then jensen goes ahead and says ‘there are two-’ and jared instantly zones right into jensen with a look of horror on his face, that he tries to contain, but does so unsuccessfully. that is the face of a man who is internally freaking out, thought to himself ‘did he seriously just say...’ and is kind of staring at the culprit in shock and awe.

i know that’s what’s happening, because this is not the first time we’ve seen him react like this to something jensen has said. the classic head whip. a few examples, just off the top of my head:

1. ‘he has, hasn’t he?’ 

2. ‘he sounds like that in the morning’ ‘how do you know’ 

3. when he whips his head around when he notices jensen’s face(and instantly understands when he realizes it’s misha)

so yeah, i’m sure you get it by now. jared can’t really keep it off of his face. there’s no real analyzing to be done here...it’s just an obvious tell on his part. there’s no real reason for him to have reacted this way if jensen was saying something inconspicuous, is there? he would have continued to just kind of space out if jensen hadn’t just said something jarringly questionable. 

as for jensen’s body language, i can’t really tell where he’s looking from either angle of both videos i’ve seen. sometimes it seems like he’s looking straight at jared, and maybe nods at him once, but he could also(and is most likely) looking at the fan who asked the question. i don’t think there’s anything particularly telling about his body language because i think he rehearsed his answer in his head and also, he’s not shying away because he’s not lying about anything. like...everything he’s saying is true, so he’s not going to have any tells. and it’s the fact that he is TELLING THE TRUTH that is freaking jared out.

now for what he actually says. because oh my god. 

right off the bat, he says “i kind of feel like there’s two types of people..” and first off, what? what does that even mean? if you think of it in terms of ‘this is about daneel and only daneel’....isn’t this a realllyyyyy strange thing to start out with? objectively? the question that was asked to him was ‘how did you know they were the one?’ and he goes ‘actually there’s TWO types of people’ ...like, jensen never answers the question at hand. 

and then he goes “in regards to marriage and the one”. i hope i’m not the only one who noticed he said the words ‘the one’ in a resentful and kind of degrading tone? seriously, listen to it again. he seems like he’s almost mocking that sentiment. i swear i’m not making it up, it really sounds like that to me. 

and then he says “-it’s the ones that just, just know with an absolute and, and have a certainty of like, this is the one for me, unequivocally. And then there’s those who are, you know, I don’t know, I’m scared, but I’m willing to take that leap of faith with you.” *NON TINHAT VERSION OF EVENTS* what he could mean, i guess, is he was both scared to be with daneel but also knew she was the one for him. which....ok. alright. *TINHAT BACK ON* first off, there’s absolutely no risk with daneel. that’s not a judgement, because i love her; it’s just true. she’s a pretty, talented, amazing woman and they are very much in love. i’m not sure what risks he’s taking there. next up: pretty strange wording then, don’t you think? idk, if it were you, and you wanted to get that point across, wouldn’t you use words like ‘she both scared me and i knew i wanted to be with her at the same time’ and NOT this convoluted mess of ‘there’s two types of people and they are both drastically different but also one and the same’? 

SECOND OF ALL, as many people have pointed out.....he never uses pronouns. this is strange. jared does. jared says gen’s name, even. and uses ‘she’ and ‘her’. jensen never once does that, he practically refuses to do so. and yes, i fully believe it is entirely intentional.

because if you look at this phrase from a cockles lens it makes more sense then if you do not. 

the one that jensen knows, unequivocally, with the utmost certainty, is the one for him, no doubts, no risks; is daneel. the one that he doesn’t know about, is scared of being with, but is willing to take that leap of faith anyway; is misha. and all of a sudden the puzzle pieces fall into place.

because he goes on to say “I kind of find myself in between both of those.” 

he doesn’t say ‘i find myself in between both of those...with her.’ nope. he’s just...in between. caught in the middle. of those two types of people. translation: of those two people. mish. dee. 

“And it can be a scary endeavour, and it will certainly have it’s ups and downs, but I think it’s a bond, and it’s a connection, and it’s a friendship, and it’s a ride, and it’s a journey...” 

every single one of those words can be applied to more than one person. think about it. bond(between three people). connection(between three people). friendship(between three people!!!). there’s no ‘partnership’ in here, which does only apply to two people. 

lastly, “i’m glad i picked the partner and the teammate that i have.”

ok, look. you can easily say that it’s just one person he’s talking about here! of course you can. but this is jensen ackles we’re talking about. jensen ‘rock and pebble’ ackles. jensen ‘mish. dee.’ ackles. so yes. i definitely think that ‘the partner and the teammate’ fall into this category. and i think daneel is the partner and misha is the teammate. 

to put it matter-of-factly: you simply cannot prove that this isn’t about a poly relationship. there is absolutely nothing he says that makes it obvious he is talking about one person here. because he isn’t. 

i just feel like, in the simplest terms, if this were about only daneel, that he would not be using these weird phrases that are half-hidden truths. just to compare, i watched another panel where pretty much the exact same question was asked, minus the whole ‘the one’ debacle, and, just as i suspected, it was an entirely different answer. he talks about the moment where he knew he liked her. her, specifically. says the name daneel. gushes about her. there’s no tiptoeing and weird pronoun usage and vague terminology. 

tl; dr : i think he answered the question this way because there is no ‘the one’ in his life. and he is physically incapable of leaving misha out when talking about ‘the one’ because he has TWO ‘the ones’. and he wants to answer the question to the best of his best ability, but lying is unnatural to him. he will talk about daneel at length and misha at length, but i honestly to my core don’t think you could make him choose between the two. oh! and we literally had confirmation all the way back in fucking 2016, we just never paid attention until now. so......thanks, jensen?

sorry, this got super long, but i hope i warned you well enough. 

[sinnabonka]

It’s spec time: Love always wins

(Okay, I promised it, I’m doing it, there’s no stopping me now.) 

For the last three days I’ve been all over the place emotionally, clinging to every post saying Cas is not dead dead, saying his story is not done, but then someone wrote the “but” post and, there I go again, down the bottomless pit of angst. 

I’ve been a Schrödinger believer for so long with this show, one can get used to it. 

I know I’m not the only one feeling this way, regarding whether Cas is coming back or not. We won’t know till we know ©

Ep 19 speculations here

But let's speculate!

Apparently, there's nothing better for me to do way past midnight on Saturday and on Sunday morning (when I’m writing this). 

What makes us think 15*18 might indeed be the end of Castiel’s story:

Everything the crew and Misha told us, officially, is pressing toward Cas dying permanently in this scene. “Proud ending”, indeed. 

Castiel’s story has the perfect symmetry this way, with the handprint, the “Hello, Dean” - “Goodbye, Dean”, and the whole “Dean Winchester is saved” theme.

He is smiling, while Empty takes him, he’s content with his sacrifice. 

Something about Castiel’s monologue didn’t sit right with me for some time. The whole point of happiness being not in having, but in being and saying, gave me an idea of it being the way writers say we can’t have Destiel, but we should be happy to know it’s real and to hear it said aloud after all those years. 

Supernatural had to be the story of two brothers and their journey, and Winchesters driving in the sunset is the most probable endgame we are gonna get. 

Even though all those points seem valid, we can’t trust any of it. 

Let me fix it for you:

It wouldn't be the first time the crew lied about someone being on set. 

The handprint was not scripted. I repeat, the handprint was not scripted.

Castiel’s monologue could be just about loving Dean, and it’s just my poor wounded heart looking too deep into it and seeing my angstloving reflection on the bottom of the well. 

And Supernatural might indeed be about family, but, as we know, family doesn’t end with blood, and doesn’t start with it either. Cas is family, after all. 

I’m glad be are clear on this one.

What tells us Cas is coming back and we are getting Destiel endgame:

(Brace yourself, it’s gonna be wordy)

1. The most obvious, without rewriting his memory or going OOC, there’s no happy ending for Dean (not the crappy bittersweet substitute) without Cas. 

Even without the love confession in place, we’ve seen what Cas’ death did to him before, it shuttered him to pieces. Imagine the damage it's gonna cause now! 

“I love you, I always did, bye bye now, have a long and happy life knowing my feelings for you have killed me dead.” Really? No win can make up for it.

2. My fave point, aka the natural dynamics of storytelling. The big loss predicts the big win. The deeper the wound, the brighter the prize. Following the roller coaster this season has been, we should be up for a pretty high damn up pretty soon. 

So, there’s The Big Loss (losing Eileen, all of their friends, all the people on Earth and Cas). 

Next - The Big Win (defeating God, getting their free will back, getting humanity back). 

Then, we should have The Big Regret and Reflect moment (Sam and Dean talking a lot at this point, realization of things which are important, what they want with Chuck gone). 

And at the end, there’s The Ultimate Happy ending waiting for us (see point 1 again in case you are not sure what that means).

3. You know what, forget it, this one is my favorite. The parallels. Throughout this season we’ve been spoon-fed with context (Geez, it feels nice to finally know we are not crazy, we are not seeing things, we got it all right!) and writers chose to do so via parallels, via reflections, subtle hints. 

It would be some lazy storytelling to shove everything to our faces, so, instead, we’ve got: Charlie and Stevie, Sam and Eileen, the world and humanity, Dean and Cas. 

Everyone separated. Forever? No, not really. And I don’t buy everyone getting their loved ones back, except Dean. C’mon.

4. Unresolved love confession. Yes, Cas might have died with a smile, meaning it’s enough for him to speak his truth and be gone. But Dean? Him sobbing in the dungeon, ignoring Sam’s calls (he literally never chose anything above Sam before), the “Don’t do this, Cas” part - it’s the lowest he’s ever been. 

To sum up, Dean didn’t get his closure. He might have needed five to six business days to process, but he still has his truth he has to find out and then give a voice to. 

And yeah, I know, he could confess via prayer or something, but we all know that’s something needed to be said face to face.  (Btw, he already confessed to Cas in purgatory via prayer once, you can try and prove me wrong, but good luck with that, sunshine.)

5. The perfect symmetry. If I were in SPN writers room, I would literally cry my eyes out of joy at the symbolism this ending gives. I would literally fight everyone against it. 

The broken man not deserving to be saved is dragged from Hell by the most loyal and righteous angel Heaven ever seen. 

VS

The fallen angel not deserving to be loved is dragged from Empty by the most loving and caring man the sun shone on.

I mean, c’mon, people. Poetry.

(We are nearing a very important thing here, fasten your seatbelts, please.)

6. The message the show wants to give the world has changed. From “it’s all about the journey, about saving people, killing things, no one ever gets what they deserve”, the philosophy has changed drastically toward the “good things do happen, you deserve to be saved, to be loved”. 

Come and see what lane we are walking right now: allowing yourself to love again, to experience things again / losing the love of your life a moment later / fighting for your love / winning your love back. 

I believe the final message is: love always wins. 

Love is not one’s weakness, love is power, love is strength, it’s a perfect fuel. 

Humans declare war in the name of love, kill and get killed in the name of love, but, most importantly, humans live and win those wars in the name of love, too. 

7. Go big or go home is on the table, and no one goes home this time. 

Supernatural was a bunch of broken glass for soooo long, I think this time writers are gonna give us something good, for a change. Not bittersweet good, but actually cotton-candy-almost-diabetes-sweet good.  

Why? 

Because *loud and clear* we deserve having good things happening to us! 

Also, it’s The End, the creators have nothing to lose, but, on the other hand, the ultimate happy ending would allow them to leave an enormous mark on the world and Supernatural to be known as the only show that actually could.

To sum up:  

Dean can’t be happy with Cas gone and, following the logic of prebuilt parallels, he won’t have to - everyone gets their loved ones back at the end, because love always wins. 

Cas might be at peace with speaking his truth, saving Dean and being gone, but it is not fair, Dean also deserves a chance to be heard. 

Few seasons ago I would laugh in my own face for these arguments, but the philosophy of the show has been transformed. During the last few years we were being prepared for this moment, slowly, gently being led toward this moment. 

Supernatural has to give us the Destiel endgame to prove their point.

click x click for more

[sortasirius]

“Inherit the Earth” and the Fakeout

Absolutely genius.  Amazing, iconic, legendary, something only our showrunner Andrew Dabb can pull off.

"But Lilly, the episode was so bad!  It was just the brothers, they didn’t look for Cas and Eileen!”

YES.  THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT.  THIS WAS A FAKE ENDING, THE END OF THE SEASON, NOT OF THE SERIES.

Let’s get into it.

An empty world.  No one left but Sam, Dean, and Jack.

So Dean ran, he somehow managed to pick himself up off the floor of the dungeon and meet up with Sam and Jack.  That jacket was this silent reminder.  Remember what I’ve been saying, Cas has occupied the negative space all season, this is no exception.

Dean can’t look either of them in the face, he’s doing that thing, where his eyes move everywhere BUT where he should look. 

“I couldn’t save anybody.”

Sam couldn’t save the world and Dean couldn’t save the one person that means the world to him.

“Where’s Cas?”

“Dean?”

I think it’s there, in that pause where Dean tries to push down the emotions, continue the fight, not think about the memories he left in the bunker, that Jack realizes what must have happened. Jack is the only one that knows about the deal, he has to know what Cas not being there must mean.

“He saved me.  Billie was coming after us.  Cas summoned the Empty.  It took her...and took him.  Cas is gone.”

This may shock you, but I am GLAD they didn’t talk about Cas, especially with what happens at the end of the episode.  Cas is allowed to just take up unsaid space.  It’s obvious he’s missing with the way they blocked things, obvious he’s missing here.  This whole “oh well they don’t care about Cas because they didn’t talk about him”?  Malarkey.

“Jack I’m sorry.”

Guilt.  Regret.  Pain.  Dean will carry this with him for the rest of his life.  Not only that he lost Cas, but that Sam lost Cas, that Jack lost Cas.

That SHOT, with the distance between Jack and Sam where Cas is SUPPOSED TO BE, and then a zoom out to...THE WORLD.

Okay, as usual, Bucklemming has the subtlety of a sledgehammer lmao.

Jack crying???  Praying to Cas????  Bruh?????

Also it’s just straight-up frightening for everything around my boy to die he is my baby son.

Also not to point out the incredibly obvious, but Dean starts drinking immediately, and continues drinking throughout the whole episode.  Grief arc 2.0 babey.

“We can what, Dean?  There’s no one left to save!  Everybody’s gone!”

“You can’t just give up.”

“What other choice do we have!”

Idk why, but for Sam, who’s the constant, the one who’s always had hope, through everything, through all these years, when he finally says this, when he finally loses his hope?  It hits the hardest.  Sam is the leader, so not only is he grieving the loss of Eileen, he is a general grieving the loss of his soldiers, his friends, the world that he feels the duty to save.

When they go to meet Chuck, I just can’t get that image of Dean, leaning against the car, handprint still on his jacket, staring at the ground out of my head.  It takes him a few seconds to catch up to Sam, like he’s pulled out of thoughts like deep dark water.  Remember friends, it doesn’t have to be loud to be powerful.

Chuck wearing BLACK?  FEAR.

“That’s right, the whole Cain and Abel thing.  Us dead, whatever.  I’ll kill Sam, Sam’ll kill me, we’ll kill each other.  Okay, you pick.  But first?  You gotta put everything back the way it was.  The people, the birds...Cas.  You gotta bring him back.”

Willing to kill his brother.  Willing to die.  Tears in his eyes, begging God to bring Cas back.

And Chuck?  Chuck doesn’t care about their surrender, he knows he’s already got them beaten.  He cares about their pain, he cares about them suffering, because to him?  That’s the entertainment.  He’s not entertained by their found family, by their happiness, by their joy.  He wants them to suffer, all of them.

“Eternal shame.  Suffering.  And loneliness.”

And he leaves them with just that.  No hope, no family, just the three of them, broken, alone.  Jack locked in his bedroom, Sam trying desperately to make life “normal” again.  And Dean.  Dean who drank so much he passed out on the floor.

He doesn’t feel terrific, he feels like shit, because not only is he dealing with the shame of an empty planet, he’s dealing with the guilt of being back in the place where the Empty took Cas.

This whole thing with the dog was just absolutely heartwrenching shit and if I didn’t hate Chuck before, him snapping Miracle right in front of an already fragile Dean would seal that deal.

I just want everyone to know that this is a Jake Abel stan account.

“Daddy’s boy” is a big insult for my boy Dean to use considering his own past with his trash abusive father but I’ll allow it.

I do think it’s interesting, ending of his arc aside, that Michael is willing to help them now.  What changed?  Sure, he ended up trying to help Chuck, running back to his father, but why get back in the game?  I wonder if it has anything to do with the loss of Adam.  It’s an interesting parallel, a man loses his angel while an angel loses his human.

Everything is so DARK in the Bunker now too, even the lighting is loud.

When I tell you I lost my shit when I saw Cas was calling Dean, when I heard Misha’s voice??  I knew it didn’t make any sense but I didn’t care, I would’ve been one step behind Dean as he sprinted towards the door.

Fuck you, Eugenie.

I mean it’s torture not only to Dean, who looks beyond fucking crushed when it’s damn Lucifer at the door, but for us too.  Who the FUCK wanted Lucifer back?  And to tease Cas???  Garbage.

I mean...fam.  Listen, we know who’s writing this episode, this whole Betty thing is just like blatantly unnecessary but again, Eugenie loves Lucifer, gotta distract her with a shiny toy lmao.

It was cool to see Michael and Lucifer onscreen together.  It was a cool dynamic that we rarely got to see.

The whole episode is just twist after twist.  Listen, it’s their last episode so I guess they needed to fit in a season worth of twists in one episode.

Bye Lucifer.  We know Eugenie can’t bring him back.  Blessings to all.

This scene with Adam is the FOURTH scene where Dean is drinking...big yikes to my guy’s liver.

Here’s the thing about Michael.  He’s a mirror for Dean in season 5.  Loyal to an absent father.  He has never changed, but Dean has.  Dean is able to acknowledge now, the trauma that his father put him through, he was able to move past the need for pleasing him at any cost.  Michael and Chuck?  Are John and Dean, if Dean had never been allowed to grow.  And Chuck proves, like John did, that he would always put his wants (in John’s case “the mission”) over his children.

Also not to beat a dead horse but Michael’s death was also peak Eugenie.

Sam getting to punch Chuck in the face?  Thank you, he deserves that.

Obviously I don’t love any scene of my boys getting brutally beaten.  But what I love, what I will always love about them, is what Chuck hates about them:  they won’t ever give up.  They know they won’t win against him, they don’t even land any hits, but that’s not what matters.  What matters is their controller doesn’t control them anymore, that they really are free.  No matter how hard they get hit, the get back up.  It is their choice to stand up to him, no matter the cost.

The moment where Sam and Dean are supporting each other, covered in blood, and they look God in the face, and they laugh.  That is why I will love them unconditionally for the rest of my life.  That is who they are, they will never cow to the villain, whether that’s Azazel or Alastair or Zachariah or Lucifer or Amara or Death or Metatron or Cain or God.  They will always choose to stand up.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because.  You lose.”

Chills.  What a line.

And Chuck is left, small, human, no longer a villain, no longer anything.

Gotta be real, woulda been nice to, idk, not see all this essential plot in a flashback, but I know I can only ask so much of Bucklemming.

For Dean to walk away from killing Chuck, right after he’s called him “the ultimate killer” is quite simply the most beautifully heartwrenching thing I could ever ask for.  Because that’s who Dean was under Chuck, that’s who Chuck wanted him to be.

And he would have before:

But he’s heard some things since then, heard some things about how others see him.  Not as the killer, not as a monster, not as angry and broken or his daddy’s blunt instrument:

I’m not saying that Dean doesn’t kill Chuck for Cas.  He doesn’t kill Chuck because he doesn’t think he has to anymore, he doesn’t kill Chuck because he listened to Cas, he took Cas’ words to heart.  He made the choice not to be the killer.

“See that’s not who I am, that’s not who we are.”

And Chuck is angry, because he thought, after everything, even after losing, that he would still know Dean well enough to know that he would kill him.  But Chuck has never really known Dean, he has never understood where he’s really come from.  Cas understood, Sam and Jack understand, but Chuck never did, and writing off Dean as angry and broken is his biggest mistake, because that’s never been Dean.

“It’s not his power anymore.”

And it’s not just his physical power, it’s his power over the story, over the boys that’s the real power taken from him.

For Jack to be the one to bring everyone back, for him to be the hero of the story?  That’s poetic right there.  Now, I will say, I don’t think this story ends with him as God, because for him, the child, to take on this burden, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to me for his arc, but we shall see next week.  It felt pretty tied up, but there’s one major loose end: and that’s Jack seeing Cas again.

“Just you and me, going wherever the story takes us.  Just us.”

“Finally free.”

This doesn’t feel triumphant to me, it doesn’t feel like relief.  It feels like they’ve settled, like this is the best they’re going to get, so they might as well make the best of it, at least they have each other.

For Cas and Jack to be carved into the table?  I cry.

And for the montage, very similar to “Swan Song” to be set to “Runnin on Empty”?  Sorry but that’s just too sus to be ignored.

They packaged this episode as an ending, because for many, it might be.  The season’s story, the season about fighting Chuck is over.  So, you might be asking (or, well, screaming, judging by my replies lol), what’s left?  And that’s a good question, Chuck has been defeated, so what is left?  What’s left is what’s really mattered all season: the relationships that have been crafted over the years.  Dean and Sam’s unhappiness at the end of the episode, where “just you and me” sounded more of a grudging acceptance than anything else, is one of the clues that has to be looked at.  Why didn’t Sam find Eileen, why didn’t Jack bring back Cas?  Those two characters specifically are the ones we need to watch out for.  As I’ve said over and over again, peace, contentment, satisfaction, those don’t come from Sam and Dean on the open road together anymore.  They have a family, more of a family than they did when they started hunting together all those years ago, and that family is what holds them together.  They need each other, of course, but each other isn’t enough anymore.  Sam needs Eileen, Dean needs Cas.  That is where they will find their peace.

This episode, as many written by Bucklemming was sloppy, rushed, packed full of shit, and had little gems that we can talk about forever, but that was the end of the season, and next week?  Andrew Dabb brings us home, where Dean and Sam will finally be able to choose what they want for themselves, and that, my friends, is Eileen and Cas.

[fangirling221b]

Dear Mish

(I shouldn't probably address you like that. That nickname should be sacred - meant for the people who love you the most. But anyways it's you who taught us to break rules.)

I started watching supernatural for the very purpose of discovering Destiel. Yeah yeah, I have a thing for shows with complex relationships between men which are never resolved. I couldn't wait for the three seasons to finish so that I could finally watch cas enter through those barn doors, and into my life. And probably never leave again.

I could go on and on about how much I love Cas and how much that one angel means to me but this letter will probably not suffice. Besides this is about you, the closest we have to a real angel in this world.

I was never the one to swoon over celebrities and make my life about that one actor or actress who will never even know me. But you are something different. Mish, you are so much more than any celebrity. To me, and to all of us who just fell in love with the angel of the lord only to discover that the actor was so so much more.

I've been a fan for a fairly shorter period of time but that was all it took to start obsessing over the show, and of course, you. It's not about your perfect face or ocean blue eyes or even the tens of versions of your voice we've witnessed. It's in the little things, in the beautiful, beautiful smile of yours that is known for having such an effect on us. Believe me when I say looking at you smile makes us smile. It's in the jokes you make that have Jensen rolling on the floor, it's how you talk at the conventions- as if you're narrating an old story to even older friends, it's how you embrace your flaws and have no practical filter when it comes to saying things that matter.

It's how you're an idea. An inspiration. You're something good that reflects in never ending waves.

It's how you understand your fandom and respect them more than we even deserve. It's when you tell us to write our own ending, it's when you celebrate dean and cas having 100k fanfics written about them. It's when you give meaning to the spnfamily by sharing your innermost stories meant only for best friends. It's when you post cas with rainbow wings celebrating with pride the truth everyone tried to cover and deny but they couldn't. Because you, not very much unlike cas were the one real character that broke out of narration, that wrote his own story, that embraced the beauty of what people call love.

And thank you Mish, thank you for giving us Castiel. Characters will come and go, there will be new shows, some will be better some will be worse. The universe won't stop writing and celebrating fiction. But there will never ever be another Cas, another angel of the lord, who, by the mere mention of his name in a thousand different alternate universe versions can reduce us to tears, can make us happy from within, can make us beg to the lord to bring him back, sob his name if he gets hurt and scream with ecstasy when he finally gets the happiness he deserves. Castiel is here to stay. And never to leave.

Thank you for being you. The crazy weird chaotic energy of yours, the loving nature and the helping hands that have decided to fix this broken world one act of kindness at a time, for teaching us to be ourselves, letting us have fun while changing the world, for never giving a fudge to what people think, for inspiring us to be better, for naming a goddamn star after us, for being our best friend we don't fear saying anything to, for the legendary 15×18 confession scene we still haven't really processed. Thank you Misha. Thank you for everything.

A very Happy Birthday to you, the Dmitri Tippens Krushnic, the Overlord, the Misha Collins, the best friend of ours in all of the world. All I can wish for you is a bright and beautiful future and thank the lord and every other force of the universe that made it so that I exist at a time where you do too.

With Love,

spnfamily.

P.S. I Love You. And will, always.

P.P.S Even when you get old and saggy.

[chaoticdean]

for the prompt: Dean calling Cas his friend even when they’re dating and Cas being confused

[read on ao3]

In a surprising turn of events that may or may not have been prompted by Sam telling them with a cheeky smile that he’s off to see Eileen, Dean and Cas end up having the bunker for themselves for the first time in weeks.

So when Dean wanders into the room he and Cas have been sharing since… Well, since whenever they finally got their shit together, he’s actually surprised to find Cas lying in bed wearing Dean’s sweats and one of his old ratty tee-shirts, so concentrated on the book he’s reading that his brows are furrowed.

It’s infuriating how good he looks. If Dean’s being honest, Castiel always looked like a goddamn model to him even with his ratty trenchcoat and bulky suit on, but ever since he’s started wearing clothes that actually fit him? Clothes that are almost exclusively Dean’s?

Count Dean in as perpetually blown away by his very own boyfriend’s appearance.

(Which in turn gives Sam a reason to run away every once in a while, to Dean’s greatest pleasure.)

“Really? We’ve got the house to ourselves and this is what you choose to do with our free time?” Dean chuckles as he drops on their bed.

Cas doesn’t make a single movement but Dean immediately goes for his warmth as he plasters himself against his side, finding “his” spot in the v-shape of his neck and breathing in. He drops a soft kiss where Castiel’s shoulder meets his neck, smiling when Cas lets out a silent little huff.

“Hey, sexy,” Cas finally says, eyes still on his book but one of his hand carding through the mess of Dean’s hair.

Dean lets out a hilarious huff, because everything about Cas using that phrase is hilarious at best, but Cas actually using this without even batting an eye is peak comedy.

“Hey, grumpy.”

That, at least, has the merit of pulling Cas off his book. He looks down at his boyfriend with the world’s most puzzled gaze Dean has seen in the past three decades, and it does nothing to stop another laugh from getting past the hunter’s lips.

“Why am I “grumpy” in this analogy?” Cas asks, sounding so dramatic that it sends Dean through another wave of laughter. “I’m actually in a very good mood.”

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you show how good of a mood you’re in, my friend?” Dean asks wiggling his eyebrows, already closing his eyes waiting for the kiss to come.

Which doesn’t come, and when Dean opens his eyes again he’s met with another one of Cas’ bewildered look. He pushes himself up on his elbow then, catching Cas’ gaze and losing himself in the baby blues he loves so much for a little while.

“What’s up with you?” he asks, this time with mild concern because Cas is acting strange now. “I’m just messing with you.”

“I just —,” Cas starts before he stops and looks away, and Dean can’t help but feel a surge of anxiety immediately rising up from his guts.

It’s still new, this thing between them, despite having been there for more than a decade. It’s still new because they’ve only allowed themselves to have it for a few months, and every day Dean has to pinch himself to assure that it’s real.

It’s not always easy.

It’s love and laughs, but it’s also fights and dirty laundry and bed unmade and pizza being shared at 3 am because your former angel of a boyfriend woke up wanting that half-eaten pepperoni special that you didn’t manage to finish earlier in front of yet another cowboy movie.

Dean has never felt this full. But it’s also anxiously waiting for your boyfriend to explain what’s wrong after you’ve made a stupid joke, and Dean kind of hates it right now.

He lets one of his hands wander under Cas’ shirt, fingertips tracing patterns on the skin of his chest.

“You can tell me, Cas.”

“You keep doing that,” Castiel finally says, meeting his eyes again, “Calling me your “friend”, but we have… sexual intercourse every day, sometimes several times a day, I don’t see how that still qualifies me as a “friend”. Do you have sex with all your friends?”

This time Dean can’t resist and literally burst out laughing. When he manages to get his composure back, Cas is still looking at him expectantly waiting for an explanation.

Dean kisses him instead.

It still feels a little bit unreal, being able to lie in bed doing nothing but share shallow kisses with a former angel of the lord. It also feels like riding an actual rainbow, and when Castiel’s arms finally wrap around him and pull him on top of him, Dean smiles wider into the kiss.

They’re allowed that, now. They’re allowed love and sex and all the in-betweens, and Dean loves the in-betweens.

“I only have sex with one of my friend, Cas,” Dean whispers against his boyfriend’s lips. “And it’s you, dumbass.”

“But I thought I was more than a friend?”

Dean sighs, trading another shallow and tender kiss before answering. “Well, here’s the thing, babe. If you aren’t friends with the person you’re in love with, there’s a potential issue here.”

Cas’ brows furrow again, and Dean smiles.

Good lord, he loves him so much that sometimes there’s an ache in his chest when he realizes.

“You’re my best friend. Which means I’m the luckiest guy alive because you’re also my boyfriend.”

Dean fits his lip on Castiel’s again, kissing him gently. Cas huffs into the kiss, still holding on to Dean but apparently still not convinced.

“I still don’t get it, Dean.”

“One doesn’t cancel the other. Actually, it strengthens it.

“But —,”

“Sweetheart, you’re my boyfriend and my best friend and my friend. You’re all of it. And I feel blessed for it.”

Cas finally smiles and there’s something twinkling in the warmth of his eyes as he finally leans in and kisses Dean, all tongue and teeth this time.

When they part, Dean is panting and there’s a cheeky smile spreading on Castiel’s lips.

“What was that for?” Dean asks.

Cas smiles as he drops back on his pillow, his hand behind his head. “Being your lover, your best friend, and your friend.”

“I’ll take that,” Dean smiles into another kiss.

For a little while that’s all there is, kisses and cuddles and sweet words whispered into each other’s mouth.

Until Cas, who apparently cannot let go of anything, chimes in again.

“Do I still need to be Grumpy in your analogy?”

Dean laughs against his lips, dragging his lips over the light stubble on the line of his jaw.

“Would you like it better if I called you Dopey?”

And if there’s anything the past decade taught Dean, it’s that being pressed into the mattress by a very sexy Cas not even 2 minutes after that usually means he did his job well enough.

So maybe switching from Grumpy to Dopey was the trick all along.

— taggy the taglist under the cut; as usual, ask to be added or removed! —

@misha-moose-dean-burger-lover • @dreamnovak • @leftistdean • @aelysianmuse • @cvsnovak • @xcaitlin-mayx • @bakerandcandlestikmaker • @itsalittlebitdarkinhere • @cursed-or-not • @feraladoration

@starrynightdeancas • @tearsofgrace • @galaxymysteryelephant • @50shadesofcockles • @celestialcastiel • @deano-cas • @good-things-do-happen-dean • @castiel-novak15 • @anotherdowneyfan1

@the-pinkglasses • @squintingg • @pluckydean • @dickspeightjrs • @winchester-novak • @fred-deeks-ben • @destielfactory • @mishathemoose • @definenormalifyoucan • @psychicbouquetblaze-stuff

@becky-srs • @jensenacklesruinedmylife • @dea-stiel • @gmos-winter-wonderland • @rai1002 • @leaveitalltohappenstance • @radiantdean • @writtenmemxries • @idaaeri • @mypersonalgoblincave

@dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you • @longinghestia • @ecbeau • @cloud-dreamer • @updeans • @ideeparanoiche • @not-some-background-noise • @van-dynex • @castiels-handprint • @larissa-2675

@viovhenan • @inexhaustablesourceofmagic • @slipper007 • @queen-rowenas • @winchester-thedate • @seffersonjtarship • @can-i-just-stay-in-the-corner • @kittykatara22 • @galaxycastiel • @queer-things-do-happen-dean

@anelitefangirl • @destielle • @zindagidobara • @choruscas • @fluffiestlou • @shadowywerewolfqueen • @holmesemrys • @craftywitchywoman • @thefourthheadofcerberus • @trasherasswood

@festivemish • @vinylmendes • @organicpurplepants • @deancasology • @starlightcastiel • @saarahisabels • @starespressos • @lizbennettdarcy • @destiel-bitches • @somberbasket​

@goblinwritergay​ • @i-put-the-ayyy-in-asexual​ • @sinnabonka​ • @profound-found-family​ • @blue--star​ • @blood-red-bliss​ • @neo-neo-neo​ • @tjfinnigan​ • @chocolatecakecas​ • @nguyenxtrang​

@avidbkwrm​ • @castee-yel​ • @shelton-devers​ • @usually-its-just-subtext​ • @nursemasters​ • @write-nerdy-to-me​• @faithcastiel​ • @one-more-offbeat-anthem​ • @supernaturallygay126​

[kittycatchan16]

Okay... Oh wow. I don't usually write a post right after reading new chapter BUT. Holy Guacamoli that was intense. (Warning: Spoilers of chapter 55)

So:

The Shapeless One (aka Noe's teacher & Domi's grandfather) appears after Mikhail loses control...And some things are revealed, some questions are answered and more questions appear. Maybe let's start with big reveal:

The Shapeless One saved Mikhail

He told Mikhail that V!Vanitas can be brought to life (whether that's true or not remain to be seen)

But there was even bigger ta-dum moment:

1) SO (Shapeless One) met Vani before; Vani didn't recognize his name nor his looks which means he had different identity when they first met. I'm 99.9% sure that wherever he met Vani, was also when he met Luna and Mikhail.

That would explain why he decided to save Mikhail, he knew that Mikhail belongs to Kin of Blue Moon (methinks this was the reason).

2) He has a new name "The Comte De Saint Germain"; Comte in french means "Count", so "The Count of St. Germain"

(An interesting real-life fact; anyways)

3) He apparently has one blue eye and calls Luna "the most beautiful creature in this world". I'm not sure (yet) whether he calls her creature as hyperbole or because of this:

^Chapter 50

(I'm also unsure whether "Blue" is just a short for Vampire of the Blue Moon or it means sth else)

4) And then SO (Shapeless One) ominously announces their next meeting and disappears with unconcious Misha.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thoughts & theories:

I have to say this chapter(and the ending of the previous one) surprised me. Ever since I learned someone saved Misha, I thought it was Lord Ruthven and that he was on their side. Though, in retrospect that doesn't really make sense, unless Ruthven would have saved Misha and didn't say anything to Moreau 🤷‍♀️.

And I've thought that Shapeless One was shady ever since I saw him, so maybe it wasn't the biggest plot twist nevertheless it was surprising.

The big question is: What now?

To be honest, I'm hoping that next chapter will give us some answers, our crew is a mess right now (understendable given everything that happened) but that doesn't mean any flashback or discussion about what has just happened won't occure (also bonding- yes).

There is also an interesting detail I noticed while reading this chapter (Idk, how I missed it during my first read of this arc, maybe it's the fact I changed the page on which I read mangas-and so the translation changed a bit or I was just too preocupated with what was happening and didn't register it but-)

"I've been working to erase her existence entirely"

But Vanitas...All you did was curing Curse-bearers... Are you trying to say that remains of Luna's consciousness is the Curse itself?

Does this mean that Shapeless One told Misha the truth? That Luna can be somehow brought back to life?

Although judging by his reaction, it's more adequate to say that Vampire of the Blue Moon would be brought to life, which doesn't equal with Luna being brought to life (even though they're technically one and the same).

There's also new power balance in our cast:

1) Our main crew:

Vanitas (who will still continue curing vampires)

Noe (who will probably continue helping Vani)

Dominique (and she will side with Noe)

Jeanne (who, as long as Ruthven doesn't interrupt, will side with Vani)

Dante (and probably Riche &Johnann)

2) Charlatan:

Lord Ruthven

Gano

Monsieur Spider

Naenia (Queen Faustina)

Moreau

They're ones causing increase in Malnomen(/Curse Bearers) by corrupting Vampire's True Name.

We have yet to learn why.

3) SO group:

Shapeless One (or "The Comte De Saint Germain" as he prefers to be adressed now)

Mikhail

Their goal is unknown. To ressurect V!Vanitas (possibly)???

They were content to just sit in the background until now and will probably continue to do so until sth big happens. Or they will plot sth on their own. It's hard to say rn.

Anyway that's how I see the whole situation for now, we will wait and see what's next but I have a feeling there will be answers soon (mostly because we're closing to the number of chapter in which there was a big plot-twist in Pandora Hearts, I can't say for sure that everything will be revealed on exact same chapter number but there's a good chance- the layout of action is similair enough)

[fucktheroyals]

You know after reading and reading and reading peoples theories and the meta from before the spn finale aired and the meta writers reactions to the finale I think I have a theory of my own. We don't have any answers tho, so this is pure speculation. If you wanna add something to support or discredit any of this that's cool but there's too many things floating around. Know I dont have proof for this conclusion at all. A lot of what I say is just guesses based on previous facts.

This all came together in my head when I realized how much this finale REEKS of the original producers and who the show was originally for. It REEKS of Robert Singer. Like if the execs started saying they didn't want it, Robert Singer was the one pushing that the story was about the brothers. That kinda thing.

Then, I was thinking of the problems in this episode and it struck me these are all of Supernatural biggest issues and to be honest all of it feels completely deliberate.

Take the sexism for example, Supernatural in it's later seasons largely out grew this, we have Jody, Rowena, Donna, Charlie, Mary, Claire (and even a wayward sisters pilot with MORE women/girls) all making regular appearances. They're mainly good characters and mostly aren't there to hurt our boys. Rowena, of course, is the one outlier being very about herself but it's clear she still cares for them, I mean its part of her development. But they're all real, with character flaws just like everyone else. (And we have Death too and she was POC 😭 THANK GOD)

Now look at the earlier half of Spn, we have Ellen and Jo, who's appearances were far in between. There's Bela in season 3, recurring for quite a bit (5 eps), but she is a character that is only there for herself, definitely not found family (unlike Ellen & Jo), and she's got more episodes in season 3 than Ellen and Jo in season 2 who aren't seen again til season 5. The "fans" send in hate mail after hate mail to try to get these characters off, and eventually they are. Then there's Ruby who's character stayed for a whole two seasons and was a largely recurring character. Why does she get to say so long? She's a plot device. She's supposed to be there to betray Sam. She has to stay (plus Jared obviously likes her). But she's not just a character the writers like writing about. Same with Lilith. Obviously not as recurring but still a plot device. Did they get hate mail tho? You can bet on it. Why? because tHeY'rE gOnNa PuSh ThE bOyS (Dean and Sam) aPaRt ThE sHoW iS aBoUt ThE bOyS oNlY. Without even thinking about the hate mail, just notice how large the difference is from how women are seen in the earlier seasons to the later seasons. Misha got tons of hate mail too for being a character that could split up the boys (probably only being allowed to say because he a man, thanks sexist producers and execs).

Only after Castiel was killed off and then Castiel fans successfully (thank you guys) got him back on the show did the hate mail largely simmer, which means female character's were allowed to stay! Which has lead us to a show with a good amount of female characters. But can you imagine having to kill characters off time and time again because people keep complaining that the show is "only about the boys." Fun times really.

So now we get to this final and we see sexism. But it wasn't just the plain old regular sexism you find in the earlier days of spn. Because now, there ARE women to talk about, talk to. But this episode was DESOLATE women wise, unless they were used for plot (which is also sexist!). Small scenes, they're barely there. Women gets her tongue cut out. Random women from s1 gets killed. Sam doesn't SPEAK of Eileen. Nothing. No mention of any female characters from the boys mouths unless they were from/in this episode itself. That's WIERD. I know we've all said it. But that goes beyond forgetting about characters. I mean its SAM'S GIRLFRIEND for Christ's sake. There is NO REASON they couldn't have said Eileen's name. Notice how Sam's wife is just... faceless. This is literally an age old sexist trope. Like... one of the things about bringing Mary back to life for s12+ is that it takes this trope... of basically a generic mother, and gives her life and feelings, whether you like them or not, they're real feelings. They said Mary isn't just a mom she's a person. Mary's existence in the later half of spn is to fix this kind of female tropes that fall upon her character, to not let these her stay a 2 dimensional character. They said we should know she's more than just the mom who tried to save her kid. Do that is the exact opposite of Sam getting a nameless, faceless wife. The sexism of the old spn wasn't just brought back, it was completely amplified. It wasn't just accidental or some exec "fixing" the story it was DELIBRATE. Whoever wrote that, didn't do ALL OF THAT by accident. Because an exec or a producer who doesn't see the flaws in old supernatural isn't going to write it that deliberately.

Let's bring it back to s10 when Charlie was killed (singer was mainly to blame). Dead in the bathtub, age old classic of burying ur gays. If you were here you know people never let Supernatural live that down. THEY KNOW what bury ur gays means. Hell, Robbie Thompson left because of Charlie's death and you think the writers don't know what it means? I mean both Bobo Berens (especially) and Steve Yockey's careers are centered around LGBT+ storytelling and you think they don't know? They know. They know.

And Dean wasn't just apart of the bury your gays trope, it is so far BEYOND that. Dean being killed on a rusty nail/screw, the tongues ripped out, things that seemed to be meant for other people. Jensen's acting in the last two episodes was giving us "DEAN RECIPROCATES" but no one ever actually saying it. I think it's clear that Dean was killed for being Bi. They didn't address it for a reason, they just silenced him. His narrative was supposed to be about letting him be HIM for the first time, to say what his feelings are instead of having them miscommunicated, and instead of doing that, they just silenced him. And the more we look at this scene the more horrific it gets. The more it's a complete slap in the face and it's supposed to be. Some guy who knows nothing about the LGBT can't write a scene this horrific.

Some guy who knows nothing about Dean couldn't write a scene that deconstructs all of Dean's character development and gives Dean his worst nightmare. I MEAN DEAN WANTED TO LIVE HIS LIFE! THEY DIDNT HIDE THAT JOB APPLICATION (or whatever job related thing that was) IN THERE FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST SITUATION. Dean isn't Barney from HIMYM. If you watched HIMYM then you'll know Barney went from being a stereotypical ladies man and treating women terribly to being in love with a women and treating her right and working hard for it. The last episode of HIMYM (why its so bad) Barney's character development is thrown out and he's back to being a stereotypical ladies man. You don't need to know Barney's character very much to do that.

To kill Dean during a hunt his father never finished, to not have anyone at his funeral, to have Dean die young like his life didn't matter. Those are Dean's worst fears and you'd only truly know that if you watched the gin episode in s3, where they are basically laid out for you. You HAVE to know Dean's character to tear him apart like this.

This episode took all the core elements of the show and did a complete 180° the name of the episode itself is "Carry on" and Dean and Sam very much did not carry on. Sam grieving his entire life so that he good get to heaven and see Dean again. Dean being ready to live his life, despite the enormous pitfalls and learning to love himself only to be killed. "Family don't end with blood." Um.... it did in that episode either literally with Dean's death or you know BECAUSE NONE OF THEIR FOUND FAMILY WAS THERE. Not Jack, Not Cas, Not Eileen, Not Donna, Not Charlie, Not Jody, Not Claire... on and on we go. No one was there, nobody was even mentioned. Dean's funeral, no one even called that we know of. It was just Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean. And Bobby. Don't forget Bobby. But yeah Sam and Dean.

That's what the show is about right, the brothers.

Except it's not anymore. It hasn't been for years.

Cas not being there was deafening but it brought us to a major point. Becky. Becky's telling us about the terrible ending.

And many of us are wondering why would they literally tell us this is the worst ending and then... make it the ending.

Now before we move on, it very apparent many of you think Dabb doesn't ship Deancas. And Dabb doesn't care about the characters.

Say what you will about any plot holes in his writing, the point he is VERY GOOD at writing the characters, and giving us good ones.

Why do we know Dabb ships Deancas? (ill say when its cowrote, other wise its not) cowrote ep 8.02 - purgatory "I prayed to you, Cas, every night" "Cas, Buddy, I need you." "I have a price on my head, and I've been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to – to keep them away from you." 8.08 Hunteri Heroici - Cas helps them hunt! 😊❤ Dean & Cas have a serious convo about why Cas doesn't want to see/go to heaven. 8.22 Dean's mad at Cas. Sam's explanation of why Dean should be easy on Cas: "It's Cas." Dean then points out how he'd knife anybody else if they did what Cas did. 9.10 - Cas comforts Dean when Dean can't take seeing Sam (Gadreel) being tortured anymore. Also tons of Cas. 9.20 (bloodlines) - Canonical couple parallel "I was there, where were you" 9.22 The angels make Cas choose between them and killing Dean and he "gave up an entire army for one guy" 10.09 Claire's reintroduction. Cas heavy ep. DeanCas date. 10.22 THE PRISONER - u know the ep where Dean beats the shit out of Cas but loves him enough to not kill him.

We COULD keep going but I think I've made my point. If Robert Singer is the guy that is like "the show is about Sam and Dean only" Andrew Dabb is the DeanCas shipper. And you could even say a Cas stan.

Notice! How in s13 for SEVEN episodes we have a story that revolves around Dean's grief about losing Cas. Notice! How often the stories in all these seasons have a focus on their relationship. THAT is Andrew Dabb. If it weren't for him doing that, we wouldn't be able to easily say after Dean's lack of a response to Cas' confession, that Dean reciprocates.

To me, when I was (binge) watching s12 for the first time, I thought damn this is really got a lot of DeanCas. So I went to look at who was in charge, who was writing. I saw Andrew Dabb, associated him with Deancas episodes, saw all the new writers, Bobo, and then I saw that Yockey is known for same sex stories and it clicked. Dabb assembled a team to give us Destiel. THAT WAS IN SEASON 12!!!!!!!!

The amount of people saying he's homophobic flabbergast me. Open your eyes! That isn't what's going on.

Imagine making a show and trying to right all the wrongs of Supernatural. Imagine trying to write the greatest love story ever told and you have the entire season planned out for it to end off beautifully, it may possibly be your greatest achievement when it's done and then boom. someone comes in and tells you you aren't allowed to make Dean bi or make destiel endgame, after he was most probably already given the go ahead.

Sure. You could imply he's bi or into cas still in a way. Still make nice-ish ending. just give everyone what the kinda want.

Or you could scrap the last season, nothing close to a canonical bisexual Dean Winchester or Deancas endgame in site. People can be done with it be happy with the show, continue to live their lives in ignorance as to how close they were to Canon destiel.

OR you can lead everyone to the very closest you can get them to what you were aiming for and then show everyone the ugly truth and reality. Light it all on fire. Burn the show to the ground in your wake. Try your darnedest to making these people's (the people saying no) pockets suffer. Show us, the audience, what happened. Show us what this show really is.

I've seen people talk about the ending being changed during covid but I dont think that happened. I think what happened was Dabb already had this season planned out before it even started. Obviously the details were wobbly but it was all lead up to this ending. Destiel endgame, Canon Bisexual Dean, whatever it was. They were ready to write the greatest love story ever told and then someone shut it down.

Imagine the pain that must have caused them to be told no when they already said yes. They must have been so excited to give this to us.

I think someone (some producers) told him what this show is "really" about. The brothers. Can you imagine, after being told no, some kinda bullshit like this is said to you: "Why aren't you bringing it back to the brothers, Andrew? that's what the shows about. What with all this homosexual stuff, you know the audience won't like that. Not really." Imagine the original producers pushing this kind of view on you. "You know when we started it was Sam and Dean. It should end with Sam and Dean." That kinda sounds like someone huh? huh.

So why give us a nice acceptable finale, when you can take every problem Supernatural's had either up front or behind the scenes and create a finale so incredibly bad that people don't want to watch it anymore.

Someone made a good point about how Sam was originally supposed to be the main focus (this isn't to put any hate on Sam or Jared). Dean and Sam are the main characters but Sam was supposed to be the focus and for Dean to have become the focus, must have annoyed the producers because... well here we are. They wouldn't listen to Jensen. The producers liked this ending. Jensen's opinion didn't matter to them.

In some ways, if this is really what happened, it can be seen as childish from Dabb. To hurt all of us like that. Yes, he's hurting the producers, the execs, the cw. But to hurt us? Yeah it stings.

But in other ways, if this is really what happened, this is Dabb showing us the muck and gunk under the shiny surface. The hate for Misha. The hidden hate for Jensen. The underlying sexism. The underlying homophobia. The people REALLY in charge don't care about us, they just want our money. He needed to open our eyes and free us, at least free the people that he was writing for. The people he sees that care about this show.

This is the ending the powers that be wanted and its a big fuck you for a reason. I dont think this is Dabb spitting in our faces for loving this show, I think this is him trying to get revenge for us.

But from here, you can see it how u want it. If this is really what happened, I'm not in charge of your emotions, if you wanna be mad be mad if you wanna be grateful be grateful. And you don't have to believe me either I said this is speculation.

Also, as for all of the rumors like there being shots to the confession scene that we didn't see, which Jensen himself implied, I think that might have been a last ditch effort to canonized DeanCas but obviously it was cut. Like the name change was pretty clear. As for Misha possibly having shot some stuff for 20 I dont know what to tell you. If it's true I dont know where the blame would lie.

I do think however, that if all this was the case, the writers were prepared to become villians here. I mean they told us the writers were villians with Chuck right? So. Who knows what went down so they could give us such a vile ending. It could've been the producers or the writers, who truly knows. I do think tho that people we "trust" did some pretty shitty things to push the narrative in certain directions so now one would see this as the actual ending that was coming.

So again do with my SPECULATION what you will. This was in no way meant to put Dabb on a pedestal or anything. Just meant to give a bit of perspective.

(Also Jensen didn't unfollow Dabb recently he was already unfollowed for years)