#destiel family texts

[sterekmpreg]

[sanpire]

Where should i share my supernatural re-watch thoughts?

I'm moving for the first time in my life and i'm thinking about re-watching spn. Comfort, safety and all that. I was 17 when i first started the show, i'm 30 now and although i'll always love the show, my mind has grown so i'm a bit scared to re-watch it. But i'll feel better if i share my thoughts but i'm not sure if:

-Anyone would care -Where to even share my rewatch reactions.

But if i do, where should i share it?

[samwinchesterism]

in re: “cas knows dean better than sam”

“cas sees dean as a whole person and sam just sees dean’s façade as his big brother slash parent” but like how and where. outside of your fanfiction. season and episode. scene and line. if it’s so obvious and apparent you should have at least 3-5 concrete examples right? “sam doesn’t know dean carried him out of the burning house” yeah but did cas? outside of a footnote in the angelic manila folder they gave him between seasons 3 and 4 so he could better manipulate him and sam into doing heaven’s bidding? like if you’re going to say “cas knows dean better than sam” than you need to show how cas succeeds where you perceive sam to be failing at the very least. but even your perceptions of how sam doesn’t measure up are so warped, blinkered, and moronic that it wouldn’t even be worth much if you could provide the textual evidence, but at least you’d have a semblance of a point. like say anything without going “as an eldest daughter…” “well my relationship with my sibling isn’t…” please say anything without fucking projecting your own self-pitying crybaby bullshit onto your little woobie dean and using the actual canon text of the show. I’m literally begging you.

like the thing of it all is and always has been that you’re so hell-bent on twisting the sam and dean relationship to fit into this narrow and almost entirely inaccurate mold which is the basis upon which you build the entire Destiel Mythos that you literally lose all sense of media literacy. you don’t even miss the forest for the trees, you miss the trees for like, the pretend invisible things you’re seeing in between the trees, the forest is a whole long way away from your current level of perception. because the Destiel Mythos is based entirely on the fact that dean is Not Seen and Not Appreciated and Not Loved and Cannot Be Himself until cas comes along, and that Family (read: sam) Is Only A Burden on Him That He Must Be Freed From In Order to Flourish, so you keep trying to warp the sam relationship into something that is only one dimension of it – and keep ignoring the ways in which dean is seen, loved and understood within it, because you need to keep lying to yourselves that there is a narrative need to emancipate dean from something that he has never wanted emancipation from because it is ultimately a net good for dean in the particular circumstances of their lives. it’s also profoundly unhealthy, codependent, evil and toxic etc. (a lot more dean’s fault than sam’s but I will nawt be getting into all that right now) but that doesn’t change the fact that sam and dean both know and understand and feel deeply that they are each other’s person – that they know the best and love the most in the world. but that – which IS true canon fact – is incompatible with the Destiel Mythos so it must be ignored and all good sense must be thrown out the window in order to do it.

anyway i digress there are two main categories of Bad Thinking that i will be addressing below

childhood/ “parent/child” / blah blah blah

every single thing people are saying in favour of the deeply stupid thesis in the title of this post is proof positive of the very silly form of ‘analysis’ I just described. a few things:

“wah sam didn’t know that dean carried him out of the burning house :( this means that dean withholds things from sam to protect him because he is a PARENT and sam can only know things about him in the context of him being a PARENT to him” – what the fuck are you on about genuinely. first of all reducing the sam/dean relationship exclusively to parent/child is in itself foolishness for so many reasons that I don’t have time for right now. but also, it’s clear that this is just something that happened when sam was a baby that just never came up. in the scene (1.09) where this is brought up, dean is mildly surprised that he or john never mentioned that detail and then states that sam knows the rest of the story (i.e. the actual traumatic stuff) just as well as dean does – which is true, demonstrably whenever they talk about it.

obviously there are some things that happened to dean in their childhood that sam doesn’t know about (or didn’t know about, until told in whatever episode they come up in). equally, there are things dean doesn’t know about sam’s childhood, e.g. the fact that he was so lonely he needed a zanna (11.08). or how dean didn’t remember that sam was friends with barry cook until he mentions it when they go back to their old school (4.13). or about the nature of sam’s relationship with amy pond (7.03). these don’t mean that ‘sam withheld these things to protect dean out of parental love’ lol, it’s just that there are details and events in each of their lives that the other happens to not have been told about.

similarly “sam didn’t even know dean wanted to be a firefighter L” girl did dean know sam wanted to be a lawyer? in 1.01 he’s pretty surprised that sam has a law school interview. the point here isn’t “neither sam nor dean know each other well,” these are minutiae that aren’t relevant to how well you know someone as a whole, and very poorly demonstrate the bad and inaccurate point that dean withholds things from sam the way a parent does a child (on a constant or regular basis). obviously the way they were raised, sam was deemed too young to know about certain things until he got older and dean had to keep that secret, but as shown in 3.08 flashbacks, most if not all of this is eventually revealed throughout their childhood when sam is still fairly young.

or possibly the dumbest one is that “wah sam doesn’t even know that dean reads books L” whenever that was he was also obviously joking because in more serious moments (e.g. 8.14) he admits that dean is smart/a better researcher than he is, literally remembers dean reading to him as a kid (8.21) so like. clam down  

one of the extra annoying variants of this type of ‘proof’ covers things that are very clearly novel pieces of information about dean that dean, sam, and the audience are learning about dean in real time. like if you’re actually watching the show to comprehend it as it was intended to be comprehended, instead of funnelling everything through the Destiel Machine until it’s unrecognizable slop that fits neatly into your pre-ordained molds that Make Destiel Necessary In the Narrative (when it actually isn’t, at all) it’s abundantly clear. the top two worst offenders:

“sam didn’t even know that dean is good with kids :( he doesn’t even realize that dean raised him :(” first of all you people need to understand that parentification does not literally create a parent-child dynamic between siblings but I digress – this doesn’t make any sense bro. in 1.03 dean admits he doesn’t know any kids as an adult. dean being good with his own kid brother when they were both kids is to any reasonable person not necessarily linked with him being good with other random kids when he’s an adult. in 1.03 it’s clear that dean himself is a bit surprised that he’s able to connect w/ lucas so well because he’s clearly not dealt with a lot of kids since sam grew up. the whole point of this is that dean, sam, and the audience are all sort of seeing a new side of dean. who again is just 26. after this very early episode, there’s no question from sam that dean is able to connect w kids. sam being a bit surprised by this also has absolutely zero connection with him not understanding or realizing that dean looked out for him when they were both kids – sam is standing there at 22 years of age talking about adult dean and children – of fucking course he doesn’t mean himself are you stupid.

from the very first season, sam is very clearly aware of everything dean ~did for him~ when they were kids, see e.g. 1.21: “Dean...ah...I wanna thank you. […] For everything. You've always had my back you know? Even when I couldn't count on anyone I could always count on you. And I don't know, I just wanted to let you know, just in case.”

and 1.06: DEAN: Well, I’m a freak, too. I’m right there with ya, all the way. (SAM laughs.) SAM: Yeah, I know you are.

and then possibly even more stupidly, the one where it’s like “wah sam doesn’t even know dean can cook :( he doesn’t even know that DEAN was the one making him food as a babe in arms :(” – when sam is surprised that dean made something fairly gourmet and from scratch literally the first time they have ever had a permanent living space with a functional kitchen. in this VERY scene (8.14), dean himself points out that they haven’t had a kitchen before and when sam remarks on the irregularity of him doing serious cooking, he says “I’m nesting”, clearly showing that this is a novel development because they now have a kitchen, and that it’s irregular relative to past behaviour – both of them acknowledge this. because real proper in-depth cooking and making box mac and cheese for sam until he was like 11 and old enough to be left alone are two different things, which sam understands because he’s smart, unlike whoever chooses to make this point. dean never showed significant signs of liking to cook before this, which is what the exchange is about, but he did have to prepare food for them both when sam was too young – of course sam knows he had to, there are childhood memories referred to (e.g. 14.11) where sam is mentioned to literally help dean do the cooking as kids lol (and yes, genius, sam says ‘I didn’t know you knew what a kitchen was’ or something to that effect, but if you think he’s being 100% literal there I have an oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you)

again, obviously there are pieces that sam doesn’t know about dean, e.g. when he’s talking about his response to mary dying in 1.03. but again, Sam is 22, dean is 26, the last time they were in regular contact was when sam was 18-20, these are things that happen when people grow up, they’re able to reflect and share on childhood experiences if they’re close with their siblings as adults. it’s clearly not something that 26 y/o dean wanted to hide from 22 y/o sam. yes sam didn’t know everything about how dean felt when they were young, but that’s equally true in the other direction, and it’s such an irrelevant point in this discussion when, crucially, sam does learn these things about dean mostly fairly early on in the series (i.e. when they’re really not that deep into adulthood yet). cas was also not magically blessed w/ knowledge about dean, he also had to learn whatever it is that he knows, but somehow sam has to know everything about dean from age 7 or it doesn’t count when it’s sam lol.

“sam doesn’t know the One True Dean / doesn’t see through his facades”

the next branch of defending this flawed thesis is invariably that sam has little idea of the fronts and facades that dean puts up and is content to just believe them, whereas cas digs deep and sees the One True Dean that stupid sam always misses. there is nothing in the text that demonstrates this is true. multiple times, we see sam being very knowing of the fact that dean puts up fronts and facades. sam is also knowledgeable of the way dean perceives himself, and – demonstrated in multiple episodes before such sam lines were very poorly recycled and regurgitated into cas’s dialogue in 15.18, but keep acting like that was the first time anyone ever showed that they knew the One True Dean.

Obviously there are times where sam teases dean when he’s being more touchy-feely than usual, but 9.99 times out of 10 (as a conservative estimate in case there's something i'm forgetting otherwise i would say every time) that’s very clearly coming from a place of knowing the real dean vs. the façade he puts up because that’s the whole joke. and it’s allowed to be a joke because they’re siblings and that’s what siblings do lol. esp since sam and dean have touchy feely moments at the end of like every episode.

examples of all of the above off the top of my head (there are more than these, but these are the ones I can think of):

2.02 (about John’s death)

Sam: “I mean this ‘strong silent’ thing of yours, it's crap. […] I'm over it. This isn't just anyone we're talking about, this is Dad. I know how you felt about the man.”

Dean: “You know what, back off, all right? Just because I'm not caring and sharing like you want me to.”

Sam: “No, no, no, that's not what this is about, Dean. I don't care how you deal with this. But you have to deal with it, man. Listen, I'm your brother, all right? I just want to make sure you're okay.”

2.03 (Sam to Dean, also about John’s death): “You know, you slap on this big fake smile but I can see right through it. Because I know how you feel, Dean. Dad's dead. And he left a hole, and it hurts so bad you can't take it, but you can't just fill up that hole with whoever you want to. It's an insult to his memory.”

Note that Dean essentially admits that Sam is right in these two instances in 2.04 bc I know yall have stupid shit to say about john too that has nothing to do with how anyone actually felt about him in canon

3.07 (about Dean’s demon deal – also proven true in later episodes)

SAM: Dude, drop the attitude, Dean. Quit turning everything into a punch line. And you know something else? Stop trying to act like you're not afraid.

DEAN: I'm not!

SAM: You're lying. And you may as well drop it 'cause I can see right through you.

DEAN: You got no idea what you're talking about.

SAM: Yeah, I do. You're scared, Dean. You're scared because your year is running out, and you're still going to Hell, and you're freaked.

DEAN: And how do you know that?

SAM: Because I know you! […] Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just […] I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again. 'Cause... (can't find words; tears in his eyes) just 'cause.

5.18 [Sam figures out what Dean is doing re: his plan to let Michael possess him, tracks him down, and eventually is the catalyst for Dean ‘making the right call’, which he predicts] – e.g.:

SAM: No, you won’t. When push shoves, you’ll make the right call

DEAN: You know, if tables were turned…I’d let you rot in here. Hell, I have let you rot in here.

SAM: Yeah, well…I guess I’m not that smart.

DEAN: I—I don’t get it. Sam, why are you doing this?

SAM: Because… you’re still my big brother.

8.14 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18 + sam intrinsically understanding the trials are a death wish for dean): “I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. You have friends up here, family. I mean, hell, you even got your own room now. You were right, okay? I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't – I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it. […] I AM smart, and so are you. You're not a grunt, Dean. You're a genius – when it comes to lore, to – you're the best damn hunter I have ever seen – better than me, better than dad. I believe in you, Dean. So, please – please believe in me, too.”

10.22 (understanding how much dean has ~done for him~)

SAM: I'm saving my brother.

CASTIEL: You told Dean—

SAM: —I know what I told Dean. Cas, look. I've been the one out there, messed up and scared. And alone. And Dean—

CASTIEL: He did whatever he could to save you.

SAM: Yes. I mean, it's become his thing. I owe him this. I owe him everything.

10.23 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18, x2 – from Sam to Dean): “You were also willing to summon death to make sure you could never do any more harm. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way. […] You will never, ever hear me say that you -- the real you -- is anything but good.”

11.13 (Sam understanding exactly how Dean feels about Amara being his ‘deepest desire’, and confirming that it doesn’t make him a bad person)

Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I’m…

Sam: Means you’re what? Complicit? Weak? Evil?

Dean: For starters, yeah.

Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She’s the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I’m not.

Dean: You know that I want her ass dead.

Sam: Yes. Of course. And I know you’ve also probably beaten yourself up a hundred times over it, but where has that gotten us? (Long silence) Just how bad is it?

13.02 (Sam perfectly explaining Dean’s psyche to Jack)

JACK: Is that why Dean hates me?

SAM: Dean doesn’t hate you. It… Look, sometimes the wires in Dean’s head get crossed and—and he gets frustrated, and then he mixes frustration with anger, and—and fear.

JACK: Why would he be afraid?

SAM: Because Dean feels like it’s his job to protect everyone. And right now, we need to protect you. But we may also need to protect people from you.

14.03 [Sam assesses Dean’s psychological/emotional response to the Michael possession; end of episode, Dean confirms that Sam’s assessment was fully accurate]

14.10 [Sam is the only one able to snap Dean out of his weird Michael mind loop by using their code word]

14.11 [Sam figuring out that something is troubling Dean just based on the fact that Dean hugs him]

15.17 (self explanatory at this point)

DEAN: Chuck has to die. He has to! Otherwise he'll keep us tap dancing forever, and I can't live like that, man! I can't live like that! I won't!

SAM: I know you feel like that right now, okay. I know you do. But you gotta trust me. My entire life, you've protected me— from Dad, from Lucifer, from everything. I didn't always like it, you know, but... it's the one thing in the whole world that I could always count on. It's the only thing I've ever known that was true. So please... put the gun away. Just put it away, and we'll figure it out, Dean, we'll find another way, you and me. We always do.

like maybe there are some cas moments w dean along these lines too. i don't know, i don't remember what the guy says or does anymore it's been too many years and he is not memorable. but the point is where and in what capacity and based on what metric other than the amount of bad fanfic you've read does cas exceed sam in these respects.

so basically just. genuinely, what are you people literally ever talking about. go watch the show instead of saying stupid wrong stuff about sam on the hellsites all day. or watch another show (please for the love of god watch any other show this one is absolutely lost on you and it’s such a stupid one too i'm embarrassed for you)

[ravkanbarrelcrow]

AU in which Claire lives with Destiel & Sam and finishes Highschool:

*Text messages*

Claire, family group: Hey, uhm...I got suspended from school.

Cas: Dean? Is that a thing where kids get grounded?

Dean: Hold on, what happened?

Claire: The teacher pointed at me with a ruler and said there's an idiot at the end of it and I asked which end.

Dean: This is awesome, Cas she should get more pocket money! 😁👌🏻

[rewatching-sam-and-dean]

“Dean was soo gay/bi because his siren is a man!”

This argument is the absolute perfect example of why hellers don’t understand the show, and it highlights the process they use to consume SPN and try to prove bi Dean/Destiel.

In the show: Dean has a male siren.

Hellers think: “Dean has a male siren! Oh! Dean loves boys! Tee hee!”

Hellers ignore: they ignore the fact that the siren explicitly claims to be a stand in for Sam: a little brother who listens to, and looks up to, Dean. This also means that if Dean is attracted to that siren, it doesn’t mean he is attracted to boys. It means he is attracted to Sam (even SPN is not trying to explicitly make that point).

In the show: The siren says that what Dean needs is not “some bitch in a g-string.”

Hellers think: "Dean has a boy siren because he thinks girls are icky! He’s my little gay/bi meow meow!”

Hellers ignore: We have seen Dean hook up with women all the time. Being both attractive and charming, Dean can “score” a very attractive woman just be being himself. He doesn’t need the siren to be a hot girl because he sleeps with hot girls all the time.

The siren being a male and a stand in for Sam is somewhat unhinged for sure, and people can read more into it than what is explicitly shown in the episode. But, based on the text (with the siren), there is no supported interpretation that Dean is just attracted to guys in general. He is having problems with his brother, and what he needs is a brother he feels close to. That’s it. That’s the message. You could maybe argue that Dean is somewhat Aromatic from this episode.

The heller process: What hellers do is watch a scene, hyper-fixate on one moment/line/image that they think proves the point they are trying to prove (Destiel/bi Dean) and ignore everything else. They ignore the greater context of the show; in this case, Dean not needing a siren to be a pretty girl both because he can hook up with them himself (we see this for ourselves over the years: context) and because he values familial relationships, specifically with Sam, more than romantic ones (we know this both from context and from what is actually said). They ignore explicit show explanations (what the siren actually says). And they view everything through their lens, or shipping goggles, so it naturally skews everything they watch from the start.

In other words. The show they watch is a highly coloured snd edited version that looks very little like the actual show.

[author-alana]

I'm so particular about Destiel fanfics because of how I see Dean. Especially the fix it fics.

As much as we all want them to fall into each other's arms.

I don't think Dean knows that he loves Cas. I don't think Dean quite knows what love is. The desperation that he feels when Cas is gone, well he's desperate when Sam is gone so it must be the same thing.

He knows Cas is his best friend, so when he loses Charlie, it can't be all that different, right?

He would never leave Sam behind, just like he would never leave Cas behind. Because they're family.

Dean has never known what love was. At the age of 4, all love was sucked out of his life. The only people he saw were his father (abusive and negligent) and his baby brother, whom he loved from the pov of a parent, not a sibling. And as he got older, his dad encouraged him to chase girls "for the fun." Never even hinting that Dean, in all of his wishes, could ever have a normal life. LEARN to love. Have things that he wants. He was to be a soldier, the grunt, and nothing more.

So Dean knows lust. And he knows familial love. But he never knew anything about how he loved Cas. Because when he thought of Cas, it was hardly ever just "I want to get in his pants." Dean honestly would have been able to get over that. No, with Cas, it was more. With Cas, he wanted that apple pie life. He wanted more of the days where they woke up and shared space, where Cas sat with him as he silently drank his coffee. Where Cas texted him throughout the day with an embarrassing amount of emojis and made him laugh with his lack of pop culture knowledge. The dynamic was love, but to him, friendship was so foreign he didn't know the difference.

So of COURSE Dean didn't respond when Cas confessed. His whole perspective on everything was altered the second Cas started speaking. When he said "I Love You." And Dean didn't have time to realize that THAT'S what he'd been feeling before Cas was ripped away from him forever. Years of it. Gone in an instant.

So he sat on the floor and he sobbed. And he ignored Sam. Because in all of this, he realized that for YEARS he'd had his shot at happiness in front of him, but couldn't see it, because he didn't know the words. He didn't know the difference. And he knows that this time, he'll never get that chance again.

[dotthings]

So some people from the same lane that claims that platonic love is the only love that matters on SPN and platonic love is the highest love and the only love worthy of depiction and sibling love is the highest love there can be no other love also says things like Cas is “only” a brother to Dean, and Cas is “just a friend,” and therefore their bond isn’t any kind of a big deal. They’re downplaying to stick it to the shippers. It’s more proof that all their talk about the sanctity and value of platonic relationships is performance cover for their own actual fixation.

This hate crusade from the so-called “core fans” of SPN didn’t start in the modern era. It didn’t start in the age of queer coding or when Destiel started breaking through into text. It didn’t start in the twitter era or the tumblr era. It’s been burning since Dean and Cas started to become friends in S4, and the war expanded along with the developing story, the growth of social media, and new platforms.

Some stans have been around a very long time and are still waging the same hate war, some are new generations of stans in that interest set who rolled in and adopted the bad discourse, but it’s always the same denialism and hateful fandom script it’s been since S4 and only intensified in S5 and it got worse with each successive season, and it didn’t start with S4 and Cas’s introduction, this was a struggle in earlier seasons, but until Cas no one really stuck around long enough and deep enough to test the issue and that’s why Dean and Cas, and Destiel, are the flashpoint, but Cas’s arrival is not the invention of it either.

SPN is a show that has always been about love.

I started watching in 2005 when it first began and have written tons of SPN meta and rewatched and studied the episodes. It has always, always been about love.

In reflection I grow more horrified, not less, by how a very dominant loud component of its “core” base didn’t actually believe this story could be about love, it only believed in Sam and Dean bro bond supremacy and everything else can burn.

They call themselves fans and call themselves superior and brag about being “non shippers” or they ship what they ship but always funnel back to this same attack and denial on Dean and Cas’s relationship and in so doing burn down friendship love, found family love, brothers in arms, kindred spirits, and bury the fact that SPN has always shown the different way bonds and love forms.

Some of them deploy a certain amount of phobic rhetoric in service to this hate crusade, but that’s not the only thing happening. And it’s a chicken or the egg dilemma. Are they like this to rail against a queer ship because of phobic biases, or do they rail against a queer ship and pretend queer coding doesn’t exist and insult people who closely analyze the show because they’d be against anything that they perceive as a threat to Sam and Dean only love supremacy? Since Dean and Cas’s closeness, however it’s defined, gets attacked and denied in its essence.

Familial themes, found family, and love on SPN never actually mattered to them, only Sam and Dean ever did. If it’s not Sam and Dean, to them it’s not love. If it’s not Sam and Dean, to them it’s not family. They really really have epically missed the point.

And the brothers were the chief canvas to reflect on love, but the brothers were never, ever canonically the sole and only expression of and reflection and rumination on love.

It’s mostly just sad, honestly. How this story of two brothers and their family, and the people they love, just doesn’t matter to the supposed “core” the supposed backbone of the fandom, who brags how they made this fandom, and how they’re the only fans who “get” SPN, while they preach and preach about brotherly love, they have no respect for the actual story, the actual canon, or the show’s actual messaging.

Dean and Cas embody so many of spn’s strongest themes about love. There is no excuse to slam the door on the fingers of queer readings to virtue signal about “it’s about platonic love only”—that not only makes no sense for the show holistically, given romantic love has played a role plenty of times on SPN and has been treated as a love as any other love, it’s all love. Nobody has to ship anything, but not shipping something isn’t an excuse for this ongoing war against SPN’s canonical themes about love and it’s not “ruining” the show or “not getting SPN” to have a queer reading, but I’m not just annoyed by the queerphobic nonsense, it’s the attack on love generally.

How do people watch a show that is about love while acting like love should have no place there? The reason it doesn’t make sense is because they don’t, in fact, make any sense.

We don’t have loud open declarations in PR acknowledging mutual canon Destiel. What is there in loud open PR are statements affirming the importance of found family love and other kinds of relationships beyond the exclusivity of Sam and Dean and somehow, conveniently, this gets ignored so people can continue their lie about what spn is about, what spn is allegedly “only” about. Found family has always been under attack by these so called “fans.” Sometimes openly and often passive aggressively.

I don't blame people for loving the bro bond. I don't blame non-shippers. I don’t care which characters they like or dislike. That’s their business. Shipping, not shipping, that isn't the actual problem here, it's a whole lot more complicated than that.

Anyway. Dean and Cas love each other deeply. SPN and the SPN universe, any show set in that world, has always been about love.

[sterekmpreg]

[fallecupid]

ㅤ໒ Destiel as soulmate.

.ᐟ.ᐟ warnings :ㅤ this is just a sketch of the relationship between Castiel and Dean, taken from fragments of the series.

author's note : i apologize in advance for errors in this text / vague wording / words that are incorrect in meaning (if any are present in the content.) english is not my native language, everything written below has been translated by a translator.

At first, it was all about benefiting the Almighty. Cas is the angel of Lord who brought Dean Winchester back from the brink to stop the coming apocalypse.

And so it went on, Castel appearing to the Winchester Brothers to announce another case or lead for the great vessel Michael and his brother vessel Lucifer.

In the future, when the apocalypse did come, Castiel trusted the Elder Winchester wholeheartedly, only because a thin thread of connection had formed between them over all that time, entailing affection.

Cas was quite human, blindly sacrificing his own priorities, putting the Winchesters first. Even those little moments when he'd had his first drink, even almost sleeping with a girl, a completely new experience for an angel.

A term he hadn't considered in human society before. But now, he could tell that the Winchesters were more than his friends, they were family. And the angel himself is happy to know that.

It was all Dean's influence, and it would be foolish to say that the elder Winchester means nothing to an angel. Certainly not a romantic interest, Castel feels a kindred spirit in him, someone he's destined to be with for the rest of his life, his friend.

To Dean, Cas was at first a skid-row angel, a god that no one had ever seen, only a handful of people could boast of having had a word with the creator of all things. Winchester had been cautious as long as he could; he had not believed the angels to the last, much less their signs and plans for him.

But the guy didn't notice how from being an angel on god's errand, Cas became a confidant to him.

Dean was very careful to show affection for him, after all Castel was an angel, too stupid to understand humans, so Dean chose the strategy of building a wall between them.

One day the wall came down, and it was replaced by a bond, a friendly, strong bond. Dean was certainly not the kind of man who could show his emotions, the kind of man who could trust to the end, it just wasn't his thing.

There was so much more Dean could have said than he did in all the time he spent apart.

Even in those moments when he realized that Castiel would never return, and he himself was up to his neck in a quagmire of doubt, he only listened silently to the angel's confession as tears rolled from the saint's eyes, human tears.

"I love you." - Cas said then, and after that, it was the last one before he disappeared.

Dean could only choke quietly on his own tears, realizing that Cas was like a part of him, like he was Sam, like he was the inseparable thing without which the current Dean would no longer be one.

There may not have been a flutter of attraction in him, but it was definitely love, a platonic affection that restrained him. Dean loved Cas, loved him in his own way, the only way Dean Winchester could.

[quietwingsinthesky]

destiel and wincest for the ship ask game :))

destiel

you know, what could have been an interesting ship has been so thoroughly destroyed by bland fanon and overrunning the website with it that my only reaction is Shut The Fuck Up. you know how people have taken saying “read any other book” to harry potter fans? Discuss Any Other Ship. the only people who should be allowed to still talk about destiel are the people who are properly freaks about it.

i pray every day that a supernatural revival brings castiel back played by a woman and that’s the only way reciprocal destiel happens. i think that would be hilarious. i would love to watch a bunch of people who are so proud of themselves for shipping this Revolutionary Queer Ship™️ stumble and fall on their faces if it worked out like that. i guarantee you no one would care that Cas has always been technically canonically genderless the whole time. how do i put it. people could hallucinate a whole finale they were denied for that gay angel when he was shaped like the man they were attracted to. they wouldn’t bother to put any amount of effort into embracing it as still being a queer narrative if cas took the body of a woman, nevermind that if that did happen, it would be arguably even more queer then before. can’t hit a character with the transfem beam just to make the ship “straight” without making everything else a lot more funky around it! but it is very obvious to me, given the disconnect between what’s in the show and what people claim about destiel, that the majority of investment has very little to do with the characters themselves and a lot more to do with the attractiveness of their male actors.

wincest

so anyway, you know how everything im annoyed with about destiel is about how there’s not much investment in the show itself or its themes or the characters beyond how they serve to further a ship? so like. having been in both circles. wincest isn’t like that. there’s people who annoy the fuck out of me in wincest circles, who i think have awful takes or are just assholes, because that’s how being a fandom is. but like. at least they do the reading, you know? the thing about supernatural, and if you’re someone who has followed me only since i started doccy whoing and only knows about spn through tumblr/destiel osmosis, i’m either sorry to inform you and/or delighted to tell you, the thing about supernatural is that it’s about incest. i’m not trying to do a shipping gotcha, i’m not being competitive about who is more canon here. incest is in the text. eric kripke did not fight the network to have mary winchester kiss her father on the mouth to sell sam’s soul to the demon who would later infect his blood with a curse he could never scrub out for people to pretend like this show isn’t about incest. they reference it in the show by name multiple times when talking about the in-universe fandom of the winchester brothers. this is what the show is about. (which. the fact that this isn’t just common knowledge and people unfamiliar with the fandom know more about destiel is so funny to me. no one goes up to game of thrones and tries to say it isn’t kicked into motion because of jaime and cersei fucking and is instead about the love story of bronn and jaime.)

it’s one thing not to engage with it out of discomfort, i understand that, one of my friends doesn’t because that themes genuinely makes him nauseous. but like. that’s what the show is about. it’s about sam and dean’s codependence and how it destroys them and every relationship they have with the people around them. its about how there’s still a core of love so powerful it can beat the devil even surrounded by all that sickness and abuse. the show never stops being about sam and dean. the center was always meant to be “family is hell.”

so what i’m saying is. i vibe with wincest a hell of a lot. this is a theme that i love. i’m a little freak who likes when gothic horror is about two siblings holding on too tight when the house crumbles down on top of them. i love that the show goes hard on placing sam and dean as brothers being on the same level or above their romantic entanglements. and like. also incest kink. but mostly, i find engaging with the text of the show from a wincest lines fascinating, because it isn’t about fighting the show as it is to get the narrative you want. it’s about interpreting what was laid out for you, on purpose.

like. the way i see the great fandom war between these two ships is: you can either look at Sex and Violence and say ‘oh this is proof dean is into dudes and also cas because the siren sort of looks like cas’ or you can say ‘the siren literally word for word says that he lured dean in by playing along as the little brother that dean needs right now as he feels sam slipping away from him and choosing ruby instead.’

wincest wins. it’s in the name.

[put any ship in my ask box and i’ll give my brutally honest opinion]

[watching-sam-and-dean-again]

Why This Doesn’t Mean Destiel: Part 2 - Dean Wrapping up Castiel's Corpse

Part 1 - Zepline Traxx - here

Okay, so I saw this take floating around Twitter and Tumblr again in the last week or so: if Destiel isn’t canon then why did they have Dean wrap up Castiel's body in 13x01? This obviously means they’re married became because this is a ritual for widows in …. You get it. Well, allow me to offer my rebuttals to this totally unbiased idea. Now, I know hellers will never listen or care because they have their heads buried too far in the Destiel quicksand to ever see the light, but honestly, I just like to argue against takes that show a lack of media literacy, or takes that deliberately ignore the rest if the text, especially when it’s easy to do.

Arguments and screen shots under the cut due to length.

First: Let’s go with the Wincest reasons, just for funsies, and because I know it would piss hellers off. Dean can’t be married to Cass because, in Season 8, he already married Sam in a hand-fasting ritual. In a church. In front of a witness (Crowley). And despite some rough times in Seasons 9 abd 10, they never did get a divorce.

And:

So, if we need to put romantic significance on a moment like Dean wrapping Cass' body up for burning, then we also need to put romantic significance on Sam and Dean exchanging promises of devotion in a church (wedding), especially when the later is a very popular Western tradition and Suoernatural does, in fact, take place in the Western world. "But they’re brothers!" I might hear you cry is disdain. Well, Sam and Dean are weird, so there is that. But, it’s true, they are brothers, so they aren’t technically married in a romantic sense. But, neither are Cass and Dean. Dean considers Cass like a brother, too (which he has said more than once). He has also never referred to Cass and himself like a couple, even in passing or as a joke. In fact, he’s taken exception to the very suggestion (10x05). Thus, it’s not a romantic gesture on his part, but a familial gesture, a brothers in arms gesture.

Second: if Dean wrapping Castiel’s body can only be read as romantic in nature then how do we explain all of these moments:

1) Is it Sam or Dean who are in love with their dad? Or did they prepare John for burning together? Or did they get someone else to wrap him up before they burned him, so as to avoid the primarily spousal burial ritual from another culture that would have implied incest?

2) I guess nodoby could have had any romantic feelings for Ellen or Jo because, seeing as they got blown up, and didn’t have bodies to lovingly prepare before the ritual hunters cremation. Sucks to be them, I guess.

3) I guess Dean had to be in love with Charlie, even though that idea is not allowed because she’s a lesbian, since someone had to prepare Charlie’s body. Or was it Sam? It certainly looks like both of them where dealing with her body. No wait! Maybe Castiel did it, because he’s an angel so it doesn’t count. But, then it does count, but only if Dean is doing it for him... ?

4) What about Asa Fox and the other hunters who died in 12x06? Who was in love with them?!! Asa's body was wrapped up before Jody got to the wake, and she was the closest to being in a romantic relationship with him.

5) Oh no, who's in love with Mary? Which of her deviant sons prepped her before cremation? Or did Castiel do it? But, again, that would mean he’s in love with her. If only preparing somoncy's body before cremation didn’t only mean a character was in love with them. But, it does, I guess … So many plot-holes about who prepares the bodies in this show. If only there were an easier explanation. Also, it doesn’t look like Dean is feeling too romantic towards Castiel at this hunter's funeral, and this came after his preparing Cass to be burned.

6) Finally, who prepared Dean's body? Surly, it couldn’t have been Sam, even though he were the only one present when Dean died and he was the person who loved him most, because that would mean … Wincest. Gasp! Once again, if Destiel is canon because of one particular detail, so is Wincest (only Wincest has more "proof"). It certainly looks like Dean was wrapped with a lot of care, but who could have done it since no one on earth was in love with him at the time?

I guess for the preparation for cremation argument to be valid, it only counts if we see the preparation on screen? Because that is the only time it matters. So, Castiel's death and preparation for burial mattered more than John's, or Dean's? That seems really unlikely.

Finally: Let’s take a look at the scene in context.

Dean is upset, no one is arguing against that, but he’s not only upset about Castiel (despite what certain fans like to claim). Castiel, however, is the only corpse available to prepare and burn. Sam is off supporting a new-born Jack while he pays his respects to his mother's body, something Dean certainly wasn’t going to get involved in when he hates Jack at this point. So, while Sam is supporting his new angel (a clueless child in the new world) because someone has to, Dean is saying a last private goodbye to his angel, a fallen ally. There is a clear parallel here, as well as a sunrise-sunset thing going on here, and unless Jack is in love with his mother, it’s more about saying goodbye to family than to a lover. Also, this is Dean, he needs to take action rather than sit around and watch, especially when he’s upset, so him wrapping up Cass makes sense, but it’s in no way is inherently romantic.

But, those arguing that the scene set up in this way just to show Dean is in love with Cass, or that he loves him more than anyone, ask yourselves what Dean would do if it was Sam who died. Would he be sharing preparation duties with Castiel? But, then, we don’t have to wonder. The answer is No. He didn’t even want Bobby around when Sam died. When Sam died, Dean was so distraught that he couldn’t even prepare Sam's body, but sat with his corpse, mourning him for days (2x22). Then when the guilt and grief got too much, he went and sold his soul to bring his baby brother back. He didn’t even do the same for either of his parents, Castiel, Bobby or anyone else. Or, Dean literally Romeo-Ed himself on the spot when he thought Sam died in Season 11, and it doesn’t get a lot more "romantic coded" than Romeo and Juliet. So, even if someone had to read the scene with Dean wrapping Castiel as romantic (you really really don’t), it still wouldn’t mean destiel is canon because there always has and always will only be one great love is Dean's life. And it’s not Cass. With Sam and Dean (canon Gencest or fanon Wincest), there is no room for anyone else.

[hornystiel]

hiii!! offering my 2 cents on the subject of "old man". younger generations in general use it very loosely but it's without ill intent, rather it's coming from a perspective of "that man (dilf) is so hot i need them but i could never because they'd see me as a child so i gotta call them old instead". like they're out of my league but i'll blame it on the age difference you know?

and in destiel's case i believe it's affectionate, they're old compared to most queer couples represented and they're getting older together and it's hopeful to see that :)

~ a gen z mutual who's too shy to come off anon ly 🤍

hi! a literal wall of text ahead

okay i actually have a lot of thoughts about this topic and i really hope i won't sound rude but i just want to talk about it for a sec here. and below will be purely my own musings which probably won't coincide with a general fandom views on the matter and it's wider than this question and destiel but well

anyway

i totally get what you're saying about younger fans calling them old because they're too young for them but still hot etc etc. i know that's not some ill intent, clearly. however, what bothers me about the question of 'old' age in fandom spaces is this - for some 'old' starts somewhere around 35+ and they mean it (i wonder what they call a 50 yo? a corpse probably). and yeah of course for 16 yo 35 is twice their age but i wouldn't have even the slightest problem with it because i've been in fandom spaces since i was maybe 14 and stumbled upon people of different ages and backgrounds and we can all coexist quite fine. but what i see now (and maybe again, that's like a recurring generational thing, i don't know, i'm not that old and i wasn't in english spaces until i got at least 18-20 so) - those younger fans repeatedly saying 'you're 30 and in fandom? get out. go find some appropriate hobbies for your age group, like fishing hehe'. like it's fine to be horny over some dudes twice (or even more) your age, but people who in reality are not even that far from you, because usually it's 20 somethings who write such things - and it's a crime. you're suddenly gross. i wonder what those kids would do without all the stuff written, drawn and giffed by those who have a child on one hand, a full time job on the other, and their age appropriate hobbies in between. like when i was a tiny fan i was like 'holy shit that person somehow found a way to update that long ass sherlock fic while being neck deep in her family things and work i wanna be like them!" and it also gave me hope about the future of my fandom life. like age shouldn't matter. but now i see this shit, the whole 'more than 3 yo age difference is pedo' talk, 'adult creators shouldn't post anything because children can see' talk etc etc. and i know, of course, that that's the general internet censorship on the rise and neopuritanism is dancing tango with it but still.

what i'm saying - i do have a problem with younger generation using the term old very 'loosely' because they wield it as a double aged sword. you're either some hot dilf who can be forgiven for your shitty fandom takes because well you're hot (and i'm not talking about anyone in particular here rn) or you're a gross 30 smth in fandom space who shouldn't draw porn because teens can't click the block button

AS FOR DESTIEL

short answer - i don't like what the people who call them old add to their characters and lives when they do that.

long answer under the cut

all of that is what EYE don't like in most popular fandom hcs and i usually just scroll past the things i don't like, i don't want to start shit publicly (and because of what, takes?), but here you can read what i usually think when i see them.

first - if we're talking canon ages. 40 smth and this is dean's age at the end of the show - is NOT old. at all. i can't even call him that affectionately. because this is the tragedy of it all - he dies YOUNG. very fucking young, he didn't see any calm life, didn't pursue his dreams, didn't have a normal life and love and then he died. in a way, and i see some others think the same, calling him old is like 'welp it's not that bad, he lived long enough, seen shit'. but the thing is - he didn't? literally. so no, for me he's young, died young and it's fucking awful. not talking about cas here because well, billions years, old, young, he's everything (<3)

if we're talking about post canon fics where they settle. you can all burn me at the stake but sadly my spirit will just repeat the same shit - making them some kind of a wannabe hetero aging couple is not only boring as fuck, but also completely out of character for them?

what i usually see in the posts with 'old men <3' there

some variation of a white picket fence house

baby jack

dean being some kind of a soccer mom who bakes and argues with other moms

cas being more of a dad shaped thing who gardens and Doesn't Get It at the parents' meetings or somewhere equally boring and somehow still clueless about a lot of human shit

them creaking every part of their bodies (jesus my joints have been like this since i was 14, and my back is bad now when i'm only 30 where is my retirement pakige?)

probably forgetting smth but you get the gist. and, again, not saying that that's ALL i see with the old men posts and art etc (some hcs are wild and i LOVE them), but the majority? yeag, i've been permanently a destiel blogger for 4 years now, i've seen the popular stuff

doesn't all of that remind you of a typical heterosexual family on some conservative cable tv show? if not i'm happy for you, but i can't help but see how the roles are set in stone and i don't find it endearing at all. that's one reason. and also i'm a strong believer that a baby won't fix dean. jack won't fix shit and here's another stick to my pyre - i don't care about him at all and i think that dean especially should focus on himself and his own shit and his shit with cas if they settle together, not be thrown into the baby routine again. the fandom likes to remind everyone how dean raised sam and it's mostly true but don't you think for one goddamn second he would want/need to live for himself and not over obsess about bringing up another kid? sure he loves them, but if every person with dean's baggage were trusted with kids as a cure-al ...well. and again very hetero, 'you should have a child, that'll fix your hysteria!' i'll even say, very real life stuff, just not the one i want to see here.

another reason is this - they are freaks.

they are assholes, freaks, serial killers, undead creatures, bad people...who are very much in love and very soft with each other and their family but they are still freaks. and i don't understand how them getting old will so fundamentally change so many aspects of their characters that they become typical suburban mom and dad combo. maybe i sound like a person who doesn't want them to be happy, or who doesn't get the 'it shows that their life is finally calm and they can pursue Normal Hobbies and Raise Kids and Build a Farm (idk how that is a calm place have you ever been on a farm with animals that you should watch and take care and kill if needed. another talk for another time) and To Love is to be Changed' etc etc etc. believe me i get it all perfectly, just not for them. if it tickles your pickle, by all means. what tickles mine is cas getting the weirdest (and often dangerous) hobbies (and this is why i got him driving a motorcycle, boxing and skydiving in my old men cheating fic) and he's an impatient guy so i don't think he'd love gardening really, he'd be mad at the plants and kill them or grow them as fast as his grace would allow (yes i'm also against human all the way cas, baby we're getting a bingo here). and dean of course should have ties with his community and i've already talked about this but i see how they are out of active hunting, but still help those who are still in it (if the supernatural isn't wiped completely and i don't see why it should be), maybe they always have a place in their home for those who come to regroup or just to chat or smth. and dean is an overprotective and micromanaging asshole so he would want to still have the gist of it all (and cas would want to unwind by killing some things from time to time)...and they still sleep in the same bed, eat the food they cook together, wear matching tatts maybe as a wedding gift to each other, and have dogs, cats and whatnot.

what i want to say - i don't get why the weird and the sweet can't coexist. why should they lose all of their insane bits. they loved each other WITH them (cursed or not remember) why should they change so drastically to fit the 'happily ever after' narrative.

anyway i can probably write a lot more but that's a long ass grumbling as it is.

sorry your question became the starting point for this rent i genuinely hope i didn't offend you and if you finished reading all of this woah you are a hero <3

[steddiesupportpodcast]

Meet the Podcast Team!

It's about time that we introduce ourselves, we're the team behind the Steddie Support Group Podcast 👋 Big thanks to @glitterfang for the amazing portraits 🎨🖌️

ALENA aka @peter-pantomime

Any Pronouns | Virgo | 30

I’m a veteran fan and amateur academic who loves analyzing individual characters and their interpersonal relationships, the plots, themes, symbols, and genre staples of pop culture media, and the dynamics between media fans and creators. I’m coming to Stranger Things from a long history of examining how fans participate in the process of making meaning through their interactions with media texts, and to Steddie from an even longer history of being emotionally devastated by blorbos and ships, the most notable being Destiel, Stucky, and Reddie. I love talking to people about all these ideas everywhere from Tik Tok comments to academic conferences, and so I’m super excited to have the opportunity to be a part of this podcast with so many wonderful people!

Guest & Host Appears on: Episode 4, 5, & 6

Twitter: @peterpantomime TikTok: peterpantomime Youtube: Peter-Pantomime

AMY aka @mojowitchcraft

She/Her | Scorpio | 33

I’ve been a fan of Stranger Things since day one, but fell headfirst into the Steddie hole last summer. There is no way out, I’m trapped, I’m stuck in here with them. Before Steddie I’d been an avid fanfic reader but I was always too shy to write anything. Over the past year my confidence in my writing has grown so much and I’ve met so many amazing and wonderful people in this community. Very excited to be part of the podcast team and lend my voice to our discussions! 

Producer, Host, Guest & Promo Team Appears on: Episodes 1, 4, 6, 7, & 13

Ao3: weird_witchcraft Twitter: @mojowitchcraft TikTok: mojowitchcraft

ASH aka @steddiehands86

They/He | Gemini | 37 

Joined the Steddie community around October and have been nonstop writing and cosplaying since. I have been writing on Ao3 since ‘09, but never so much as with this fandom. I’m so fortunate to be a part of this lovely group of people to talk about our brainrot in a safe, sane, consensual space… I’m also a Gemini, and like long walks in the woods. 

Guest, Mod Tech & Transcript Editor Appears on: Episode 1, 8, 11 & 12

Ao3: steddiehands86 Twitter: @steddiehands86 TikTok: steddiehands86 Instagram: steddiehands86

BECCA aka @glitterfang

She/Her | Taurus | 35 

I was a casual fan of Stranger Things up until Season 4. Now the brainrot’s got a hold of me and won’t let go. I’ve spent most of my time in this fandom as a small potatoes fan artist but have recently started writing fic as well! I love our little Steddie family and community and I’m just happy to be here. 

Host, Guest & Resident Artist Appears on: Episode 3 & 9 

Ao3: pizzabones Twitter: @glitterfangart TikTok: glitterfang Instagram: glitterfangs

BECKS aka @beccichu

They/She | Aquarius | 24

“Nope, you can’t start watching Stranger Things just because of him” were my thoughts last year after hundreds and hundreds of Stranger Things and Eddie Munson edits on tiktok. Well, after binge watching 4 whole seasons (the last one two times in a row) I fell head over heels for Steve and Eddie and into the Steddie hole pretty fast where I’ve been here ever since. I do write every now and then but my passion is cosplaying, talking about the blorbos nonstop and sharing my love for this community with others! 

Promo Team

Ao3: MsBecciChan Twitter: beccichuu TikTok: beccichu Instagram: beccichu

BIRDIE aka @audacityofbird

She/Her | Leo | 39

Bird isn’t even her real name, but she wasn’t sure if going by ‘The Motherf*cking Lizard King’ would be appropriate. Bird has been a fan of Stranger Things since the start. The ensemble cast, nostalgia and the way the show wove music into it in such a beautiful way hooked her immediately. The brain rot didn’t set in firmly enough to scour Ao3 until  2022 at the release of Season 4 but then the rest was history. A fandom lover and fanfic reader/ writer at heart, but her favorite role in fandom spaces is cheerleading, beta reading and being a part of the community. The love for these characters and the stories run deep but her gratitude for the friendships she’s formed here runs deeper. 

Guest, Mod Tech & Audio Editor Appears on: Episode 3 & 10

Ao3: audacity_of_bluejays Twitter: @audacityofbird

CADY aka @lostinadmiration

Any Prounouns | Capricorn | 33

Cady was a casual fan of Stranger Things until Eddie Munson flirted with Steve Harrington and then went and fucking died. She went online to cope with the grief, and stumbled onto Steddie art, which snowballed into discovering fanfiction, and landed her in a beautiful community of loving and supporting friends who love talking about those gay dudes! In the year of brain rot she completed two fics, has two neglected WIPs, and loves chugging out art. She also wants everyone to know she’s IYLO’s biggest fan and would love to discuss it with everyone and anyone!

Guest & Host Appears on: Episode 1, 9, 10, & 13

Ao3: lostnadmiration Twitter: @lostnadmiration TikTok: lostin_admiration  Tumblr: lostin_admiration

DAE aka @strawberryspence

She/Her | Libra | 23

Dae has been watching Stranger Things from the beginning, falling in love with the friendships and found family tropes in its core. She has always had a soft spot for Steve Harrington, this only intensified when Eddie Munson was thrown in the mix. Dae spends her time writing Steddie fics (mostly angst), editing and having mental breakdowns about gay fictional characters. 

Guest, Graphics Creator & Promo Team Appears on: Episode 4

Ao3: strawberryspence Twitter: @strawberrysomin TikTok: strawberryspence

JESS aka @mydarkdevotion

She/They | Pisces | 31

I’ve been watching Stranger Things since the beginning and fell in love so hard that I ended up getting Eleven’s 011 on my wrist in my cousin’s bedroom. I’ve been reading fanfiction way before stepping into Steddie and writing has grown more since then too. I guess you can say my friends see me as the person that would dive right into the danger (No tag reads/ No summaries) What can I say? I love surprises. Even if they end up in tears. Anyone who's seen my tiktok knows. But all in all just a real down-to-earth friendly person enjoying the thing I love.     

Guest | Appears on: Episode 5 & 11

Ao3: MyDarkDevotion Twitter: @mydarkdevotion TikTok: MyDarkDevotion

KAYLEE aka @sweetz059

She/They | Libra | 24

Kaylee has loved watching Stranger Things since she was 16, reading cutesy Byler fics and appreciating all the found family the fandom had to offer, and always having a soft spot for Steve Harrington. They didn’t really dive in until Season 3, however, when she finally was given a character that they could see themselves in. One Robin Buckley. Which just intensified her love for Steve even more. Then Season 4 happened, and Eddie Munson happened, and Kaylee finally saw the perfect match for Steve. Now they’re one fic down, and who knows how many more to go, and she wouldn’t want it any other way.

Guest, Host & Producer Appears on: Episode 3, 6, 8, 11, & 12

Ao3: sweetz059 Twitter: @sweetz059 TikTok: sweetz059 Instagram: sweetz059

KK aka @knormalizeknitting

Any Pronouns | Taurus | 39

KK is a genderless void who has been a nerd since time immemorial so naturally they’re obsessed with Stranger Things. They were a “normal” level of into the show, for a total geek that is, until Eddie Munson appeared and the Steddie ship set sail. Now KK spends all their time projecting Steddie onto every fictional pairing that has ever existed in media and finding new ways to torture Steve Harrington before letting him finally kiss Eddie. They’re extremely excited to be part of the podcast, make new friends on the server and talk Steddie / ST with so many lovely people when they’re not giving Steve even more trauma on ao3.

Guest, Host, Audio Editor & Mod Tech Appears on: Episode 2, 8, 12 & 13

Ao3: knormalizeknitting Twitter: @knormalknitting TikTok: knormalizeknittin Instagram: knormalizeknitting

KRIS aka @kwills91

They/Them | Gemini | 32 

I’ve written and read fanfic for many, many years, but it had been a while since I existed in a particular fandom. Then Season 4 of Stranger Things came out and I fell in love with Steddie. After mass consuming as many fics as I could get my eyeballs on, I decided that there weren’t nearly enough Steve breakdowns in them and began writing my own, and I’ve been unable to stop writing since. Hundreds of thousands of words of writing and millions of words of reading later and the brainrot is showing no signs of dying. And hopefully never will. Which is why I’m so excited to be part of this podcast.

Guest, Host & Mod Tech Appears on: Episode 2, 3, 8 & 10

Ao3: Kwills91 Twitter: @k_wills91 TikTok: kwills91

MANON @transmascsteveharrington

They/He | Aries | 26

“The binge watch format of Netflix shows hinders the growth and development of fandoms compared to linear released shows. Therefore it is unlikely that many viewers of Stranger Things will ever participate/form a fandom and read or write fanfiction-” is a sentence I once wrote in an essay in 2017 for my undergrad. Then the universe had a right laugh and several years, one gender crisis, and about 250k words of written steddie fics and countless words of read steddie fics later I am now here. I’m an avid writer and reader of stangst (Steve angst) and could talk about it for hours. That’s why I’m super excited to be part of this podcast. 

Guest, Host & Producer | Appears on: Episode 2, 6, 8, 10, & 13

Ao3: ChristinMKay Twitter: @t4teddiemunson TikTok: ger_manon

SAGE aka @miserablekingsteve

They/Them | Virgo | 24

I watched Stranger Things back in 2016. Only because my mum was watching it in the other room, and I heard Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ start playing. Causing me to come running out of my room and question what she was watching. Prior to that fateful moment, I was probably holed up, writing Torchwood fanfiction or listening to the audio dramas while live posting on tumblr. Safe to say I’ve been in fandom spaces for quite some time. Yet never had written anything with as much velocity as I did when Steddie quite literally dove into my periphery. What? Eddie Munson was doing Ketamine and being ridiculous, hard not to relate to that one. I’m super stoked to have had any opportunity to be involved in fandom this much and I’m excited to see where it continues to take me!  

Guest & Promo Team Appears on: Episode 6, 8, 11 & 12 

Ao3: miserablekings TikTok: miserablekings

SARA aka @3blackhearts

She/Her | Leo | 36

I’ve been watching Stranger Things since the beginning. I loved how creative and nostalgia-driven the show is. The death (maybe, hopefully not, let me be delulu a little longer) of Eddie Munson is what drove me to read my first fanfiction ever. I hadn’t resonated with a character that much in a long time and having his ending be so unsatisfying on the show led me to want a world where that’s fixed or never happens (shout out to AUs). Since joining the fandom I’ve found my niche by making podfics, and now this podcast. In real life, I work for a local non-profit and am a visual artist.  President & Founder of the DILF Steve Harrington Fan Club.

Guest, Host, Producer, Mod Tech & Audio Editor Appears on Episodes: 3, 4, 5, 10, & 11

Ao3: 3blackhearts Twitter: @3_blackhearts TikTok: 3blackhearts

[rewatching-sam-and-dean]

Oh, how I hate Destiel, let me count the ways

Let me preface my rant by noting that I know none of these ideas are new, but I just have to get it off my chest because it’s annoying me today. (I may delete this later, but I need to say it somewhere for now.)

1) The hardcore shippers are insufferable and entitled. They also act like shipping two fictional characters is activism and throw around "homophobe" at anyone who doesn’t love their ship. It’s gross.

2) Dean and Castiel claim to be best friends while treating each other like crap a lot of the time. Cass in particular lies to and goes behind Dean's back often, while Dean is often borderline hostile with Castiel.

3) Castiel is in a stolen body. He forced Jimmy to agree to be possessed so his daughter wouldn’t have to be his vessel. So, in early, days there is no consent here. Later, Castiel is basically a parasite living off of a dead body.

4) Dean literally says Cass is like a brother to him, thus he’s not attracted to him. (He also says Castiel is like a talking dog and a baby in a trench coat. Not sexy.)

5) Dean is straight. No matter how much "bi lighting" Dean stands in or how much cake he eats, his own words and actions show he is not attracted to men.

6) Castiel broke Sam's hell wall, making him go insane and almost killing him in the long-run, just to distract and worry Dean, and I will never get over it. He doesn’t deserve Dean after doing this. And he doesn’t deserve to be in the same "family group" as Sam.

7) Angels are generally portrayed as lacking the depth of emotion that humans have, or a consistent sexual drive when they have their grace. Thus, I don’t believe he even has the capacity to be "in love" with or "attracted to" Dean.

8) Castiel takes very little responsibility for his own actions and often blames Sam for things that are partially, or entirely, his own fault. (Apocalypse #1, letting Lucifer out of the cage, etc.) This isn’t strictly ship-related but it makes me dislike him as a character and want him around both brothers less.

9) Almost every "subtext" clue that destiel shippers claim "proves" their ship has a corresponding, or greater, equivalent that would support Wincest. In short, if one thinks Destiel is real because of tiny little clues (despite Dean being straight) then they can’t rightly say Wincest doesn’t exist in the show because there is way more "subtext," and text, to support it (despite the brothers being … brothers).

10) Sam and Dean's insane relationship renders all ships outside of them pointless. I don’t ship Wincest, but it also doesn’t really bug me because they are fictional characters. I love the show strictly FOR the brothers" relationship. They love each other more than anyone else, and that what makes the show compelling.

Bonus:

[disabled-dean]

Koolaid, drunk. Clown make-up, on. I am escorted out of the family function for talking about the in-text evidence for cannon destiel