#it’s no secret that i dont care for what the meta community has become

[neven-ebrez]

i see all your grieviances with s14 and i do get where you're coming from, but everything you see as negative and tiring i see it as... well, not positive, but not the worst thing that has happened. characters being in a stalemate is still much better than reversing back like what happened with s9. it is tiring, but i don't mind the waiting if i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. some got advantages in the race while others are still behind. have some patience, they'll get there.

Whoever sent this, I’d like to think we’ve probably talked before. And I’d like to agree with all the points you’ve made, the sentiment. My gut tells me as much... but like, I’m beyond weary, you know?  I’ve been in the race for a long ass time. And to see people talk about the state of Destiel like it potentially isn’t very, very similar to what the meta community (and fandom) has already been through, what I personally have already been accused of for years…??  It’s like watching old history unfold into yet another heartbroken bloodbath. 

And yeah we’ve come so far from S9 and the quick downward regression, but like… Dabb could still follow straight down Carver’s path (which didn’t end well for Cas fans). Dabb’s faced with a similar problem, prolonging the show past a certain “vision”, and is now being “forced” into the same “stalling route” as his predecessor. And I can tell he knows and doesn’t necessarily want it, given his past pacing decisions. But he has hit the proverbial turn signal just the same. There’s only two ways to go. You take the exit to loop back around or you take the exit after, the one that leads to the road that takes you home. I don’t think we’re quite heading home just yet.

And there’s so much I wanna say but can’t because of what I know that others don’t, what I’ve experienced that other meta writers haven’t, stuff I’ve heard with my own two ears from the people actually making the show. It’s… just different after stuff like this happens. It’s why I don’t actively write meta essays like I used to, on the subjects I used to, and especially not with the language I used to. I feel I simply can’t, knowing some of the things I do and also knowing how much that knowledge can quickly become useless anyway. I’m not interested in leading anyone on and so this is where I’m left.

When all is said and done, I just didn’t want to leave it at no one said just how badly, just how reductive everything could still go… It’s my own worry and my personal feelings, so I’m saying it now, even if it puts a damper on things for some people. Meta writers love to say, “It’s exactly what we’ve been saying!”, and “Look at all the times we were right!” (these are… not good things to say btw… I’d know because I used to say them, a lifetime before I ever talked to any writers or production staff, and I can say I regret them now). No one ever likes to say, “Oh, man, was I fucking wrong as hell here.” But that was me after 9x03 aired and I personally had to face the part I played in the Destiel fandom’s disappointment. Because I thought I knew then what I was talking about. But I didn’t know shit. I… misjudged. Hordes of people left fandom after that as Carver took an exit I don’t think anyone was really prepared for in order to “buy time”. And I was left to explain to those that remained exactly what was happening (a mirror-filled narrative of lovers separated by duty that was painted against a rape metaphor that is, still, today, the worst thing Supernatural has ever done to its brand imo) because I was like, the only structural Destiel meta writer left standing.

I looked… delusional, having to point out what was happening to other characters to figure out and explain how Sam, Dean, and Cas all felt (because the narrative was coding itself to where this was necessary to try and understand what was even happening at times, since the characters were all either lying or saying the “wrong things”!), what we were *actually* dealing with, whether the Destiel narrative still existed as a structural romantic thing or not. Not everyone agreed, but I felt I was right in my analysis then, still do; the show is forever written a certain way (tho narrative mirrors do not a textual and tangible narrative make!), but my expectations… they had shifted. The shift remains, still, along with a pestering voice that will never go away, “But what if?”

It’s the reason I only deal in the tangible, textual narrative now, or, at least when it comes to discussing Dean and Cas. I’ve learned the hard way that nothing else matters. Because the truth is it doesn’t.

Supernatural’s narrative structure is a structure I’ve studied more closely than perhaps any other pro-Destiel meta writer past or present. Almost everyone that has come before me has left. Few remain. I don’t know many who write “meta” now. Do they even know the structural writers that came before me? (Flutie? Sara?) I don’t know this either, most of their stuff has been wiped from this blue hellscape. That I do know. And no one writes sourced essays anymore, especially ones at great length, that aren’t just a speckling of themes and musings that often contradict one another.

Hell, I might be the last one still writing from the “golden age of meta” on tumblr, back from the surgence of S8. And while I wouldn’t say everything in the structure is *exactly* as before (there’s been significant textual gains over the mirror narrative, what’s actually needed before the end), but I do see things now taking a similar route as they did then, especially if by the mid season finale point Dabb has Michael!Dean kill the ailing and seemingly finally killable Jack. Depending on how it’s written, Jack’s death could set Dean back a lot, like… A LOT. He’d see it as him finally becoming his father, the best of intentions to protect gone very, very wrong.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe that won’t happen.

I hope I’m wrong anyway, but I don’t think I am.

Impatient as I am for the end, because I don’t want the detour I fear we are about to take (and I do want to talk about the finished product when we get it finally!), and as much as I appreciate the reassurance, I don’t say any of this needing it. I appreciate it nevertheless. I’m more confident in my opinions now, where before I was blindly, carelessly optimistic in both language and outlook. I simply want to remind people of the truth: we’ve been here before, it didn’t end well then and I doubt it will end well now (here, in the present), for everyone who is left…. so please, PLEASE manage your character development expectations, especially those that are tied into hope for text over Destiel. Jokes about being joined “at the everything” aren’t good for anything, no more than Crowley saying to Dean that he’s like his mistress, because he’s “cheating on Sam” with him. In fact, I’d argue it’s reductive. I don’t think I’d be alone in that.

The things they need to do to pull the Destiel narrative into text…the writers aren’t doing, but it very much is tied into the stalling tactic Dabb has chosen nonetheless. Dean *has* to get past the ghost, the trauma of John Winchester. That’s first. Everything else is after. I doubt we’ll even be that far this season. You’ll know when/if a textual Destiel narrative starts to happen. I’d like to think the windup will become obvious (hint: they’ll actually have scenes together). But wherever we are, with Dean’s last developmental hurdle (as decided by Dabb with S14) and Cas’ need for Heaven closure still staring us in the faces as more proverbial unboiled water left on the stove, we’re just not there yet. And please remember, there’s always room for this to be a tragedy. People always seem to forget that.

Maybe not the meta history lesson you were looking for (which honestly has nothing to do with me separately finding the narrative slow and boring), but thanks for coming by anyway.