#spn finale trashfire

[eisforeidolon]

Tumblr shows me such horrendous posts sometimes especially from tags like #dean winchester People genuinely with their whole chest think that he could have been saved from that rebar with a first aid kit 😂(even though he obviously couldn't plus they didn't have gods power anymore) and also thinking he gave up lol as if he hasn't said all along how he knew he'd die a hunter, wanted Sam to have a peaceful life & him dying first was best case scenario. They never listen to Dean the show or Jensen

Oof, yeah. It's been ages since I braved the main tags because - at least on tumblr - this fandom is a trashfire of bizarre and ignorant opinions. Like, just as a thought exercise, let's give the maximum benefit of the doubt possible.

I can see, to an extent, why after the light fantasy irreverence of the Dabb years, someone might be wishfully tempted to forget SPN's horror roots and think the Winchesters might not die at the end. Except Jared and Jensen made it pretty clear every time they talked about the ending that they saw the Winchesters dead at the end, one way or another. Except even when we were full on in the hunting-is-a-lark and constant resurrect-o-rama of Dabbernatural, it was still a show that revolved around monsters and death almost as much as it did the brothers' relationship. Except how do you even end a show where the characters constantly bring each other back from the dead in a way that feels significantly final other than them accepting death?

I can see, to an extent, why there would be some confusion over the severity of injuries, because the show never took them as serious as they would be IRL, Chuck or no Chuck. TV in general is pretty terrible about that. Except as much as I loathe the concept of the Winchesters only being competent and surviving because of Chuck, it was a thing in the show. Except we're talking about being stabbed fully through the main body cavity where there are a lot of pretty vital things you can't live with shish-kebabed. Even if it would have been possible to survive that injury IRL as some kind of medical miracle, it would definitely require medical professionals for him to survive getting off that rebar and they were in a barn in the middle of freakin' nowhere - being realistic is not "giving up". Except we're talking about a fictional character where the entire point was that the writers had decided Dean was going to die then, so it was a fatal injury because it was written as fatal. Except I think it's pretty obvious some fans only wanted Sam rushing around trying to do first aid to avoid 7 minutes of incest Dean's speech showing Sam was still the most important person in Dean's life to the end and he was perfectly capable of saying I love you - despite their reams upon reams of meta claiming otherwise.

I am not in any way saying anybody needs to be happy that Dean died, or even needs like the finale. I actually agree Dean's lack of self-worth and fatalism about how he'd inevitably die fighting monsters relatively young (especially when he said that in a particularly low moment) aren't good things, so him being ultimately right is actually really fucking sad. As is Sam getting the normal life he once wanted when IMO he no longer particularly wants it and it's at the expense of losing Dean after all they'd been through together. Disappointment, even disappointment one should reasonably have seen coming, is totally fair. The ending is meant to be bittersweet with the sweet part coming from the heaven reunion, and even dismissing delusional shippers? Not everybody is going to like that kind of ending. Except there's disappointment and then there's being really fucking weird about that disappointment by insisting a tv show owed you to end the way you wanted and further, it personally wronged you because no one tried to put a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. Also, a character dying from doing something dangerous and acknowledging they are dying when they get a fatal wound doing it instead of trying to insist they're okay is ... endorsing suicidal themes.

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

what i mean when i say no one has and ever will have a fan experience quite as euphoric and fucked up as spn fans i tell you no one

[found--family]

💭 thanks to @marynatural and their anon who got me thinking.. 

The writers (D*bb) said: when your world's a stage you die when the audience leaves - apparently forgetting the whole point of Supernatural is to break free from the narrative. Metaheads know the only death in 15x20 is that of performing!dean. 

[bookdork1]

why no public goodbye to misha from ANYBODY cast OR crew after 12 years, why did misha himself NOT MAKE A PUBLIC GOODBYE VIDEO WHEN THAT MAN HAS BEEN GLUED TO HIS PHONE AND GLUED TO THIS FANDOM SINCE HE FIRST READ HIS FIRST DESTIEL SMUT FIC IN 2009

[littlewetbeast]

so this is coming from your tags on a post about s8 and 9. as someone who only joined the fandom after nov 5, I'm always curious about what the fandom was like when the show was airing. can you talk about that a little bit more? maybe elaborate on your tags? thanks a lot <3

i can only really tell you what it was like from my perspective back in the day, and what i can say is that there was SO. MUCH. HYPE. when season 8 was coming out. people were pointing to the source material and going, wait! that shit isn’t just a gay sex joke, that shit is like - textual romance! and that’s what made people begin to argue that this time, it wasn’t bait, but a narrative that they surely wouldn’t drop the ball on. of course, now, in hindsight, we all know spn is the baitiest of bait and supreme trashfire, but at the time it truly did seem like things were headed in a new direction - and we had the textual evidence to back us up on that. i mean, i was there watching it all live throughout season 6, 7 and 8 - most of my close friends watched it, and the destiel tumblr community was on fire by the time season 8 rolled around. i wish i could find some of the old meta posts, but essentially, season 8 truly got so many people thinking that this time, the tides were changing. charlie and kevin were now part of the main cast, and there was undoubtable intent in season 8, not just from cas' side, but from dean's as well. people went bonkers over the aaron scene. this was a time where queerbaiting was at a an all-time high amongst so many popular tv shows, but there was simply no one that went the length that supernatural did. and it wasn’t just the undoubtably gay shit - it was the introduction of kevin and charlie, that incremental effort to include more characters outside of a white, male cast, which bolstered the argument that spn was finally headed in a new direction. i mean, they’d done the same shit over and over for years, surely this was a sign that they knew they had to switch things up. i remember being so genuinely hyped, along with my other queer friends, because we started to believe that perhaps spn truly was going to follow through on this. it was literally all there, in the text! one of dean’s closest friends was a lesbian. dean was in a love triangle with two men. dean got romantically flustered when a gay guy hit on him. dean hallucinated cas and altered his memory to cope with him leaving. dean was on his knees telling cas he needed him, and it broke the connection. there was just so much. anyway. having had that experience, the unfolding of spn’s ending and cas’ confession literally felt like a ‘classic spn’ moment for so many of us. we’d already been burned before by having the naïve expectation that spn could... you know, actually be normal about queer people, and write fulfilling narratives for them. throughout season 9 through 10, a huge amount of things that season 8 set up were undone - kevin was killed, charlie was killed, cas and dean were separated and no homo-ed repeatedly. there wasn’t an outrage that i could see on my dash, but myself and all my close friends just... stopped watching. there were crickets on my dash, maybe a few gifs here and there. the interest completely plummeted. there was a silent deflation and quiet acceptance from those of us that had actually gotten our hopes up that spn really was that show. when i discovered they’d killed off both kevin and charlie, that cemented the knowledge that supernatural was never going to give us what we wanted. i can’t even fully describe how fundamentally that experience changed me, but my attitude towards media and queer representation was completely altered as a result. spn has refused to move with the times, but they had already demonstrated before that they were never going to make that leap. they were in the stranglehold of the network, and the desire to retain their conservative viewership overrode every attempt to move beyond the gun-slinging sam-and-dean bro show.  so yeah, in the end, i have such sympathy for newer fans that got burned so badly by the finale, but as an older fan, i looked at it as it was all unfolding and just went - yup, been there, done that. it’s a classic spn move. i stopped giving credit to those who were throwing out crumbs of representation, when what we actually deserve is to feast. anyway, in summary, spn has expertly burned its queer fanbase for almost a decade. in response, i reject many parts of the canon and simply enjoy the fanon content, because it’s stupid and i do what i want. 

[incarnateirony]

I'm gonna need fandom to stop projecting some weird romanticized and/or bitter idea of suicidal ideation on 15x20 Dean which is directly contrary to the text.

If anything, 15x20 was Dean's least suicidal period. He had opted to start trying to enjoy life. He still clearly struggled with depression and grief from his sloppy room, but that doesn't necessarily translate to suicidal thoughts.

Dean highlighted his desire to make sure sacrifices weren't in vain. He tried to eat after a whole season of refusing to because he was too angry and scared.

People misunderstand "being realistic" as "suicidal". While yes, you can even check the script and there's a moment of panic thinking about if Cas was there, and yes, it even clarifies the nearest hospital is 45 minutes away and yes, clarifies Dean was 100% run through, just because that didn't make it to screen doesn't mean it's suddenly Dean surrendering.

Maybe this is something not understood because of how international SPN fandom is, or how urban its digital demographic tends to be--but I've got news for you. It's basically common knowledge that places like that are at least half an hour from anywhere in the US.

I've lived in those places.

One such place, for example, was Timpson Texas. When I moved there for a few months, I was warned. Don't get hurt. The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away. But if it's really bad--they do have a volunteer EMS department. Which, they joked, was "express delivery" because it was located right next to the funeral home, and frankly nobody was sure what their actual credentials were in a town of 200~.

It's very, very rare to find a farmhouse setup like that near a city. Or at least anything less than 20 minutes from anywhere. There's a few exceptions to that rule for anything in life, like the Independence, MO area that has really weird fucking zoning and you can go from farmland to ghetto to farmland to downtown in a straight shot, but by and large, this is how it is in the US. I know 45 minutes sounds insane to someone living in like, the UK. Or even people who've lived their whole lives in and around big US metro cities like New York and Chicago.

But I can promise you, just because those thoughts didn't come out of Dean's mouth, they ran through his head, like many silent things you can see him assess at any given moment in the show that are common sense life, battle, or other issues. "Well, shit, it'll take an ambulance at least 30 minutes to get here if I'm lucky and my vision's already tunneling, Cas isn't here, gotta take my chance to say what's important, like I learned from Cas."

That's it. That's what that was. Was the death comically long? Yes, still not enough for him to get help. Were there ways they could have illustrated it better? Sure, they could have used that one overhead driving in a field shot for the 1000th time. Would the text have helped in dialogue--maybe, you know this fandom loves missing the point anyway.

Everyone goes "but why tell Sam not to bring him back then!!" bro-- bro--he literally says why, and it's true. That always ends bad. It's stopping this jerk off cycle and realizing it's ok to be freaking mortal. That they can't keep fucking up the cosmic balance for all eternity. Letting hundreds/thousands/millions/billions of people have their entire universe fucked up because the two brothers insist on being in the same spot at the same time. He insisted Sam live on.

Maybe it's a misunderstanding of biology too? Hell, there's some ways that could have gone in that would have had him dead even faster. It really just depends what exactly it punctured how. Is it technically survivable? Yeah, if you're not basically an hour and a half out from a hospital with the weewoo cab trip both ways. If he already felt himself fading though, reality strikes.

That's Dean Winchester becoming spontaneously aware of his mortality, not giving up. Like I hate to tell people, but you'll never make it out of life alive. That's not suicidal, that's reality. The point is, to live the best life you can while you have it, and to not give up, sure. But also to be aware that you might get diagnosed with terminal cancer or you might get hit by a bus or maybe you'll fucking ridiculously get run through on a dickbar. Some things in life you can't control.

Are there ways this could have been pulled together far better? 100% absolutely. The finale was a disaster in delivery. At literally every corner. In every way. But that shouldn't make us just scream past it and somehow convert it into the worst possible take guys. I should hope that a young adult to middle aged demographic understands things like basic biology, emergency response time, the fact that we're all mortal beings, and the general moral of learning what to say when it's important and maybe your last chance, c'mon.

Or worse, trying to turn it into "Dean didn't want to live anymore because he missed Cas." Like shit. I'm blazing "Destiel is canon and has been for a while" trash but -- that's literally? Contradictory? Dean wanted to live because he respected Cas' sacrifice. That's canon. Even when he still felt down and his room was still messy and some days he might have almost felt dead, he kept trucking, kept dreaming, put in job applications, tried to be the young self he used to be and go to a pie-fest, whatever. He kept moving. THAT'S where he kept fighting.

Giving up isn't Dean accepting that a pike through all his major organs an hour out from medical help is gonna be the end. Giving up would be him having stayed passed out on the whiskey bottles on the floor forever moping and just WAITING for that instead of being like, damn, I didn't think today would be the day.

Is it a perfect ending, no, not saying that, nor in any way defending the fucking trashfire finale but I'm so sick of seeing this "suicidal dean" talk. When that isn't even remotely what it was.

[estrel]

Hey you don't have to answer this if it'll be too long or you don't want to, but I missed the aftermath of the SPN finale trashfire thing that was going on - boarding school and all

So like did they really not give a logical explanation for the way they ended it? Like after the uproar and the kill your gays thing? And what happened to the Espanol Destiel thing? Like it was left as 'rogue translator did it'??

(Thankyou Ely <3, also I've been following your account for a while and I really love it; is Ramble On still in the works??)

ooooh boy the sparknotes version is that No, there wasn’t any explanation really other than “covid restrictions” being the reason the finale changed so much from its original ending (WHICH is bull). as for the spanish dub, it was actually the director telling the actor to play dean that way (because he thought it made the most sense) (it does) but i know this isnt comprehensive at all, so maybe take a browse through my season 16 tag to catch up? i hope this helps!!

(and thank you!! yes, it is (,: )

[carry-on-every-neverland-magic]

yup still thinking about this shit  4 days later okay so I’m expecting nothing from the Supernatur*l finale eps (perhaps a brother moment that might reignite some sort of feeling I used to burn for the show & Sam & Dean you know the actual heart of the show but whatevs) but I am seriously concerned now that we will get more d*stiel especially with how much Jensen has spoken about a reboot and how he felt about the finale eps not being happy etc

I think Dean will mention C*s and I hope he says he was his brother or something (to finally quash the ludicrous romance thing) And I know we all laughed at that trailer where they look happy with a dog but that can’t be it. I think M*sha will be back to stink everything up and I don’t know what to believe with him saying he knew before Jensen (tbh I don’t believe M*sha any time he has spoken) but the fact other cast members apparently were applauding that scene...yeah I’m worried there’s gonna be more.

 If there is no mention of C*s and no appearance by him the d*stiel fans (the toxic ones) will never shut up but equally if they get awarded more d*stiel they’ll never shut up. (Not that that scene was d*stiel as only one half has boarded the ship)

 The memes are funny yes but what a trashfire end. I really wish J2 had stopped years ago because SPN has lost what it was at heart.  SIGHS DEEPLY. 

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

I know this has probably been done long ago, but I was feeling a periodic bout of Extreme Anger over the finale and I fell down a rabbit hole and am now in firm belief of the theory that Chuck won. Here's all the stuff I found as to why:

explicit 15x04/15x19/15x20 parallels with 15x04 literally canonically establishing why Chuck's intended ending was not a good ending, then the show ending in the exact same way. (meta post x and x)

unintentional?? parallel with Sam filling Dean's absence with his son/ John filling Mary's absence with his son (x)

Dean textually saying 'that's not who I am' in response to being called 'the ultimate killer' by Chuck, then dying as a killer.

an excellent meta post as to why Chuck winning makes sense when he's taken as an allegory to the network (not the writers!! there's a difference)

and in that context, the ending paralleling the 'planned' s5 ending with one brother dead and the other alive and suffering

alternate endings seen by Sam which are Chuck's (x)

Sam/Dean mirrors from 15 paralleling the Winchester in 15x20; bearing in mind that Chuck wrote the mirror characters like that on purpose and Lilith telling Sam and Dean and us as an audience that is was bad (x)

the entire theme?? of the show is found family??? Finale: O.O no really?? (x)

each of TFW getting an unhappy ending that is like specific to each character's worst insecurities (x)

Jack after becoming 'god' standing the exact, i mean the EXACT same way as Chuck (x) and like SERIOUS Jack/Chuck parallels (x)

After Cas' death (voluntary/his choice), the literal erasure of the impact he has had on all three remaining leads (involuntary/Chuck's doing 'cause he never liked Cas) (x), (x), this scene was cut whereafter we see no one mourn or acknowledge the 12 years Cas has been a part of the Winchesters' lives knowing that the last time Cas'd died Dean had gone off the fucking rails (x), (x)

Castiel literally meaning 'shield of god' and for so long being Cas (dropping the '-iel' which means 'of God' meaning that he rebelled/broke the narrative) only for Castiel to be carved on the table (the part that meant 'of God' is back) also (x) (it's a small thing but the symbolism is important here esp 'cause spn thrives off of subtext/mirrors/parallels/symbolic imagery etc)

miscellaneous literally-plot-doesn't-make-sense (x), (x), (x)

There's other stuff too, but mostly just like, you can't expect me to believe that Chuck wiped out everyone except these three dudes and didn't keep an eye on them for long enough for them to formulate a plan good enough to take him down?? And even the way they take him down- there was next to no build-up for the weird Jack-energy-suction-vacuum thing; the only build for that plot started literally IN that episode, which is conveniently after your only wildcard dies in a way he cannot return?? Huh. Funny how as soon as Cas- the only being not directly under the control of Chuck- dies, Sam, Dean and Jack suddenly manage to find what looks like a very deus ex machina solution that resolves the season long arc in a span of like 5 mins??

Also, one more thing that really bothered me was the sheer amount of plot-holes that came up after/because of 15x19/15x20 (either because established plotlines weren't followed up or new things with no explanation came up). Now, if TFW really did win, these don't really make sense at all; but if it was Chuck who won, it seems an awful lot like a writer just trying to wrap up a story/characters he's bored with. Chuck is done with these characters- they've given him so much shit trying to break out of the narrative. And now that Castiel is dead, he can predict if not control all the people left, so why not just rush through as fast as possible and be done with it?

“you know, i tried and i tried and i tried, but you're all just too stupid, too stubborn. too broken. you know what? i'm over it. i'm over you.” (15x17)

And I know that we all know that TPTB have done stuff externally to end up with the ending we did get, but the only way the ending makes sense (to me) IN CANON without any meta-context and what was going on outside of the canon universe is that Chuck really did win.

Also at least this way, it give more meaning to the ending as said (here) and literally is the only way i can think about the ending without spontaneously combusting.

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

Here we go again with lamp destielgate jackles longcon electric boogaloo y yo a ti cas 2.0 russian dub, let's go again hellers

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

thinking about the Sam/Chuck shoulder wound connection and how they put so much emphasis on it in 15x09 as if that might've played a role in the endgame and how it was never mentioned again which according to canon means Sam literally lived his whole life with a piece of god embedded into him and how it could plausibly be a kind of human horcrux situation leading me to believe the fact that Chuck's power didn't really go away at all and was instead preserved in one of the very puppets who tried to cut their own strings in the first place and no one even mentions Cas no one even mentions Cas. no one. no one even mentions C[omitted] [omitted] [omitted] [omitted] [omitted]

thinking about Chuck sitting in front of his laptop and laughing as the camera pans off Sam and Dean hugging because his story came out exactly the way he wanted it to and as the credits roll we hear the ghost of a laugh of a god who had won.

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

I sincerely hope we get to see Bob Singer or Buckleming at a convention or a fan-interactive something purely to see the absolute circus of a show they'll have to put up when we ask them why their finale exactly parallels if not is completely IDENTICAL to the canonically bad ending Chuck shows Becky IN THE SHOW, in which the actual fucking lines 'No one even mentions Cas', 'What you did to Dean, and to Sam...' are said and Chuck specifically states how his book cover would be a gravestone with the word Winchester on it; again CANONICALLY reinforcing the idea that a ending where only one brother lives and Cas is ignored is not a good ending.

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

everytime. everytime i think about this. literally in a world where your main characters are broken children with a dead mother and a deadbeat dad, you somehow managed to make this angel so indescribably compelling and you. you toss him away like a failed plot device. literally he has been brainwashed, abandoned, tortured, treated like fucking garbage even by his chosen family sometimes, and he still had so much love and so much care and not once in his 12 and how-many-ever-million years of his life has he heard an i love you. something something the thing you take so much effort to do for others is the thing you yourself desire unendingly. fffuCking why didn't you do your jobs.

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

I think we're destined to keep going canon in ways as insane as possible because this is a nexus event and the universe is just trying to right itself before we all die and owen wilson wants us to stop before we hit that red line no I am not wrong

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

You're laughing. CW-USA just shot themsleves in the foot and you're laughing.

Hell yeah I am.

[hallowed-by-thy-name]

I know I'm beating a dead horse here

But the fact that they manage to reverse the character development of ALL FOUR OF THE MAIN LEADS is just so painfully laughable

Like Jack never actually got to be a kid, to be in a family, never ended up getting closure from Sam and Dean.

Cas, after rebelling and falling and being the crack in the chassis of his own TRUE free will, ends up in heaven, his *home* where it never felt like he was accepted anyway. And I know it's Jack in charge this time, but he still ended up in his old space, playing soldier to God.

The less said about Dean, the better.

And Sam. I just. Living out his life sad and depressed.

This is literally worse than what would've happened if Dean hadn't ever gone to Stanford to get Sam.