Can I say that I really admire your ability to not get tried of cataloging all of the destiel subtext and then not getting anything textual or definitive from the show. That's why I don't meta about destiel anymore, even though I used to like it and even thought I was good at it. But then again I'm tried of a lot of things about SPN. I guess I'm just impressed in general with any fan who's actively watches the show and doesn't feel like banging their head against a wall out of frustration.
Aw, thank you! I’m sorry the show is making you tired, that sucks. (Teen Wolf, I’M LOOKING AT YOU) I miss your meta. *sadface*
I gotta admit, there are some things that make me feel like banging my head against the wall. I am getting a wee bit tired of MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS GETTING KILLED OFF, HOLY SHIT. (The Eileen thing made me turn my TV off and skip the rest of the episode until a couple of days later, for example.)
But mostly, I’m looking at it like, they’ve gotta make the Destiel stuff obvious enough for the general audience to go, “OHHHHHHH!” if they do something definitive, instead of, “WTAF?” And that’s how I see season 12, and a lot of 11, too. From seeing 13.01, I’m willing to bet that season 13 is going to go the same way.
I mean, I haven’t been doing a whole lot of Destiel subtext meta the last couple of seasons because the subtext is SO blatant that I don’t see much point. The MIXTAPE, for Chuck’s sake! And Dean being worried about Cas for a season and a half, to the point that he worried out loud about Cas nine episodes in a row. Also, I’m not expecting anything definitively definitive until the end of the series, so that helps.
Maybe it’s because I’m Fandom Old, and what we’ve gotten already (DECLARATIONS OF LOVE, FFS!) is so much more than I’ve ever even dared hope for from a show before. I think I’m a lot more willing to take something like the mixtape as pretty definitive because of it. In NCIS, for example, there’d been lots of subtext that Tony and Ziva were in a romantic relationship, but we didn’t find out until Michael Weatherly was leaving the show and his and Ziva’s daughter showed up out of the blue (which is a whole rant unto itself, dammit.).
But I’d known they were a thing since the season Ziva left, because at one point they’re in a car and it looks like they’re going to be in a fatal accident or explosion or some damn thing, and they Look At Each Other and join hands with their fingers intertwined, with a close-up of the hands. Damn, I just whooped when that happened, because that’s the biggest non-kiss way to say they’re a couple there is. (Still not tired of saying I TOLD YOU SO to the people who scoffed at me about Willow and Tara thirty years later, yo.)
So having Dean be the one to prepare Cas’ body for burial, the way he breaks as he’s tying on the shroud, the fact that Sam isn’t even in the room, all those things that say Dean has first claim on one of the most intimate things a person can do for another, the kind of claim usually reserved for a spouse, a lover, a child, siblings--the person who loved the deceased the most, the person whose grief is deepest, that’s pretty definitive in my book.
I understand why a lot of people aren’t satisfied with that, though. But man, if anybody had told me even five years ago that we’d be getting some of the Destiel stuff we’ve gotten, I would have laughed in their faces, because THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF TELEVISION TO DATE says there is absolutely NO WAY, NO HOW TPTB are going to make a slash couple canon.
Argh, that was probably more of an answer than you bargained for. If you’re still watching, I hope season 13 makes you want to bang your head a lot less.
