The finale sucked but at least Andrew busted the soulmates shared heaven headcanon. Literally everyone was in Dean's heaven so him and Sam weren't soulmates after all 😁
Silver lining, right? And the best part - Cas helped! Angel of the Lord Castiel has no time for your exclusive soulmate enclosures. Wanna enrichment? Come and play with everyone.
But seriously, Cas restoring Heaven and reuniting with Dean would be such a beautiful closure to his story arc. We were robbed on so many levels, I can’t even
Why do I feel Stony is more healthy than Destiel when Tony actually drew blood because of his mother's death in CW..
Um, why do I feel this is a bait for me to bash destiel and possibly also Tony (or Steve)? But, in case if you are asking in a good faith and not trying to bring antis’ rhetoric on my pro shipping blog, here’s my take on it.
I prefer not to use terms like “healthy” or “unhealthy, abusive” relationship when talking about ships that exist thanks to fandom’s transformative efforts, non canon ships like destiel, MCU stony and all others. These pairings are not written as (potential) couples in canon, and all their interactions mainly serve the plot. We could talk about how healthy are relationships between main pairs in Hannibal or Killng Eve, since that is the focus of those shows. But to apply the same standards to destiel or stony seems very unfair. Dean and Cas are not in a relationship, the show works hard to remind us about it all the time. Just because now and then there’s some destiel subtext, doesn’t mean that the show intentionally writes them as a couple with all necessary emotional continuity. I mean, half of the time when Cas is gone, Dean doesn’t even remember that Cas exists. Most of the time when Cas leaves, it happens because Misha has a contract for 12+ episodes per season and TPTB refuses to give Cas more screen time.
I believe it was not your intent but the “unhealthy ship“ label is usually used by antis to bash the ship they hate while patting themselves on the back for shipping only “morally pure” ships. For me, destiel is as healthy and good as I make them to be, that’s what shipping is. Also, knowing that the show is working so hard to keep Dean and Cas apart in hopes to minimize queer baiting accusations, I ship destiel out of spite now.
About Tony drawing blood in CW. Listen, have you actually seen Dean and Cas beating the crap out of each other on numerous occasions? If you think that that Tony and Steve’ fight, as painful as it was, was something that could taint the ship for me. I have seen Not Team Cap friendly and Not Team Iron Man friendly tags on ao3, and I get CW movie hurt a lot of shippers, but, after 8 years of watching SPN live I’m just, well, so it goes. Sometimes I feel that after shipping destiel, nothing can surprise me anymore. I also know that despite all the pain and hurt that SPN writers put Dean and Cas through, the destiel fic writers worked hard on bringing them together, again and again. Every time when TPTB tried to erase, diminish destiel, fandom answered with “Not today, Satan!”
So, the real reason why I’m slowly moving from destiel to stony, is not because I suddenly discovered how “unhealthy” is destiel and went shopping for a more “healthier” option. No, the real reason is more mundane. After 7 years of intense reading and reccing destiel, and with the show ending next year and destiel being in the last phase of canon limbo, I’ve reached the point where I’m looking for a new fandom. MCU is this big, shiny, popular thing, so I decided to finally check it out. Also, a lot of my favorite destiel writers have moved on, including my friend who now writes stony. I checked out her fics and here I’m am. I found stony as a ship to be so delightfully different from destiel that I’m devouring bunches of fics every week and I’m happier for it. Fandom should be fun ;)
I got a DM from @bookkbaby about my answer re destiel fanfic and I’m answering it here because i love to talk about fic ;)
Not the Anon but love the discussion re: fanfic. I think some of it stems from how inconsistent the show is? like, the divide in fanfic between stories written by Cas fans vs Dean fans: the show is very much about Dean and his POV and unless you're very interested in Cas's perspective, you don't think about it. Plus the episodes themselves vary wildly depending on who is writing: you can have an episode from someone who thinks Cas is OK one week and the next is written by someone who thinks Cas should've died seasons ago and stayed dead. It's kind of fascinating
Oh, yes, Cas characterization in fics is a fascinating thing. First there was so little canon of him, especially if you compared to Dean, and fic writers had to fill in the gaps. Then the show writers interpreted him differently, but it was still canon and fic writers had to pick and chose. Not to mention that the show really doesn’t care about Cas’ story, so we get so little meat on those plot prop bones. (Does Cas have a room in the bunker? Does he have any personal things there? Who knows!) In early days fandom also had a field day with smushing Cas into nerd/jock cliche and we had all those High School AUs with weak, smol, shy, bullied Cas. Which is cool! Every author writes what they want and fictional characters are here to play with. But yea, inconsistent canon material for Cas has encouraged much wider interpretations even among writers who are Cas fans and want to write Cas POV fic. So, IMO, while you can pick a random Dean POV fic and still get the same set of issues, Cas POV fics are a bit of a gamble and it depends on the author’s choices. With Cas POV fics it really pays off to remember author’s name and check out their other fics, if you liked the first one. Like, there are fic writers who interpret Cas as autistic/ asexual/ demisexual even if they don’t tag it explicitly in every fic, or writers who write more assertive, bamf Cas vs writers who explore Cas’ softer side. Or, lol, to tread fandom hot waters, canon fic writers who write fallen, human Cas vs writers who write angel Cas. I mean, these are all personal choices, fueled by personal biases. There’s no rigid canon in transformative works.
1/5 Anon from the other day here. Thank you! That is exactly what it feels like and why your tags are so nice. I’m not watching s15, because while this show has always had serious issues, in the last few years, the scales just tipped for me. At some point, I just felt like, they’re not even trying to keep up a pretense of this show being made for the fans. And while I understand that a lot of fans need to be positive to enjoy it, and that it’s very difficult to confront all the flaws in a thing
2/5 and still derive pleasure and satisfaction from it, it does mean that the overall message we send sometimes feels like “Whatever shit you pull, we’re just going to dress it up as nice as possible and power through.” Which, a necessary part of fandom is every individual getting to enjoy the show the way they want, but that does kind of remove the creators’ incentive to try. For me, I feel like they’ve recently crossed more and more lines and at some point, if they’re not making this show for
3/5 people like me, then people like me don’t need to watch it. These are wonderful, beloved characters for me, but I’m struggling to even identify them anymore, and the surrounding plot has never been a huge draw for me (it rarely feels like it comes together, to me). Anyway, sorry for the rant, but yeah, your tag commentary articulates a lot of my same frustrations and weirdly, it makes me feel less terrible about having to quit and knowing I’m never going to feel like I got an ending? It’s
4/5 hard to explain. I have a lot of feelings tied up in this show, I guess, and your comments are a great comfort to the turmoil.(As for the fic – I would send you the link, but there isn’t one yet since I’m new to posting fic and I’m still working up to longer fics, which brings me to my next point: I’d be happy to drop it in your submit box, but it’s 130k and if you’re not really feeling Dean/Cas fic right now, I think that’s a lot of effort to go through for a few Gordon scenes you might not
5/5 even like. But that was a very kind offer
Heeeey, thank you for coming back and sorry about my lateness! You have a lot of good points and mostly I feel the same, you know? I do understand the need of current fans to follow only positive blogs even if I call them positivity police. I went through the same stage of my fandom engagement around s9/10 when the show was getting dark and hopeless, and some of my friends said that nothing makes sense story wise. And they were right. But getting a “divorce” from a TV show while you still want to participate in fandom is hard. There are many steps and we all take them at our own pace. My steps so far have included ranting in tags and slowly detaching myself from the story. SPN fandom is one of a kind if only because of its longevity and constant new canon. I don’t think I’ll ever be in another fandom with such high intensity feels spanning for so many years. Tbh, it is exhausting. So, no wonder if we are a bit lost and not sure about closure. Maybe, our closure is to get safely out before we get disappointed completely? If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from SPN, it is to trust my own gut. Be it my interpretation of the show or be it general feeling about the need to let it go. The only reason I didn’t left after 9x03 is that I was heavily involved with destielfanfic and it’d be hard to read and rec fics without following the show. Since then, I’ve watched many destiel fans to leave fandom one by one at different times of the show. Sometimes it was because of real life stuff, most often - because the story, and beloved characters became unrecognizable, and they felt the need to hold on to good memories.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about SPN legacy. About new fans discovering SPN after s15 finale, marathoning all 300+ episodes without spending too much time on character metas or wallpaper colors. I’m thinking about new meta writers who will be able to look at the show as a whole instead of scrutinizing an ongoing story. I’m waiting for metas to discuss the show without being so closely attuned to TPTB, actors and crew. I think there will be a new understanding of the show, hopefully, less marred by ship wars and the need to defend dominating party line. After we will know how the show ends, it will be easier to see the road the writers took to get there. And it will be easier to voice honest, critical opinion of the show. We will get there, anon!
I saw the other anon and villaneve for life 🥰 they are my babies (is it "problematic?" yes. do I care? no)
Lol, exactly! That’s what stories, movies, tv shows are about - to give us whole range of human relationships and emotions to live through without doing it in real life.
btw, I got another ask from the same anon about that post and it seems I totally misunderstood the ask. sorry, it happens! will answer new anon later.
are we finding it ironic that Sara gamble has now been on TWO shows where the writing became royally screwed up in the end and queer baiting abounded? I don’t watch the magicians but from the sense I’m getting, oof, she did it again.
Yep, she did it again. I’m scrolling through The Magicians’s fans tumblrs now, trying to piece together what happened and it is not pretty. I haven’t watched the show at all, so this is just what I got from tumblr
Jason Ralph, lead character Quentin (mentally ill, depressed, suicidal bisexual character), was talking about leaving the show with the writers and they designed this season. They knew from the start that Quentin is gonna die, yet they also wrote the episode teasing the ship,4x05, Quentin/Eliot and engaging with shippers on SM for a whole year. J.Ralph was forbidden to tell the cast that he’s leaving, the script had dummy scene and all cast thought that Quentin will survive. The funeral /goodbye fire was shot with all actors thinking he will be back. They learned about his departure only this week meaning they never had a chance to tell goodbye to their cast member of 4 years.
Quentin dies in sacrificial suicide to free Eliot from magic whammy; they are not even given reunion scene after whole season being apart or barely interacting. Because, according to the writers, they wanted realism and IRL you sometimes don’t get reunions you deserve. They wanted REALISM, on the show about magic, and dragons, and mirror worlds.
gay Eliot was magically straight in s4 (ETA - I’m told he wasn’t magically straight but I did see posts that his queerness was ??? not there? tell me!) , bisexual Quentin, while fighting for the love of his life, Eliot, was paired up with a woman. Sera Gamble and Co patted themselves on the back for LGBTQ representation on the show
I have no words to say how f*ucked up this is. I mean, even Joss Whedon recently admitted that he was wrong to kill his rare lesbian character. I thought TV writers are aware of disparity between hetero and same sex relationships? Also, a lot of fans are devastated because with Quentin they lost relatable character. This is not even about the ship so much, as telling that people with suicidal indentations just should do sacrificial suicide and be happy about it.
Off topic, but this reminds me so much of all post 12x23 discourse - Cas will come back from being dead and his depression will be cured! And when Cas fans balked at such idea, we were painted as uneducated peasants who don’t understand how the story works. I mean, Sera’s legacy lives on in this fandom. Just kill off characters who are sad! I just saw similar comment about grieving Dean in s14 - he should die, and then he will come back with better mental space, just like Cas did. As if Cas came back healed of his depression. *clenches fist*.
have some sources, obviously spoilers for s4 finale of The Magicians
Interview with Sera Gamble, posted just before The Magicians finale, talks also about her other show YOU, and her years with Supernatural
Interview with Jason Ralph, good overview of how messed up the whole situation was. He’s very diplomatic tho.
fan reaction on twitter - One, Two, Three
Just couple of weeks ago I talked to my friend and we both agreed that we are still so salty about what Sera did with Castiel in 7x01, that we are not gonna watch her shows again. Funny how right we were.
ETA - some The Magicians fans blog said that the show runners were never actually interested in the ship, queliot. They were interested in bromance and deep friendship between two men, and that’s why the ship got so much screwed over. This fits with Sera saying that she learned the importance of male closeness while working on Supernatural. Which is all nice and dandy, except Sera was fully aware of main m/m ships on SPN and their passionate fanbase, She must have known that shipping will happen and it will mean a lot to many fans. So, her comments about going where the story takes them is beyond pale.
1/5 Hi, ignore this if you’re not interested in commentary (sorry if it’s rude to send it, new to not just lurking and am trying to figure out when it’s appropriate to say things or whether it’s polite to be on anon or not be on anon, etc. and am actually bad at that kind of thing IRL, too, so yeah, sorry if this is just unacceptable or something), but thanks for the post about Gordon. I’ve seen that in fic and been uncomfortable and then not sure if I’m being oversensitive, because
2/5 he is one of the more interesting/ memorable characters in SPN so I can see why he might be the first villain some people think of, and there’s a sort of caricature-method of writing villains I see in fic which means they become kind of two-dimensional plot devices for convenience. By the same token, though I don’t post fic, I do write it and I have also used him to populate bully groups on a couple of occasions, and given that I have been uncomfortable/ragey, both with this and with
3/5 SPN’s bullshit vis-a-vis POC/women/queer people/etc in general, maybe I should not have done that. Something for me to think about. So. Yeah. Sorry if I offend at all, or if you just wanted to let out spleen in peace, but thank you for making the post. I saw your tag “(and I’m such a chicken shit)” and I appreciate that you posted anyway. Your tag commentary is also always very gratifying to read and I was relieved in the spring when you made that post clearly identifying the fandom policing
4/5 happening to diminuel as exactly what it was, since I didn’t understand how it could be happening in the first place (A+ on your tags then as well). Which isn’t to say you should post things if you’re uncomfortable, because this place is terrifying, but. I appreciated it now as well as then, so thanks for doing it! Sorry for rambling, I don’t expect you to respond, and again, sorry if I should not have commented. And have a very nice day!
5/5 (P.S. thanks for mentioning Bartholomew! I don’t understand why I don’t see him the most. I know it’s just how they wrote/styled him but whenever I see him in gifs or episodes I suddenly feel like I should watch my drink, even though I’m at home in my pajamas)
First of all, thanks for your message! My inbox is open, so it means I welcome asks and any kind of venting, anons included. When it will get too much I will close the box, that’s all.
under cut this goes since it is so long
So, my post about Gordon Walker. This is actually a very old pet peeve of mine - the way how evil and one dimensional Gordon is in destiel fics. I love Gordon as a character and it hurts me to see him reduced to a homophobic sexual aggressor. Which he was not on the show! (Alistair is the one who did unspeakable things to Dean) I could kinda understand when older (canon) fics posted around s4/5 used Gordon as theor go to villain, since he was still fresh in the memory. But now, 12 years after his death on the show to have Gordon as the cartoonish villain in an AU destiel fic is really a questionable choice. SPN is such a white show, there’s plenty of one episode white evil dudes to chose from. There’s plenty of reoccurring white villains like Lucifer, Michael, Metatron, Bartholomew, heck, Crowley is a villain. And I’ve seen them used as villains in fics, so, the choices are abundant.
I really appreciate you saying that even when you like Gordon as a character, you also have depicted him as a bully in your fics. I truly believe that most fic writers who write evil Gordon never intended it to be a racist statement (despite using all angry black male tropes on him). I remember reading a fic with a leery Gordon that was written by a POC author. That’s how pervasive this is. That’s why it is important to name the problem - fandom racism - and then let people to think about it. Feel free to share my post, my goal was to get people thinking.
And let me be clear, evil Gordon trope is racist not because the author used Gordon as a character or even as a villain. It is racist because usually Gordon is the only POC character in the fic and his only role is to be a one dimensional sexual aggressor. I’m stoked when destiel fics have well developed canon POC characters (as few as they are) or even make up their own. There are fics with surly neutral Gordon as well, so, it is possible to have representation without indulging in racist stereotypes. We can’t change the show and their unfortunate tendency to cast non white actors as one episode villains to be killed by white leads. But we can try to make destiel fic more friendly for non white destiel shippers.
The reason why it took me so long to make this post is that I can’t really talk about evil Gordon in destiel fic without drawing attention to said fics. I don’t want to put fic writers in a tough spot because I believe that they didn’t mean harm. But, that’s how everyday racism happens - unintentionally. Last year I read two new fics with evil Gordon and one with evil Victor Heinriksen. I’m sure there’s been more since then. And I don’t know how to draw attention to this problem without starting fandom wank. I made a decision to not to rec such fics on @destielfanfic, but since our reccing has declined in general, this is not a big deal. It’s too little too late. I’ve recced fics with evil Gordon before, they are still on the blog, I’m truly sorry about that. So, I made a post to yell in a void! Thank you for your message, it means I’m not alone ;)
I wish there was a brave soul who cut down the episodes to only Cas scenes, I'm getting tired of (the repetitiveness / the bad writing) watching the rest of it...
Wouldn’t that be lovely? But I’m afraid it would turn out to be pretty depressing very fast. What with all torture, and fights, and general meanness of all characters to Cas. Cas never seems to be able catch a break, you know? To get a hug from a friend, to do some nerdy thing, to SMILE for once. Cas really gets the short end of the stick from the TFW, and that makes Cas’ fans cranky. If only someone would take Cas on a fishing trip, or Impala joyride, ya know? I mean, on screen, so we all can see it, not all that “we are supposed to imagine that Dean and Cas spend a lot of time together OFF SCREEN” nonsense. Nope my dude, pics or it didn’t happen.
