#zerbe discusses things

[neven-ebrez]

Hey friends. I’m struggling for the words to say. We deserve to see the original finale script. It was more found family friendly and not such a slap in the face to Dean’s character development. I know in my heart they didn’t want to end the show like this, on these details. It’s still amazing they came back to filming at all. All the costs to keep everything in storage without shooting for months was great.

Personally I’m reaping the show at 15x18, since it was our last episode of true scripted intent. Imo they never should have shot these two edited episodes and instead just did a movie covering 15x19 and 15x20 sometime down the road. So much was just... bizarre. Little things. Other things like wigs and makeup plainly imo show us how truly thrown together this was, as much as the show might not want to admit that. Or maybe they do. They should.

I don’t know how I’m personally going to proceed from here. I feel like I’ve been killed by what I loved but at the same time I know they didn’t want to kill me. Doesn’t change my reality. But also I refuse to believe my time here was wasted. I see the details they wanted to give us and it was a good story before shutdown. I’m begging and praying they publicly explain these changes. I know it’ll put at least some hearts at peace even with the damage done.

Devastating. It’s all just fucking devastating.

I’m still thankful for this show tho. The relationships I’ve made through this show are what I’ll carry with me always. It’s what I’m personally trying to focus on in order to move forward. So check in on your friends when you finish gathering yourselves. Be there for one another. 😭😔💔

[neven-ebrez]

I just want to say always be wary of fans boasting knowledge of set leaks, friends. True or false. Boasting set leaks is a sign of a fan who is looking for attention and that motivation is nothing ever good. Fans that know secrets are out there, whether they came upon the knowledge in a bad way or in a good trusted way. People that know stuff and keep their mouth shut are the ones you know have your best interests at heart. People holding secrets over you as a dangle don’t have good intentions imo. They are looking for control over you. Don’t give it to them.

[neven-ebrez]

I’ve gotten an ask about the Jensen three month notice Destiel discourse and I just want to say I think people have totally misunderstood what was said. They’ve all been on board and acted towards this ending for over a year. Jensen just probably didn’t know exactly what the scene looked like until just recently. And I can almost guarantee that’s because it’s how he wanted it. He reads one script at a time and acts Dean in the moment without foreknowledge as to give a true emotional experience of someone who just has no clue what’s next for his character. He’s discussed this many times. Even though Destiel was definitely a thing he was told about well in advance, he didn’t really need or want to know every detail of the plot, he never has approached his work that way before. That’s all I really have to say about this particular subject. Also. Time to reblog my PR IS NOT SHOWRUNNING essay one final time I suppose. Hope this helps you anon.

[neven-ebrez]

For anyone curious, most of my SPN analysis these days is in twitter threads, not meta essays. But i’m @zerbehunter over there. I wanted to stress again how much I know some of us are putting on the line here. Our hearts. The possibility of not getting what we hope happens. I’ve looked over Dabb era long and hard. What Jack symbolizes. The themes we just keep. getting. It’s all just so deeply coded both subtextually and textually (like Dean’s mixtape to Cas) in the repressed queer experience, like, so many of us fans see that and identify with that not by accident.

Concerning my personal fan experience, my involvement in fandom as a meta writer of Cas I’ve never felt more seen in Supernatural than in 15x18. The only exception to this is seeing what’s become of Becky in 15x04. She’s me. I’m her. I write fan works for the show. I have a Supernatural Etsy shop. I’m a mom with a minivan. I just need some peace and quiet in this house to do billing and orders. 😂

And I’m going to get deeply personal here. This election at the same time as Destiel is quite the online participation experience. It has been quite the ride, quite the overlap in experience. The patience. The waiting. The plainly seeing the truth but no one just coming out and saying Biden was the winner. We knew he was. Days ago. Yet they don’t just say it. Frustration, memes, the hysterical waiting to learn if you were right. “Stay Calm. Let the counting finish.” All this while we tell ourselves we know the truth, Biden has won. They just need to call it.

This is exactly what it’s been like to wait for Destiel. Cas’ 15x18 confession was like a ton of Georgia mail ballots coming in. And these things bared the same feelings for me personally. So much riding on this. The longest waited results in modern (television) history. Well, Biden just went canon with as text after the text of the mail ballots slowly shifts Georgia blue. But Georgia has always been blue, like Dean, that’s a truth that has been repressed by hate. But now there Georgia shines, her true colors. Then I look at 15x18. The timing here feels nothing short of cosmic. Turning Georgia blue is our turning Dean textually queer.

I feel almost crazy thinking and saying that but I want to be frank here in these last few weeks before the finale. I think I’m going to go back and really look at all the lessons of S15 this week, look for some clarity in my expectations. I think it will only make me more sure of myself tho, at least in regards to this.

Well, I’m just very tired. So I guess that’s it. That’s what is rolling around in my head. The election took so much emotionally out of me. I’m probably gonna go reblog and retweet others and then fall asleep. We’re all feeling different things right now, have wildly difference experiences with the show and its creatives. I respectfully don’t want to get involved with debates over who is allowed to speak their experience and who isn’t. This discussion is important because the truth is important. Speak your truth.

[neven-ebrez]

Do you think the covid-19 stuff will impact the possibility of things like a destiel kiss? Is that still a possibility, or not any longer?

Kissing is allowed. My friend Natalie at Hypable asked Emily Swallow about this kind of thing recently in one of her articles and Emily talked about what the industry is currently allowing, so long as COVID tests are negative. I personally still think what I always have, that Dean’s response to Cas’ confession is to ask Cas to stay with him, that they’ll hold hands and that Dean will tell him “I love you” back. If a kiss comes after that? That’s just the greatest thing, the single greatest mlm slow burn tv romance depiction that television could ever achieve. I have no idea if they went for it. We’ll all find out together in 2 more episodes. ^_^

[neven-ebrez]

since everyone's attention is on spn and destiel now, many people are commenting on how awkward the scene seems and if they filmed it separately. do you think there's any truth in that? i think it was filmed before covid shutdown so it's not like they had to keep the social distance or something. i genuinely don't care about the 'is jensen homophobic about destiel' discourse, i think regardless of his personal feelings he wouldn't botch the scene bc of some awkwardness he felt.

Hi anon. I personally haven’t seen anyone say the scene looks awkward (maybe if they hate Destiel they would have this opinion)? Jensen and Misha filmed together right before the virus shut down production. I’ve seen deliberate awkwardness filmed but that scene wasn’t it. If anything, there’s still a lot of narrative space in 15x18, visually. There was some other episode this year that I remember talking about things “hanging” and I’d say this episode also falls into that.

Everything with Dean and Cas visually this episode continues to play with negative space in what is by now, a long-standing visual trend between the two. Then there’s that one scene when they first return to the bunker where they circle and pass each other like two galaxies colliding or something. I’m no gif maker so I don’t have a shot of the 15x18 scene but visually it recalls this:

Then there’s another scene where Billie stalks them around the corner where they are crouched then the reveal and we see the space where together they are now visually missing. Rich used this negative space technique a lot, like... a lot.

The further apart Dean and Cas physically are, the sadder the show generally becomes, with Cas’ death frequently being the greatest distance/sadness for Dean. Just showing and lamenting the negative space, the distance, is the narrative asking for the distance and sadness to be removed. Dean and Cas yearn to be together.

So any “awkwardness”, to me, is simply what I just described. And Jensen doesn’t get mad/frustrated/whatever about Destiel any more. He hasn’t had that attitude in a long time. Here’s them around the same filming time.

Jensen loves Misha and they both love acting their scenes together. He even says stuff like this ⬇️ these days because he’s known about this scene since the show started S15. Bob Berens wrote it first thing when breaking the season.

Destiel is textually part of their story now. It just is.

[neven-ebrez]

Since the show seems to be paralleling Jack to Jesus, do you think he might sacrifice himself and die to save everyone?

Hi there!! ^_^

I’ll be straight with you anon, beyond me thinking Chuck is (ultimately) talked down with music in some way I’m not actively trying to SEE what the endgame structure actually is, nor am I particularly personally interested in detailed speculation around anything beyond Cas’ fate. I’m so sorry! I don’t mind discussing what S15 (and the show) in general has done so far tho! In general and in looking to the past, I think literally every character has been slotted into a Jesus-like role at some point as the storyline supported such imagery (usually sacrifice imagery) and the imagery in general can always mean different things depending on its context and your viewing lens. Personally I’ve always looked at Jack as the New God but I thought 15x13’s commentary on the matter was fairly on point (this bubble gum blowing kid ain’t ready). As the position of God exists, Jack can not assume it. So either someone else must, or the position itself, it’s nature, must change. The show has said as much in regards to the afterlife being unfair as it exists currently so I think extending this needed remodel (as it were) to the position of God is most likely.

Also in general, Jack is made to embody found family values and above everything else, truth. The truth of the characters and universe. That’s his baseline function in the narrative imo (besides helping TFW through various personal issues with themselves and each other). So I personally see this latest “Jack as Jesus” imagery in a lens of “here comes the new era of value/truth” with Jack heralding it in and not necessarily a comment on whether he lives or dies. I’ve always thought Jack would “save everyone” in a key way, and that this saving would come from his lessons learned but so far his greatest lesson comes through Dean’s acceptance and forgiveness and how Cas’ survival is practically necessary for that. So it just may be that “saving the world” is just Jack saving Cas for Dean, which in turn allows Dean to fight with Sam against Chuck. If there’s anything Dabb era has really hammered home it’s that Dean needs Cas to be useful and fight in any way himself.

Jack dying is always an option, of course, but when you leave a legacy, a new world behind, have you really died? This is what the show also says with Mary’s death and how it made her complete. It’s also the fandom inheriting the characters and S15 is so far very, very meta, especially with music. I’ll just say if Jack dies under similar conditions and accomplishing the same, that I’ll think that kind of ending is fitting and bittersweet in every way possible. Jack promises a new world. He must deliver.

[neven-ebrez]

Im so so so confused about 15x13. Wtf was those flashbacks of Jo/Ruby ?? Did I miss something ? It means that circa s4 Jo was already on earth, which, ok i rly dont remember her backstory so maybe, but... She KNEW Ruby was on Lucifer's side ? Even tho NOBODY except Lilith and Lucifer himself knew ? That doesnt make a goddam sense that a demon as cunning as Ruby would share those infos with any Angel, even a rogue one like Jo...

Hey there anon. Let me start by saying 15x13 was a good concept episode in *theory* but it was so poorly executed that I’m not sure about everything I even *think* I understand and I’ve already watched it a few times. I usually try to give Buckleming credit where credit is due. They do deliver on theme fairly consistently, if not exactly with elegance. I want to say 15x13 folds into this more heavily than most but the thing is... I’m not entirely sure it’s by design, from any standpoint.

Simply, Buckleming wanted to see J2’s wives be frenemies. That was the concept they started with. And they absolutely wrote to concept over characterization. They said “Well! Until now we’ve been letting people assume Anael fell with all the host during the 8x23 Angel Fall Event but ACTUALLY we never said that’s when she came to Earth *exactly* so we have some leeway here! Yeah she talked about things post “The Fall” but ACTUALLY she could have been talking about her personal Fall which happened Chuck knows when now! You see!” And then they wrote 15x13 from there aiming for the S4 timeline after Ruby was introduced in Genevieve’s vessel but before Ruby was killed. It’s the same type of thing they did for 14x20 essentially, only with God. It’s subjective whether these detailed canon jossed reveals work or not. Re: characterization: I liked 14x20 personally but disliked 15x13 because one highlighted the show’s values (free will, team work, chosen family, always keep fighting) while the other stood divided.

For Jo you’re gonna have two reactions: those fans who liked her original implied 8x23 Fall story/situation over the new clarified canon and those who don’t. I personally don’t like it. I liked what they were doing with Jo up til that point. I liked that she was kinda like Cas (wayward) and now she’s decidedly... not. I don’t know what the aim was for her character doing this reveal and accounting for her new actions. Maybe she’s supposed to be an example of what not to do? Don’t be selfish?? Don’t run and hide?? Idk. Imo if I can’t tell such things, like why the writing is moving in the direction it is moving, then to me it’s just not organic and thus, not good for episodic tv (and organic character based writing is essential to episodic tv imo). Jo’s whole thing is she looks out for herself, yes, but she also is dedicated to meddling because she dislikes what God has done. The reveal that she wanted to run away and hide while billions of humans died?? When she could have continued helping them (and even if in a small capacity)? She loves pretty things and is highly materialistic, yet is fine letting it all burn, all that beauty?? And now how she’s refusing to pick a side, here at the end of all things? Well. That just doesn’t sit well with me. She meddles. Now she doesn’t. Just... why? I don’t feel like they told me why.

And that’s not touching anything with Ruby and why they would sometimes work together. For me it’s an issue about who Anael is, her core character. Imo they betrayed that and it’s like... they didn’t have to?? They could have easily written something that maintained who she was at her core instead of diving so hard into concept that seemingly sits apart from everything else. It’s just inorganic writing imo. Like I said, 15x13 was... a lot. Concerning your specific raised concern over Ruby spilling her secrets, again, concept over characterization. Keeping her true allegiance from the Winchesters was paramount to Ruby’s involvement with them. Everything depended on it. So, no. I 1000% agree with you. Imo it doesn’t make sense that her character would tell someone who wasn’t even a friend her true allegiance. Like??? This person could be tortured for info? Or they could just betray her if a better opportunity presented itself?? No spy would do this?

A meddler who is no longer meddling and a spy who can’t keep secrets. While this episode heavily delved into opposite imagery and “meet in the middle” imagery (there’s a lot to be written on this angle and I don’t know if anyone has yet b/c I’m not on the internet in general much these days), I really don’t think Buckleming needed to change so much character-wise (even Rachel’s portrayal of the Empty, no longer slightly unhinged, had me having to really look at the psychological WHY) with 15x13 but they did and for now we are stuck with it.