His name was John, and he was magic – an artist and athlete and actor, who could pull a penny from your ear and guess your card every time. He was quick-witted and kind-hearted; someone who’s innate otherness gave him his greatest strengths but also his biggest demons. His favorite show was Supernatural.
It’s actually how we first bonded. Him, a quiet, gangly pre-teen and myself, a shy newcomer to this loud, impossibly boisterous family. I overheard him ask his mom if he could sneak away to the basement to watch Supernatural, and immediately offered my Netflix login to the cause. And that’s where my now-husband found us hours later, making our way through season 4 and trading jokes about how much Cas loved Dean (little did we know). I have loved this show for over 10 years, but the relationship it helped me forge with John is something I will forever cherish.
After he was gone, I kept watching. For myself, but also for him. Because if I was watching, he was watching. He may have never seen past season eight, but he watched every episode with me. I had mixed emotions about the show ending – on the one hand it was like losing another part of John, but on the other I was grateful to get to share this one final episode. And it failed him. It failed everyone.
It is no secret that a devastatingly large portion of this fandom are marginalized young people. Marked as other by their identity, sexuality, mental illness, by the very characteristics that make them the impossibly loving and inclusive group I’ve witnessed over the past 10 years. Hell, I was one of them.
This finale took messages that so many of these fans resonated with, ones that said you can choose freedom, and family don’t end in blood, and we make our own future, and threw them away in the last 30 minutes. 15 years of heartache, and growth, and redemption, and never, never backing down. 15 years of learning how to love and forgive ourselves as the characters learned how to love and forgive one another. And they threw them away.
An angel who defied all of creation and God himself, who never felt wanted, or worthy, or enough. Who’s greatest happiness was simply expressing his love – died without ever hearing he was loved in return.
A man who had been through hell, literally, and came out the other side. Who went from believing he deserved a violent, lonely end to quietly wishing for a peaceful future with those he loved – died before he ever got the chance to truly live.
A little brother who lived, but who’s every happy moment was tinged with mourning for what he had lost. Who’s life held such little importance it could be condensed in a single song.
So what, after all that, was the message the show left us with? What theme wove through the last episode the fans would ever see? Simply this:
You can only be happy in death.
The brothers are reunited in a lifeless heaven. It is implied (only implied) that the angel is there too. Now, finally, they can be at peace. Cut, fade to black. The End.
And in that final ringing moment, through the shock and disbelief, I thought of John. I thought of him, and all the fans like him. The ones touched with otherness, who cling to their found families and the belief, the desperate hope they will get a happy ending. Because they write their own stories, and determine their own fate.
Every fan in pain, in distress, in crisis right now – for me, every one of them is John.
I couldn’t help him then, and I can’t help them now. John didn’t get his happy ending, but I can at least tell his story. And I hope, despite this utter slap in the face to everything they’ve clung to, others keep telling theirs. Because no matter what the writers, or execs, or networks say – they are stories that deserve to be heard.
And while I can’t turn everyone into a princess myself - this holiday season, one lucky human is going to have a fairytale ending to their year - once upon a December!
The winner will receive the iconic faberge-inspired music box and necklace from the animated film Anastasia!
Did I mention the winner gets Anya’s gorgeous kokoshnik style tiara as well?
Well guess what - they do!
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Rules *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
♔ Simply reblog this post to enter!
♔ Ends on December 15th, 2019 at 11:00PM EST!
♔ One (1) winner will be chosen using a random number generator.
♔ Winner must contact me within 48 hours to claim their prize, otherwise another winner will be selected via a random number generator.
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Seemed like something you would find funny. I usually hide behind other’s words on this day - but 5 years on, and I still haven’t found the right ones that express what I want to say. The tree was no help.
I think grief is a selfish emotion, at the bottom of it. You not only mourn the person, but the them-shaped hole in your own life, your own future. It is suddenly knocked off track, and you are left riding parallel to how you thought your life would go. I mourn that other life, the one where we hosted movie nights, embarrassed you at graduation, bought you your first underage beer. The one with you in it.
Selfish, right?
But the only choice is to ride this out, this other, not-quite-right life we’re left with. And I guess to hope. Hope that you’re happy, hope that you know how much we love you, and how much we fucking miss you.
The plant will let you know when it needs to be watered, she said. It will wilt. All dramatic like.
It always seems to be wilting.
Or not. I can't tell. It's in a constant state of semi-wiltedness. Does this mean I'm striking a perfect balance? If it was getting enough water wouldn't it stand more proudly erect? Is it actually wilting badly and I have failed to recognize, because my concept of down is so much deeper than others?
I water it randomly, and it never seems to change. Always half wilting, half alive, half happy and half not.
I think I empathize a little too much with a possibly half-dead possibly completely fine plant. But I've always been a bit dramatic.
I guess I'll just water it again.
so Charlotte Bronte read Emma by Jane Austen and was really interested in this minor character named Jane Fairfax who was poor and would have been a governess had she not married well and then Bronte wrote her own novel exploring the plight of the poor governess who married this guy named Edward Fairfax Rochester in a novel called Jane Eyre and my point is don’t let anyone tell you shit about fanfiction
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