also imagine if destiel became canon and we’d get all these weird comments from cast and crew like
“that part wasn’t scripted. dean kissing cas’ cheek there–jensen just added that in and we liked it.”
“here’s another part where we didn’t really give the actors much direction but jensen and misha know these characters well enough that they knew where to take it.”
“this kiss ended up lasting a lot longer than we thought it would.”
“they’re so great together, we just started rolling and let them do whatever came naturally to them.”
“that was misha’s idea”
“that was all jensen”
“they really committed”
“it comes so easily to them”
“they feed off of that raw chemistry that’s been between them since the beginning”
1/2 I understand not waning your favorite showrunners and writers to leave a show and wondering how it will affect everything, but everyone worrying about the brodependency and destiel: you don't get this kind of continuous progress on these storylines unless *everyone* is in agreement and on board, and on the same page on some level. They've been telling a cohesive story for years now, and you don't achieve without everyone in agreement on certain things.
2/2 Robbie Thompson by himself did not keep destiel going. Carver by himself did not keep destiel going. A slew of other writers, set directors, directors, costume designers, etc, keep these arcs/plots/stories flowing and moving. No one is going to suddenly drop two solid seasons worth of progress and years worth of subtext just because Carver and Thompson are gone, because that would imply that they were solely responsible for every bit of the destiel storyline. And that’s not how it works.
Yes. This.
And do you know who’s responsible for some of the most destiel things that have happened? Dabb and Singer.
Yes, yes. We know the Unforgivable Sin that Singer committed (or at least had a major hand in the commission of, and the subsequent falling out with fandom in the horrendous aftermath…) but as far as destiel and the brodependency go? Yeah. The entire writing, directing, editing… every department… they’re all on the same page. If they weren’t, we’d be seeing a really uneven, disjointed, incoherent mess of a narrative. And we really, really aren’t.
S11 especially has been honing on two main narrative points: You can’t outrun your past (wrestle your demons! Sam’s quote from 11.01: “What happened to us? Hunting things – were good at that, sure we’re great at that. But that’s only half of the bumper sticker, man.” They are literally revisiting the past and getting a chance to undo past mistakes, to make different choices, i.e. breaking the codependency through better understanding and effective communication, which is my stupid tag for this whole deal.) And the second main narrative focus of the season is love (in all its forms, negative, positive, romantic, familial, obsessive, supportive… just all of it.) And frankly, if ANY of the writers weren’t onboard with the direction the story’s been going (and it’s been going this way for the last four years or so), they’ve had plenty of opportunity to, you know, STOP writing for the show. You don’t write a rich, consistently layered narrative if you’re being forced to write something you fundamentally disagree with, you know? Well, I suppose you could, but it would be soulless and flat. And this show is not soulless.
*under a cut for length, you’re welcome people who Do Not Care about this stuff :P*
I already made a post (or several) about Amara using Cas’s connection to Dean to send the hologram of herself to him. BUT I JUST FOUND THE BOOKENDED CORROLARY.
HOLY FUCK.
At the end, when she touches Dean’s face, THAT’S WHEN LUCIFER COLLAPSES. Donatello shakes his head like he’s sensing something weird, but it’s not what Metatron’s doing in trying to break Lucifer free. NO. HE’S FEELING AMARA TOUCHING LUCIFER. THROUGH DEAN.
MAYDAY. MAYDAY. ALERT. OH MY FUCKING GOD. Okay. This might be the best birthday present I ever got. Okay. I take back all that crap I said about bucklemming before.
So not only was Amara able to touch DEAN THROUGH CAS, she was able to TOUCH CAS THROUGH DEAN.
The effect that Amara’s had on Dean ALL SEASON got transferred to Cas. SHE WAS TRYING TO CONTROL DEAN, JUST LIKE SHE DID IN 11.09, BUT SHE CAN’T ANYMORE. BECAUSE DEAN’S ACCEPTED SOME THINGS SINCE THEN.
All that talk about pining, all those lessons about love, all the frustration and heartbreak he’s been suffering about losing Cas… THIS IS WHAT IT LED TO.
And to think I was too bitter about Amara being played as a pining teenager to see it before. DAMN ME AND MY BUCKLEMMING GOGGLES I ALMOST MISSED THIS.
She asks Dean where his thoughts are, and wrongly guesses God. But her ~power~ isn’t affecting god right now, it’s being funneled, along with Dean’s thoughts, DIRECTLY INTO LUCIFER (because CAS).
She looks him in the eye and says “SOMETHING’S DIFFERENT.”
Yeah, it is.
*aside that Metatron’s last plea to “spare the universe” was a nice gesture
*second aside to note that Sam called the bunker Home again
Then at the end, Dean describes to Sam what Amara wants from him, for him to be a part of her forever, and “Adios” to Dean.
But Dean’s used that line before, and we know he’s tired of the adios. But again, when God’s waiting for them back in their living room, “a dios” is an even more interesting turn of phrase.
He’s already had Metatron order him a margarita, which he side-eyed and ignored; he’s told Chuck he doesn’t care if he retires to a condo in Cancun, and now the Adios. You know what? Dean’s SO over the adios. He didn’t drink the margarita.
But then *points to the screaming HOLY SHIT portion of this post* all of that happened too. Dean’s not about to adios Cas either.
"he’s lying out his ass (way more likely)" Why would he lie? When they don't want to give away spoilers they just say, "I can't say." They don't lie. They've never lied to subvert a plot. They just don't talk about it. Why would you say that Jensen doesn't know how he interprets his own character's thoughts and feelings? I like Destiel as much as the next person, but choosing to ignore literally everybody saying "No, it's not like that" b/c it's not the answer we want is not helping anyone.
I’ve wondered that myself, actually. why would the showrunners/Jensen bother telling us Destiel isn’t romantic just to throw us off? it doesn’t make sense. we cry out for people to tell us it’s never going to be canon if it isn’t, and please stop queerbaiting, but then when someone actually says “they’re like brothers” we’re all NO THEY’RE IN LOVE. it’s like we can’t take a hint.
what’s very important to remember is that what Jensen says, and what anyone working on the show says, only matters up to a certain point. what they say, what their individual opinions and interpretations are, it makes as little difference to canon as the input of any fan watching. Jensen is not making the show by himself, he’s just answering questions on stage. the writers make up the canon, but the broader community of creators working on the show all have their own interpretations. there’s dozens (hundreds?) of people making the show as a team, and the final output is an extremely potent romantic storyline between Dean and Cas.
what anyone says at a convention or on twitter does not matter until the show ends and their words are proven true or false by canon. and even then, parts of the narrative can (and will) be left up to your personal interpretation. whether or not Dean sees Cas as a brother is not up to Jensen, it’s up to you.
the canon narrative in the show implies that Dean and Cas’ storyline is romantic. Jensen’s acting with Misha says it’s hella gay. ergo, if you want to believe Destiel is real, then Destiel is real. whether or not they’ll textually cement that in the future is still up in the air. until that point, nobody is going to tell us outright that it’s happening, because that is a massive freaking spoiler.
sidenote: the only way Jensen (or whoever) can avoid being accused of spoiling a Destiel subplot is if he says they’re ~brothers~ because nobody second-guesses that being a brother to Dean = someone he loves/is close to. it’s not new information. it’s a non-answer. personally I choose to believe that the word “brothers” is the nearest Jensen can get to saying “love”. whatever he says, he can’t outright state “Dean loves Cas” the way he can say “Dean loves Sam”, because even though he says the word “brothers” it won’t be interpreted the same way. why is it not the same? because Dean and Cas’ relationship is supposed to be romantic and everyone knows it, even if they don’t ship it. for example, if Jensen said “Dean loves Sam”, do the Destiel shippers freak out that Wincest will go canon? no. but if he said “Dean loves Cas”, all hell breaks loose on the Wincest side of town. Jensen has to be very, very careful what he says. saying they’re like brothers has worked for years to allay the fandom’s questions about Dean and Cas, and that’s how he avoids answering it, just like you said. maybe he does indeed think they’re like brothers. but he’s not going to change tactics now, regardless of whether he actually interprets the relationship that way.
okay, let me sum up what happened the last few days
dean will not be there when cas is saved
dean will not cry because of cas (granted, this is our own fault for getting our hopes up)
robbie is leaving
jensen said dean thinks of cas ‘as a brother’
Does’t Dean have an ENTIRE LIFETIME worth of things to be pissed at God for? I mean, isn’t that why he was an atheist to begin with?
And Jensen is at a con, which is doing PR, and has scripted ways he has to answer things, and that if his answers cause a PR nightmare in anyway he gets into A LOT of trouble. Misha has been threatened with his job after things he’s said at cons by the execs. Also, spoilers are a thing. Little spoilers? Sure. Big ones? Not so much. Fans would be a lot less disappointed if they stopped watching with Destiel going canon as their only desire from the show. Want it, yes, but like ease up your grip there. Just watch to see what happens.
I know we are all talking about Amara’s reaction to Dean calling out for Cas, but Lucifer’s reaction is one that is SO interesting! This is a look of confusion and intrigue as Lucifer gauges the situation!
Let’s not forget Lucifer was the first one Dean told of his connection to Amara and the effect she had on him. So here Amara is. Lucifer was probably waiting for Dean to be overcome and completely in her thrall.
But imagine his surprise when Amara, the thing that is supposed to have this overwhelming desire and control over Dean, is standing right in front of Dean and all Dean says is “Cas!”
“see we don’t want kisses and sex for destiel” “we don’t even need romantic things like sex and kissing to be shown for destiel”
ok sit down son and don’t speak for all destiel shippers
also, it is a direct root of homophobia and biphobia in television when we have to justify our non-het ships by saying “we don’t need sex/kissing!!!!” to make us seem “better” than “other shippers” as if hetero couples aren’t fucking and making out on tv all the time. it’s an insinuation that sex and kissing between het couples is fine, but between not-het couples/ships on tv somehow becomes “gross”
i’m sick of posts like this trying to speak for all shippers and also lgbt+ fans. they are annoying and reinforce homophobic/biphobic double standards and don’t actually help anything. because het couples can have sex and make out and have their relationship not be all about that, but rather something that adds to it, the same should be able to go for non-het chars/couples
i can want to destiel to become canon for deep and profound and meaningful reasons AND still have a desire for kissing and/or sex to be at least hinted at as something that goes on between them (especially when lord knows this show has depicted enough male/female sex and makeouts) and it doesn’t lessen how valid the ship and my shipping of it is. and quite frankly if they showed something like dean and cas at least just kissing it would mean a lot for me, as a bisexual woman, as something that happened between my fave characters/couples on my fave show
so don’t speak for all of us when quite frankly kissing/sex at least being hinted at could, in fact, mean a lot for some destiel shippers and it doesn’t lessen the validity or seriousness of our ship, and acting like “not needing kisses or sex” makes it high and mighty is gross and a double standard and if anything, just placates lingering homophobia/biphobia
i am salty good bye
All of the above.
Also, when people say “we don’t want the show to have romance in it” they’re really saying “I see romance as something that will inherently devalue a show” which is really misogynistic. Romantic elements in media like books, movies, and tv shows are thought of as feminine (thus we have the term “chick flick”) and are constantly mocked.
We’ve talked about this like 5000 times, even if spn were to have destiel kisses in it, it would still most definitely have decapitation and gore and death. Don’t worry. But just the fact that we have to constantly talk about that seems like some people are really afraid of being accused of watching a show that’s not “hardcore” enough.
i love how robert singer stepped down as executive producer and now we have gay married hunters and two women with kids and they all gotta live and be happy and now GOD HIMSELF is bi
All the destiel people I follow are like “I have hope and I fucking hate it because I KNOW ITS NOT GOING TO FUCKING HAPPEN but guys I really think it’s gonna happen this season.”
Hello! 'all the episode did in general was tick yet another (possibly the last) item off of the long list of ‘obstacles in the way of actual canon Destiel’ can I ask what you meant by that, and what the other boxes are or were? thank you!
Blah, I wish I had a short answer, but I really don’t. :p Do you want a long one or?
Basically, if you start by looking at all of the most popular excuses that anti Destiel people use to claim that it should/could never go canon, you’ll easily find the most common obstacles on the list.
The thing is, at some point all of these obstacles WERE legit obstacles to worry about, but the show has been slowly but steadily getting them out of the way one by one.
If a couple of years ago you would’ve asked me ‘do you think it is at all possible for Destiel to become a canon thing on the show’, I would’ve answered: Yes, but not before…
Whereas now my answer would be: ‘I don’t trust these writers to deliver, but TECHNICALLY speaking, nothing much is in the way anymore.’
—
Some of the most prominent examples:
✓ The vessel/consent issue
“If Destiel went canon it would be rape! Jimmy is still in there!”
Although it had been talked about before by writers/people involved in the show, it was never mentioned as a fact on the actual show. Season 10 took care of that for good, by letting Castiel literally say to Claire that her father is gone, and has been gone for a long time. As a bonus, they right away back it up with an actual scene of Jimmy and Amelia in Heaven, showing us that what we’re being told is the absolute truth.
Bonus in 11x18 re “but that’s still not really Cas, and Dean would be weirded out to be with him like that”.
We get the answer to that when Sam (bless his soul) tries to stay rational and talks about how ‘it’s a strong vessel, Dean’ and Dean immediately snaps at his brother ‘IT’S NOT AN IT, IT’S CAS!’ That’s how he sees that, he sees that as actually Cas, and that is also a very important box that needed ticking.
It’s a huuuuge list, because there’s so much evidence. So much so that it would be easier to prove that he’s attracted to both men and women, than it would be to prove that he has to be seen as 100% straight. (As explained at the bottom of that post.)
The thing with Gunnar the wrestler in season 11 sealed the deal for me, Dean was literally drooling over/crushing on a hot wrestler, while Sam was having a thing going on with an attractive female at the very same time.
If you’re going to say ‘Oh no, Dean was just fan boying, they weren’t interested in each other like that’, then your heteronormativity goggles are glued to your face to the point where I honestly can’t help you. It would be the equivalent of ‘Oh no, that one guy isn’t fucking that other guy in the ass, he’s just giving him a prostate exam. With his dick. Look that condom COULD be a rubber glove!’
Lame jokes aside, you all understand what I’m getting at.
Granted, even with the many hints, we haven’t actually seen Dean with a man (yet), but imo there’s been enough hinting at Dean’s not-straightness that for everyone with a pair of functioning eyes, it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock when Dean finally embraces it and gives in to his desires. Especially when it includes a person that he’s been stuck in so many romantic tropes with that I lost count.
✓ The Bromance Zone
“They’re just very close friends, not everything has to be romantic or made gay!”
Surprisingly, for the most part thrown out of the way again recently by Buckleming in 11x18.
Yes, two guys can be close pals who are friends who are buddies. Agreed! Except, we have a perfect never ending parallel in season 11 (and the rest of the show, tbh, 7x01, 9x03, 11x03, to name a random few), namely the difference between how Sam reacts to losing Cas, and how Dean reacts to losing Cas. Team free will, they’re all brothers in arms, family, close friends… But the way Sam reacts to Cas being gone or in trouble, THAT is how a friend would react. Because Sam and Cas are good friends, the show has made that clear. But if Dean and Cas are also ‘just good friends’, how can it be that Dean’s reaction in S11 (and mostly 11x18) is so much different from Sam’s?
Sam is standing there next to that circle of fire like a loyal friend would, ready to assist in whatever way he can if the opportunity presents itself, whereas Dean…
That guy was just a useless emotional wreck! Standing there, tears in his eyes when Lucifer mocks him, irrationally crying out Cas’ name over and over and over again, even when he knew that is was absolutely pointless to keep doing it.
Whereas throughout the episode Sam tries to think logically about how to save their friend, Dean is led by nothing but his feelings. His heart. The heart choice. Snapping ‘IT’S NOT AN IT’, while it was obvious that Sam didn’t mean it like that at all.
Dean has been shown pining over Cas episode after episode, even loses sleep over it, while Sam is always the one who tries to comfort his brother ‘we’ll get him back Dean’. It is NEVER the other way around.
How does that make sense if they’re all just close friends? The answer is: it doesn’t. Because we’ve been clearly shown once and for all the difference between how friends act (Sam/Cas) and how people act when there’s feelings involved (Cas/Dean).
I’m not a Buckleming fan by any means, but credit where credit is due; you folks did well on this one.
✓ The spontaneous transformation into a Romantic Comedy
“If Destiel goes canon it will change THE ENTIRE show and what it’s about!”
And this is where we return to your original question. :p Because that is what I meant when I said that 11x19 removed another item from the list of obstacles.
You see two hunter husbands and hey, it didn’t turn into light gay porn or a chick flick. It was still the same old SPN, these badass hunters weren’t straight but it changed absolutely nothing. Because it doesn’t have to change; merely because two people get into a relationship, doesn’t meant that the show has to become about their relationship. Or about their sexuality for that matter.
Bonus message in the episode: It’s possible to care about both your brother and your lover. Say it louder for the people in the back.
—
So I suspect that all of the above contributes to the hopes for canon Destiel currently being higher than ever, because technically, the writers have addressed pretty much all of the issues that people could possibly have with it.
As in: ‘if you don’t like the ship you don’t like it and that’s your prerogative, but if we do decide to go through with it, your biggest arguments have already been shot down because we already took care of them.’
Do not take this post as me saying ‘IT’S GONNA GO CANON OMG’ though. I’m only saying that right now it’s -technically- a very realistic possibility.
