Destiel is about the messaging. The romantic relationship was the bonus.
To say that we’re just mad bc we didn’t get our ship is an insulting dog whistle to dismiss and mischaracterize the harm from years of homophobia, queer baiting, and gaslighting.

It’s insulting bc it puts the focus on the romantic aspects of the ship and diminishes the fact that a huge group of fans had the intellectual and emotional intelligence to see deeper elements like bisexual coding and homosexual desires when other fans could/would not.

It’s harmful bc not acknowledging any of this has lent itself to its own homophobia within the fandom and more importantly, continues to reinforce the pre-existing homophobic messages amongst young people globally. SPN had something ground breaking and monumental

within a well earned space by giving Dean the arc that the show itself built for him to self actualize enough and acknowledge that he wasn’t heterosexual.
The global message that would have sent would have been epic and groundbreaking and would have ‘righted’ several

(but not all) wrongs the show is guilty of carrying out, If they cared enough.

Network branding and international markets/contracts were no doubt a part of these inexcusable offenses.

Still, humans and their vulnerable themes are not things to exploit, nor boxes to check.

By building an unpaid-off bisexual character arc and then using death as an instantaneous consequence to coming out (48secs from ILY to disappearing completely)... that message is disgusting and shameful.

Yea, it’s sad for these fictional characters that we spent 12 years

watching grow into a subtextual ‘married couple’... but for those who think that’s what our main issue is, that’s false.

It’s the messaging.

And by the way, while we’re here... let’s not forget the ambiguity some homophobic fans were clinging to that night.

Thankfully, Misha Collins had the wisdom to know what the haters were going to do with the “I love you” vs the less ambiguous “I’m in love with you”, and he had the courage to speak out & clarify that it was homosexual. He understood that queer+ themes should be treated with the

same equality, dignity and respect as heterosexual themes and so keeping that groundbreaking “I love you” ambiguous for ‘some’ fans, JIC they didn’t like it, was unacceptable. The overall message that straight fans who don’t see Dean’s bi-coding or a subtextual gay relationship

between Dean & Castiel are very open about liking the ambiguity because “everyone gets what they want.”
-False.

The amount of times we have seen Dean hook up with women he doesn’t love wasn’t ambiguous.

Everything about Destiel is ambiguous and that’s the harmful messaging.

When this shit gets rebooted, you know it will, Dean’s ambiguous sexual orientation better get left on that rebar.

Just like every psychic, vocal intuitive, or queer+ character that got too close to Dean, there was nowhere left for Dean to go except out of a closet in 15.20.

And so for the sake of ambiguity, they killed him before he could come out.
That message is 1000 times more powerful, harmful and hurtful than us simply worrying about a romance that didn’t actualize in a show that we already know doesn’t really do romance.

So, to the gas-lighters out there... stop saying that our main issue is about the ship that never actualized on camera.

It’s the messaging that the show left the world with that we are never going to get over. Sure Destiel is a romantic dream between 2 hot dudes in their mid-

40s, and of course we all want to see that, but that’s just the tip of it for us.

Destiel is a message of progress inclusivity, & visibility beyond subtext.

Destiel means hope for us that we’ll be more than just ambiguous on mainstream TV one day.

The message of Destiel also means that we finally get our well-earned BAMF heroes too; I say this despite how many years the homophobic SPN fans used SPN’s own messaging to tell us all the counter messages detailing how we don’t deserve to have our own heroes.

End of thread.