normal i'm normal

i hate dest*el but it makes me feel like i'm not allowed in the fandom because everyone is constantly catering to them and the hellers are such bullies if you disagree. jensen being called a homophobe for knowing dean and saying he had no romantic feelings for the angel makes me angry but i thought it would blow over and instead second string actors are fanning the flames. i want to feel at home in spn fandom again but don't know how. you're so nice about it do you have any advice? thank you

hi! so, I aim to make this a friendly zone where everyone is welcome. ♥ if you cherish and respect Dean, if you love Dean FOR Dean first and foremost, this blog is a safe, loving place for everyone, no matter what you do/don’t ship or who your faves are or what you like best.

I had a post up a week or so ago that I made private (as I tend to do a lot after expressing opinions), but I am going to copy what I said in it, because reading this makes me feel like it needs reiteration:

a gentle reminder from your neighborhood mom friend - literally nothing is worth bullying/stealing from/harassing people, I know we get very emotional and invested, but our interactions with fandom are supposed to be based on enjoyment and a sense of kinship with other people who love a story and its characters too. shipping is maybe the most elastic part of any fandom because the overwhelming majority of it is fanon rather than canon, and that’s fine, but that means it’s mostly imagined and fun. there are always going to be people who disagree with whatever it is you like. find the people who make you feel welcome instead. you can rant and dislike and laugh about things as much as you want to with friends and in your own space, of course!, but seeking out people you disagree with to sow constant discord and fighting is not the way

this world is so hard and a lot of us use fiction as an escape, just…be good to each other in that engagement.

^ anon, you are well within your rights to dislike a ship, you are within your rights to ship anything you want or enjoy anything you want (provided it doesn’t hurt others in the process, and I’m so sorry if you’ve been hurt by anything or anyone in the fandom!). if someone bullies or belittles you for it...block them. I’m serious, there is no excuse for that, and you do not deserve to have your feelings disregarded or to feel like you don’t have a safe space in a fandom/story you enjoy.

I also made the post I wrote about Jensen the other night private too, which said - some of the stuff that people have become emboldened in writing about Jensen on this website that then gets copious notes is honestly appalling. he is not a fictional character. he is not a doll that everyone gets to manipulate and speak for, and the fact that concrete things he has said about the show, about where its focus was for him, are treated like a joke or as “overcompensation” or as misunderstanding of a character he spent more time crafting than anyone is very gross. idk when people decided he wasn’t an autonomous human being who has his own thoughts and his own feelings that deserve boundaries/space/respect, but it is unsettling and immature and it needs to stop.

Jensen has proven repeatedly where he stands on social issues too, so to use a ship against him is just...not it. let’s support canonical representation and progressive storytelling! using fandom as a cudgel against other people is not the way to do that.

the hostility towards Jensen and Dean on 11/5 decimated that night for me (but, and I said this to a friend the other day, oddly enough, I might not be here without the fuel of fury from that night), and has eroded the meaning of that scene a bit (and I truly loved and NEEDED the meaning of that scene, as I have waxed poetic about its content here, and keep trying to reclaim it). I’ve gotten very uncomfortable with the way people are praising his “sexy silence” and treating him conspiratorially when his issues with the finale are very clearly a separate issue, and he has spoken about it enough (in the lead-up to the finale) to give that context, for anyone who has listened to him. we know where his heart was, we know what he put into the ending to give it emotional resonance, we know he told Jared how proud he was of them and everything they achieved.

I have wonderful friends here who ship various things, there are kind people on multiple sides and, unfortunately, toxic people on multiple sides. all I can tell you is to be careful and find others who you feel comfortable with to rebuild that home. ignore/blacklist anything you need to, it doesn’t make you a bad person or a bigot to dislike a ship any more than it makes you good or bad for liking one. you are always allowed in the fandom, and to find your place within it.

I know it’s been overwhelming ever since the finale, and maybe even more so lately. I know that if you’re feeling sorrowful and wounded, it can make that worse. as with anything, there are people who take harmless fun too far, and that’s not okay, but I think a lot of the fandom is just trying to cope. we’re all coping differently, and I understand that. my way of coping has been delving into the story despite where it still aches and cuts me, to holding onto my infinite love and empathy for Dean and my sympathy and affection for Sam and my formative emotional attachment to them that began over a decade and a half ago, and all the myriad things they represent, all their intriguing facets, the worth of the many other characters I also enjoy, the weaving of all the folklore and the gothic influence. my ongoing grief over the ending aside, I’ve realized I still love the show for the core of what it was, and shipping was never my personal focus with SPN because that’s not the soul of the story (as much as transformative love IS the soul of the story, it is so much more complex and all-encompassing than that). that’s where I find my peace. (and joining anyone I can in talking about it and going through their feelings - I’ve really been feeling the echo of, “my peace is helping people.”) others are finding their peace elsewhere. I get it. we’re all trying to, as they said, carry on.