#and the more I see Jensen responding about both 15x18 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

castiel-left-his-mark-on-me · 2 years

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I know a million people have already shared their opinions and thoughts on Jensen’s “brother” comment in regards to the confession, so this may be nothing new; but I can’t stop thinking about it so I wanted to write it down.

One of the main reasons I love (and kept watching) SPN over the years was because of Dean’s character-growth. He is just so human—and that is a testament to both Jensen’s acting, as well as Jensen’s age when he started playing Dean.

For fifteen years, we got to observe all those micro and macro changes within Dean’s character; much like a parent watching their child grow up. We noticed how Dean’s face changed, how his voice and confidence and openness morphed and grew … but we also got to see all the ways he stayed the same. We got to see his habits resurface again and again; and we got to see him make the same mistakes over and over. And even though it was frustrating to watch at times … it was also very, very human. It was natural. It felt real … and I think that was both intentional and unintentional on Jensen’s part.

But just like how our growing child can’t see all these changes within themselves, I don’t think Jensen can see them all within Dean—not like how we can. He’s too close; but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t psychoanalyzed Dean Winchester.

I think it’s become obvious in the last couple of years just how much Jensen has thought about Dean’s thought process, both individually as well as in the SPN canon—and he thinks of Dean as a real person. His answer at VanCon proves that. Like @pray4jensen said: it’s clear that Jensen doesn’t know where he ends and Dean begins. And how could he know? He started playing/shaping Dean in his late twenties; and science has proven that most people’s brains are still malleable at that age. He then went on to grow with that character well into adulthood—through all the formidable and pivotal moments in his own life … marriage, fatherhood, life and death. Dean IS part of him. He wasn’t just an “act” to Jensen. So much of his own development couldn’t help but sneak into Dean’s mannerisms, which made Dean feel very, very real on screen.

Think of it this way … so many of us have had difficult/complicated pasts. We have had to code-switch all our lives. There’s a version of yourself that you have to display in certain company and in certain environments; and sometimes, that version pops up without warning—when triggered by something familiar or traumatic.

Now, I’m not saying that playing Dean was a “trauma” for Jensen (at least—I hope it wasn’t), I’m just saying that we’ve all had experience playing a role in our lives; and even though we know that it’s just a role, we still think of it as a version of ourselves. We still feel like we’re just a moment away from reverting back to that person. But can you define all the qualities of that other version of you? Can you explain—in detail, just how and when and why that version pops up? No.

You can identify some things, sure, but not all. That’s why we seek out therapy. We need an outside perspective to help us find a way to bridge these versions of ourselves and make them whole again.

This is just human nature. It’s human psychology.

Dean Winchester is a version of Jensen. He is a real part of Jensen’s life. So, when Jensen answers on Dean’s behalf, he can’t help but put himself directly into that character’s boots—exactly where they stand, here and now.

And if we flash back to that confession—Jensen knows that Dean Winchester would not have been able to comprehend all the ways Castiel meant “I love you” because Jensen was Dean in that moment. And after Cas was taken, Dean still wouldn’t have been able to understand, because all the love he has ever known in his life—all the true, dependable, reliable love, has come along with the fight. Jensen knows—because he lived it all with Dean, that any love his character felt was a direct result of his battles to save the world. Sam, Benny, Mary, Charlie, Kevin, and on and on … all of them of course cared for Dean—Dean knew that, but since the constant fighting framed every one of those relationships, he couldn’t help but view them all the same way: as soldiers, fighters, products of war. They were family, yes ... but they were all still soldiers. Even those he tried to keep out of the war, Dean still knew the reality was … they had to fight in order to stay alive. That was just the way it was. That was the way of the love Dean felt. Any kind of love beyond that was impossible, because war would inevitably take it away too. That’s why he ended things with Cassie and Lisa. That’s why he only ever pursued shallow flings and one-night stands. And that’s why, when he saw hunters who actually maintained romantic relationships—he always stared at them in wide-eyed-wonder.

Out of all the impossible things Dean had witnessed in his life, that was the one that consistently shocked him.

Hunters … in love and happy.

It felt unreal, even though it was right there in front of his eyes.

He couldn’t understand it. So, even though it apparently was possible for others, he never believed it was possible for him. It had nothing to do with sex … sex wasn’t a part of love for Dean. Sex was just a physical movement, like fighting and eating. It kept his body alive and moving forward. This impossible love he saw others maintaining … it had everything to do with heart; and for nearly fifteen years, Dean believed his heart was worthless.

It wasn’t until an angel stood in front of him on the brink of death and said: Dean, you are not a weapon to be wielded. You are beautiful. You are a man full of love who deserves to be loved, and I love you, that Dean thought any different.

It wasn’t until he heard Castiel say Dean was more than just a soldier, that Dean actually started to believe it. But that realization was still a long way off from what Castiel was actually telling him.

And Castiel knew that Dean wouldn’t understand—he knew that Dean wouldn’t be able to fully grasp his words and take them to heart; but he hoped that if he at least said them out loud … if he said them to Dean’s face and saved the man’s life, that Dean would go on to live and grow; and then someday, he would see that someone did actually love him once. Cas truly loved him—not because Dean could protect him in a fight. Not because he was a good hunter or the savior of the world, but because Dean was Dean, and that was enough.

And you know, if Dean got to live to 100, he just might’ve realized that; but he didn’t. He died too soon. And so, he never got to truly grasp what his angel was saying, and I feel like that’s what Jensen understands about Dean the most.

He understands that Dean never got the chance to understand love.

Not in that way. Not in the way Castiel meant it.

Dean was still too naive, too broken, too jaded; so, he did what all humans do, he put the complex into terms he could understand, and that was that Castiel loved him the way that Sam loved him. The way that Benny and Charlie and Kevin loved him, the way that all his found-family love him; and after Cas was gone, he buried his face into his hands and wept because once again, he failed to protect his family. And even worse, he failed to at least let Castiel go knowing that Dean loved him too—in the only way he knows how to love, he was too broken to say even that.

He let Castiel down in every way possible, so he curled into himself and sobbed.

He should have said it back.

He should have held the angel close and said it back.

Dean realized it too late, and Jensen knows how much that hurt him.

It wasn’t about sex.

It wasn’t about romance.

It was about love and loss, and Dean was all too familiar with both—but only in the ways he had seen all his life.

The love of family and the loss of family.

He never had the chance for more.

He never got to see what else his own heart was capable of.

That’s what I feel Jensen meant with that answer, and that’s what I think he understands the most about Dean's character. We may be able to see the bigger picture because we're on the outside looking in; but Jensen was in Dean’s boots every day for fifteen years.

All he could ever see was what was right in front of him—and when Castiel made that confession, Jensen could only see it through Dean's eyes. He could only feel what Dean felt. He knows that when Castiel said those words to him, that was his best and truest friend in the world saying goodbye.

Another brother-in-arms was lost to him; but this time, it felt different. It hurt more, and if Dean just had a little more time—he would've been able to understand why.

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vminvisiblestring · 3 years

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How Robert Berens Made Destiel Canon

or The Beautifully Tragic Road to Destiel

in honor of their one month anniversary, i want to talk about robert berens and how he made it his mission to make destiel canon and the care he took approaching their relationship...

i dont know if this has been pointed out before, but i was looking at the episodes bobo berens wrote when i realized something: he wrote all the significant destiel episodes in s15. i think that means he probably planned to make destiel canon long before s15 started:

he hid a love story inside the monster story. a love story told in five parts:

• initiating event

• rising action

• climax (first twist)

• falling action

• second twist (no resolution)

14x18: absence - “initiating event”

the initiating event introduces the conflict and sets events into motion in a story.

in absence, cas reveals to dean that jack might not have a soul and therefore might not know that hurting his mother was wrong. this angers dean and results in dean telling cas “youre dead to me”. this initiates a chain of events that lead their relationship to experience a tear (or rupture).

15x03: the rupture - “rising action”

the rising action is the result of a character trying to (in this case) solve a problem but a force is at conflict with the character. for every step taken, there is either a successful or failed outcome; this pattern continues all the way to the climax.

complications in dean and cas’s relationship continue to widen the distance between them into the start of season 15 with the deaths of rowena and belphagor (for which dean blames cas) culminating in the infamous “breakup” scene. cas said there was nothing left for him anymore and leaves dean.

15x08: our father who arent in heaven - “rising action”

bobo didnt write this episode but its important to the path because rowena tells dean and cas to fix their relationship in the same episode that michael sends them to purgatory (aka the place dean realized he was in love with cas all those years ago and where they fixed their relationship the first time)

15x09: the trap - ‘climax & first twist”

the climax is the most emotional part of the story and is reached when the character takes the final step to resolve their problem. this is also where the turning point of the story begins and descends to the falling action (and if there is a plot twist, it happens here).

the first twist: dean confesses first. this scene is deans confession disguised as an apology. he might lose cas and needed him to know hes sorry. the prayer scene is so important because, if we read the scene, this is in fact, an apology, but its so much more than that. dean responds to cas’s “i left but you didnt stop me” with “i should have stopped you”. this scene showed just how much dean has grown, how much he’s trying and how much he wants to be free of the anger he feels because he realized it was what separated him from the man he loves on multiple occasions. this is deans way of saying “im sorry. i didnt mean anything i said. you are the most important person in my life and i let you leave. i shouldnt have let you leave. thats my fault. im trying to get better. please tell me you’re gonna be okay. tell me this isnt the last time i’ll ever see you. please. i love you”.

dean and cas reunite near the rift but dean doesnt want to leave before telling cas something. we know it cant be the prayer because its obvious cas heard that; this is something else, but cas stops him. this scene is them making amends with each other the best way they know how: a silent knowing. the conflict has finally been resolved.

15x12: galaxy brain - “falling action”

the falling action consists of the after-effects of the climax and every event from here onward should lead to a logical conclusion.

dean and cas’s relationship is better, they seem at peace. the silent knowing is definitely there, and they both seem comfortable the way they left things. the way things are going, they’ll likely have as much a “happy” ending as a fallen angel and a hunter can have without talking about this silent knowing. we cant forget about the looming empty deal, but knowing cas will never be truly happy, it seems like dean and cas are going to be friends for a long time...

15x18: despair - “second twist”

after the falling action comes the resolution. sometimes in film and television, a surprise second twist will occur after the climax and toss the characters into another fight. the second twist is resolved quicker than the first and leads to a speedy resolution.

the second twist here, however, replaces the resolution because the story of destiel sadly and infuriatingly, never got its resolution.

i feel like bobo was told cas was going to get killed off and thats why he knew there was no way the network would allow dean to reciprocate so he did the best he could to work around the homophobia and make destiel canon as much as possible for us.

this is the most “resolution” we were given by a show we spent years watching and loving. we rooted for the characters, we fought as much for their happiness as they did themselves. and it ended up stabbing jensen, misha, bobo, other cast members, some writers and the fans in the back.

deans face here is all i have left to hold on to and thats not fair. and its not fair that after all these years this is what they did to one of the most complex love stories ever told. not only that, but dean and cas were also some of the complex characters ever put to screen. this is not a good ending for them and it never will be. not until they both get the endings they deserve, as individuals and as one. and im sorry for the pain all this mess has caused and would like nothing more than to squeeze everyone really tight and tell you it’ll be okay.

#destiel #cockles #jensen literally approved of misha and bobos plans for destiel #i mean whenever jensen directed he made sure there were destiel scenes #he WANTED dean and cas to become more intimate #dean and cas deserved to speak their truth and be happy together #not to mention a majority of destiel shippers and dean and cas stans are #lgbtq #so thats just another big fuck you on top of the spits and slaps to our faces with that finale #im sorry to get so negative in a post thats supposed to be positive and bring levity to the darkness we've had this past month #i just cant help but feel so much anger #for robert berens #for jensen #for misha #for us #anyways always remember #destiel is fucking canon #and #homosexual declaration of love #deancas #dean winchester #dean #castiel #cas #supernatural #supernatural final season #spn #bobo berens #jensen ackles #jensen

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eisforeidolon · 3 years

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Here is the transcript of what Jensen said, recorded by the M&G person who asked and then typed up sherlockmeowlmes*tumblr*com/post/634903222222520320/jensens-comments-on-15x18. Re: Jensen having a crew member film it on his phone - I wonder if he did that so he'd have a clean copy of what he said and did before editing + music was added. It doesn't sound like he trusts the editors much :\

I get a “there’s nothing here” tumblr 404 for both the specific link and the general user tumblr account page, anon. I suspect I saw the same thing posted on twitter last night (where today it’s gone and they’re whining about someone “tattling” to Creation and reasserting what they said he said with enough bonus interpreting out their ass to verify their agenda, as if there was any doubt).

Again, it’s what one person is claiming is a correct transcript. Even then, if you take out their after the fact interpretations of what Jensen totes meant and what they think he totes felt from his expressions or whatever, etc. - because we know that side of the fandom is so great at interpreting those?

It still boils down to them asking about how filming the scene was and what Dean’s reaction would have been with more time to play out. Yes, ship question, but about something that happened in the canon and not phrased confrontationally or disrespectfully. So Jensen snapping at the person would have come off disproportionate and nasty to people only tangentially in fandom.

They said Jensen’s answer involved a lot of talk about someone sending him a reaction video and it making him curious and looking more into the reaction videos made and finding them entertaining. Him mentioning they cut the scene down as they routinely do, but he had someone record the scene on his phone. He totally talked to his friend Misha soooo much this week about the scene and made an analogy of saying what the scene meant as being like an artist standing next to their paining in a gallery and telling you what it meant. He knows what he was thinking as Jensen and as Dean in that scene, but he doesn’t want to tell someone what they should or shouldn’t see. Dean was mainly concerned Cas was going to die and didn’t really even process anything else from that speech. From Dean’s perspective, Castiel doesn’t necessarily even understand emotions in a human way - his idea of love is not necessarily comprehensible by or comparable to humans. There’s no right or wrong answer, he hopes everybody got something out of the scene.

Now if I were gonna interpret that? He rambled on about reaction videos to fill time and technically respond to the question. I don’t even have to touch finding OTT shipper reactions to that little nothing bone as “entertaining”. He avoided throwing Misha and Berens under the bus because he’s a professional, and mentioned the scene being cut down because of all the shit people have given him for his does not compute BSOD face. He quite possibly recorded the scene for reasons anon mentioned above. He may very well have talked to Misha about the fan reaction (or, you know, Misha egging on the fan reaction and speaking for him). He very pointedly doesn’t say what it was he was thinking as Jensen or Dean in that scene, and is not going to validate anybody’s interpretation of the scene in either direction. Dean tuned out Castiel’s weird declaration of feelings because of the far more important to him about-to-sacrifice-himself-for-Dean aspect which Dean hates when others do for him. Again, don’t even need to touch that Dean doesn’t really think Castiel is human enough to understand emotions the way humans do anyway. TLDR; He’s not going to tell you your interpretation is the only superior one like you want, take your serving of ambiguous pandering bullshit and STFU.

Funny what an entirely different perspective can get that out of what they, themselves, claim he said.

#destihellers #destiew #Anonymous #askboxery

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finaledenialist · 3 years

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wym one of them was 'more official'? i did them both i hope i didn't screw anything up!

OK I dived into it. At first I was going to say that I have no idea to be honest but, one of them had a more offical vibe and it was, well, not pro-deancas, and didn’t really stated the purpose of it but it was stated that the results are going to be shared with the CW? So of course when there was a question about my favourite canon pairing and they made the mistake to make it an open question I typed Dean/Cas and added that they can die mad about it.

But it turns out it is fan-made:

There is only one person behind this whole thing. Hi! My name is Sarah. I started this because I thought it would be fun. I’m doing this by myself so please bear with me when it comes to posting the results, responding to messages etc. I will not be sharing any results with anyone until they are posted online for everyone to view. [x]

What bugs me though is this:

If enough results are gathered to make reasonable conclusions from each of the questions, the results will be presented to Jared, Jensen and Misha in a book. The results will also be made available for fans to view on Tumblr and Twitter. [x]

Presented to them in a book? How? When? But whatever I guess? What I really don’t buy though is the explanation behind why Destiel is not considered canon in this survey:

In all honesty it pained me to put Destiel in the non-canon category. I ship them wholly and completely and I’ve even got a deancas themed tattoo planned. So to see this response hurts me a little bit.

I’ve been planning this survey for well over a year and have altered bits quite a few times. When 15x18 aired I changed Destiel to the canon category but with everything that has happened since I didn’t feel confident putting them there anymore (no matter how much I may have wanted to).

And again, I have been planning this for over a year, way before any of this canon/non-canon, season finale chaos. As much as I love Destiel, it is not the only aspect of this fandom for everyone in it and I wanted to be fair. This isn’t a shipping survey - it is a general SPN fandom survey that has to try to cover 15 years.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I respect that but please don’t act as though this is an attack on Destiel and the fans.

idk it is some centrist shit right there if you ask me but go off I guess

And the other one is confirmed to be made by a fan @housewifedean for research purposes on the fandom demographic and why we didn’t like the finale. I say this one is better.

And Nonny, it’s ok, you didn’t screw anything up! <333

#ask #anon #spn survey #Anonymous

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