How was that Convention Answer a Problem? 

The weirdest part about this whole thing was that it didn't even seem like they were replying to the question that was asked?? It was like they were replying to a totally different question.

Also, the woman said absolutely nothing about sex, so why did they make their answer all about gay sex??? I’m beginning to think hetero people don’t actually love their partners, because that’s what they think about us.

Literally all they had to say was "I found out when I got the script for episode x" or "They talked to about it when y." No reason for all that mess.

I was in the room when that shit storm happened and I’ve had PTSD since, like, I can’t get it out of my head. My brain started misfiring as soon as Jared opened his mouth and then I think my soul left my body when he talked about not wanting to have sex with his son -_- I went up to the mother who asked the question afterward and she began crying because they made her feel like an “absolute idiot” (her words) and I tried my best to validate and comfort her. But it got me thinking- “No matter what I say to this woman, it won’t change what was said.” So here’s to hoping Jensen and Jared (especially) address it at the next con and fucking apologize. Really tho Bob- this video is what I needed to help process such a horrific moment and attempt to move forward from it. So- Thank you. Deeply and sincerely xx

The biggest sin of the Supernatural cast is that since the beginning of the show they have allowed their homophobic fans free rein on all aspects of the show. If you don't condemn bigotry and homophobia you ARE condoning it period! This show was never a true ally for the LGBTQ+ community or other marginalized communities due to the condoning of the behavior of the fans of this show who are on the religious right.

Jared had a very weird rant (and Jensen allowed it) to a question that's not that complicated, they could've just kept it at Dean found out when cas told him and moved on.

Thanks for the breakdown! What a creepy answer. Even as an ace, I have to note that whether or not Cas or Dean wanted to boink each other is not the business of cannon. Did Sam want to Boink Eileen? Did they boink and how much? Nobody asks that question for straight ships. And like you said, their idea of sexless love is invalidating. If Dean and Cas had gotten together and wanted to hold hands in public or get married or buy a house together, that is a valid comitted relationship with or without sex. Intentional or not, that is bending over backwards to invalidate the whole thing, and finishing up with the old trope that Cas is just too weird, which in itself has some bad implications for queer, neurodiverse and any people getting the Weird stamp. This is one epic fuckup.

You just know if Cas was played by a woman, there would be none of this hemming and hawing about whether or not his love is romantic. Your discomfort with gays is showing, J2.

i just dont understand how they had a full year of pr prep and still could fuck up that badly. we expected being annoyed at the bare minimum but this was beyond embarrasing and shitty

I have been kinda avoiding spn “news” because I’ve been dreading exactly this happening, so this is actually the first I’ve really seen about this. *sigh* this was painful. I think that Jensen “might” well have been able to reply to this with some grace…..he at least appeared to be trying to think it thru. Jared on the other hand, needs a muzzle. This isn’t the first time he’s made a twat of himself by “opening mouth, inserting foot” but this time it was really kinda hurtful. The fandom have supported him thru some of his stupider moments, and then he does this? I hope he is going to apologise to the fandom (not just the lbqt fans, but ALL the fandom)for what he said, and hopefully have someone sit him down and explain in little words, exactly what he has to apologise for…….but I’m not expecting it. After all, back pedalling and retconning are how they’ve always dealt with things they don’t wanna deal with. It was like “argh they asked about “it”…….quick, fall back to we’re all “bros”” CAS did NOT love Dean as a “bro”…….that has been confirmed! And then Jensen decided to go with Jared’s ramble…….not ok, but I’m betting there’ll be no apology there either. At this point I was ….here we go again…..so disappointed.

This was a great video. At this point, I really don't think there's any other way to interpret this other than Jared and Jenson desperately trying to distance themselves from the LGBTQIA+ legacy of the show. It’s very clear that that’s not what they signed up for and it makes them visibly uncomfortable to imagine the show they spent 15 years on will forever be associated with and remembered for a gay relationship between two of its leads and its iconic queerbaiting. In Jared’s case it’s a gay relationship that doesn’t even include him (the so called lead of the show). It’s the only way to explain why *another* character being in love with one of their characters is enough to prompt this kind of bizarre erasure. I’m honestly going to need people to see Jensen’s response for what it is. I saw people on Twitter talking about the magic of heavenly love that can’t be defined. It is so very clearly a way to distance Dean (and himself) from words like gay and romantic. If not, then it’s some kind of backhanded way to imply that romantic love between two male (male presenting in Cas’ case) would some how make their love less pure. And God forbid two male characters want to sleep together. That might prompt a 5 minute rant that ties in queer love to incest and pedophilia. Jeez.

Interesting to listen to, thanks Bob, my main concern in this whole story is how much, wanting or not, Jared undermined Misha and everything he has said in the past, by essentially implying that he ( Misha) does not understand the character he's been playing for 13 years. That made me sad, TBH.

I really like this response it addresses and explains why people were hurt and upset in a really clear way. I also really think this video shows the virtue of thinking about a response to something without being reactionary.

Wouldve been easy to say "when cas told him! Dean is not observant lol" and moved on

Bob, this was just what I needed to hear this evening. I'd watched their panel on RU-vid last night and then went to bed with another SPN-induced ache in my heart. Woke up and discovered SO much emotion being vented on social media (that's mainly TikTok for me) that I almost deleted the app. I mean, I understand the reactions, I do. I felt hurt as well. And it's not that I'm some crazed, obsessive Destiel shipper (although I am), but mainly I'm a 60 year old lesbian who can't understand why they find my kind so distasteful they need to stumble over backward distancing themselves from something the show's writers established as canon. But watching your video now, and listening to your calm, thoughtful, voice of reason - man, I need more people like you in my life! I still don't feel good about it, but I feel better about feeling bad because of you (if that makes any sense). So thank you for being you.

It makes me deeply sad that the arguments from Good Omens (the experience of love and gender is different for celestial beings) is being transferred over to this series to propagate homophobia. Even in the Good Omens fandom the argument is a biiit suspect at times, tempered only by the fact that the original authors both have proven very supportive of the queer community. For the much less reputable Supernatural actors to be saying "ah, well, it's just not the same as human love" is, frustrating. Just let things be gay already.

Aside from the - embarrassing at best and straight up disgusting at worst - display of these entire answers they gave, one of the things that bothered me the most was that they completely ignored the context of WHO wrote that scene. The hurt people felt was not just about what theoretical queer people that answer was going to and has been damaging, but the fact that they very much distorted the intensions of and disrespected the very openly gay man who is behind that declaration that they just refuse to acknowledge for what it is. There is an actual, tangible queer person involved (without even including Misha, mind) who could be directly hurt by their words. A whole entire year to think about what they could have said, and yet it feels like they came up with that answer without letting it pass by their brains first at all. It's baffling, having enough time to think about every single angle and element to this and come up so f*ucking short.

I love this entire take. As an ace person I was so unable to verbalize WHY I felt so grossed out when certain fans were insisting I needed to celebrate the 'inclusive' answer. Thank you ! ❤

This is a great! I also think baked in there is another homophobic idea, also under unintentional and more-education-needed category: this insistence on "oh it's angelic and pure! Not *sexual*!!" response. Full of implications that if queer sexual desire were a part of the romantic feelings, that would make those feelings...bad? worse? Icky? Just the contrast between the emphasis there and Adam and Serafina making out all over the place...

I just want someone to ask J2 and the creators why they green lit the confession if they were gonna be so fucking weird about it?? Wasn’t Jensen asked about the confession before it was shot and written and he agreed so what’s the issue??

I get the feeling that all their prep was for more in-your-face sexual questions. And that’s partly because they equate romance and sex. Cas said I love you, not i wanna have sex with you. They didn’t think of the possibility that queer kids might ask about the love and the romance - the pure things, because anything gay in their eyes is sexual and hence not for kids, not pure, not equal to the love of straight people. Their answer I think is a perfect example of trying to sound “woke” but having such a fundamentally wrong perception of queerness that what you say makes no sense - the homophobic thinking seeps through. At the end of the day if queer people see it as homophobia, and the homophobes see it as neutral...then it’s homophobia my guy.

Thank you for this. I have tried so many times to explain that I am not mad as a shipper, but as a queer person. All I've gotten in response is that I'm just a bitter shipper and that I should be grateful that Jared validated me. It's honestly exhausting. At this point, it's just having to accept that some people will ignore anything you say if they don't agree with your veiw, whether or not you have a good point. I'm sick of having to explain that love doesn't=sex, gender= doesn't equal body parts, and that any form of sexuality that isn't strictly heterosexual doesn't=deviant. But that's just something we have to get used to i guess. I understand that what Jared said was probably not intending to be malicious, however I don't believe it was his place to speak on the feelings of a character that is not his, especially when the actor who played the character has already spoken on the matter. Nor do I think it was his place to speak on a scene he had no involvement in, at all. I think he overstepped. I dont think saying that deserves an attack on my character. Alas, this is the fandom I signed up for.

~ 6:00 I don't think the question was angling for info about Dean's feelings. Maybe whether Dean and/or Sam were aware of *Cas'* feelings, as she asked whether the actors dropped hints into their own acting, but not if those were reciprocated by Dean. But it was definitely about when the actors figured out/were told that Cas' romantic feelings would be canonised. Instead of answering that, they chose to invalidate those feelings and every fan who saw them as canon, now. If Misha is allowed to say that this obviously romantic scene was indeed about romantic (and therefore in this case, queer by human standards) feelings on Cas side because THAT IS CANON, surely J2 are allowed to do the same? Why are they not in the same vein obligated to keep their mouth shut about another character's sexual interest (or lack thereof) in other people? Sure, romantic attraction is seperate from sexual attraction, but it tends to correlate in most people if the first is present. That's kinda the expected default in reality and possibly more so in stories (at least in straight ships) and should therefore be a perfectly valid interpretation of his character unless canon explicitly states otherwise. There was no excuse for them saying all of that. As you pointed out, it directly contradicted multiple parts of canon info about angels (they can feel human emotions. Some of them too much. Those ones got lobotomised for it ffs). The fact that Jared jumped in with "he's junkless" directly after Jensen said that in his opinion Cas' feelings were free of lust, makes imo all too clear that this was not about gender or validating ace!Cas headcanons, it was about desexualising the queer angel and excusing it with the "Angel" part.

If this is how Jared tried to save Jensen... oof. Jensen began the answer awkward but that's not necessarily bad. I wish he wasn't interrupted at all and we might have gotten an actual answer to the question asked. Jared feeling the need to jump in and just detonate this bomb is really unhelpful. At least Jensen seems to have learned a little over the years going from how he started the answer, but Jared talking about the incest and pedophilia (!!!) is so fucking terrible I'm a little taken aback. 'Love whoever you want, it doesn't mean you want to do something TO them' isn't a supportive statement Jared! As for the gender thing. They do say angels don't have genders but just by watching the show they don't actually do anything with that. They all go by him or her. Everyone refers to Cas as 'he'. Jack call a him his father. It's true he hasn't had a gendered upbringing humans do, but that's all kinda irrelevant because that's never a plot point or even a side story in the show. So for all intents and purposes Cas goes is a guy. So thinking of him as gay or bi is valid.

Thank you for this. So well said and I completely agree. I am hurt, angry, & upset specifically as a Queer person! While I ship Destiel, I am not upset as a shipper (I never expected it to go canon or Dean's reciprocation to be confirmed at all)...

I actually viewed Jensen's "lust" comment as a response to Jared's weird "junkless" comment because to me it sounded like Jared was implying Cas' confession wasn't romantic because he views Cas as "junkless" and Jensen was responding to that by saying that wasn't important because it wasn't about lust, but maybe that's just how I want to interpret it as an ace person.

Thank you for this narrative and sharing your opinion in that calm and neutral/explanatory way. There was so much pressure on this con and the hopes for answers and confirmations was immense, so trouble, heartbreak and dissapoitment was expected. Personally I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to watch the show again, but I still find community (and solace) in the fandom that is left. I didn’t have high hopes for Jared anyway (regarding his history with problematic answers and online behavior), but this hurt so many people, so many of my dear friends and I’m so exhausted. I’m exhausted to repeat and fight for what Misha originally said after 15x18 and now the show does this weird cover-up. it’s very hurtful to now watch the erasure of what misha canonically wanted for his character and that now he’s the only one to “fight for” big parts of the fandom or calm the people down with reconciliational thoughts, because he cares about us, although he probably also is encouraged to stay silent (see misha/Alex panel) :/

i think what it comes down to is jared needing to let people talk and not interrupt maybe? i feel like jensen was about to give an amazing answer, speaking on cas’s love being heavenly beautiful and all. when jared began to talk i did kind of get uncomfortable with the things he was saying, but i didn’t think anything of it. now i’m seeing all these people that felt the same way

I don't even ship it because of how Dean treated Cas. I always thought Cas loved Dean though and the confession was obviously romantic clarified by the wording of confession the writer who wrote it and Misha. Jared's answer was horrifying and the worst one but why is everyone coddling Jensen?. Jensen let Jared take over agreed with everything he said and hugged him. Jensen was not mad at Jared he agreed with everything he said. He went out of his way earlier to say if Jack was a girl Dean would glance at him to show that Dean only interested in girls. Outside the Destiel thing they invalidate everything Cas was. Cas always had too much heart, always loved too much so yes he did have human emotion. Jared on this occasion was the most problematic but wish people would stop with this Jensen can do no wrong. Hold them both accountable. The other thing is Why did they even do the confession. Why do this scene knowing the outrage and awkardness it was going to create? Who sits down and goes we're going to do a love confession followed by bury the gays and then we're going to pretend it never happened. The character who confessed his love who is a favourite for many people is going to be treated like he never existed. Why even do it they had to know the drama this would stir up

Thank u! This was brilliantly explained and really brought forward the issues and reason behind this :)

I had to go watch it, Jensen's answer definitely could use improvement. He could of easily done that in a less problematic way without "giving anything away" but Jared's answer is a straight up train wreck.

So well said, especially the breakdown of both the answer (and what was so hurtful about it) and the reasons why that answer probably happened at all. I'm a fan of Destiel but know that fans expect a lot from the cast sometimes and look for answers that they just aren't going to get. But I completely agree with you that this should've been the safest question to give a neutral answer to (and that it really seemed like J2 had prepared for a completely different type of question that they weren't asked.) Even worse was that it was asked by the mother of queer kids. I'm glad this answer helped light on both of then and their current feelings about the confession scene and shippers in general, but hate that this is going to be used to invalidate a canonical queer character even further. I don't care people if people choose to see it as unrecripocated or see Dean as straight, but both Misha and writer Robert Berens (a gay man himself) confirmed it was written with romantic intent almost a year ago. And Misha isn't perfect, but he has been so careful to not speak on Dean's feelings or talk about what happened to both characters post-canon. Anyways, thank you for such a respectful video and I hope people from all sides learn from it!

Thanks for another well-thought-out response to a difficult situation. I wish the toxic elements of this fandom didn't rear their ugly heads as much as they do, but here we are. Despite their blundering through that mess, I know J2 aren't intentionally or maliciously homophobic, so those accusations against them felt wrong. Still, I wish they would step up and address this and apologize for the hurt they unintentionally caused. I won't hold my breath, because neither of them are very good at ever doing that (is it their choice or their publicists who hold them back, I wonder?). Misha's the only one who will step up and listen to what people are saying and apologize and try to do better. Unsurprisingly, Creation tried to shut down a fan asking Misha a question about "the confession" on Sunday and thankfully Misha intervened and insisted the person be allowed to ask. This was even in a 'vetted' Q&A with Alex. (Oops?)

Thank you for this thoughtful discussion. I have been in love with a close friend of mine starting from our early 20s to mid 30s now, me being a queer woman and she being straight , I can draw some parallels here. The biggest difference is, my straight friend has always been very open and supportive about our beautiful chemistry to everyone, though there is/will be no reciprocation in the "sexual way". We are always in a very comfortable place in each others' lives. In my opinion, Cas deserves this much at the very least.

This is why I generally stay away from hero-worshiping actors - really, the whole obsessive culture around movie/tv stars is something I disapprove of - they are people and they fuck up - FREQUENTLY! And yet, people expect them to conform to their expectations, twist their words to suit themselves, attack them for their opinions/actions and/or use them to justify their own beliefs (often horrible, damaging beliefs). Really, if you look at a lot of conventions for this fandom you find problematic behaviour both from the fans and the cast/writers. The Supernatural fandom would have been better as a whole if they'd never had conventions, but of course, they make money so they are a thing (they're just so friggin toxic most of the time).

Thank you so much for posting this. It is so hard to briefly explain why I and many others felt hurt and invalidated. I listened to this video while folding laundry and I kept saying things like "yes!", "Exactly!" And "Thank you!" I also teared up a bit. I wish everyone who didn't understand could listen to this with an open mind and heart. I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together to try to explain. Thank you. ❤️

It's also weird because before the confession jared in previous panels was totally okay with destiel, so much so that he took opportunities to make fun of jensen or misha because of that, but now.......

This is such a breath of fresh air. Hearing about what might actually be happening behind the scenes, hearing someone acknowledging the complexity of the situation, it’s really amazing. You brought up so many points I would have never thought about that, and I wish more people were aware of these bts elements (hell, I had no clue either until this video!)

I was super disappointed in the answer we got to a really innocent, no way prodding question. I wish someone had asked Jensen that on his solo panel. Granted, I agree that there’s homophobia at play. Especially in Jared’s answer. But the fact that Jensen ‘piggy backed’ off it. I needed Jared to stfu cause he was coming across so strong with his hate speech. I was so excited that we were finally seeing the guys at a convention then boom.

thanks so much for the video! like you say its not about dragging or canceling but recognizing behaviors that have a negative impact specially when the people doing them have big platforms. I did a compilation of it just after it happened with some side comments of why it hurt and then I explained it better in the comments, but this is so much better! I already linked it here. The sad thing its that its only been like a day and a half and I already deleted 20 hateful comments some saying I was overreacting, other calling me heterophobic... it will probably continue for a while, but even if it hurts I wont delete the video because we'll never do better if we just ignore this stuff

Oh my goodness, thank you so much for this. For explaining why it is harmful and not simply fans getting upset unnecessarily. This stuff MATTERS and you detail why. I also have to wonder what Misha and Berens' thoughts were on hearing it.

Thank you so much! I absolutely love your nuanced analyses and I appreciate the hard work you put into it. Thank you

This is so well thought out and beautifully said. Thank you for making this video. I hope it reaches its intended audience.

Thanks for the vid. Sensitive issues like these should indeed be acknowledged.

thank you so much for speaking about this and addressing it! Couldn't have said this better 👏

Thank you so much for making this! I have been feeling so many mixed emotions about this and I think your video walked me though them and helped me understand why. I don't believe they intented any harm to anyone but it really ran away from them and hurt a lot of people, myself included. I'm really interested to see what will happen at the next convention (will do my best to keep my expectations in check this time though 😅)

This is a well-thought out response, though I think that you have given Jared too much benefit of the doubt with regard to it being 'fucking up' in the moment as opposed to coming from a place of homophobic misunderstanding of the queer storyline in the first place (a storyline he wasn't involved in, but clearly felt he needed to comment on to disabuse anyone of the notion it was romantic). His association of incest and pedophilia with a queer love confession is emblematic of the most malicious homophobic tropes possible, and it is only our knowledge of Wincest as a going concern that lightens the implications of that in any way at all, and as it is, I still think it speaks to a more insidious problem on Jared's behalf. This is unintentional homophobia that he has had ample opportunity to overcome - this is the man who was given an award for being a good ally just a few months ago. Overall, I felt it sounded like he'd been wanting to say this for a long time, and I do wonder where these opinions came from. They weren't off the cuff - but I don't think they were necessarily invented as an answer to con questions either. Given how the show ended, I can see the line of reasoning that Supernatural 'wasn't about romance' (which Jared has also said in reference to Sam and Eileen) coming from someone like Singer, or others involved at the top level, to justify an essentially homophobic and deeply conservative approach to the conclusion of Dean and Cas' story, and that seems to be something Jared believes wholeheartedly. Lastly, I resented the implication that queer sex and romance can't be heavenly either, but I think I could at least work with Jensen on his interpretation there...

Thank you for the video and for everyone's comments. I did think at the time when watched the panel that the answer was awkward, fumbled, odd and didn't really answer the lady's question. I especially don't understand the need to define the different types of love.

Thank you for this. The con made me feel so invalid as a queer individual. And I'm happy to see other queer folk who also felt the same and are discussing the issues with it. It makes me feel more valid.

Thank you for your informative cover on this topic! I had not heard about this happening simply because I'm not on any other social media, and am busy with college. I have to admit it's a bit tiring to see all the conflict regarding Destiel in general. I also admit that I am passionate about Destiel, but I'm passionate internally rather than voicing it out loud and screaming it. However, if someone disagrees with that concept, I respect their opinion and we can move on with our lives. To be honest, it's quite frightening just to see how much hate can be generated by a singular person or group of people all because of one ship in a fandom. In other fandoms, I've never witnessed that much passion. Whether positive or negative passion. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the video! You're keeping me up to date!

Thank you for explainging this without showing a clip.

Another thing they need to understand is not all terms of love and relationships is sexual...

Thank you for this, Bob.

It's been 12+ years that Jensen and Jared have had to adjust to and inform themselves about the nature of a community that's heavily invested in the piece of art/media they've been participating in creating. It takes a mere couple hours of "asking Google" to come up with a decent understanding of how and why their characters are treated the way they are in the fandom-produced works that exist on the internet. That they are STILL redirecting away from sexuality when Dean and Cas have been put through, not-so-subtextually, ALL the stages of a relationship where romantic love and sex are usually involved (for pitys sake, they have a son by adoption), is PR handling at its finest. What they are saying, increasingly, seems to have little or no basis in factual assessments of what has been shown on screen and discovered in actual scripts. Honest to goodness, the fact that such a large group of people have stayed so loyal to the show DESPITE how problematic it is, speaks to just how much potential the topics they are skirting around addressing have. If this was me in an interpersonal relationship with someone, I'd have been the eff out long ago. Leaving things so "open to interpretation" (we are hearing that specific turn of phrase with disturbing frequency, enough to send up the gaslighting red flag) was an intentional, and at this point, business-management choice. It's plausible deniability. That's it. If the relationship between Dean and Cas was brotherly, the way they intended with Sam and Dean, or romantic but platonic/sexless, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't be. At all. If that was how the relationship was portrayed we would not be here. The need for plausible deniability would not exist. You only need plausible deniability when something hard and fastly exists that needs to be obscured by it. Thank you again for producing such thorough and thoughtful content. :) Edit: I'm going to step out and just say it. Given that Jared has had 12+ years to improve/adapt his handling of the topic makes his actions willful. He had a specific, company-dictated message he was trying to get across and improvised some horrible filler to boot. There is no excuse for that. While I would love to be able to hear what beliefs each of them actually holds in their hearts on the subject of LGBTQIA+ issues, that whole effusion was awful.

Thank you! Very well thought-out, logical, & articulated response!

Thank you so much for this video! I can't believe how two grown men can mess up so badly... it feels like the last straw, honestly, and I think a large part of the fandom feels that way.. I'm tired of having to care about what they might say because of how it affects us, idk what it will take for them to learn to be respectful of queer people. It's been so many years. This whole weekend was so disappointing!!

excellent explanation of what many have been trying to say, thank you so much for sharing this!!!

As I expected you did a fabulous job in breaking down the topic. Thanks for responding so quickly to what happened. What an unnecessary event in the first place. It really didn't expect that by this question. I was really confused after it and how abrupt/ not normal the penal then ended. I mean, noone came to guide them off stage. Or a "last question" singing introduced by Rob and Jensen. Some time ago, I did get the feeling that when something doesn't go well, they start nice talking like "hey brother, I missed you ". Like Jensen then did. Now I always get a bad feeling if they start that because I asume something may did go wrong and they try to cover it up. It felt like Jensen decided to end the penal before it even had to. (I believe there is much more happening behind the curtains, then we'll never know about. I stopped seeing them with pink glasses like they try to present the show. More like a real family, with many issues. )

This was really good. Thank you for this.

This is a wonderful explanation of the issue. I am also now wondering if the people who advise J2 on how to handle this, are actually aware of the canonical topics that revolve around angels having human desires and emotions. I feel like there is heavy disconnect - what they think and what is canon. We know that the actors themselves don't watch the show (at least not fully). Which is one of the reasons having actors as a resource of canon analysis is not the best way to go. They just don't know the full story as the fans do. I don't think either of them is intentionally homophobic either, but they are clearly cluless on the nuances of the matter and the canon story which they tried to deal with here. Like the answer Jensen gave is very similar to the one he gave to someone at a 1on1 m&g last year. Thou back then he explained it through Dean's understanding of Cas' feeling, not from Cas' perspective. Which made a lot more sense. Dean thinking of Cas as someone whos emotions are heavenly is different then Jensen trying to explain Cas' feelings as heavenly. The first one does not argue against Cas having romantic feelings, but the second one does. His first sentence makes sense in that context "not until the end". I am thinking that he was trying to put the already learned consept/answer to the context of this question and it failed badly. Like you said.

I've been off tumblr for a while so i completely missed this, dear lord

i believe that jareds response was... trying to address all the fandom infighting, the shipping, the people proclaiming their ship won in the end, all of it in one in a way that was totally wrong because it was in such an incorrect context. That of course goes along with the other reasons you explained for this response having issues. This is the only way that his response makes sense to me.

I honestly gave up with having a direct answer whether dean reciprocated and loved cas back or not. I know that the cw is just gonna put them in the middle ground and they will NEVER confirm or deny, and they are just gonna keep saying "it's up for interpretation". At this point I'd be really surprised if we ever got a different answer. Idk if the fans will corner and keep asking about it to the point where the cw and actors will give up and finally give an answer just to make it stop, but I think the fans should just stop trying to hint at destiel questions to hopefully get an answer bcs every time the actors are gonna screw up and say some awful disregarding thing like they did at this panel

Thank you for this, Bob. Well done. Sad to see that some people are once again willfully missing the point.

As the only person I follow that even talks about SPN, I thank you for the time and effort you put into discussing SPN, its cast, crew and its fandom. I am very glad I haven't been a part of the SPN fandom for seven years because if this had happened then, I would not have reacted well since I was pretty deep into a toxic parasocial headspace and SPN was my only coping mechanism. I've since outgrown it and seeing so many of my "favorite" books, TV series, movies, comics, video games, absolutely blunder through embracing diversity and modern thinking has made me more realistic with my expectations for cast, crew and creators. (Y'all remember when Eric Kripke said Sam and Dean would vote for Drumpf). I stopped having high hopes long for any of the folks on SPN except maybe Felicia Day and Osric Chau. SPN will always have a place in my heart but it'll never just only be SPN that holds that place. It was the fanfic and the fanart, the theorists, video creators, the excitement about Big Bangs, and new episodes etc. Again thank you for keeping SPN content in my life and reminding me that I can still be nostalgic and realistic about my perspective on SPN now and then.

Thank you for breaking this down for everyone. Gunna try to put my opinion on everything that happened under the cut sicne so long. (Like this video is Bob's, what I write is mine and mine only.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My opinion stays roughly the same, in that Jared should have kept his mouth shut, the question was concerning Dean's thoughts, not Sam's, but what he said genuinely did hurt a lot of people. Do I feel Jensen should have stepped in, maybe but how could he have honestly. (Knowing he has live stage anxiety, and having anxiety disorder myself, I know that probably added to it, not an exscuse, but a reason) His answer before he had to kinda navigate around what Jared said, was very similiar to what Misha said the next day (in a question Creation staff tried to tell the person not to ask but Misha said they could) THAT ALL SAID, the people who are upset by BOTH are completely valid, the only people I'm mad at are the ones who are using that anger to mock and bully people. Being upset is fine, genuinely hating and threatening someone, the actors or other fans, is not and will NEVER be. Treating people who see logic or neutrality as if it's due to actor worship, is NOT okay. As far as Jensen, to me he is comfortable talking about the parts that won't get the CW pissed at him, like how he said if it would have been Cas, not Lucifer, at the door, Dean's reaction coming off what happened in 15x18 would have been a huge embrace. End of day though, humans fuck up bad, other humans stay silent when we wish they would or could have stopped someone from fucking up. But more importantly, Cas' confession is canonly romantic (confirmed in the past by plenty, including Misha, Jensen, Richard who directed the episode, and Berens who wrote it, along plenty of others.) and no weird unneeded rant by someone who wasn't even in the same COUNTRY when the confession was being filmed does NOT change that.

Thank you for making this video, truly. I wish people would take this approach than just vitriol hate. I watched the video of the Gold Panel and didn’t see anything wrong. But I didn’t want to reject it out of hand without understanding. And when I asked, I was literally screamed at when I said I didn’t understand why some people were upset. Thanks to your video, I understand why people would feel hurt by Jared’s statement regardless of his intention. I’m not excusing what Jared said, but I can see how it would be an easy mistake to make. Mistakes can be hurtful - so please don’t read this as “he made an oopsies”. If I’m being honest, I could see myself making the same type of mistake. That’s why I appreciate these kinds of videos so I can learn to be a better ally. It will be interesting to see what happens in NC in two weeks.

I really appreciate you for addressing this

I just knew they eventually would have problem with all of this. The authors gained from this development but they lost their hold on their own characters to please the watchers and they still cannot accept it. They should have the guts to stand on the position of the characters as they developed.

You know why I was upset. I felt they were really digging their heels in plus what Jared said was creepy. I love that they want to save each other, but it really didn't work out this time. I nearly burned everything Supernatural that I own and luckily I slept on it and rewatched the next day. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, in regards to how it effects my screenplay, but yeah it should be super embarrassing for them, especially Jared.

Thank you so much for this

coming back here in may 2024 a few days after mr jensen ackles said the confession was "not subtext, it was clear text" talking about cas' love for dean is.. something. we love to see growth

Thank you for this incredibly thoughtful response.

Thank you for this!

Excellent. Thank you for making this.

So happy to have found your channel. I just finished Supernatural on Netflix and am not ready to let go of the show yet!

Love this response. Thank you for explaining why J2s answers were damaging to us

Most of what Jared said in his answer was upsetting to hear. What really threw me off the most though was the "junkless" comment he first made when cutting into the conversation. It really felt out of no where and was just honestly shocking to hear someone say in 2021. And then the (probably) unintentional implication of that statement, that someone who can't (won't) have sex, can't experience fulfilling romantic attraction/love? As someone who identifies as asexual, that was honestly devastating to hear. I hope Jared realizes the kind of damage statements like that can do, and addresses it in the future.

I've only recently gotten into the fandom myself, though for me I really only watched it at the very beginning at season 1 all those years ago, but halfway through it other things in my life at the time pulled me away from TV in general. So actually all these years I never even knew the show had still been going on until this year when I found out about the "destiel" fandom. And for past couple months have been trying to learn more about the show. I have to say it really pulled me in too the more I learned about the story of Dean and Castiel. I've been binge watching your videos that break down episodes season by season with Castiel, as I don't really care about spoilers since i don't really want to spend money to watch everything I was missing.^^ Also, I was reading your fanfic on AO3, the rewrite of season 9 and 10, and really am enjoying it and looking forward to the next chapters of your season 10! :)

Let's be honest, it was bad writing plain and simple (Cas' speech needed to be romantic in order to make sense, but I don't think they've realized it: they just stole the whole "one moment of happiness" from Buffy/Angel and then acted all surprised Pikachu face when people thought Dean being Cas' true happiness was romantic the way Angel/Buffy was). They thought 2 people could friendly love each other the way Frodo and Sam from the Lord of the Rings love each other, but they accidentally wrote romantic love between Cas/Dean (and Dean/Sam, gross) because they're not Tolkien; they are very Bad (and sexist) writers, as proved by that ending. Cas was clearly in love with Dean. At some point Dean was in love (toxic and unhealthy) with Sam: by season 9, you know Dean doesn't love Sam, he just needs him (like Romeo needs Juliet to go on with his life). In short, it was Never brotherly love between Cas and Dean: Cas fell in love with Dean since the beginning, literally realizing what love was because of Dean and everything else Cas said in his 15x18 speech. The SPN authors just can't tell what romantic love is because they're misogynists who think women exist just for the sake of sex and having a male child (who you can call after your brother/father/male friend).

*Bob makes a video* me: lets hit like

Oof. This whole weekend has been a thing.

Nice job explaining and tackling this issue.

Oh my gosh, this is giving me such Bizarre, weird and twisted vibes. I quit watching Supernatural so I never knew about a lot of these behind the scene happenings. With how detailed this is I wish you were a part of the Teen Wolf fandom so I could hear your take on Sterek, the Teen Wolf fandom and the Powers That Be (and Jeff Davis). I have a feeling the whole deal would drive you crazy.

Alternate universe: Interviewer: "Jared, when did you know that there was chemistry between you and Genevieve, and were there any funny romantic experiences between Sam and Ruby that you wanted to explore?" Jenson: "Well, it's important to note that Ruby doesn't have junk, so it's probably not that we could understand..."

Forgot to say (because I'm just so pissed off and not done venting, sorry) that you explained this wonderfully and really broke down why J2's headcanon and "all interpretations are valid" just don't work and are more than Just Their Opinion.

This is great!

Very well thought out explanation. I do think Jensen and Jared should have been given guidance on how to respond to this issue a long time ago. I DO,however, feel that they have tried to express their interpretation of this relationship and have been attacked from both sides if they don't give the answer someone wants to hear. That said in this particular instance they did flounder. I think they were trying to convey that everyone can interpret it how they choose while still trying to interject how they viewed it which wasn't necessary.

Jared’s answer was confusing, incoherent, and eventually boring. Jensen didn’t complete his answer. What were they thinking? They weren’t. Sometimes I think the actors should just refer some questions to studio management rather than make a complete mess of them.

Jared's speech was word vomit bullshit, so i won't even touch that coz you said everything i could say, however i would like to focus on Jensen too, every chance he has gotten, he tried to find another "interpretation" for cas's feelings unnecessarily & unprompted? Why is he doing that? It doesn't make dean gay/bi if cas is in love with dean!!! I don't understand the defensiveness about cas's feelings & now in Misha & Alex's panel we got Misha trying to walk back on saying it's romantic too 😭 equating it to art, it's like he copied jensen's answer from the m&g after 15x18 & this con, they (j2) literally heard the "mother of queer kids" & "cas" in the same sentence & panicked 🙃, it's so disheartening but not surprising unfortunately

Thank you so much for this! I've been so unbelievably hurt and upset about Jared's rant and feel like I haven't been able to completely explain why. You've explained BEAUTIFULLY what the issues actually are and I can't thank you enough for it ❤️

Thank you for this video for real.

Great take as ever. As for the aftermath, I may be old and cynical but I don't think anything is going to come of this. It is after all possible that J2 will be advised to pretend the whole thing never happened, counting on the fact that people on social media apps have a very short attention span - not to mention the possibility that many fans wanting to ask Destiel-related questions will be more hesitant to do so in the future, for fear of a repeat. I do hope I am proven wrong, though. Keep it up!

Thank you for this thorogh and very well explained analysis, Bob! :) Agreeing with everything in there.

You did teach me something imortant which im grateful for. People can have romantic love without having sexual attraction. As an ok boomer ive never been taught this and its an extremely foreign concept for me. I appreciate the lesson.

Very well put! Gotta tell you, I usually love watching the convention panels on RU-vid, but this debacle has made the SPN Denver one too cringeworthy to watch! I'm too embarrassed both by and *for* Jensen and Jared to watch it actually happen!

Thank you for this, I really needed a rational and calm discussion about this because tumblr is giving whiplash... I started watching this show when I was about 10 back in 05, so subtext was something I was oblivious to over the years, it wasn’t something I focused on because there was so much going on with the mythology, that I didn’t have the awareness to think about the nuisances of character relationships. I didn’t have access to the fandom or meta, so I had no idea about shipping, about romantic trope parallels or anything destiel related. I was blank slate. So when castiels confession aired, I felt like what I imagined Dean to feel in that scenario, like he’d been hit with a moving train. In the sense of, how could I possibly have missed that, how could I have been so oblivious, is this really happening or is this a dream. And with that I was replaying every scene they’ve ever had together and livid at myself for being oblivious to the purest form of love and devotion I’d ever seen on any show. Castiel had just expressed a ROMANTIC declaration of love. This was iconic, and I had to see how others had reacted, cos what I was wrong, what if I completely misunderstood what I had seen. The reason I’m saying this is I had no expectations or awareness of destiel before 15x18, so after wading through a lot of hurtful comments and opinions, we got confirmation from ppl involved directly with the scene that this indeed was romantic. I bring this up because during this panel, and specifically this question, I feel that what Jensen was trying to say, was along those lines of, dean being caught completely off guard by castiels confession, and subsequent death. Like that of being hit by a moving train. I think what he wanted to say before he was interrupted was an answer he’d rehearsed, that dean was not aware of Cas’s feelings, not that he didn’t reciprocate them (I think this is the answer he’s worked on for over a year). The reason I came to that conclusion was 2 things, in an earlier solo panel, a question regarding lucifer’s call in 15x19 and what deans response would have been had it really have been Cas. And although he stumbled and went off on a tangent, his response was along the lines of “well it’s kind of obvious what with how fast dean was running up those stairs”. And the 2nd instance of trying to bring up that question during the j2 panel and have Jared kind of make joke noises you make when you want someone to shut up. So even tho Jensen came off as unintentionally homophobic, and engaged in stand by like behaviour, I don’t believe that he was trying to erase the narrative, but rather used to dealing with the overwhelming dudebrofrat energy from Jared that he just retreated until it was over. I do agree wholeheartedly that for some ungodly reason that they are not allowed to talk about it, either because of the legacy it leaves spn in or the future of their own careers, but what I still cannot fathom, is why if it was huge issue to begin with why it was written in, especially knowing full well they were never ever going mention both the confession, and castiel again, both in the finale episodes and outside in the real world? I cannot fathom why a show wants to cater to an audience that thinks it’s okay when they use queer arcs, characters and situations to make fun at how uncomfortable it makes the characters. And why they would want to work for ppl who continue to perpetuate those ideals. I do understand that is the nature of Hollywood. All I can say is, supernatural has taught me some very important things over the past year. Like what gaslighting and queer baiting is, but more importantly how much the words, queer/gay have been used throughout the shows and movies I used to enjoy as derogatory forms of “comedy”. If the best thing to come out of the sh*storm that is s16 of supernatural, it is the awareness of how harmful even being oblivious to these harmful tropes can be, I’m okay with that. It makes me as a person want to do better. So thank you for elaborating on different forms of homophobia, it really helped to calm the unsettling feeling I get when I think about supernatural.

Never followed conventions so I'm a newb on this. Algorithm \o/

I love both of the boys so much… but man… this breaks my heart.

Thank you Bob