You’re probably like “wait, what?” So let me clarify: This is absolutely not a Dreamhunter!Critical post. In fact, I have a lot of accolades for DreamHunter. I’ll address a few complaints I’ve read from a surly, never-happy swath of stan twitter, but this post isn’t actually about that – it’s about a pervasive cultural issue involving coded phobia and how Bobo Fucking Berens showed his level of quantum literary and social brainfunction to do everything from canonize an LGBT ship to run a far deeper and more exposing social experiment on the fandom at large.
The only problem with DreamHunter is that… if Destiel doesn’t become canon after this… well that would be the problem. DreamHunter is perfect as it is, but having a canonization with 2 episodes and just a 1/10 of tropes than Destiel with OBVIOUS parallels… well I really hope they are only seeing if we are smart enough to see DreamHunter then we were smart enough to see Destiel, so then nobody could say it’s forced just for fan service, because Destiel was built for YEARS! Still, for me it’s curious that Jody told Sam without Dean, not because she choose it like that but maybe Sam, who is aware that something happens between Dean and Cas can now be SURE that it’s not his imagination (also we), maybe Sam would be the one who confronts Dean about his feelings for Cas at some point, and just casually, as Jody did, give the news to Dean. I mean he saw Dean and now Cas mourning for each other. Or maybe Jody would have the honor once again to deliver the news or something. We really need Destiel canon after this… I mean DreamHunter is not my ship as is Destiel but damn I’m not blind either, I saw them, I awwwed and cried with them, I hope that Kaia comes back somehow to they can be actually together, it’s not my ship but I wish the best for them.
I loved all the analysis and I agree with everything you said, the only thing… with all of that, I think it’s important that Destiel becomes canon after this, even with a casual confirmation like that (although we deserve more) and please please don’t kill them again. I HATE the bury your gays trope, but it’s supernatural so I hope both ships (DreamHunter and Destiel) have a happy ending they both deserve.
You read the analysis but seem to have ironically missed the full point of the analysis, but thanks I guess.
Haha yeah I tend to do that, not on purpose of course. Maybe I’m just biased on this, not because I ship Destiel but because I’m tired of the difference between m/m and w/w on media. Like I wouldn’t want DreamHunter to be any different as it is now, I just hope they give us the same or more with Destiel, that’s what I understood of your analysis, that the audience treat them different. That they gave us DreamHunter in a perfect and natural way and people accepted it well but maybe because they are more willing to accept w/w somehow (ie the anti Destiel who could clearly see Dreamhunter). What I understood of everything you said is that the problem is that differences in the audience rather than what we are seeing happening. The problem is not with Dreamhunter, is with Destiel, but not because it’s a problematic ship but because people doesn’t like m/m on media. But I might be taking it wrong and just hearing what I want to hear. I’m happy with canon Dreamhunter because I think is progress, and they showed us something with that: they can canonize something with little,as they do with het couples, they also can do it with LGBT couples, they showed us all the hints, we took it as they wanted us to take. If this isn’t a way to prepare us for explicit canon Destiel then they are playing with us and not in good way, and if that’s the case what’s the point on showing us this? Or it was so discreet that the bosses didn’t realize until it was so late? Are they gonna take that back as they do with the tshirt?? Obviously there’s no problem with DreamHunter, they problem as I see it is what are they gonna do next. Dreamhunter give us hope, but they gave us that before and took it away cruelly. What I’m missing exactly with all this? Maybe I’m just wary of what’s going to happen next, or maybe I’m just missing everything and can’t see what is right there, it wouldn’t be the first time… I was so blind with Sherlock and when the end arrived I was a little disappointed of how it turned out, but probably for others it was obvious of how was going to end. Maybe I’m missing the whole point once again with all this or interpreting it wrong.
You have the base of it, but you’re missing a bit of the theme:
Yes, the problem is audience resistance to M/M, but also this stupid, ridiculous ship warring. Destiel fandom has let themselves be bull whipped into the need to prove something before they accept canon as canon, chasing arbitrary goal posts erected against MLM content, especially MLM content in the heat of a pissing match of a ship war (in which there’s no contest, but people pretend to be)
Everything that DreamHunter has, Destiel has. Literally everything. Right down to third person acknowledgment of the nature of their relationship being more than standard friends. But people choose, against surrounding content, to interpret that as punch lines and we decide to consider that a reasonable “interpretation,” and yet nobody’s out here snorting out a chuckle at Jody’s third person brushover line.
Bobo has evoked forward a latent form of coded phobia in fandom and the GA abroad. We don’t have content we can beat and bludgeon into someone’s head to win a digital pissing match, but we have all the same finishing lines as another ship both the GA and even Destiel shippers have decided is canon – without first person admissions of the related parties, without any non-negotiable forms of contact – because why is anyone going to negotiate down WLW contact? Nobody’s going to argue down Jody’s flyby hot take. And we just kind of accept nobody’s going to. That alone is part of the issue at hand TBH.
I do genuinely believe Bobo’s gonna take it further regardless. He’s too deep onto this track now. But I don’t see that as a problem even if he suddenly stops (unlikely). Because we still have the same goal marks and he painted that out to us flat. We just keep telling ourselves, because we have stan twitter in our ear, that MLM needs to have a different set of goalposts. For reasons. Not logical reasons. Just ambiguous, moving reasons.
This post is already freaking long so I’m going to put this under a cut.
Pharell Williams sent Trump a cease and decist over his playing “Happy” at a rally just hours after the Pittsburg synagogue massacre (at which Trump made a disgusting joke about potentially cancelling due to his “bad hair day”) and I now stan Pharell Williams.
what the actual fuck is wrong with that mcchicken patty come to life?