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English
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Published:
2020-11-19
Completed:
2020-11-25
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1,273
Chapters:
4/4
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Last Call

Summary:

Not a story, another note prior to the end.

Chapter 1: Before

Chapter Text

I wanted to set a few words down here before the end.

I've already talked about what this show has done for drifters. For that, I will always be thankful. Saying goodbye feels like a return to the world as it was before drifters were considered cool, and a resigned sense of the return of people looking down their noses at us. But that's just a return to the usual, and I wouldn't give up the discovery of Destiel for anything.

I wish I'd been able to share this show with my father, who passed away early this spring. He would have loved it, and was a badass himself. He handed his drag-racing leather jacket down to me. He watched only one episode with me, the first of season 15. I wish I'd been able to show him the rest of it, I kept saying it was usually better. He told me that he liked it anyways, which given that episode was a little surprising. I'd hoped for another opportunity to show it to him, although by that point I was aware it was unlikely.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, one day you just run out of time.

So use it well.

Many of us have lost a great deal this year. This is a show, yes, but it's also been with us for fifteen years. Losing it was always going to be rough. There aren't many kinds of media that enjoy that kind of staying power. These people have become a part of our lives and it's normal to mourn the end.

I can tell you that I'll still be here, long after it's over, still writing these characters. The Destiel story is the most inspirational I've ever heard and I doubt I will ever tire of it. I've begun an extremely ambitious long piece that will probably last for a good long time. I hope you'll enjoy it.

No matter what happens, remember that Dean & Cas was the love story that brought us all together, and kept us together all these years.

Destiel is the most beautiful epic I have ever known, and its folklore will be written on walls across the world, wherever there are drifters, as long as there are drifters.

It's the one thing I know for sure.

Best of luck to us all.

 

 

Chapter 2: After

Chapter Text

I've been trying to gather my thoughts here and haven't been very successful.

I did not like the finale at all, for various different reasons. It felt oddly like the writers knew nothing about the show at all, the characters, anything. The ending was strangely devoid of emotion for me. I wasn't sad at all, I laughed at all of it, the overwrought too-long goodbye, bad wig, etc. I don't think that was the reaction the writers were going for. But then it was never the show I was invested in so much as I was invested in the Destiel story.

It may seem foolish, having a show impact people the way that it does. But I keep thinking that while these characters aren't real, I'm real, and you're real, whoever is reading this note. And the things we created around the show, stories and friendships, Destiel, that's what really counts in the end.

For me, it was Destiel, not really the show, that I loved. The strange thing is that I'm a writer in a professional context as well and have written multiple LGBT books, storylines, etc. For people to act like this is something very difficult to achieve in 2020 is not only ridiculous but out of touch.

That said, I hope I never love anything this much again.

Chapter 3: On Drifting

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Something I'd like to address, because I'm one of the only people who can address it, is that somehow the show let drifters down as well.

I've long had my issues with the bunker, but drifters do occasionally stay in one place for an extended period. Doesn't change their inner self, so to speak.

And the thing about Dean in "heaven", he wants to take a drive -

that's not really what it's all about.

Sure, you need to love driving to be this type of drifter, but it's more a prerequisite than anything. It's not the main event. It would be like saying you love cruises but then never leaving your room when in port (or at all). The lack of people to visit, or even say he planned to visit, places to go, etc - all of the main point of it completely missing.

And Sam would still want to drive even if he left the drifting life. You can't escape it, any more than a sailor can escape that ill-fated love of the sea.

I understand that drifter representation isn't a big deal to most people, and LGBT representation is far more important - there are far far more LGBT people than drifters. Far more LGBT drifters than most people know, either, so I imagine it is a double whammy on that front as well. I'll have to ask my friends next time I run into them on the road and we aren't stuck because of a pandemic.

I don't know how this show managed to make not one ending, but two, that didn't make anyone happy.

Especially as someone I know in real life actually fell from two stories onto exposed rebar which punctured through their chest and they survived.  The whole thing felt very contrived and strange.

The thing is - I'm not sad or angry about it, exactly. I've missed entire seasons of this show. I liked it when it was about drifters because we all have our reasons to like this thing or that, and the initial driving force for me was that aspect, later on adding Destiel to the mix. I hadn't cared much about the program itself in a long time.

But these last two weeks turned that around suddenly, and I was invested again. I'm sure many of you feel the same. It feels very cynical, very cash-grab market-research storytelling. And I get that people need to make money, that's what it's all about in the end.

I mostly felt that the end was a complete letdown for everybody, not just people who like Destiel. But for drifters, for the LGBT people who were fascinated by this story, for ... fans of consistent storytelling and character development.

In the end, I suppose I felt meh about it. And that's kind of worse than being angry or sad. I felt like oh now I don't care at all.

All I can say is that I doubt what the creators were going for was fan indifference.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Every time I think I'm done with this little note, I end up coming back and adding more.

Earlier, the news of the Spanish dub reached me. I was floored, and added a note to one of the stories I had just updated. I don't know exactly what happened there, and I'm sure somebody is getting fired. I do like the idea that Dean Winchester has character bleed into reality.

Normally, character bleed is when an actor gets way too involved with their character. In this case, it's almost as if these characters bled into reality so as not to be silenced, and now we have this part of the story.

It certainly tells me that I never want to be put into the position where my own creative voice is silenced, so I doubt I'll ever be writing for television.

Seems, these days, it's best to strike out on your own.

I look forward to whatever new crazy development occurs within this storyline.