destieldrabblesdaily:

Well… I don’t think that anyone ever explicitly stated it. :p However, I can give you a list of suspects.

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Suspect #1: Ruthie Connell

Did I ever mention that I love this lady? I love this lady. Anyway, not the point of this post, moving on. 

The evidence

Voted for Destiel for TCA best chemistry, and even tweeted about it to her followers to promote it:

Bonus points

Seems to adore Cockles on the side, if her pointing and smiling here is anything to go by:

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Suspect #2: Misha Collins

The evidence

Literally pretended to ship “Diestel” to Jensen, and made a vid of it:

Knows that when Cas does everything for ‘humanity’, humanity means ‘Dean’. 

When a Supernatural director claimed that Destiel ‘didn’t exist’ and people tweeted Misha because they were upset about being crazy and weird for seeing Destiel, he tweeted this: 

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Suspect #3: Jared Padalecki

The evidence

Tweeted about that same Diestel to Misha, fully knowing what it implies: 

When Jensen complained that he didn’t have a girl to make out with when having a dark story line like Sam did with Ruby:

Thinks the Cas/Colette parallel was there for a reason:

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Suspect #4: Kathryn Newton

The evidence

Is all for dadstiel and what it implies:

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Suspect #5: Former SPN writer Adam Glass

The evidence

Same. 

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Suspect #6: Felicia Day

The evidence

Talked about Destiel at a con, and how she thinks Charlie views that relationship:

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Suspect #7: As much as I hate to say it; Jeremy Carver

The evidence

Instructed Misha Collins to play Castiel as a ‘jilted lover’ towards Dean in 9x06:

Literally said, and I quote:

“No one’s a bigger fan of Dean and Cas than I am.”

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Suspect #8: Writer Robert Berens

The evidence

He wrote 9x06, ‘Heaven Can’t Wait’. That’s it. That’s the evidence. There’s no excuse for him, sorry. 

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Suspect #9: Set designer Jerry Wanek

The evidence

Jerry Wanek… How do I even begin to explain Jerry Wanek, lol. Everything he does, ever, just screams Destiel and Cas choosing humanity. But to give a concrete example though, this is one of his most infamous actions… Literal ‘ships’ sailing over Dean/Cas’ heads:

When a fan commented on twitter that they loved him for doing that, he was happy that fans noticed and even thanked them for being perceptive/his work being appreciated. 

You go Jerry, four for you, Jerry!

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I’m sure I missed plenty, and there are many more ‘suspicious’ Destiel scenes by other SPN writers. These are the things that stood out to me though. 

Also, a honorable mention for Ben Edlund and Phill Scriggia for discussing Dean’s possible bisexuality on the season 8 DVD commentary. Bless. 

Edit: OMG of course a honorable mention for Robbie Thompson as well, just because. 

aphony-cree:

First, let’s talk about the difference between fan service and queerbaiting.

 Fan service is putting in things for the shippers because you appreciate having them as fans and want to give them moments they can enjoy. Maire talking about Destiel in Fan Fiction was fan service, Crowley’s line of “Bobby Singer, I’d know you anywhere” in Taxi Driver was a bit of Crobby fan service. Fan service is fun, it’s often humorous, and the powers that be admit to putting in little treats for the shippers. In season 6 we had Dean’s famous line of “Cas, get out of my ass.” The shippers post that all the time as a Destiel scene and non-shippers never argue because it’s obvious to everyone that the scene was Destiel fan service. It was also obvious that the scene wasn’t foreshadowing anything, that they weren’t trying to mislead fans or make them hopeful that Destiel might go canon, it was just a fun scene that we could enjoy.

Queerbating is using subtext to imply a romantic relationship to draw in certain viewers, but never intending to make the relationship canon. Because it’s all in subtext, people who don’t like the idea of that relationship will put on blinders when they watch and not really notice it. Then those fans can claim that everyone who did notice it is delusional. When queerbaiting, a show will either deny that they put in any such subtext by saying “Fans are reading too much into things” or will simply avoid all questions about it. Basically they put in queer subtext to draw in queer friendly viewers and then leave us to the wolves by refusing to admit what they’re doing. They also never fully deny doing it. If asked if a certain pair might ever have a relationship they’ll shrug and say “Who knows what might happen in the future” even though they’ve already made up their minds to never ever do that. 

At this moment, I don’t know if Supernatural is queerbaiting. In season 8 they started using serious romantic subtext around Dean and Cas, if they never intended to take that anywhere then it would be queerbaiting. But season 8 started a 3-season story-arc so it’s also possible that it was intended as foreshadowing and they’ve been doing a slow build to see how the fandom reacts to it. It’s not okay for them to string us along forever so I do feel it needs to canon this season because 3 seasons is more than enough time to foreshadow a romantic relationship. 

There was an incident mid-season 9 where a CW exec named Chad Kennedy responded to a fan tweet by saying “I support the idea of bi lead chars. But on this specific show, it is not our intentions for these chars.” Now if he had stood by that tweet he would have been insensitive to the queer community by feeling that we have no place as leads on an action/horror show, but he wouldn’t have been guilty of queerbaiting. He would have made a statement of intent regarding the characters and stood by it, which would have settled the debate on whether or not the show is planning canon bi-Dean or canon Destiel. But when fans responded to his tweet and he realized how many people are pro-queer leads he changed his tune. “I’ve never been pitched Destiel. If it were pitched, and the story made sense, I would not block it. I do not create story” that tweet made it clear that he’s not in charge of these things and may not be in the loop on every story idea, meaning he may not know what they’re planning. Then he ends up tweeting “you are preaching to the choir. I STRONGLY support better representation of the gamut of sexual orientation on TV. I hear your frust.” and “I’ll put it this way: don’t know if we’ll ever go there, but don’t know for sure that we never will…” (x) Chad Kennedy is a queerbaiter. When he realized how many pro-bi and pro-Destiel people are in the fandom he changed his tune and did the “*shrug* maybe it will happen, keep watching” bullshit to try and keep us on the hook. 

Some people have claimed that Chad’s tweets prove the show is queerbaiting but no one has been able to confirm how much involvement he actually has in the show. He’s one of many CW execs and he said himself that he doesn’t create story. It’s very possible that he’s not the exec who deals directly with the show in regards to future plotlines. One of his tweets even says he “only got wise to this community a week ago” which may have been referring to Destiel fans or the fandom as a whole, I don’t know. But it does show that he’s not one of the powers that be who has his finger on the pulse of the fandom, and Supernatural has always paid attention to the fandom. I don’t think Chad’s tweets prove the entire show is queerbaiting, I think they prove that he is okay with queerbaiting since he did it in his tweets. That reflects poorly on the network as a whole since they hired the guy but it doesn’t prove that they’re queerbaiting on any specific show.

I do feel that Supernatural is foreshadowing, not queerbaiting, but only time will tell. After season 9, and the Chad tweets, they got a lot of negative press over queerbaiting and yet the Destiel subtext has still been present in season 10. Usually when you get bad press over something you stop doing it, the fact that they continued strengthens my feeling that it’s not queerbaiting. They’ve had 3 seasons to feel out the fandom on this issue and the majority response has been pro-Destiel and anti-queerbaiting. I think there’s a good chance that they’ll follow-through on their subtext.