Destiel Wedding

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Event
Event: Destiel Wedding, DeanCas Wedding, Weddestiel, "Season Sixteen, Time for a Wedding!"
Participants: Destiel fandom, Supernatural fandom, Supernatural Cast and Crew (Chad Lindberg, Samantha Ferris etc)
Date(s): 14th February 2021
Type: Fandom Occurrence
Fandom: Supernatural
URL:
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"HEY ERIC YOUR MALE POWER FANTASY IS GETTING MARRIED TO HIS TOUGHGUY ANGEL BEST FRIEND TODAY. OPEN UP ERIC, [...] DEAN WINCHESTER IS GOING TO KISS HIS HUSBAND SQUARELY ON THE LIPS." [1]


The Destiel Wedding was a phenomenon in the Supernatural fandom, regarding the marriage of Dean Winchester and Castiel. Originally to be hosted on Twitter by former Supernatural cast member Chad Lindberg,[2] the Wedding is the result of Destielgate and the fan referred event of Supernatural Season 16.

The majority of fans involved were “Finale Deniers”, Destihellers and metafandom members, writing fanfiction and meta about the wedding as well as creating art and memes.[3][4][5] As one Tumblr user said: “supernatural is very funny because its intended-to-be-last season revolved around breaking free from the narrative and the writer(s) and writing your own story and then the show never ended and proceeded to give the creative power to the fans and apparently also former employees”.[6]

Origin

Following the season fifteen finale of Supernatural, fan engagement in the fandom as a whole had increased - with more than 4000 Destiel fanfics posted on Ao3 between 6th November 2020 and January 2021.[note 1] This is due to the canonization of Destiel and the subsequent Destielgate.

Many fans, critics and cast and crew of Supernatural, including Jensen Ackles who portrayed Dean Winchester on the show, were critical of the finale and the narrative choices made. The most egregious to many being Dean dying on a hunt and Sam giving up hunting to live a suburban life, as they saw that ending negated all their experiences and character growth in the fifteen seasons of Supernatural. Another point of contention was the canonization of Destiel in the third from last episode of the show, as the series killed Castiel off immediately after his love confession, barely mentioning him in the subsequent episodes. There was discourse, debate and memes about this narrative, that highlighted the Bury Your Gays trope Castiel fell into, by being taken by The Empty or, colloquially, by going to superhell or turbohell.

Chad Lindberg is most known for his roles in The Fast and the Furious and October Sky, as well as his portrayal Ash on Supernatural, a mullet-wearing computer genius who worked and lived at Harvelle's Roadhouse, during its second and fifth series. His time on the show itself was cut short, as the Roadhouse was destroyed in the second series and was firmly killed off in the fifth series. Series creator Eric Kripke stated that Ash’s death "had to do with how much I hated the actual Roadhouse itself rather than anyone in it."[7] Lindberg himself tweeted Ash was “gone way too soon”[8]

On the 24th January 2021, Lindberg tweeted: "I'm so sorry but Harvelle's Roadhouse is all booked up tonight. If you're not on the list you're simply not getting in. #HappyBirthdayDeanWinchester" [9]. Fan response was positive and Lindberg continued to “live-tweet” in-character throughout the night, tweeting finally: "The Roadhouse is in shambles this morning! Ellen has been picking up empty beer bottles after Ash finished most of them. The pool table remains scorched. However after throwing out the trash there was a note found on the door... "I owe you one."- Dean"[10].

Following this, Lindberg periodically tweeted in-character as well as providing Cameos for fans.[11] Samantha Ferris, who portrayed Ellen Harvelle on Supernatural, has also been interacting with fans in-character on Twitter. One exchange in particular that caught fans attention was:

[@samanthajferris:]
Yo, Dr B! A few things fell into the lost n found from the big soirée... most importantly, a beige trench coat... and it’s got a weird buzz coming off it. And good gawd! Get those passed out hunters off the front yard! We have an upstanding business to keep. Sheesh. @ChadLindberg
[@ChadLindberg:]
I'M ON IT CALL SECURITY!! We have a business up front and a party in the back policy only.

I'll take the trench coat for further review & keep it close to the hunters manual in the back till it's claimed. Shut down early tonight? My mullet hurts...

-DB[12]

Fans immediately registered it as Castiel's coat. In the words of one user:

[seraphcastiel:]
love that all they said was that they found a beige trenchcoat and IMMEDIATELY we all just instinctively knew that cas was wildin’ out doing Hot Girl ShitTM the night before his wedding instead of him just. know. leaving it on accident. like we all know that bitch never takes the damn coat off unless shit’s about to get real, we KNOW a bitch was slutting out one last time before he became a kept man, we KNOW. and we all went “good for him!”.[13]

Some had been airing on the side of caution regarding the Wedding, some concerned Lindberg is exploiting fans for profit by "using his newfound twitter clout from unhinged Supernatural gays to sell overpriced hand made Supernatural jewelry on ebay."[14] Lindberg had tweeted in an attempt to calm fans's fears: "I write tweets from the POV of the Roadhouse from Heaven. Simple as that. There are no hidden clues, there are no agendas but to keep our imaginations going for nostalgic purposes and seen through the eyes of Dr. Badass. They are meant for fun & cozies."[15]

Other users had discarded Lindberg saying "he may have sparked this whole idea but it's our story now"[16].

Culmination

Lindberg did not tweet about the Wedding. [Expand on this]

However, many fans did still celebrate the wedding, creating meta, fanfiction, art, memes and quizzes in response.[17][18] One example of the fandom banding together, and its interactive nature, was the DeanCas Wedding Fic, a GoogleDoc to compile headcanons, art, textposts and playlists. As of the 15th February 2021, the document is 23 pages long.[19]

Reaction

Fan reaction was mainly positive. Many noted how important this event was to them as both the power of fans and the culmination of their ship.[20] [21]

As one fan posted, on the 10th February, 2021:

[subbydean:[22]]
“my child is fine” your child is having a mental breakdown because the actor who played a minor character and appeared in all 5 episodes of a tv show that ran for over 15 years decided to raise hell and antagonize the homophobic network by stating on twitter no less that two of its main characters will be getting married on valentine’s day. sorry you did NOT get the memo.

Another wrote, on the 14th:

[mialavette:[23]]
Earlier i was telling my partner, “when Misha told all of us we could rewrite our own endings and that they’d be better than the actual ending I don’t think this is what he meant” and my partner, who has barely even seen a full season of Supernatural, looks me dead in the eyes and said “you know this is exactly what he meant” and i have never been more wrong OR more in love happy valentines day y'all

The Wedding trended on Twitter above Meghan Markles's pregnancy announcement and the long-awaited Snyder Cut of the Justice League.[note 2]

Many fans noted the humour in the situation, remarking how if the show had canonized Destiel in a way more accepted by fans, the Wedding and other Season 16 events would not have happened.

Additional Tumblr posts can be found under the weddingposting Tumblr tag (among others) and Twitter posts under [18].

Example Fanworks

Fanart

Gifset AU

Other

Further Reading

Archives & Links

Notes

  1. ^ On November 6 2020, there were 86441 Dean/Castiel works archived on Ao3. By January 1 2021, there were 90702 Destiel fanfics, meaning 4261 new fanfics were written in less than 2 months. In the same time period, works in the Supernatural fandom tag on Ao3 increased from 224968 to 230064. An increase of 5096 works; implying increased production of gen and other shipping works in Supernatural fandom during this time.
  2. ^ Twitter described the hashtag as Supernatural fans reminisce about Dean and Castiel's on-screen relationship and imagine what it would be like if the two had a wedding.

References

  1. ^ Tumblr post by deanenby [1], February 10, 2021
  2. ^ Post by whyissupernaturaltrending on Tumblr [2]
  3. ^ Post by sunforgrace on Tumblr [3]February 13, 2021
  4. ^ Post by bladesnflannel on Tumblr [4]February 12, 2021
  5. ^ Post by samdyke on Tumblr [5] Feb 14 2021
  6. ^ Post by i-do-know-and-idc on Tumblr [6] Feb 9 2021
  7. ^ Taken from Webcitation: reference link
  8. ^ Chad Lindberg on Twitter[7] February 9, 2021
  9. ^ Chad Lindberg on Twitter[8]January 24, 2021
  10. ^ Chad Lindberg on Twitter[9] January 25, 2021
  11. ^ Taken with transcript:[10]
  12. ^ Retweet by Chad Lindberg[11] Februrary 12 2021
  13. ^ Februrary 12, 2021
  14. ^ Post by jarkaikenobi on Tumblr, February 14, 2021
  15. ^ Chad Lindberg on Twitter [12] February 13, 2021
  16. ^ Post by acklesy on Tumblr [13]February 14, 2021
  17. ^ dangerdaysdean's quiz link[14] February 12, 2021
  18. ^ seffersonjtarship's quiz link[15] February 11, 2021
  19. ^ Reblog byiskierka on Tumblr, February 15, 2021
  20. ^ Post by samdyke on Tumblr [16]February 14, 2021
  21. ^ Post by doemons-blog on Tumblr [17]February 14, 2021
  22. ^ subbydean reference link, February 10, 2021
  23. ^ Post by mialavette on Tumblr, February 14, 2021
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