Supernatural and Destiel: The Ship that Sparked Outrage Among Fans
Introduction
After 10 years of writing, pitching, and changing the concept for the show, Eric Kripke finally had his dream realized when Supernatural aired on The WB (later the CW) on September 13, 2005. The show, which followed brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester as they traveled around the country hunting supernatural creatures, ran for 15 seasons and quickly gained a cult following. The show’s first season saw impressive numbers in viewership as well as fan and critic reception. While it received more criticism after the end of the fifth season, the show still had a large enough fan base and staying power to survive another 10 years before ending on its own terms in 2020.
However, after the show’s first couple seasons, disaster seemed imminent just as the third season began to air; the Writers Guild of America strike began in late 2007. With only 12 episodes written and a whole second half of a season left to produce, panic began to sink in. Originally, the storyline was meant to follow Sam as he gave into his demon powers and eventually saved Dean from going to Hell, but now there was no time to make all of that happen. In a scramble, the team threw around multiple different examples for what to do, even considering ending the whole series, but they eventually pulled together four more episodes which ended with Dean being dragged to Hell with no clear answer on how they would ever get him back.
Despite the initial plan to not introduce angels into the show, they had backed themselves into a corner, and now an angel was necessary to save the day and pull Dean from the Pit. Kripke was not super keen on the idea but allowed it if the angels were portrayed as jerks who were plotting to also start the Apocalypse. From there, Misha Collins is brought in to play the angel Castiel for three episodes, pulling Dean from Hell, and helping the angels carry out their plans. However, fans quickly fell in love with the character, and despite multiple attempts to kill him off, fan outrage always brought Cas back.
And this, thanks to a writer’s strike and some desperate attempt to keep the ball rolling, is where the ship “Destiel” was born.
Context
Ever since Castiel’s introduction in season 4, the romantic tension between him and Dean was something the fandom latched on to, whether it was intended to be there or not. Outside of this ship, the show had very few queer characters, the only representation coming mostly from minor roles. The exception to this was the character Charlie Bradbury (played by Filicia Day) who took on a more major role of Sam and Dean’s lesbian bestie, making recurring appearances from seasons 7 to 10. However, Charlie had very few romantic partners, and none were ever consistent, so it is reasonable to assume that fans were definitely missing out on true queer relationship representation, making those who wished for some to latch even tighter to the Destiel hints and perceptions.
Over the course of the show from Castiel’s introduction, there have been many instances cited where fans have accused the writers of queerbaiting while denying Cas and Dean any real relationship. Hints about the relationship came from both intimate and banter-filled moments between the two characters and from comments other characters made about their relationship, insinuating that it was much deeper than either would ever verbally admit to. In addition to this, there are quite a few references made about gay culture: the bisexual pride colors making appearances in scenes with the two of them, Dean joking about opening a bed and breakfast in Vermont, the first state to allow gay marriage, and even a musical special where Destiel fans are seemingly mocked by the writers. But perhaps the biggest reference to the ship is the third-to-last episode of the final season where there is a confession that rocked the internet. In this episode, Cas prepares to sacrifice himself to save Dean and delivers a heartfelt speech about his love for Dean, literally ending with the words “I love you,” before his ultimate demise.
Currently on one of the world’s biggest fanfiction platforms, AO3 or ArchiveOfOurOwn, there are 107,589 stories tagged “Castiel/Dean Winchester.” In 2014, Destiel topped the charts of Tumblr’s Year in Review in the Ships category and is still sitting nicely in the top 5 four years after the ending of the show.
The creators of the show, however, were not thrilled with the idea of their two “straight” characters being perceived as queer. At fan conventions, both Collins and Ackles shut down the idea of Destiel being canon many times over the years, which Collins later retracted as he fully supported the pairing and criticized the production team for pushing the anti-queer narrative. In 2013, producer Chad Kennedy even made a Twitter comment about how there was never any queer intent for the characters, which later caused him to receive so much backlash that he soon deleted his account (Romano).
Key Actors
When it comes to the concept of Destiel within the Supernatural fandom, it is important to understand how the actors, creators, and fans play a role in this ship. The fans have always taken a strong stance on the Destiel ship, and often support the ship as well, because of the ways that the scenes between Dean and Castiel were staged. The two characters, played by Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins, can often be seen sharing prolonged stares as they stand inches away from each other, which is what led the fans to such passionate conclusions about the ship. In fact, Jensen and Misha won a Teen Choice Award for Best Chemistry back in 2015 (Wedeking 4). Even with the amount of fan engagement with the ship, the creators of the show refused to acknowledge that the ship was a thing. The creators of the show, especially after showrunner Eric Kripke left, said that the partnership between Castiel and Dean was “brotherly love” and nothing more.
This would all change during the season finale of the show when Castiel confessed his love to Dean before “exploding” moments later and being sent to what the fans deem as “super hell”, which caused outrage among fans who felt that this situation was queerbaiting. Misha Collins commented on this by confirming that the confession was romantic, but there was no comment from Jensen Ackles, causing some fans to believe that the Destiel ship is not officially canon (Wedeking 4). The responses from the actors, alongside the outrage from the fans, eventually manifested through a variety of memes and social media posts that are explored in the next section. Clearly, the outcry from the fandom had some influence on the actors, or at least Misha Collins, and how the acting during the finale was explained.
Social Media Presence
During the time that Supernatural was at its peak popularity, social media sites like Tumblr, Archive of Our Own, and Reddit were the main sources for fans to express their feelings about the Destiel ship. Some of these websites still have a high rate of fan activity for Destiel and the Supernatural fandom in general, but the rise of TikTok has offered new interpretations and media for these characters.
If TikTok is examined first, there are clips of interviews with the actors discussing their thoughts on Destiel. In one of them, Misha can be seen discussing how he wanted the ending for his character to be a love confession and how Castiel has “rainbow wings”, but these are followed by a snipped of Jensen Ackles stating that his character did not know about Castiel’s love because that’s “not how he played the character” (freechaostyrant). These interviews appear to reveal opposite feelings about the Destiel ending, with Misha being more supportive and Jensen remaining more neutral based on how he views the character. Another post on TikTok also showed the reactions of Misha and Jensen. This thirty-five second clip shows how Jensen wanted to address the confession scene by talking about how Dean would approach Castiel after the confession, whereas Misha went fully into the joke by saying how, “that fucker just left me hanging”, in reference to Dean’s lack of response to the confession (serieschild). The interactions that the two actors have with fans are important to keep in mind, especially when the way that the fans view the relationship is completely different at times.
Tumblr, after the release of the finale, created a meme format using the confession between Castiel and Dean. While some of the memes are funny, while also working to call out how absurd the confession was for the fans, this meme took a whole new form during the 2024 election, which was four years after the finale aired. A post by pansexual-lilychen showcases the meme, with the first half of the image showing Castiel’s confession, while the bottom half shows Dean saying, “I can’t wait to find out the election results via this meme” (pansexual-lilychen).
This meme goes beyond the confession that happened in the show by demonstrating how a meme is used as a medium to convey political results. Instead of turning to news sources, Tumblr users knew that they could figure out who won between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump through this meme, which also shows how influential this scene was both in and outside of the fandom. To add to this, a Tumblr user also reposted a screenshot of Misha’s Instagram page where he is holding up campaign sign for Kamala Harris and urging people to vote, resulting in the user commenting that, “HE FUCKING DID IT, GUYS! HE FUCKING DID IT” (mrslectermoriarty). Not only is the user clearly excited by Misha’s post, but the ties to Destiel emphasize the commitment that many fans have to this ship.
Reddit users also offer fan insight into the debate about queerbating and Destiel. One Reddit thread offers insight into how various fans feel, with some believing the relationship is being forced on to them while others only felt disappointment at what the writers created. The first user, who identifies as a gay man in his post to the thread, commented that “The writers have no one to blame but themselves for this mess. This is what they get for leaving huge character moments open to interpretation and teasing/pandering to a very small, but LOUD, section of the fanbase” (r/Supernatural). Not only does r/Supernatural reveal that their frustration is directed towards the writers of the show, but they are also pointing out how the queer fans of Supernatural seem to have the most say in the fandom. It is this “loud” part that sparked frustration from other fans.
Another user within the same thread mentioned that fans can “See this relationship the way you want to, but don’t force other fans to see it the same way. And DONT FORCE THE ACTORS TOO” (Romanista3). This fan perspective, compared to the previous one, believes that fans can have a choice on how the relationship is viewed, but that the choice should remain internal rather than public. They also feel that the actors should not be forced into supporting the ship either but based on the interviews of Misha and the Instagram post above, it seems that he is willing to support the ship. It appears that the fans who identify as queer may feel more strongly about queer baiting in the show, but their commentary also upsets other fans in the fandom. Overall, each social media platform explored here represents the ways in which both the fans and the actors navigate the Destiel ship and have an impact on the fandom.
Offline Presence
There have been countless comic cons where the cast of Supernatural has appeared. The first con to appear was WinchesterCon which took place in Nashville, TN in 2006 and was fan created. The first official one wasn’t until a year later in Chicago. Since then, there have been over 70 cons, official and not, that have appeared all across the world. With the rise of the comic cons and the introduction of Castiel to the show, the organizers of the cons took to vetting fans before asking questions during the Q&A portions of the cons because there were so many fans that wanted answers about Dean and Castiel’s relationship.
Fans have always been very vocal about their opinions of the show and the popular ship. Even after the show ended. Because of its rough ending, fans were heartbroken at Castiel dying moments after confessing his love to Dean. In honor of Castiel, fans raised more than 55,000 dollars for the Trevor Project to support the LGBTQIA+ community. Misha Collins, who has always been very vocal about his character, tweeted about the fans' ability to come together for something good despite their feelings about the last episode.
Impact of the Movement
Supernatural was created with a five-season story arc in mind. Angels were never supposed to be a thing; Castiel was never supposed to exist. Let alone become one of the main characters in the show. Season three was when the show started steering away from its original plotline. And not willing. The 2007 writers strike put the show in a tight place. When the writers' strike started in November, they only had 12 episodes written. The strike went on for months and by the time it was over, they didn’t have enough time to write a full 22-episode arc. They only had enough for four.
Instead of having Sam lean into his psychic powers and darkness to save Dean from Hell, Dean was sent to Hell at the end of season three. This caused problems for the writers because they had to figure out a way to get Dean out of Hell. This introduced Castiel and the other angels. Castiel was never supposed to become a main character. He was supposed to be there for a few episodes but because everyone loved him so much, they had to keep him. Any time the writers tried to kill him off they had to bring him back because the people loved him so much. Since the airing of Lazarus Rising (S4, E1), the Destiel ship blew up and became a big reason why Supernatural surpassed its intended five seasons.
The interesting thing about this ship is that it isn’t like any ship before. Its legacy has surpassed the fandom and reached different territories others haven’t. The finale trended on Twitter alongside the 2020 presidential election results. The scene of Castiel confessing his love to Dean and Dean responding “Don’t do this, Cas” became a meme that spread across multiple apps, fandoms, and trends. Many fans of the show found out the election results via this meme.
The meme wasn’t the only thing to come from the last episode either. There are over 300 thousand fanfictions on AO3 (Archive of Our Own). A portion of those fanfics are dedicated to the “Fix-It” tag. Filtering only with the tag and the Destiel ship there are currently 5,837 (or 293 pages) fics for this tag. Around 50 pages of these fics were published before 2020. Since the last episode aired, fans have flocked to make (and read) a different version of the finale.
Critiques of the Movement
Supernatural fans, or a majority of them at least, felt that they were queerbaited. For 12 very long years of the writers hinting and joking about Destiel but never going any further than some intense hugs and lingering eye contact. That was until November 5th, 2020. When the finale of the show aired, Castiel, the angel that ripped Dean out of Hell with his own two hands, finally got his chance to confess his love to Dean. In response, Dean gives a very stoic response and then Cas dies less than 40 seconds after coming out. A quick pipeline from queerbaiting to #BuryYourGays.
Showrunners were asked frequently about Destiel, each time it was denied and at one point even joked about as nothing more than just “subtext” in the 200th episode of the series. Continuously, writers of the show refused to acknowledge Destiel as real but still gave its audience little crumbs to keep them engaged. For 12 years, this went on. Just for the writers to illustrate a scene of Castiel coming out to Dean, telling him that he loved him, and Dean giving nothing more than a stoic response before Cas dies seconds later. Fans feel justified in their anger and disappointment at the end of a 12 yearlong slow burn.
There is a lot of fan discourse about what would have happened if Castiel was cast as a female. In the show, angels are typically addressed by other angels as “brother” or “sister” regardless of the vessel they are in. Even though it was stated in the show that angels are genderless, many angels have a preference for which gender they want to be when they take a new vessel. A lot of the discourse comes from the fact that fans are certain that if Castiel had been presented as a female, the show would allow them to have a relationship. The curious thing about this is that on AO3 there are currently 520 fanfictions created with the tag Female Castiel, dating back as early as June 2011.
Conclusion
Supernatural has one of the largest and longest running fan bases in the world. These fans take over online communities, hashtags, and conventions on a regular basis. And yet, despite their dedication and long-standing support for the show and the actors, they still had to fight for 15 years against the powers that be who insist on queerbaiting and denying their fans representation of a healthy queer relationship in the show. In the end, the conclusion was ultimately sort of unsatisfying— while Cas confessed his love for Dean, Dean never actually reciprocated this declaration, and Cas became a victim of #BuryYourGays, never to be mentioned again.
The interesting part about this confession though is that Dean actually did originally reciprocate with his character replying “yo a ti, Cas,” or “I do too, Cas,” in the Spanish dub of the show. Because dubs are generally done before post-production is finalized, fans assume this dub came from an earlier script and that the production team later took the line out of Dean’s final dialogue, once again choosing to suppress the ship and deprive dedicated fans of the one relationship they most wished to see become canon. Even in the year 2025, television watchers are still frustrated with other queerbaiting ships (i.e. “Buddie” from the show 9-1-1) and watching their gays be buried (The Gilded Age, as one example).
This is not to say queer characters can’t be evil, die, stay single, or get unhappy endings, but it should by no means be their fate in most depictions. It is far too late in the game to still be begging producers and showrunners to give their audiences authentic, healthy, and sustained queer relationships on screen. Destiel should have been the last straw years ago! Luckily, Destiel fans have made it clear that they are not going anywhere and will continue to positively depict their favorite gay husbands for all eternity.
Works Cited
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