This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
G'day Curd Nerds! I'd like to tell you about a bit of hobby drama that is not so much a tempest in a teapot as it is a bit of a ripple in a teacup. It's drama that's so small, in such a peaceful little corner of the internet that I almost hesitate to bring it here- except, the resolution has such a unique blend of petty and wholesome that I thought perhaps others might find the story diverting.
First, the Cheeseman: On youtube, there is a man whose entire channel revolves around cheese. His name is Gavin, and telling you this is not doxxing because that is literally his channel name. You can find his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/GavinWebber/featured However, in the spirit of not using real names (even ones so thoroughly public), I will be referring to him here as The Cheeseman.
I came across his channel in March and got hooked on his videos because literally all he uploads (aside from Q&A livestreams) is videos where he walks through cheesemaking recipes, explaining the process the whole time in a very mellow, soothing voice, and tasting videos for the cheeses he's made. His videos are very calming, and exactly what I needed because, y'know, pandemic. His channel has 251K subscribers, which is nothing to sneeze at, but also not enormous. It's also home to one of the most generally positive comments sections of any I've seen; I don't often read comments sections so it's very possible I've missed things, but generally all I see is positive comments and conversations among folks who have attempted to make the cheeses in the videos.
Next, the cheese: Grana Padano
Grana Padano is a type of Italian cheese similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's a hard cow's milk cheese with a grainy, crumbly texture. It's also PDO, that is "Protected Designation of Origin", and has been since 1996. Essentially, just like champagne is only champagne if it comes from the Champagne wine region of France, otherwise it's just sparkling wine (and Destiel is only Destiel if it comes from Supernatural, otherwise it's just sparkling bury your gays), Grana Padano is only Grana Padano if it comes from the Po river valley in northern Italy, otherwise you cannot use that name to describe a cheese.
Which brings us to: The Consortium for the Protection of Grana Padano Cheese
This is a legally-recognized group whose purpose is "preserving Grana Padano and its Protected Designation of Origin (in Italian, Denominazione di Origine Protetta or DOP) status; in promoting it, supporting its development and taking care of its interests and in providing correct information to the public." You can view their website here:
https://www.granapadano.it/en-ww/the-consortium.aspx
They have all kinds of detailed explanations of exactly who they are and so forth, but the salient details for the purposes of this drama are that 1) these are the people who make the cheese, and have a vested interest in keeping tight control over the name, and 2) they do have the legal authority to do so. For the purposes of this writeup, I will be referring to them as The Consortium.
So a while back, the Cheeseman had uploaded a video entitled "How to make Grana Padano Style Cheese". I don't have the exact date the original video was uploaded, nor can I link to it, because it has now been taken down, however I can deduce that it must have been uploaded about 15 moths ago, which would have been sometime in August 2019. Because most cheeses take time to age, the Cheeseman generally uploads an initial preparation method where he makes the cheese, and then after aging for the prescribed length of time, he uploads a second tasting video where he shares the results of aging the cheese. The tasting video for the Grana Padano Style cheese went up October 17, 2020, and is viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Qj2i3PMy4 The video description indicates a 14-month aging period.
In the original video, the Cheeseman makes it very clear multiple times that the cheese he is making is inspired by Grana Padano, and is intended to be as close as he can get to the style of this cheese, but no matter how close he gets, it can never be called Grana Padano because of the PDO status. However, that wasn't good enough for the Consortium.
Three days ago on November 26, the Cheeseman uploaded a video, viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_AzMLhPF1Q&t=2s
In it, he shares that he was sent a cease and desist letter from "an intellectual property company" on behalf of the Consortium, wherein they declare that the Cheeseman's video "is a clear infringement of the Consorzio’s intellectual property rights." They go on to say that "Indeed, your video seems to describe how to create counterfeited replicas of Grana Padano."
Let us all take a moment to contemplate the implications of counterfeit cheese.
Ok moment over.
They conclude by "kindly asking" for the removal of the video within 5 days of the receipt of the letter, and caution that if he fails to comply, they "will not hesitate to take the necessary steps to ensure the protection of its trademark rights."
The Cheeseman included in the description of the video a link to the PDF of the letter, which you can view there, if you're so inclined (there's not much more there than what I've included, though). I've chosen not to include it here directly because even though he posted it himself, it still includes some personal information and I'd prefer not to link to it directly.
After reading the letter out, he talks a bit about the letter and the original video, playing the snippets where he specifies that he is not and cannot make true Grana Padano cheese due to the PDO nature of the cheese; however he theorizes that he must have gotten pretty close with his recipe based on their concern over "counterfeit replica cheese". He concludes by encouraging his audience to go check out his original Grana Padano video soon if they're interested, because he does intend to comply with the takedown request and remove the original video exactly within the timeframe requested (and no sooner).
This is where things get interesting, because at this point, the Cheeseman shares that the Consortium has actually apologized to him.
The very next day on November 27, 2020, the Cheeseman uploaded a video (viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xy_KkZDiTE ) updating his audience on the Grana Padano situation. You see, he received a letter from the Director General of the Consortium in reference to the cease and desist letter, and the Cheeseman's video on the subject. As with the previous video, the Cheeseman linked to a PDF of the letter right in the video description, and although I will pull some quotes from it, I will refrain from linking it directly here. Basically the gist of it is that they were aware of his video and were going to let it slide (and indeed, it had been up for over a year unchallenged), however the video had been "reported to us [...] by our direct superiors at the Ministry and the EU Committee."
The Director General went on to say "We had not intervened before because your good faith is clear from your video and we are very sorry to see you and your community so angry towards us."
The Cheeseman responds: "Well personally I'm not angry, but the community has spoken I suppose, [Director General], that's just what they do on the internet" (This is, quite possibly, the most understated and true description of the internet that I have ever heard.)
The Director General adds a postscript:
"Ps. On a further note, you didn’t quite get the “real recipe” of Grana Padano...it is “slightly” different [smile emoji] So if ever you come to Italy, once this awful pandemic is over, we would like you to be our guest and we will take you to one of our dairies, where one of our master cheesemakers can teach you all the tricks of the trade."
The Cheeseman's response to this is gracious, but reaffirms that he doesn't believe he's in the wrong, and shares his intension to re-upload a "grainy Italian hard cheese" video.
As promised, yesterday (November 28, 2020), the Cheeseman reuploaded his Grana Padano cheesemaking video under the name "Chease & Desist Style Cheese with Taste Test. To Italy with Love 💛" viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqPP24IU1to
It is, as promised, exactly the same as the original video, except he's dubbed over every instance of "Grana Padano" within the video with "Chease and Desist". He's also combined the making video with the later tasting video, although the original taste test video was not specifically mentioned in the original cease and desist letter, nor was it ever requested to come down. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, that original tasting video (with the name of the cheese unaltered) is still up, and as a matter of fact, it shows up in the first page of google results for Grana Padano!
If you've read all this, I hope it's brought some amusement. I know it's not as dramatic as most stuff in this sub, but a small-time home cheesemaker getting communication directly from an international cheese consortium was a level of absurd that I had to share. If there are any further developments and if people are interested, I will be happy to provide updates.
[edited to add the link to the apology video]
[edited again because I messed up numbering my steps and it was driving me nuts]
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
Feeling the trickle of water rise to my chin, I let go of the prison bars in bitter resentment.
This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
I am NOT OP. Original post by u/ThrowRAcrib in r/relationship_advice
trigger warnings: ::: spoiler show spoiler child neglect, suicide :::
This was previously posted here over a year ago.
My wife and her best friend accused me of having an affair, then got angry when I didn't have one - 23/08/21
I (31M) and my wife (29F) had a baby last December. It was a traumatic birth and my wife developed postpartum depression. While she was originally going to go back to work after the birth, she's been struggling enough that we decided to wait until our daughter was a year old and reassess. She has been going to therapy weekly. With my wife home full time, I've had to work increased hours. This is something we discussed prior to making this decision and she knew this from the start.
A few weeks ago, my boss approached me about a project that would require a lot of overtime in a short amount of time. It would both be great financially and for my career. I talked to my wife about it and she agreed that I should say yes to my boss. For the four weeks I'd be working on this, my MIL and her best friend, Jessie (29F, name changed) would come help out with some of the duties that I typically do.
Jessie is a SAHM with a four year-old and a two year-old. She began coming over during the day and would watch the kids with my wife.
Three weeks into the project, it became clear that we'd need a few more weeks to get it together. I went home that night and talked to my wife about it. She said she was okay with it, but got very cold in the days after. It wasn't unusual behavior over the past few months, so I didn't think much about it and tried not to take it personally.
During the last week of the project, I got home one night and saw that Jessie was still at the house. I didn't think much about it, said hi to her and my wife, and then went to go check on our daughter. Before I could get to her room, I heard Jessie say something along the lines of, "He doesn't even stop to greet you. Definitely a sign."
I turned around and asked what it was a sign of. Immediately, my wife started crying and Jessie started accusing me of having an affair. She told me that I must hate my wife because she has PPD and am not attracted to her because she gained weight from the pregnancy. Neither of these things are true. I'm trying my best to help my wife through her PPD while supporting our family. And I think she looks great how she is right now, she just hasn't wanted to have sex and I haven't pushed.
Jessie then demanded to see my phone. I told her no. She told me that's a sign that I'm guilty. I told my wife that I would let her see my phone if she wanted to. She nodded and something inside me broke. I guess it was the thought that she actually believed I was having an affair really got to me. And that she didn't trust me after everything we've been through.
Well, she looked through the phone and there was no evidence. Jessie started saying that I deleted the evidence. She started screaming and woke up our daughter, so I told her to get out of the house. Eventually, she left and I went to calm our daughter since my wife was still on the couch crying.
When my daughter was asleep again, I sat down by my wife and tried to talk to her about what's been happening. She told me that she's been worried ever since I started working all the overtime. I told her that we'd talked about how good of an opportunity it was and she agreed to letting me take on this project. She said it was very suspicious to increase the length of the project. I told her that sometimes that happens. She wanted more evidence, so I showed her messages and emails with timestamps from work and paystubs showing the OT. She said she believed me and was sorry for doubting me, it was just that Jessie had been telling her that these were all signs that I was cheating. I asked her why she believed Jessie more than me, and why she didn't come to me with her concerns. She didn't have a real answer.
It's been a couple weeks and the project is over. I actually scaled back and am trying to work a little less than I was before the project so I can spend more time with my wife and daughter. But I feel so burnt out trying to do everything and becoming resentful because in the back of my mind, I know that my wife doesn't trust me. I ask myself, what happens the next time I have a project? Or I have to run errands one day? Or if I have a business trip? Am I going to come back every time to accusations that I'm cheating?
I've tried bringing it up a couple times but my wife tells me it's not the time and that she's tired or sad. I try to be mindful of her feelings but I wonder if that means that I can never have any of my own.
I'm not sure what to do here. Any advice for how I can move forward?
Thank you to everyone for all of the advice and support on my previous post. I think a lot of you pointed out what should have been obvious, that I need to get a therapist and start looking after my own mental health. A couple people asked for an update, so I'm giving one, but it's not happy.
That night I approached my wife and told her that I was going to find a therapist. I didn't connect it to her accusations or anything, just said that I was having a tough time and needed therapy. She shrugged and told me to do whatever.
Next day, I got home from work and our room and my home office were ripped apart. Things everywhere. Important papers scattered. I don't see her but our daughter's in her room crying... My wife left her alone, her cell phone's off. I call my in-laws and a few friends, but no one's seen her. I'm starting to get worried and I call my mom to see if she can babysit while I go out and look for her.
Before my mom can get home, my wife gets back -- Jessie's driving. Jessie doesn't come in (she hasn't been back in the house since I kicked her out because she was "offended" by my behavior) but my wife does. She's clearly upset, been crying. I ask what happened. I thought at first the house might have been robbed. She starts screaming at me that I'm being unfaithful and that the therapy is a front so I can meet my mistress. I try to calm her down and tell her that's not true, but she came at me and she hit me. My nose is broken.
She kind of realized what she did and sat down on the couch and went comatose, just stared at the wall. I went into my daughter's room and locked the door. Called my mom to tell her what happened (she was already on her way) and my MIL to ask her to come over and take care of my wife. I packed a bag for my daughter and when my mom got there, we left. My wife didn't even look up. We dropped my daughter off with my dad and then went to urgent care for my nose. I got blood all over my mom's new Subaru.
My daughter and I are staying with my parents for a while and my wife's staying with hers. I am looking into getting a restraining order against Jessie.
My wife and I are separating. I love her but I won't live with someone who hurts me and who could potentially hurt our daughter. I am not going forward with a divorce yet, with the hopes that my wife will get the treatment she needs and we can work things out. My in-laws told me that they're looking at in-patient treatment at a local hospital. But I also have everything well documented in case of an eventual custody battle.
My heart's broken because I know this isn't my wife, this is a sickness in her mind. But I need to keep myself and our daughter safe and give her the space to recover. I'm hoping that this is the right decision.
Thanks again everyone.
Edit: Thank you all for your feedback. I've talked to my parents after reading your comments and came to the conclusion that for my daughter's protection, I need to file a police report. I am headed to the station now.
Do I let the woman I fault with my wife's death let her speak at her funeral? - 01/09/21
TL;DR: A woman fed lies to my wife, suffering from postpartum depression, that led to a mental breakdown and her death. She now wants to speak at my wife's funeral. Denying her would start trouble, which I'm not sure would be worth it.
There's more context for this situation in my post history.
My wife passed on early Monday morning. Convinced by her friend Jessie that I was having an affair that I did not have, she had a mental break, which resulted in my taking our infant daughter and staying with my parents for a while. She was with her parents, who planned on taking her to the hospital for in-patient treatment on Monday.
On Sunday night she came to my parents' house and demanded I give her our daughter. Because she had left her alone for several hours the last time she was responsible for her and had gotten physical with me, I refused. I offered to let her come in and spend time with her while my parents and I were present, but she didn't want to come in and wanted to take our daughter with her. She was upset but left eventually. A few hours later, she drove her parents' car into a tree and died.
The friend, Jessie, came to see my daughter and me yesterday. After some tears, she told me that she was planning to speak at my wife's funeral. She had already cleared it with my in-laws but was letting me know as a courtesy. I told her she would not be speaking at the funeral. We fought and she left after telling me that I was an asshole and not the only person who loved my wife.
I talked to my in-laws who are adamant that Jessie be allowed to speak. She and my wife knew each other since they were kids and my in-laws are close to her. We're all very fragile right now and I fear that pushing this further would hurt my relationship with my in-laws, which I don't want. Still, the thought of seeing Jessie up there at my wife's funeral makes me feel sick. I don't think I can stand to listen to her, knowing that she took joy in my wife's deteriorating mental health and picked up my wife, leaving my daughter home alone.
That being said, I don't trust myself to make the best decisions right now. My mind's clouded by grief, guilt, and fear. My parents are split on what to do and I don't have the energy to reach out to my friends. So I'm coming here again to ask for your advice.
Thank you.
Reminder - I am not the original poster.
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
Supernatural just ended its 15 year run. To catch up, you can read about the recent Destiel love confession; an actor who appeared in 4 episodes and harassed fans; a comprehensive writeup of the fandom in general, especially "tinhatting"; more general fandom drama; or a racist Haiti AU fic. Supernatural provided no shortage of drama.
But if you don't want to read all those previous writeups, the summary for this one is:
Over the course of the show's run, the fans were divided in to two groups. Group One were people who thought the show should be focused on the brothers, Dean and Sam (played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, respectively. Some shipped the brothers together. Group Two were people who thought Castiel (played by Misha Collins) should have a more prominent role and fuck Dean (ship name "Destiel"--you've heard of it). (Edit: There is, arguably, a third group of people who watched the show as a show, but I haven't actually met anyone who has).
It became abundantly clear that The Powers That Be (writers, producers, Jensen and Jared) were in the former group (minus the "Wincest" shipping). They shunted Misha/Cas off for episodes at a time with flimsy excuses, tried to write him completely off in one season and then haphazardly brought him back after fan uproar, and hazed/bullied Misha on set (ex: Misha talked about how Jared would tickle his balls out of the cameraman's view so that it looked like Misha was messing up his lines, among other things).
Misha said his final scene was his now-infamous love confession, which many fans lovingly described as "embarrassing." After fifteen years of pent-up tension, Castiel finally gets the courage to confess his love to Dean--and Dean responds with facial expressions that were memeified as "trying not to say a slur" to "trying not to commit a hate crime." Then, after confessing his love, Castiel gets sucked away to supermegahell, never to be seen again!
But fans knew that couldn't be his last scene...As one tumblr post said, "honestly it's quite impressive how supernatural, a show in which everybody dies & no one stays dead, has managed to convince a huge chunk of people that one of its leads is not coming back for the finale"
And it's true. Pretty much every character, major or minor, on SPN has died at least six times. Fans pulled out release photos, social media pics, and lines from interviews to prove without a shadow of a doubt that Castiel would be in the last episode--whether Destiel was made official or not.
What really gave fans hope, though, is that actor Jensen Ackles said he felt "uneasy" about the ending:
"And I just walked out of there kind of uneasy. I don’t know if it was just the fact that I just heard the ending of a show that had been going for 15 years and I’m just too close to it to really accept a finality to it."
And since he's historically uneasy about Destiel, fans connected the dots: Destiel would be canon in the finale!
So did we see Cas again? SPOILERS, obvs.
Here's what happened in the finale: Sam and Dean are bored. After everything was literally resolved in the penultimate episode, the world is pretty peaceful. Cut to commercial. Finally, they find a hunt. Cut to commercial. They follow some leads. Cut to commercial. They fight the monsters. Dean gets impaled on, like, a nail on a barn column or something and with his dying breath he tells Sam he's proud of him and asks for permission to die. This takes, like, a full 15 minutes. Cut to commercial. There's a montage of Sam being sad and petting a dog. Cut to commercial. Dean goes to heaven, reunites with a loved one (not Cas) and drives around. Cut to commercial. Montage of Sam raising a kid and Dean driving around. Cut to commercial. Sam dies a natural death of old age. Cut to commercial. The brothers reunite in Heaven.
Oh, and there was an emo version of Carry On, Wayward Son.
Basically the episode was three montages in a trenchcoat, with the lead characters meeting anticlimactic ends. Dean Winchester dies of tetanus. Sam wears a powdered wig from a Halloween discount store to show the passage of time.
Cas is mentioned twice throughout the episode, one line where Dean or Sam is like "I'm sad Cas is gone" and Sam or Dean is like "We have to move on and keep fighting" and one line that implies Cas escaped from supermegahell, somehow, but no more on that.
The response:
" Wow y’all got hate crimed harder than Sherlock fans did. I am very very sorry"
"GAY RIGHTS TOOK A STEP BACK THIS FINALE SINGLEHANDEDLY REPEALED SAME SEX MARRIAGE"
" that episode seemed like a love letter to Wincest shippers and a HUGE fuck you to destiel shippers ngl"
" they really hated cas and misha so much that they spent the finale pandering to the fans who wanted the brothers to fuck"
But even the Wincest shippers weren't happy, because the ending was boring and Dean's death was lame. But no one was more upset than Destiel shippers, who held out hope that Cas would return. So of course there's the angry hashtag:
" you're right dabb, it WAS bold to end 12 years of queerbaiting with a bury your gays and then never mention your queer lead again, very bold !! #cwspnisoverparty"
" The fact that Cas is trending because the whole fking world is raging about his pathetic excuse for an ending. He deserved so much better. #cwspnisoverparty"
" SPAM REPORT CW_SPN AND GET THAT SHIT SUSPENDED PLEASE THAT'S ALL I WANT and trend #cwspnisoverparty BUT MOSTLY REPORT THAT ACCOUNT THERE'S NO BIGGER FUCK YOU THAN THAT PLS"
And the angry tweets to the writer of the finale ep:
" ANDREW DABB IS THE WORST FCKING THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO THIS SHOW AND DEAN WINCHESTER"
" sweet boy..... god i am so sorry i will miss him so much i'm plotting my revenge on @andrewdabb right fucking now. cas deserved better. cas deserved BETTER. #Supernatural"
" The #Supernaturalfinale feels like an insult. Like @cw_spn and @andrewdabb actually just kicked me in the chest and walked away laughing. What the HELL was that? "
And of course it wouldn't be a disappointing queerbait finale if there weren't a Fake Episode conspiracy:
" All I want to say is that I hope @andrewdabb releases the original script, which I very much feel was more found family friendly, but that they couldn’t execute any longer due to COVID. The fandom deserves to see it. #Supernatural"
And it turns out the most likely reason Jensen struggled with the ending is because Dean dies like a punk.
EDIT:
OK, let me clarify a few things:
Jim Beaver played Bobby, the boys’ surrogate father. He’s generally a fan favorite, but some fans flipped out because he returned for the finale but Cas didn’t:
“y'all somehow managed to bring back jim beaver and mark pelegrino but misha was the one that couldn't make it bc of covid... the third fucking person on the call sheet. ofc he was the one y'all found to be expendable.”
“You literally brought Jim Beaver who’s a person of RISK be there amongst other 80 people on a bridge NONE OF THEM WEARING MASKS and you’re telling me that you couldn’t bring Misha Collins???? naa im calling this homophobia…”
“Like let’s not act as if Jim isn’t 70 years old that you placed there among the crew with no care and also the vamp chick from season 1 that NOBODY remembers... y’all just don’t like Misha Collins there, just say it”
“the show brought back mark pellegrino, jake able, jim beaver, vampire #207 and etc but misha and shoshannah two pivotal and essential characters to sam and deans story and the show were just too much”
He posted, “Thanks to all the kind people and thanks to all the unkind people. I’m deactivating my account. So long.”
Steering away from the Destiel drama, tetanus, juggalo vampires, and wigs were also big stars of the night:
“saw six people go "TETANUS?!" on the timeline and assumed bid*n caught it but its DEAN WINCHESTER????”
“I’ve never seen supernatural but the person who said that dean never got his tetanus shot because he thinks vaccines turn you gay is the funniest person alive”
“things Old Man Sam looks like: https://couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name.tumblr.com/post/635275319674372096/things-old-man-sam-looks-like-an-english
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
I initially thought that this hardly warranted a phone call, until I remembered that my sons excursion was to the Grand Canyon...
This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
I am NOT OP. Original post by u/liberalfilmnerd76 in r/advice
I want to start calling my adoptive mom “mom” instead of her name - 30 November 2022
My bio parents put me (15m) up for adoption when I was born so I was always in foster homes until I was twelve. I had a teacher Janice (33f) who was my home room teacher.
Janice found out about me being a foster kid and how I wished I had a family. Janice had also been a foster kid growing up and so long story short she then became my foster mom and adopted me.
Janice is the best mom I could have ever asked for. She has been so unbelievably kind and loving to me and I absolutely adore her. The problem is that I don’t call her mom, I just call her Janice. I want to start calling her mom but have no idea how to without making it awkward. Please help me internet strangers.
Update:
So….. was not expecting this big of a response. Thank all of you for responding and some of the ideas made me really tear up. Anyways this morning I went to Janice and I said “good morning mom” she just looked at me and started crying then came over and hugged me and kissed my forehead. I hugged her back and she said I could call her whatever made me comfortable and that she loves me more than anything. I just replied with “I love you mom”.
So yeah hope this update makes someone’s day because it certainly made mine. Have a great day.
Also made a typo I’m 15 not 16 lol
Reminder - I am not the original poster.
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
Background
Supernatural is a CW show about two brothers, Dean and Sam, running around fighting monsters and having a lot of angst and drama with each other. It was goofy some episodes, serious in others, and tried to tackle complicated issues within the episodes. It also featured two conventionally attractive white guys. So you can see why it got popular pretty fast.
It got especially popular on Tumblr, which was the hotbed of all fandom discourse for the longest time on the internet. It was so popular on there, that it became one of the Big Three: Supernatural, Dr. Who, and Sherlock. It was one of the biggest shows on the entire internet, and it was very popular with teenage girls.
The Rise of Destiel
When it first came out, the shipping community of tumblr, a.k.a all of Tumblr, was kind of a mess, because there weren't many non-heterosexual ship options for them, as that's what Tumblr prefers over anything else. So the shippers made one of the first popular incest ships on the internet, Wincest, out of pure desperation. And if you weren't into Wincest, then you just didn't get a lot of room in that part of the fandom.
See Wincest in it's earliest forms on Fanfiction.net Wincest was in the many of the first fics in the Supernatural tag on Ao3
Wincest was so big it was even referenced in the show, when Dean and Sam visit a Supernatural(the in-universe book series about their lives written by a man with prophetic visions) Convention and meet two gay lovers who cosplayed as them.
Wincest was undethronable, until it was dethroned. When Season 4 premiered we were introduced to a new conventionally attractive white boy, Castiel. You see, Castiel was an angel who raised Dean from hell, making them basically soul-bonded forever. Even from the very beginning, he went on about how he and Dean has a special connection, and it really helped that Dean was way more popular than Sam on the show, despite Sam starting out as the main character.
You can see the progression, Wincest was dead, long live Destiel. The fics flooded Ao3, which was now the dominant fanfic site, and each new one spawned ten more based on it. The fandom blazed past everything else, with the most popular fic Twist and Shout reaching over 34,000 total kudos and 1,187,975 hits.
The popularity of the Ship boosted the show into the stratosphere on Tumblr, who finally had their gay ship to drool over. Destiel became fandom canon. One example of the many multi-gif posts made to glorify it
The show was peaking. Many girls I knew in middle school were obsessed, with the show and the pairing. Also me, I was also completely obsessed. I was very much in love.
The GayBaiting and The Fall
A lot of this section is directly ripped from this 2014 article, so please give it a read for more context.
The showrunners noticed, how could they not? They also noticed if they played upon the idea that Dean could be a lil' gay, let the show reference Castiel being so in love with him, and use a lot of romcom tropes, and maybe TELL THE ACTOR FOR CASTIEL (MISHA COLLINS) TO PLAY CAS LIKE A "JILTED LOVER" WITH DEAN, then they could drive the fandom into a frothing mess.
Queerbaiting was born on the back of this show. Queerbaiting refers to when a show teases a gay relationship for clout but never confirms it so they can have deniability. Supernatural proves that if you want a show to be popular, going to the gays never fails. Again, and Again, and AGAIN, the show teased the atmosphere between them. Just go back to the manips post and feel it.
But as time went on, and the show continued, and nothing changed or got confirmed, people on tumblr started losing interest. Newer shows to queerbait with came out, real homosexual relationships started to happen. Voltron. The shows fandom started to repress their Supernatural days and move on, especially as supernatural started entering it's 12th season. A new era had begun...
... .......
Season 15, episode 18
Season 15 was the last season of Supernatural ever, everyone looked upon this with relief, glad it was finally ending and the cast could move on. I actually started to pay attention to Supernatural in this season, out of pure interest for where it would go. The fandom made jokes about how funny it would be if they actually confirmed Destiel this season. Believe it or not, I actually thought it would happen because of Supernatural reaching the era of the Gays, 2020.
And then, episode 18 aired on the 5th of November. And then, Castiel started giving a speech about Dean, while looking directly into his eyes, and then he says, I Love You.
And then he gets dragged down to super mega ultra hell for experiencing a moment of true happiness.
What I want you to do is visit this link, https://www.tumblr.com/search/supernatural, or this one, https://www.tumblr.com/search/destiel, and scroll for a bit.
Because there's no way I can possibly condense for you the pure mixture of hilarity and fucking insanity the entire website devolved into. I'll try but I seriously don't think a single writer could capture the wild west of Tumblr at this point.
It started small, the Destiel tag was #9 on trending, every Supernatural blog in existence was reblogging and going crazy. And then people who had repressed their Supernatural memories noticed something was going on. And then popular blogs noticed what was going on. And then everyone on the entire website noticed something was going on. Tumblr refugees on Twitter noticed.
Tumblr became a supernova.
The Fallout
People were crying because it finally happened
People were making fun of them for immediately killing their gay character
People made fun of Jensen Ackles for looking extremely constipated during the confession
They make fun of the confession scene a lot
Blogs that hadn't posted in years reanimated.
And on top of all of this, other shit was completely going down. Georgia and Pennsylvania flipped colors. A fake Putin rumor spread. Hetalia was coming back. Season 5 of Sherlock was coming back(another queerbaiting show). MHA Spoilers ::: spoiler show spoiler Dabi was confirmed to be Touya todoroki :::
Here's a really funny video recapping some of the insanity
Tumblr rose from the dead to and everyone is still going stir-fucking crazy. This is 2014 tumblr recaptured in it's purest essence so please enjoy the shitshow while you can.
Thanks Everyone
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
@lewosadebu
@lemmy.world