‘misled the community’ like ffs he never definitively, on the record, labeled himself. also, there are instances where jokes or comments clearly stem from something personal between him and the person he’s making it with, sometimes, most of the times, with friends. and we don’t know the whole story. ever. and we never will.

i also don’t think his ‘jokes’ are bad in retrospect either. it’s frustrating how we were fine with him so long as he remained unlabeled [he made queer comments, he’s made straight comments in the past as well] because unlabeled meant we got to headcanon him into whatever sexuality we wanted him as.

i need people to really understand he was forced into labeling himself. yeah his comment of 'i’m all three’ skirted too close to the sun but it was a second of time in a pool of the last 14 years of everything with him and he got punished for it – and faced in that situation, straight became the statement.

but idk i think some people read 'straight’ as 'i hate queer people’ and anyone who calls themselves straight is public enemy #1.

he’s always been validating us, making us feel safe to talk to him about this stuff, offering words of encouragement, learning from us, talking with us, encouraging us to make communities of our own and make new friends, help the world, participate in things and actively making a difference, fought for queer cas, acknowledged destiel in a way no one else could or did, was literally the only one able to talk about 1518 since it aired as much as he has, calls us inspirations for coming out and we tell him our stories, his ex-wife is queer, he’s operated in queer spaces for fucking – a lot longer probably than some of those criticising him have been alive tbh –

so i literally don’t understand this.

i do not.

also it’s a big ol’ slap in the face to people you may know who privately consider themselves unlabeled or queer but publically have to be straight [not saying this happened with misha but it’s a possibility still] and that now they can’t make jokes or be in this community.

or people who identify as straight but aren’t a 0 on that kinsey scale but just don’t know where else to fall but they feel safe with the queer community.

there’s 14 years of comments and jokes and maybe some have gone too far in the past, in the past, i don’t know i can’t remember everything he’s said off the top of my head – but the fact remains is misha is still himself. the only difference now is that he had to make a statement on the record or face more articles and more people picking into his life.

i feel like pushing him out of fandom and pushing him out of being himself and requiring him to be a bland, sterilized version of himself with us now is going to do litearlly no one any favors.

it’s gatekeeping. it’s horrifying. it’s very sad, and it’s unfair to a man who’s already had some rough times his entire time while on SPN, especially now after, and especially after the events of this weekend. This happened TO HIM. and a man who has gone this long while being virtually unlabeled to us but was forced to make an on the record statement about it for the first time in 14 years – and to punish him further?

like good god y'all maybe you weren’t fans after all because that doesn’t seem kind, welcoming, and safe at all. not only for him, but for others reading those comments and statements and going 'oh, right. i don’t belong here. I’m not queer enough, nor am i publically out of the closet, or I’m still exploring, so i don’t belong here.’

Because for all the understanding and acknowledgment I’ve seen about the hurt Misha’s words ended up causing, I think this is probably the first time I’ve seen someone address the hurt inflicted by fans on other fans.

The thing is there’s people, like me, who aren’t out in real life. Or that whether they’re out or not, they’re still questioning, or tentative in the labels they’ve chosen, or that use different labels depending on the ‘audience‘/context, and a loooooooong list of similar situations.

People talk about spectrum and fluidity and the complexity and nuance of sex/gender/gender expression, but then they also fiercely gatekeep with stereotypes and… rules you have to follow if you want to identify as X.

And so in the end, we’re left wondering if we’re really non binary if we don’t have an androgynous look, or feeling that we’re not bisexual if we’ve only been with one gender (or no one at all). Or when does it go from ‘straight but with one same-sex crush‘ to ‘bisexual‘? well, each person decides that for themselves!

It’s so, so easy to feel Not Queer Enough.

THIS IS THE FUNNIEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN OH MY GOD 😂

okay so i got a lot of asks yesterday, the day Jensen Said The Thing About Jack, far more than i can possibly answer. and while the majority were positive support (and thank you so much to everyone who sent support, i see you and i love you), but i got several hostile, antagonistic asks, and there was a particular reoccurring theme in them that i did not have the cognitive energy to address yesterday.

however, i have now had time to have a good old fashioned shower argument session, so i'm going to write this out, and i'm choosing this ask because it was at least less hostile than others.

here's the thing. basically everyone who was hostile to me used the exact same words: "why are you defending the rich white middle-aged texan man."

they said those words over and over. rich white middle-aged texan man. rich white middle-aged texan man.

now, if you don't know, i happen to be a white person who has lived in texas my entire life, and is closer to middle-aged than i'd prefer. just so we're all starting on the same page here.

while it's a dangerous thing to do on tumblr, i would like to try and deconstruct some of the logic here.

it appears as though the argument to this statement is simply, "this person has multiple axes of privilege, therefore he is wrong by default and everyone agreeing with him is wrong by default." it appears as though the argument is, "a debate on morality and correct vs incorrect is won or lost based on the amount of privilege held by those having the debate".

because, let me make it perfectly clear: i never said that jensen did absolutely nothing wrong. i never "poor baby"d him. i said that he was probably stressed out and anxious and he probably didn't mean it to come out the way it sounded, but i completely understood why people felt grossed out and upset by what he said. i said that i would like for someone to sit him down and explain to him why what he said was gross so he could do better, because i think that he's a sincere person would do better once he knows better. i did not pull the "stop being so mean to my poor little meow meow" routine. i discussed the subject at length, with what i think is a proper degree of nuance.

but every time i wrote 500 words of nuance, somebody else told me "stop defending the rich white middle aged texan man."

and i don't want to get into a whole essay here, but like..... do you people understand that each one of those things are not, in of themselves, bad?

yes, jensen is "rich", but is not wealthy. if you don't know the difference between 10 million and 10 billion, please do some math. he's a c list celebrity, not elon musk. yes, jensen is white. so am i. so is misha. so are lots of quite decent people. yes, jensen is middle aged. are we really gonna get ageist here and act like not being 20 is a character flaw? all of you will be middle aged someday.

yes, jensen is from texas. do you know why texas is shitty? because of gerrymandering and voter suppression, not because the people who live here suck worse than anywhere else. i see people make posts going "lmao he's literally from texas" like it's hilarious. donald trump was born in new york. what's your fucking point?

and yes, jensen is a man. is radfem rhetoric really so pervasive that i need to say that being a man is not bad? i mean like, it's one thing to vent and joke about men as a class, it's another thing entirely to act as though being a man makes you a bad person. men are not bad. men are fucking great. i love men.

and the thing is, i say all of this, but of course you know it already. because two days ago you knew that jensen was a rich white middle-aged texan man, and you still called him "king" and parasocialized like fucking crazy. when you thought he was gonna go out on stage and say "dean wants cas to fuck him in the ass" you LOVED him, you wanted to suck his dick. you didn't care that he was a rich white middle-aged texan.

but, when he didn't say the things you were demanding he say, you turned on him. he wasn't your king anymore. and then he fumbled a lame joke that was, at worst, casually sexist. (i will no longer entertain anyone saying he sexualized a child. if you cannot understand that alex calvert is in his thirties i do not know what to say to you anymore.) and it's completely fair to say "i don't like that joke, it was casually sexist and made me feel gross." that is completely fair.

BUT. with that, you have to admit that you're not upset about jensen being a rich white middle-aged texan man, you're upset about what he said. and, again, that's fair, as long as you're not twisting it into shit it wasn't. anyone who's upset and grossed out by the "a few more glances" comment, i sympathize with you. i'm not excusing the fact that he said it.

so... we're back to the fact that when i was discussing this, i was trying to discuss the morality of what he said, and whether those of us having the discussion were correct or incorrect in what he meant by what he said. and over and over, people responded with the "rich white middle aged texan man".

which, if you've made it this far, brings me to my ultimate point: i don't know how to tell you this, tumblr, but morality and correctness is not determined by privilege.

the most marginalized person in the room is not inherently the most moral person in the room, or the kindest. being gay or Black or disabled or poor doesn't make you a good person. being kind makes you a good person. and i guess this might be controversial on here, but sometimes privileged people are kind, and sometimes marginalized people are unkind assholes.

i was not defending jensen because he's white or a man, but because i think he's kind, and i think the people trashing him were both unkind and incorrect. i am not going to become so fucking brainrotted that i say "kill him" because the him in question is a white man who said one mildly upsetting thing, and i'm not gonna just go along with people who do.

i do not fucking like the way my dash turned so swiftly from kissing jensen's ass when they thought he was gonna say something gay to literally calling for him to be murdered because he said one dumb thing. the way people acted was unkind and cruel and undeserved, and i don't care how marginalized you are, if you are unkind and cruel for sport, i don't like you. you make fandom a terrible place.

i will defend anyone that i think is a kind, genuine person, and i will call out anyone who i think is an unkind asshole. i don't care if you're gay or trans or a person of color, if you're an unkind asshole, i'm not going to stand by you. your oppression is not an excuse for being a shitty ass person.

and before i end this post that DID turn into an essay despite my best efforts, there's one more thing i'd like to bring up that i found... interesting.

as soon as the dash starting going to hell over The Comment, i immediately saw people saying things like "well what do you expect from a straight man." and those people were the SAME people who have spent months making jokes about jensen being "[gunshots]" and gleefully partaking in my cockles masterlist. in other words, these people have spent nigh a year joking around and agreeing that jensen is a queer man.

but the moment he displeased them, he became a straight man again. as if being queer is only reserved for good people (you do know that queer men can be sexist, right?) and straight = bad. as though they were punishing a queer man by calling him straight.

and ultimately, i think my point is that you don't say "(straight) rich white middle-aged texan man" because you think those really are inherently bad things, because you were a fan of jensen five minutes ago. i think you say that so you have an excuse to be mean. just fucking nasty and unkind and violent and disgusting, really.

as long as he's all those things, there's no problem with saying that he should be shot in the head, right? because of course, it would be Wrong and Terrible to say that a poor disabled native lesbian should be shot in the head because she said something that upset you, right? and the difference would be because, uh... because being marginalized inherently makes you Good and being privileged inherently makes you Bad? so as long as the person in question was born under certain circumstances, it's totally cool and funny to make jokes wishing violent death upon them.

and, before anyone comes to tell me i'm a hypocrite, then, for saying rude things about jared, i'm going to explain, if i must, that the reason i hate jared is because he's not only a self-centered bigot, but because he thinks being cruel for sport is funny. do you get my point?

lastly, before i press post, i'm going to say this one more time: jensen absolutely did not hear that girl crying from backstage. i have been in a convention audience and not been able to clearly hear what a questioner said, because they are not mic'd as well as the person onstage. that is not an excuse, that's just a fact. some event coordinator told jensen to round up misha for the next thing on the schedule, jensen did not know what was currently going on, and he came out teasing in a way that would have been perfectly fine if the question was light-hearted, which they usually are. someone asking a question involving how to cope with the death of their abusive father is simply not what is typically happening at convention panels. he didn't. fucking. know.

Mish… why are you posting like 10 times today?

Jensen may still own the condo, especially if he already knew they were going to get a shot at bringing SPN back in the near future.

He may have have anticipated needing to be on set or doing other work up there, such as directing or for meetings. So he may have decided to keep the place.

We don’t want to do anything that would force him to have to move.

Anyone who is confused as to why they kept living together a "secret", consider this:

They both have bad experiences with doxxing. Especially Jensen. Crazies have sent rusty nails to his place for christ's sake!

The above reason is also why I, personally, tend give Jensen a pass sometimes when it comes to shippers. Shippers (namely J*2 tinhats) have stalked him, his wife and kids, his where abouts, tracked plane routes, made threats towards him his family and costars, cornered him and JP at charity events to give them (and their freaking mayor) J*2/ w🤮ncest fan art, claimed his wife is a beard (and Misha a meard to her beard for JP?) and his children are test tube babies, cornered him at cons, among a plethora of other nasty things. His experience with shippers isn't exactly the best. There are tons of positive happy little shippers, but the bad always tends to outway the good. Which brings me to my next point:

They know people ship them. They know. Misha has openly talked about the ship onstage as well as other cast members. They aren't entirely immune to goings on in The fandom. Out right saying it would fuel the fires and they know it. So it's eaiser for them to keep it hush hush so they don't have to deal with the uproar.

Now consider this, say there is something going on:

Image is important to actors. While being out and proud isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's still not as widely accepted in Hollywood as some would like to think. It's perfectly fine, but then you have to consider type casting. While that would be less of a problem for Misha, who's acting career is a means to an end, would it stunt Jensen's acting career as far as roles he could get.

Then there is the fact that they are both married. With kids. The mainstream media world view when it comes to poly relationships isn't exactly kind. Rumors would undoubtedly fly about affairs and such. "What about the children?!" Articles would be popping up left and right. Pop culture media thrives off of rumors and most likely would paint the whole situation in a bad light. Also, detrimental to their careers. Not to mention, that would also cast a shadow on Danneel Vicky and the children.

All of this could put serious strain on, not only their relationship, but their friendship and their families as well.

Then there's the show and it's fans to consider:

We all saw last week how insane some of the fans can be. JP stans lost their freaking minds because they learned that Jensen doesn't inform him of every single minuscule detail of his life. They were ready to slander Jensen, destroy his project before it even grew legs, and some have already sent messages to Misha's publisher about what they believe makes him an awful human. Can you imagine the panic attack of learning that Dean and Castiel's actors are living together, but not Sam's? "What about Sam? What about Jared? They're trying to exclude him! Waaaa!" They already use to freak out when Dean and Cas would have scenes together without Sam. Jen and Mish living together? They would raise absolute hell.

Jensen and JP had to(apparently still have to) keep up the " Brothers in real life and on TV" act for the brand and the GA. If Jensen would have outright told everyone that he and Misha were living together, but not Jared....it wouldn't look great. People would wonder why. Are they fighting? Are they not really friends? Blah blah blah and so forth.

If they would have openly said it 2-3...however many years ago, it could have damged the show.

These are also, likely, the reasons the In The Know part of the fandom kept quiet. Because they knew too. They knew exactly what kind of chaos it would cause. So they kept it to themselves.

So yeah, it was easier to stretch the truth about the clothes sharing and the "brief stays" and all that mess, because the truth could have very well been disastrous. Now that the show is over now, howerver, it doesn't matter. I'm sure we can expect tons of open secrets to be revealed, maybe even some that are not so open, but also keep in mind that Jensen is still trying to keep the SPN brand going, so there might not be any groundbreaking ones coming anytime soon.

Also,also, remember they are still human beings who deserve at least a modicum of privacy. Speculation and tinhatting is all fun and games as long as it stays in a fandom space. No one should ever be forced to out themselves or tell their secrets.