Why Does Jared

Jared Padalecki & Jensen Ackles | Chicago Con 2023 | Gold Panel

📸 credit: @FangasmSpn

8.11 | LARP and the Real Girl

[x]

Amends

I don't usually dip my toe in the drama pool. At least not too deeply. But what's going on in fandom this week, the revelations, were extreme. The people who have come forward... they were in a cult. I am not being overdramatic about this. Gamifying harassment, forcing disconnections like Scientology, needing everyone to observe the same talking points or risk ostracism, leadership using it for money, criminal behavior towards those The Guru has deemed the Out-Group including members who don't conform heavily enough... That's a cult. The internet has made cult behavior REALLY easy. Likes and engagement make you suddenly aware of which direction your circle is leaning. If you agree, YOU TOO GET POINTS. You too will experience that sense of belonging, and that's what it's all about. So if your circle is being outright mean... if you don't want to be cast off as "not one of them"... maybe you say the mean thing too, even if it's a lie, even if you're not really sure why you're saying it. That approval feels SUPER GOOD and is addictive. And your circle amps each other up, gets meaner and meaner. The only people who stay in the in-group are those who don't speak up about the bad behavior and are willing to keep going along with it. Those aren't friendships. It's a pack of hungry carnivores. It's the same behaviors police gangs use on cops who speak up. I do have some sympathy, especially for the younger people who were still forming their identities. They were victims of indoctrination and criminal harassment. That said, they have to own their own behavior. I hope they learn and grow. They're going to have to have some self-reflection on what they've done, the lies told, the hate, the virulent -isms that were expressed, and literal crimes that were performed in the name of fitting in and winning some points with the clique. They're also going to have to reassess who their out-group is, why they even NEED an out-group over fandom things, and if there are still people in their schema who they have an impulse to hate for no reason.... because of a ship or actor preference. They're going to have to question all the lies they were told and if they are still holding onto hate based on that. That's hard if they aren't even sure what the lies were. It's going to be a process for them. We should give people the space and grace to get better. To deprogram themselves. But this does not mean there needs to be automatic forgiveness. Nobody needs to like anyone. But nobody needs to hate anyone either. Maybe the middle ground is we can grow some indifference or the ability to say, "I'm letting it go, this person is in progress, I can't control their journey, the ball is in their court."

If you were behaving badly, you've earned the suspicion of the people you hurt. A few of you are expressing amends, which is wonderful. But part of the thing with making amends is that you don't get to control the outcome. You make a genuine apology for EXACTLY what you've done, you own your part in it, and you don't make excuses... and from there, people may accept what you've said and they may not. They may forgive you immediately, they may take time, they may never forgive you. You have to learn to be good with that. It can be uncomfortable, to feel disliked, ESPECIALLY if the reason you got into the cult was because of that sense of belonging. Your impulse may be to keep giving explanations of how the group influenced you, to distance yourself. You may tell yourself, "I'm not that person, this isn't really me, it was the group." You want to be seen as CHANGED - virginal and new because you made the hard choice to finally leave the cult. ...It isn't that easy. You want the space and grace and you should get that. But guess what? You need to give that to others, too. You need to understand that people have real reasons to distrust you if you were exhibiting cruelty. And part of doing the work to make amends is the actual work. If you're serious about it, it means a lot of difficult self-reflection. You need to take an unflinching look at WHY you could ignore or participate in racism and lord knows plenty of other -isms, why outright defamation and death threats to actors and other fans were okay, why doxing people and trying to get them fired was seen as fair game, why trying to make someone feel hated and terrible about themselves was your impulse, why you were giggling and congratulating yourself for leaning into your worst impulses...until the group turned on you. Because that's the truth of the situation. You now have that self-knowledge of what you're willing to participate in. The question now is what are you going to do with that? I hope it includes therapy and I don't mean that glibly. I think it's possible there are some internet addictions going on where people crave the rush of getting Likes and engagement... and ragefarming is the best way to get engagement. If that's true... it will be EXTREMELY easy to move from the space of performing FOR the cult to performing AGAINST them, so that you can maintain your hit of Likes. And that is just sitting in the same behaviors. But if you're serious about getting better, if you're serious about being honest with yourself, you're going to need to fight against those inclinations. Please ask yourselves if you truly feel your apologies and want to change...or if maybe some part of you is just posting your attempt at amends because you want to fit in with those leaving or because you're craving that approval. Leaving is great! But are you getting the same psychological hit from your posts now? Are you trying to collect a new group that will lovebomb you because you're seeking self-esteem and miss the people who used to give it to you? I'm not saying this in judgment, I'm saying it because many people go from one cult or MLM to another, seeking that same sense of belonging. That's not my wish for you.

To the people on the other side of this... I'm not saying not to speak up if you see people slipping or people whose apologies are revealed as false words. I'm not trying to tone police people getting angry. There have been real reasons to be angry. HOWEVER... please be aware that if we want people to actually learn and grow we need to give them room to do that. There's nothing wrong with a really direct "This is really shitty and unkind behavior." Going scorched earth every time isn't the way. Is it our responsibility to motivate them to change, is it on us? Absolutely not. But are our actions going to unintentionally make them more likely to try and find a gang again because they're feeling defensive? If we also truly want to make things better, we have to ask ourselves what our goal is. Do we just want to give a tongue-lashing because we're angry? We might. And that can be justified sometimes in life. But cornered people don't often make great decisions. If what we want out of this is for people to be less terrible - there are ways to call people in and out, firmly and not sugarcoated, while still not going on the attack.

To the people who finally spoke up, you should be proud of yourselves for that. You took the first step. I hope you keep walking forward.

If you actually read to here... holy crap, I apologize. Many, many words, but I wanted to put them all down somewhere instead of continuing to overthink it at 3:30am. I do want to say... this is just my perspective. If it came off as trying to tell you how to do or feel, or like I think I'm perfect? Nah, kids. I'm a fallible screw-up, too, who is often "cringe," as the children say. We can all work on ourselves. At least that's the hope. If we're open to it.

Anyway. Love y'all, TGC

Jensen Ackles as Priestly in Ten Inch Hero (2007)

Such fluffy hair!

Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage (2008)

SAM WINCHESTER (being adorable) THROUGH THE SEASONS - for @seasononesam​‘s 1k Follower Celebration • [dean version]

I hope people eventually realize that ableism isn’t just being mean to a disabled person just because they’re disabled.

It’s the American government not allowing us to have over $2,000 at any given time without threatening to take away our only source of income. It’s still not having equal marriage opportunities, I cannot get married to my fiancée without my money being taken away. I bring in $750 a month from SSI. That’s not even enough for rent. (In case you didn’t know, $2,000 isn’t enough to live off of for a month, so to not be able to have it explains enough.)

Ableism is also taking away disabled parking and adding spaces reserved for cops. [That part is specifically aimed at Walmart.] Cops are abled, that’s how they can do their “job”. They’re even allowed to park at the very front of a building, they don’t need their own spaces.

Ableism is claiming a building is accessible when the “accessibility” features are broken or out of date, which can endanger mobility aid users.

Ableism is choosing to attack someone who doesn’t “look” disabled and shame them just because their disability/chronic illness is invisible; it is leaving notes on the cars that belong to disabled people who can walk, yet still need to park in the disabled parking space, that state that they’re “faking”, “going to hell”, or that they should be ashamed of themselves for “taking a spot from someone who actually needs it”. This includes the phrase, “But you don’t look disabled.”

Ableism is stopping autistic children from stimming, forcing kids with ADHD to sit still, infantilizing adults with down syndrome or other conditions because ableds assume that they don’t know what is going on around them.

Ableism is doctors not listening to their patients, the person who knows their body the best, due to medical racism, fatphobia, or misogyny.

Ableism is assuming every disabled person’s condition is the same, and that all treatments are a one size fits all; in reality, our treatment programs, the accommodations we need, which aren’t “special needs”, are all different and work with a case by case foundation.

Ableism is so much more than what the surface shows it to be. It’s not just treating people unfairly, it’s deliberately ignoring our basic needs for your comfort.

Sammy smiling (✿◠‿◠)

The thing is that the ways in which dean and sam need each other are both compatible and parallel in their nature.

Dean needs sam to stay with him (let him take care of him look after him and be with him) and sam despite all his need for autonomy and freedom which he does desire of course (he needs dean to respect his choices and see him) also needs dean to need him—choose him. It’s always been that way—something we see from the very pilot itself. He goes with dean in the pilot after dean admits that he doesn’t want to do it without sam even if he is capable for it.

It affects sam profoundly when dean gets close to other people—especially men because it threatens the idea that dean could need people other than him (even the mere desire to want for others apart from him is distasteful even if he doesn’t want it to be—he just can’t help it, it’s the way they are.) Of course dean has never needed for anything more than sam, that sam and just sam has always been more than enough but sam needs that from him, constantly and actively.

In Sacrifice (8x23), when he reveals that the fact that dean chose to turn to people (an angel, a vampire) apart from him was unbearable to him was just so.. much. And it’s interesting because we know that sam too is friends with cas, has never been shown to consider him a rival in any sense (but just the mere possibility of sam and just sam not being enough for dean is devastating for him.) He doesn’t harbour any resentment or competition towards cas, it’s just that he needs to be the choice over everything else from dean. He needs it because he chose that too, even when he had a chance to get out—multiple times over. And yes, the circumstances shaping his choices are often not ideal, are sometimes not even entirely choices but he always stays because of the knowledge that dean will always choose him.

The conflict then is often caused by doubt—dean, deeply insecure about sam’s loyalty. For him, it’s a given—that sam will always be first, has always and forever been above everything else but he expects sam to know it too. Despite everything he puts on him and says to him, despite the fights and the anger and the mistrust. None of that will ever change this one fundamental thing.

But Sam doesn’t (!!) Maybe at one time he did, before the demon blood and the soullessness and the countless countless ways he thinks he fucked up but somewhere along the line it became clear to Sam that he could not trust it to always be Dean’s first choice, can’t know it for sure.

Doubt again, Sam—unable to know if Dean will always choose him over all else and Dean unable to verbalise that enough because of said insecurity (the fear that he needs sam more than sam needs him) and unable to understand why Sam would feel this way because he expects him to already know that Sam will always be above all else, at the end of the day despite whatever happens because that is who Dean is.