Wincest vs Destiel

Wincest vs Destiel is a ship war in the Supernatural fandom between two Dean Winchester pairings: Sam/Dean (Wincest) and Dean/Cas (Destiel). What makes it noteworthy is its length and how it migrated across platforms. 
==About==
During the first three seasons of the show the options for shipping were limited. You could ship Sam/Dean, which was the fandom OTP at the time, but was considered problematic by some because of its incestuous nature; J2, a RPS pairing, a concept not all fans were comfortable with; or rare pairs. This all changed with the introduction of the angel Castiel in season 4, and the rise of the Dean/Cas pairing.
Wincest vs Destiel used many of the same tactics as other fandom ship wars, including making hateful posts about the other ship and character, advocating for their ship, and spreading hate in tumblr or twitter tags. SPN was a con heavy fandom, so it had the added problem of bringing the ship war offline and into RL spaces.
==Terminology==
Bronlies is a pejorative term for fans that focus on Sam and Dean only, and feel that the show should have done the same. Some of the bronlies are Wincest shippers, but not all. The term is a mash up of "Brothers Only" and is a play on the term Bronies, which is used to describe male fans of My Little Pony. 
There is also the term Bibro, which initially had a positive connotation, but that changed over time:
 
Another pejorative term sometimes given to wincest shippers is Wincesties, this is is perhaps to help differentiate them from the platonic "brothers only" fans. You will sometimes see this term in DNI statements, for example "Wincesties DNI"
Destihellers (often shortened to Hellers) is a pejorative term for fans that ship exclusively Destiel, and believe that was the only romantic possibility for Dean. The term is a mashup of Destieler, one who ships Destiel as their OTP, and the word Hell. This term was later reclaimed by Destiel shippers as their own. 
Destiewers was another pejorative term for Destiel shippers, perhaps created in response to many Dean/Cas shippers claiming the Destiheller term for their own.
Both of these groups tend to be the most extreme members of the ship war, thus earning themselves the derogatory nicknames.
==Destiel Shippers Feeling Unwelcome==
Early on, many Destiel shippers claimed they felt unwelcome in established SPN communities, often with them feeling like the pairing was being treated like a rare pairing, when in fact it was experiencing a fast rising popularity. The SPNNewsletter, which was the main SPN fandom news source on LiveJournal at the time, continued to place Destiel fanworks in the "other" category, a category usually reserved for rare non-Wincest fanworks, long after Destiel became popular. There was also debate about the SPN J2 Big Bang, which was very Wincest and J2 heavy, and some Destiel shippers did not feel supported there. This lead to the creation of Destiel focused newsletters and challenges, like the Dean/Castiel Big Bang which was created in 2010. Some other SPN fans were upset by this at the time, because they felt like it was fracturing the fandom.
Although, even before the introduction of Castiel there was some resistance from Wincest shippers to any other ships:
== Behavior of Ship War Participants ==
Some fans felt that the behavior of those participating in the ship war made the fandom an uncomfortable place to be, and reflected negatively on the fandom overall.
=== Behavior of Destihellers ===
===Behavior of Wincest Shippers===
Between each point listed below the poster provided screen captures of social media posts:
==Hate for Cas, Sam, and their Actors==
Because this ship war can be seen as a war over who should be with Dean, their was a great deal of hate directed at the characters of Castiel, Sam, and the actors who played them.
===Cas/Misha===
===Sam/Jared===
An example of hate directed at Sam/Jared by one fan, and a response from another fan:
==Shipping as Morality==
It was often an argument of Destiel shippers that shipping Sam/Dean was morally wrong because of it being incest, and shipping Wincest was a moral failing of those involved. This is sometimes connected to the purity culture movement. 
==OT3 Not an Option ==
In some other fandoms ship wars can sometimes be avoided by advocating for an OT3, in this case the poly pairing of Wincestiel. However, this is not an option for many participants in the ship war. For the moral shippers who see Wincest as wrong, it would still involve Dean and Sam being romantically involved, just with the addition of Cas, and this is not acceptable to them.
Another fan talked about how hard it sometimes was to get entrenched fans to write Wincestiel:
 
== Banning Wincest Shippers From Fandom Wide Events ==
There has been a recent trend in the 2020s to exclude wincest shippers from fandom wide events, this may range from an unwillingness to acknowledge their creations to outright bans, tumblr post, 1 June 2021.. Some events are a little more vague and say they don't accept works that contain incest, which would naturally exclude wincest. This is perhaps connected to purity culture and antishipping, or perhaps just because the moderators just don't like the ship. If this is connected to destiel shippers is sometimes unclear.
== Fandom Distress==
SPN fans who didn't participate in the ship war, or didn't ship either of these pairings, often felt caught in the middle of the two warring sides:
==References==
Category:Supernatural Fandom Occurrences
Category:Destiel
Category:2009 Events
Category:2010s Events
Category:2020s Events
Category:Social Media Feature-Wank Wednesday