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That is an objective part of the problem and why some people are so mad.
It is not about some ship, like Destiel shippers wouldn't even blink if they didn't get 15x18. The show did not address the ship? Sad, but ok fine, whatever, never expected anything else, thank you very much.
But no, they had to go and do 15x18 and then just expected what exactly? That we MIB flash ourselves? That there won't be any consequences?
LGBTQA+ theme is important to the society nowadays so you don't mess with it. Do not go there if you are not making a statement and aren't ready for repercussions. It is a highly irresponsible action and is really bad for ratings in the long run as we can see now.
Let's just see how many people the cw managed to get mad?
The LGBTQA+ community.
The Destiel shippers.
The Castiel fans.
Parts of Dean and Sam fans who wanted better end for them.
Other groups of fans whose characters didn't make it to the finale for literally no reason whatsoever.
The spn fans who were there for Found Family and Free Will messages.
The writers and editors community who knew those messages and are generally like wtf did you do with your storyline in that last episode, there so many contradictions and plotholes, bruh.
Other people with common sense who can guess that when after 15 years you get to see only 2.5 main characters in the finale it means something went wrong.
Who did like it?
Strange people who says that the shows was about two brothers only? No offense but literally just do not understand how found family trop went over your head when it was repeatedly explicitly said by cast and everyone involved like?? Literally in the 15x21 for example??? No there are clearly nothing in 15x20 that is about found family???? Just how??? The power of denial I guess.
The Wincest shippers. With full respect for these people I say that they deserved it for being baited even longer than Destiel shippers. But I consider it questionable tastes to prefer the bad written ending with your ship being baited yet again or even going cannon over a good written one. Trust me, I'm speaking from experience, I was in this situation before and it's not worth it.
The anti-destiel shippers who are so sick of hellers they are acting out of spite.
And the anti-lgbtqa+ community who do exactly the same thing as onti-destielers.
And the CW. Maybe. I guess they are not sure now)
I am sure I forgot some communities for all this, both liked/disliked the ending and were influenced by it, please feel free to add :)
I think the weirdest thing about this Destielgate is that some people act as if this is drama exclusively for hardcore Destiel shippers. It certainly is not. I’m not apart of the supernatural fandom, but how supernatural handled Destiel seriously affects me as someone of the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, it affects literally anyone who understands the significance of Destiel. None of my friends watch supernatural, and yet everyday we talk about the newest Destielgate updates and every single day we talk about how ridiculous it is that they are trying to cover up the Spanish dub and how hurt we are that queer characters are being treated like this.
I get updates about Destielgate from my queer discord book club where only like, 2 people have watched supernatural and none are actually dedicated fans of Supernatural. Despite all this we have in depth conversations about what is going on and trade the information we have discovered and we all are basically waiting in suspense to see what is going to happen to Destiel. Because how this ends, affects all of us. I feel like the episode writers, or CW, or whoever was in charge of this did not fully understand the impact of having lead characters of an extremely popular tv show come out as queer. I feel like they truly had no idea what they were getting into and no idea how important it was to the LGBTQ+ community that it is handled well. Because when I say queer representation saves lives? It LITERALLY saves lives but depending on how you handle it, it could have the opposite affect.
What truly baffles me is that Destiel did not need to become canon. Destiel shippers would have ben relatively fine with the ship not sailing because that is the nature of ships; they are almost never canonized. But they decided to make it canon in the most homophobic way possible. Yes, any representation is good, but what some do not understand is that a character declaring his love, not having his love reciprocated, immediately getting sent to Mega Turbo Super Hell (the empty) and then never being mentioned again except in a throw away line? Never being grieved over? Never having any resolution? these things that happened after the confession was a rapid devaluing of a character that was apparently very important before that episode. As soon as he declared his love for Dean, he was stripped of the value that the show had been putting on him. Castiel, a character who was well loved and an integral part of the storyline suddenly does not matter to people who previously would have died and/or killed for him right after he declared his love for Dean? That is where the problem lies. That rapid devaluing of Castiel as a character sends a clear message to any queer person watching the show: they do not matter. They are not valued or wanted and its better to stay silent than to speak your truth. It is better to be a closeted gay than openly queer because when you come out you could lose everything.
Yet another Bury Your Gays ™ trope (with the huge chance of there being queer censorship) is the business of literally all of us in the LGBTQ+ community. This is not about a Supernatural ship anymore, it is about whether or not blatant homophobia and queer censorship will continue to go unchecked. It is about whether big companies will decide that queer lives are more important than money. It is about the LGBTQ+ community no longer being something inconveniencing, but rather something precious.