#I mean even I as a casgirl can get mad at sam and dean a lot of the times for how they treat cas

[thenameisgul]

it’s actually no surprise that how many angels who actually care for Cas seem to hate Dean and Sam.

because from their pov sam and dean are the bad influence that got their indomitable leader of the garrison Castiel to stray from his path and become this sidekick to two humans

everything Cas gets out of this transaction, this family of his, love, friendship, companionship, feelings, hopes and dreams are things that are alien to the angels

samamdriel said it best, ‘too much heart was always Cas’ problem’ but he said it like it was a bad thing

but for Cas it’s the reason for his existence since he found his family and that’s why he’s the perfect blend of humanity and angelic existence. he’s the middle ground that never was before 🥺

[scoobydoodean]

I see this held up as major proof of Dean's badness, but couldn't it also be proof of Cas having faith Dean can get past anything without Cas having to change his behavior? The way it's structured the onus is on DEAN to work through it, not others to change or make amends. ---- CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.

I see what you mean in a general sense, and it's extremely possible that Cas is thinking about his own past fights with Dean and Dean forgiving him, and from the perspective of the critique you have in mind that you're refuting, I agree. But of course deancrit casgirls will forever insist that Cas has never in his life done anything harmful to Dean either accidentally or on purpose, so any time Dean might dare try to hold him accountable for anything, he's actually just making shit up and being toxic and controlling, so here Cas is just apologizing for his own abusive relationship. You can only get their take by being deliberately obtuse/disingenuous.

That said, the context of that line (from 15.13 "Destinty's Child") is Cas answering soulless Jack's question about whether Dean will eventually forgive him for murdering Mary.

CASTIEL: Hey, Jack. JACK: Cas, you know what's good about being dead? CASTIEL: Uh, as I recall, very little. JACK: Well, when you come back, you – you really get into all that life is. Hot, cold, sweet, spicy, funny, scary. CASTIEL: And are you? "Into it"? JACK: I want to be. But I don't... feel things the way I used to. Before I lost my... CASTIEL: Your soul. JACK: I used to feel things. In my bones. It was glorious, and sometimes unbearable. But I felt them. Now, I understand joy or sadness, but... I know those things aren't in me. I understand why Sam and Dean were angered by what happened to Mary... CASTIEL: By what you did to Mary. JACK: Yes. I see that I've caused them pain. And it's clear that things have changed. Especially with – with Dean. Will he ever forgive me? CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on. JACK: How long will that take? CASTIEL: I don't know.

And yeah—I have seen people refer to Cas's little speech here as "condoning child abuse" and other bullshit. Because how DARE Dean not forgive soulless Jack for murdering his mother (something soulless Jack is unable to actually really acknowledge he did). I mean clearly any time someone murders your mom because she made them mad and threatened their sense of security by asking if they're okay and saying their concerning actions can’t stay a secret… That’s just natural understandable stuff! You need to forgive the person who murdered her instantly and if you don’t idk you’re kinda overreacting don’t you think? :/ I mean your mom probably deserved it kind of anyway for reading the room so wrong and talking about getting a person help. And I mean if you don't forgive the person who killed your mom or do anything trying to stop them from hurting more people you're really a child abuser... toward an adult... who murdered your mother in cold blood and is unable to even understand why it was wrong in any sense other than an intellectual one like he read it from a book... preferring to refer to it as "What happened to Mary" instead of acknowledge it as something he himself did because he was mad and felt threatened—which is what he circled back to in "Jack In The Box" too. It's only when Jack gets his soul back that he's able to actually feel true empathy, acknowledge his real actions and the gravity of them, and give an actual sincere apology. Because his soul is actually important—something this fandom refuses, by and large, to notice.

Anyway, this fandom's take on Mary's murder and soulless Jack vs. regular Jack is overwhelmingly a bag of wet third grader vomit and feces so what can one expect?

[angelinthefire]

Just remembered that I can use cuts to keep posts from getting this long, lol

@autisticandroids :

i mean i don't think that's meant to be read as dean being mean to people who care about him. i think it's meant to read as cas having been previously evil, and now being insufficiently penitent [because he is selfishly disconnecting from reality instead of doing his job]. like that's the difference between gamble's honey cas and edlund's. edlund portrays honey cas as the only rational reaction to such a horrific scale of crime, and understands that what cas did in mtnb was primarily a crime against angels. gamble thinks that honey cas is a cowardly abdication of responsibility, and thinks of his crime in mtnb as against dean primarily, not other angels. so according to gamble, cas didn't just betray dean, now he's being a selfish coward and not making up for his actions. Like it's not that gamble thinks that we want to see dean be cruel. it's that she thinks we want to see cas punished as he deserves for his behavior. Like dean isn't even really acting as dean, there. he's acting as authorial voice. a lot of dean's extreme cruelty is a result of this: someone, usually sam or cas, does something deemed unacceptable, and narratively they have to be punished, so dean does it i guess. i feel like it's legit to just 100%discount those moments in terms of characterization because they're literally dean acting as voice of the narrative, but they do happen and imo cursed or not is one of them

To my understanding Edlund and Gamble worked together closely to develop the season, and I wouldn't expect them to have significant philosophical differences on it. I think the difference between them is that their episodes served different functions, Edlund is just more interested in Cas and the angels, and that Edlund was more interested in doing interesting things with ambiguous TV disorder.

And I don’t think Gamble thinks we want to see Cas punished. She knew that fans wanted Cas back, she wrote 7x17, she wrote the trenchcoat scene. That was Gamble demonstrating her understanding of what the audience wanted. She's made jokes in episode commentary or something about how the emotional scenes are about pretty men staring at each other, or something to that effect. I think her approach to the "I'd rather have you" scene can be determined from those things. It's a sincere, straightforward reconciliation that's meant to satisfy the broadest possible layer of viewers, including the casgirls who had been harassing the network for months.

It doesn't make sense to say that Gamble doesn't think Cas is sufficiently penitent. Again, she wrote 7x17, she wrote Cas saying "I deserved to die". That's pretty sufficient imo. The whole point of Cas' madness *is* that that’s his penance. The point of it is that he fucked Sam up and then he paid for it by being TV-crazy. As a writer, I don’t think it makes sense to be like, okay we'll punish Cas this way because if there's one thing he can't get off scott-free from narratively it's hurting Sam, and then we'll punish Cas for being punished.

And I also doubt that Gamble has strong feelings about Cas and his blame worthiness in general. Like she got rid of him not because she has a problem with him afaik, but because she wanted to take the show "back to basics", which tbh was not an unreasonable idea in the abstract.

The main reason why I'm responding so strongly to this is that I think the idea that we're meant to laugh at Cas in that scene is, frankly, out of left-field and objectively untrue. (And yeah it frames Dean and Cas' relationship in a way that gives me war flashbacks to s7 tumblr). If that was the goal then it utterly failed because literally no one saw it that way, not even the people who insisted that Dean just wanted to use Cas. But everything about the narrative function of the scene, the conventions of the show, and the way the scene is played indicate that it's meant to be sincere.

Not only is Cas + Dean + honey unfluffy, it can be downright angsty. I think that Dean, like fandom, could latch onto this one known interest Cas has, and while he'd hate being reminded of Honey Cas he'd totally try to "bribe" Cas with bee-related gifts. Dean is always interested in things that make Cas more reachable, touchable, and human. Cas, who may not even remember what happened when he was dealing with Sam's Hell memories, could easily think Dean is just taking him to a beeswax candle store because Dean likes doing human things together. It would be deliciously hurtful and unsustainable--maybe one day Dean thinks Cas is watching a bee (in fact, Cas is thinking about Dean's eye crinkles) and freaks out and after the yelling and stomping is over, they start to figure things out, but it takes a while.

I don't want to tell you not to have fun with this concept if you want.

But if you're asking for my opinion I'm going to give it, because, again, I want to keep the anti-bee discourse going. And I have to say that I disagree with you.

A large part of my objection to the bee trope is not just that it's bad characterization for Cas, but that it's also incredibly out of character for Dean to play a part in it.

Like it's not just a question of being reminded of how Cas was at that time. I think the end of s7 was such a negative experience that Dean would outright reject conceptualizing honey-Cas as a component part of Cas at all.

I could go on about "Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas, now clean up your mess". There's layers to that line (including guilt and projection on Dean's part, but also just plain anger and frustration) but this is not the post to get into that. Right now, I'm just raising it because that is the sentiment people unintentionally call back to every time they use the bee trope. That is how Dean felt about honey-Cas. So no, I don't think it's at all believable that Dean would do anything that invokes Cas' behaviour from those episodes.

(And yes, there was the "I'd rather have you" speech and Dean starting to be willing to take Cas as he is. But almost immediately after that, Dean and Cas get sucked into Purgatory and separated, so Dean never has to follow through. When he meets Cas again, Cas is "better" and Dean gets to make a clean break with honey-Cas and leave it in the past. Which he does.)

I agree that Dean is interested in bringing Cas down-to-earth, but whenever he does, it's on his terms. Dean shows Cas his own favourite movies, he makes him a mix-tape of his own favourite songs, he invites him to hang out at diners that he likes, he encourages behaviour (like flirting with waitresses) that Dean considers fundamental to his own specific experience. For Dean, making Cas human means making him relatable to his own life. It's something that I really enjoy because on the one hand, there's a kind of narrowness to it, Dean doesn't really have a curiosity about the kind of semi-human that Cas could become on his own terms. On the other hand, it's Dean sharing pieces of himself with Cas. It's Dean making Cas more his own, in a way. (also, as we know from the mix-tape, Dean is not generally in the habit of giving gifts to Cas. The mix-tape is an exception.)

That all being said, I would be glad if I started seeing the bee trope being used as a source of angst instead of as some fluffy thing. (but I'd be even happier if it was excised from the fandom entirely)

[autisticandroids]

anyway i really dislike the “dean thinks cas doesn’t have feelings because he’s an angel” headcanon because i just don’t think it’s...... believable? 

like, my first thought is it doesn’t make a ton of sense if only because like, cas is such an overemotional character. like his motivations are intensely impulsive, irrational, emotional. but like, you could also argue that dean doesn’t understand that about him, that dean doesn’t see him very clearly, and that’s believable to me.

but there’s a lot of other evidence against this headcanon. like, first of all, dean has seen him human or de-angeled a couple of times, and he clearly doesn’t change that much. second of all, like, yes, in the early seasons dean sees cas as an Angel but by the late seasons he very much sees him as like..... just a guy? like he very much just sees cas as a guy in later seasons. i don’t know if i could pinpoint where this transition happens but it does happen. third of all, we see dean attempting to tug on cas’ heartstrings a good few times? 6x20 “i’m not gonna logic you,” 6x22 “we were family once,” 8x17 “i need you,” and those are the ones that come to me off the top of my head. and in 8x17 it even works! so like when push comes to shove and it’s a life or death situation, dean is aware that cas has heartstrings to be tugged on. like dean knows cas has emotions.

but the biggest reason is like. that line that people use to support it. the one from reading is fundamental.

Oh, I don't know, man. What can I say? You've been chosen. And it sucks. Believe me. There's no use asking "why me?" 'Cause the angels – they don't care. I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just... breaks them apart.

like, that line is..... okay we’re all agreed that dean is like. he is nothing if not a miserable little pile of lies. he is always saying the opposite of what he means and masking one feeling under another. it’s his defense mechanism. things he says, things like this, they’re him trying to convince himself/other people of one thing, while he believes another. 

the first thing he’s doing here is blaming himself. he is taking responsibility for both cas’ previous actions and his current state on his own shoulders. 

now, remember, this is an edlund episode. and given *waves hands* supernatural, i think one of the more coherent methods of analysis one can take wrt. the show is to view individual writers’ bodies of work as coherent canons within themselves, only semi connected with the show as a whole, because individual writers often have strong and conflicting portrayals of the characters. 

anyway ben edlund’s dean very much feels responsible for cas. like, obviously edlund wrote “the end,” and we have collectively made a delicious meal of the fact that the horror of that future for dean is that he’s ruined cas - that endverse cas is very much (if i may weave the text together for a moment) “fallen in every way imaginable,” and that it’s dean’s fault. but the end is not the only place this dynamic shows up. look at the man who would be king - “you're a friggin' child, you know that? just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!” dean is very much taking it as his responsibility to educate cas here, to teach him right from wrong. ben edlund's dean very much views cas primarily as a child he is responsible for. hell, the whole drama of the man who would be king is basically that cas did something without dean’s permission, which doesn’t make a ton of sense unless you think dean feels responsible for all of cas’ actions. like, this is the flip side of dean’s control complex - if it is dean’s moral duty to control everything going on around him, then everything that happens is his fault. if everything that happens is his fault, then it is his moral duty to control everything around him. they’re the same. 

this line is dean blaming himself for cas’ “brokenness,” since he’s the one who got cas to try to care. and certainly, the text is encouraging him to blame himself:

DEAN It's Sam's thing, isn't it? You taking on his, uh, cage-match scars. I'm guessing that's what broke your bank, right?

CASTIEL Well, it took... everything to get me here.

like, i don’t think cas is trying to fuck with dean’s head here? i don’t think even at the best of times cas is emotionally aware enough to hit on the perfect way to ruin dean’s entire month like this on purpose, and this is not the best of times. and cas i don’t think sees things as dean’s fault, he just sees himself as fallen, he doesn’t think dean pushed him. and a lot of things have happened to cas in the last four years, only some of them to do with dean. to cas, “everything” here means just that - everything. dean is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. hell, cas when cas says “everything” he is probably referencing like, his whole “god’s plan” thing here: quite literally the entire predestined machinations of the world. it’s very little to do with dean.

on the other hand, i’m always just on the edge of reading cas in reading is fundamental, specifically, as bitterly passive aggressive - “always happy to bleed for the winchesters” is such a vicious line it’s hard to believe he’s being sincere. sometimes in stories i can sort of... feel the narrative/author possessing a character and saying what they want to express, rather than what that character would actually say. sometimes i feel like “well, it took... everything to get me here” and “always happy to bleed for the winchesters” were less “authentic cas characterization” and more “ben edlund being a bitter casgirl.” 

but i digress. regardless of whether that exchange was in-character for cas, and whether it was sincere, the effect on dean it has is in-character: dean blames himself. 

and the whole “they don’t have the equipment to care” thing is on the one hand, dean blaming himself - he’s the one who tried to get cas to care in the first place. and on the other, dean trying (and failing) to convince himself that there’s nothing he could have done, that it isn’t his fault - cas’ brokenness is inherent to his angelic nature, that can’t be dean’s fault.

the other thing he’s trying to do here is dehumanize cas. 

he has a couple of reasons for doing this. the first is simply that he's angry. dehumanizing cas is an act of cruelty, and dean is being cruel because he's angry.

it makes sense that dean is angry. like, on one level, cas has done a bunch of fucked shit that dean has every right to be mad about. but that stuff is not imo the primary reason dean is angry. dean is angry because of his self-blame. dean is angry because he blames himself for both cas' actions and his current state, and he's mad at cas for making him hate himself. i know that's like five dimensional blame refraction, but welcome to the twisted mind of dean winchester.

so dean is angry, and he's dehumanizing cas as an act of cruelty because he's angry. but he's also dehumanizing cas because he doesn't want to be angry at cas anymore. he can't forgive cas (because he can't forgive himself and he blames himself for cas' actions), but he loves cas and doesn't want to be angry with him, so he dehumanizes him and strips him of agency in order to absolve him of responsibility.

that's what's happening in this line. and also, all that aside, the line doesn't even say cas doesn't have feelings! it says he does, and they've ruined him!