#I’m not saying I regret getting $1k worth of blood tests to SEE if it was anything else

[polyamorouspunk]

MRI is finished! It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be. The worst part was getting an IV, and that's just cause I have deep veins. And they let me listen to rock hits inside the machine too :3 overall a good experience

-🫐

Oh god I didn’t know there was an IV involved 🤮 nevermind I don’t need an MRI

[mittensmorgul]

I know there have been times in the series where people were in love with the idea of Cas giving up his grace for Dean or dying for him or making some other big sacrifice. And I just really really hate that idea? It reminds me too much of the unhealthy brodependency cycle. I don't want to see Cas become human like that, forced to under duress or making his ultimate life goal be about "bleeding for the Winchesters." We're getting past that. So I'm glad S10 didn't do the grace cure for example.

Hi there… I feel like I should make at least one disclaimer here before I even start to reply to this…

Disclaimer #1: I am not now, nor have I ever been in love with the idea of Cas giving up his grace FOR Dean, or dying FOR Dean. You used the words “forced” and “under duress.” You even referenced his line from 7.22 about “bleeding for the Winchesters.” Out of context that does sound really bad, and I’ll get to why below, but I really don’t get any of these objections to Cas giving up his grace, because they seem to ignore Cas’s own free will to make that choice for himself, you know? More on that in a second. First,

Disclaimer #2: Hi, I’m MittenWraith and you may remember me from such fanfic offerings as Revenge of the Subtext, which was essentially a rewrite of the end of s10 (that spared Charlie first off) and gave Cas the agency to CHOOSE to give up his grace, not because he was forced to, but because doing so (at the time in canon at the end of s10) also gave him everything he wanted– to be able to stay with Dean and NOT have to watch him murder the world, to finally free himself from the politics and feelings of duty to Heaven (which he’s since essentially declared his loyalty first to the Winchesters over and above Heaven… telling Kelvin to his face that he’s not doing any of this for any sort of redemption in Heaven, he doesn’t even care about that anymore, and referring to the Winchesters as his “family” and the other angels as his “men”). Cas has dissociated HIMSELF from Heaven of his own free will. To his way of thinking, using that grace to save Dean from an eternity of torment was merely a side benefit, you know?

I think we’re approaching this from two fundamentally different basic assumptions about Castiel. I’m not certain if there’s anything I can say that will help you see it from another angle here… but folks keep asking, so I’ll keep trying…

I started writing a thesis (I’m calling it that because it’s gonna be long, and structured like a doctoral dissertation. Hell, I might even write an abstract… it’s gonna be involved) on Castiel’s entire character arc as represented through his struggle for agency and free will against the blind obedience to Heaven that has been forcibly reprogrammed into angels who deviate from their orders. This is the lens through which all of Cas’s development has occurred. As for my thesis, it’s currently stalled out because writing deadlines for pinefest demand I work on that first, and I’ve only covered Cas’s first eight episodes out of 100 and already the paper is more than 1k, so clearly it’s gonna take an astounding amount of time that I just don’t have right now for me to actually research and write…

Point is, even in those first eight episodes (4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.07, 4.09, 4.10, 4.15, 4.16), this is already his main conflict as a character. Duty and obedience to heaven versus thinking for himself and doing what he personally feels is right. We see him push back against his orders in 4.18 giving Dean information that will help him “defy prophecy” for the first time, and then we see him attempt to make a complete break with Heaven in 4.20 only to be captured and dragged back for “angel boot camp.” When he returns to his vessel, he’s entirely back to Full Obedience Mode as a function of his grace having been tinkered with in Heaven. Anna lampshades just how horrible what was being done to him there really was, just as Dean lampshaded just how unhappy Anna was when she was given no other choice but to take her own grace back on in 4.10. Her free will, her choice to be human was taken away from her and she did “what she had to do.”

Worst. Phrase. On the show. Ever.

In 8.23 Cas may have had his grace taken from him against his will, but he tried to make the best of it. He struggled with his sudden humanity, but by 9.06 he’d made his peace with it.

CASTIEL: No, Dean. (He puts the box on the counter and turns to face DEAN.) I’m not. I failed at being an angel. Everything I ever attempted came out wrong. But here … at least I have a shot at getting things right. I guess you can’t see it, but … there’s a real dignity in what I do – human dignity.

His entire conversation with Ephraim underscores just how he feels now, and truly introduces this question for the first time:

EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It’ll be over soon. I’ll take the pain away.CASTIEL: I want to live.EPHRAIM: But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

(hey lookie there’s my tag for this entire concept…) but then there’s this:

EPHRAIM: You say you want to live. But you can’t see what I see. By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up. You … chose … death.

Because to Ephraim, who it’s been established has NO understanding of human pain, of human emotions at all, ANY pain is something worth killing over. Even a teenage girl being “sorta bummed” about her boyfriend breaking up with her. To him, ANY human emotions were a pain not worth suffering.

Meanwhile Cas had been doing everything in his power to SAVE HIMSELF, attempting to draw a banishing sigil in blood, cutting his hand on the rose thorns, until Dean managed to toss the angel blade to him and he could kill Ephraim before Ephraim killed him. Cas’s will to live was greater than his desire to only live as an angel. Even if he hadn’t fully chosen humanity for himself back then, he had passed step one of the test and chosen life.

This concept is underscored again when Cas describes to Sam why Dean would cling so hard to being a demon in 10.03:

SAM: What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human.CASTIEL: Well… I see his point. You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier.

Cas understands, because he’s experienced the same thing… he KNOWS the real joy and profound pain of being human now, and he also knows what it’s like to not be able to feel those things– not because he knows what it’s like to be a demon, but because he believes it’s similar enough to what it feels like being an angel. Now if that’s not horrifying, and if it doesn’t say bucketloads about Cas’s own personal regret about his own “I did what I had to do” moment in 9.09, in stealing Theo’s grace in what amounted to a sacrifice of his OWN humanity in order to save Dean… Tell me if ANY of this sounds like Cas is happy with this non-choice:

CASTIEL (on the phone) : Dean, I don’t have a lot of time, so listen. The leader of the opposition is an angel named Malachi.DEAN: How do you know that?CASTIEL: He had me. I, uh, I was tortured. But I got away.DEAN: How?CASTIEL: I… I did what I had to. I became what they’ve become. A barbarian.DEAN: What are you – Cas, where are you?CASTIEL: It’s better I stay away. They’re gonna want me even more now. But I’m gonna be all right. I… I got my Grace back. Well, not mine per se, but it’ll do.DEAN: Wait, you’re – you’re back? You got your mojo?CASTIEL: I’m not sure. But I am an angel.DEAN: And you’re okay with that?CASTIEL: If we’re going to war, I need to be ready.DEAN: (pause) Cas.CASTIEL: Dean. There’s more.DEAN: What?CASTIEL: Didn’t you say Sam was healed by an angel named Ezekiel?DEAN: Uh… Yeah, why?CASTIEL: Ezekiel is dead.DEAN: What?CASTIEL: He died when the angels fell.DEAN’s face has a very concentrated “oh this is bad” expression.

A VERY CONCENTRATED “OH THIS IS BAD” EXPRESSION

Under torture by Theo, Cas had asked for a quick death, until he heard that Ezekiel had died in the fall, and realized that Dean had trusted Ezekiel to help heal Sam… THIS INFORMATION WAS WORTH DOING “WHAT HE HAD TO DO” just to be sure that Sam and Dean were safe from this unknown angel that HE had personally vouched for… that we’ve just learned is actually Gadreel…

IT’S ALL A HUGE MESS.

To me, Cas’s decision to take on another angel’s grace was just as much of a non-choice as Metatron stealing his original grace had been. And to Cas, WHAT he is doesn’t necessarily matter as much as the fact that HE CHOSE IT FOR HIMSELF.

Every single time he’s done what he had to do, every time his agency’s been taken from him, the vehicle that made it possible was his grace.

He’s been asked over and over again for years if he’s really an angel (and been told to his face by numerous other angels that he ISN’T an angel anymore), he’s been called a tool and told he was only marginally useful… and yet he’s been called Family and welcomed unconditionally by the Winchesters. Mostly because they’re not FORCING him to be anything in particular, you know?

As to your “Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters” from 7.21, I’ve written a lot about Cas’s mental state in late s7 here, which goes a long way to give a fuller context to that line. Out of context, it sounds very different to seeing how it fits with the entire picture of Cas’s late s7 guilt. In a lot of ways, running away from his responsibility (think “I don’t fight I watch the bees” and constantly referring to himself and his actions in the third person, with “An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it.”). It took redeeming himself in some small measure by helping to send the Leviathan back to Purgatory in 7.23 for him to even BEGIN to integrate himself again… And then begins his depression/atonement arc that includes his ongoing battle with his own agency via his choice to remain in Purgatory, his complete loss of agency to Naomi, and then Metatron… this has ALWAYS been what has driven and defined Castiel’s narrative, and every bit of character development he’s ever experienced.

And it’s ALWAYS been tied to his identity as an angel and the very existence of his grace. And even HE has said that he doesn’t identify as an angel anymore or feel allied to Heaven, but like Demon Dean clinging to whatever it was that made him a demon because it was easier not to feel that pain, like Soulless Sam desperate to do anything to prevent himself from being reunited with his soul, Cas is still holding on to his grace in a similar way (narratively speaking).

(thing is, once Dean was cured of the Mark and once Sam was reunited with their soul, they were GRATEFUL not to have been left in that unfeeling state, you know? they’ll take the pain, because it beats “being a stepford bitch in paradise.”)

Cas believes he needs his grace to be “useful,” despite already beginning to understand how the Winchesters see him as family. I don’t believe that Cas will be given a “no choice” scenario in which he’ll feel compelled to sacrifice his grace in an emergency situation, as some sort of “throwing himself on a grenade” because he had no other choice. The entire POINT is that it would be his freely-made CHOICE.

No matter WHAT he chooses. I’m not saying he absolutely must give up his grace. I’m saying that every sign and every conflict that’s driven his narrative development over the last 9 seasons has been leading him along this path where eventually he WILL have that choice. And when that time comes, I believe that what he eventually will choose for himself (because he wants it) is to live out a human life with the Winchesters.

I am REALLY looking forward to 13.04, because I think we’re going to gain a LOT of insight into Cas’s current emotional/mental state. And HOW he comes back from his current state of not-aliveness is going to be key to understanding what’s in store for him over the next season. So until then, I’m going to stand by this analysis.