#dean meta

[dotthings]

Dean and Cas things in Hunter Heroici:

* Dean asking Cas if he’s going to open up a charming B&B in VT. It's the fact that Dean thinks about B&B in VT and Dean pictures Cas in a B&B in VT. Oh sure, he's joking but it's Dean's brain who chose this Hallmark movie concept for Cas and there is more than one moment in this episode where Cas is associated with romantic feelings around Dean. (See below)

* Dean insisting Cas doesn’t zap around, that he rides with him and Sam. Even if they won’t let him ride shotgun--this is a change to their usual way of doing things. Dean wants Cas in the car, with them. Not flying around on his own.

* Dean and Cas keep gravitating toward each other during the investigation, shoulder to shoulder, standing closer than they need to be, and bantering back and forth about the case, often leaning in to speak quietly about it only to each other.

* In one scene, Dean and Cas doing that about the suburban poly/open marriages arrangement going on among the neighbors (instance #2 of Cas associated with romance around Dean)

* Dean and Cas acting like they’ve been partnering up like this for years despite the awkwardness. They just click.

* Cas offering to watch over Dean so he can sleep

* Cas going through Dean’s toiletries bag in a familiar way

* same as with the refusing to let Cas ride shotgun, Dean sets the boundary of asking if Cas will get his own room. Yet Dean keeps placing himself with Cas. There's a push-pull coming from Dean of wanting Cas there and wanting to be as near Cas as he can be and yet Dean also trying to figure out the newness of it and how Cas fits. Wanting to be close, not ready to get too close yet. It's not hard to see this as part of an ongoing courtship (playing out on a symbolic, subtextual, or coded way). Inching closer and closer. It’s also that they found a certain closeness in Purgatory, after a period of estrangement, and now post-Purgatory the rules and dynamics all changed up again and they have to relearn how to work together on earth.

* Sam goes off with the police detective while Dean and Cas keep working the case at the bank together. Dean asks Cas if he can lift the anvil, and the expression on Cas’s face is pure tired husband eyeroll: plz, you know perfectly well I can lift this.

* Cas paging through John’s journal and observing he had beautiful handwriting. Something very intimate about Dean and Cas in this ep—Cas up inside Dean’s life and personal spaces in a new way

* Dean asking Cas how he’s doing, saying he’s happy he’s back, “thrilled” even, but worried about resurrection consequences and then Cas abruptly shutting down, putting up walls. Dean snapping the laptop shut in a sharp closing gesture, but as he stands up to go over to Cas, looking for an opening. Sitting down with Cas and being very direct: “talk to me." Dean's emotional IQ is in fact very high and Cas starts to open up about his trauma and confesses to Dean he's afraid he might kill himself if he returns to Heaven. As Dean is processing that, they’re interrupted by Sam returning. In this scene, Sam becomes the intrusion.

* Dean looking so fondly at Cas when the old lady, who mistook Cas for her very handsome late husband, flirtatiously calls him “quite the bounder” (instance #3 of Cas associated with romance or sex in front of/around Dean)

* At the end of the case, Dean is so proud about the good work Cas did and he offers Cas the shotgun seat—and Cas declines because he realizes he needs to face up to Heaven. Then gets mind-controlled by Naomi into going neither to Heaven nor with Sam and Dean. We see Dean’s disappointment—he wants Cas with him, and Cas so often is running away, getting lost, and Dean with his abandonment issues is so often the one being left. Cas does need to deal with Heaven for his own sake, but all Cas’s roads will lead him back to Dean—who is the one Cas really needs to stop running from the most.

[thefableddestiel]

“Something always goes wrong”

“Yeah, why does that something always seem to be you?”

This but it means like, Dean could’ve ignored his sexuality if it wasn’t for Cas. Dean could’ve stayed in hell like he deserved if Cas hadn’t pulled him out. Dean wouldn’t have had to experience losing the love of his life time and time again if Cas just hadn’t come along.

[deanwasalwaysbi]

Dean's nothing about our lives is real speech? When he says "everything we are is because of chuck"? He was speaking privately & directly to Castiel when he said that.

Not to Sam. Not everything I am. Everything we are. Dean was having a full on crisis.

"You asked, 'What about all of this is real?' We are." Dean didn't know how right Cas was.

Like no baybee. It'll take 15 episodes, but god himself will tell you Cas defied him and his plan to love you, actually.

[princessmadelines]

DEAN WINCHESTER : HOW TO BECOME THE 21ST CENTURY MARLBORO MAN

Do you want to be become The Man? Do you dream of being the perfect Action Hero? That's easy enough, kid! All you need is your Father's leather jacket, his vintage muscle car, and his cassette collection. And if that isn't enough, look no further than 80s action movies. Save the day, get the girl... yes, it's that easy! Just follow the script, and you'll be the perfect Red-blooded American Man.

or a study of dean's performance of masculinity

[t00muchheart]

season 4 dean and cas are so 🤌 🤌

just… cas saw dean stripped bare of his defenses and at his lowest and touched his soul to raise him, his voice ringing out that dean winchester had been saved, and at the same moment, cas was lost to the angels because his path had changed course.

and as a result, cas knows more ABOUT dean than almost anyone at this point, he has seen past all the lies and masks dean uses to the truth of him, BUT he doesn’t KNOW him, really, because he lacks a fundamental understanding of how people work and what drives them. and it just becomes the two of them tearing down each others’ perceptions of the world, dean showing cas what it really means to have humanity and how significant emotions are while cas teaches dean that he’s worth the effort that went into saving him

[freakwiththeknifecollection]

Jo is a Dean mirror, but not in the way people think like their stories being the same, but in a literal sense of the word like bizarro world. Dean lost his mom and was raised (I use that term extremely loosely) by his dad, Jo lost her dad and was raised by her mom. Dean never got to be a kid and was forced to grow up too fast, Jo was always treated like a kid and never allowed to grow up. John brought Dean into hunting, while Ellen kept Jo out of it. Dean was in the hunting life and only wanted a normal life, Jo had a normal life and only wanted to hunt. Etc. They're both twisted but in different directions

[calibrationneeded]

Tdlr: me projecting onto Dean probably lmao

It’s hard to articulate, which I think is ironic once you read this post, but I think that Dean isn’t emotionally stunted or unaware of his own thoughts and feelings but the exact opposite.

Dean has spent a absurd amount of time by himself driving in his car or just during the Stanford era, that in itself makes it pretty hard to not be familiar through your own thoughts and feelings. being someone who spent a lot of time alone in my adolescence I am very familiar with myself on an internal level and I think Dean is probably the same way, not to mention the fact that he has demonstrated a very large amount of emotional intelligence towards characters, especially in the early seasons when he’s empathizing with children. 

What i think Dean struggles with is the ability to articulate the way he’s feeling because of the depth in which he understands his own internal workings. How do you condense a whole series of novels to a word and still keep the level of impact? How do you condense everything you are down into a bite sizable introduction to give to a person so that they don’t horribly misunderstand who you are? It’s easier just pretend to be what people think you are so you don’t have to risk being misunderstood or becoming so vulnerably raw with people.

The same thing goes for things like identity and sexuality in this context because I think to some degree Dean is aware that he is not straight, I don’t think that it is a thought in the forefront of his mind, because often times when you have a moment of realization that you are something that is going to complicate your life and possibly cause you to lose relationships and make people look at you differently, sometimes it’s easier to just put it on the back burner and pretend it doesn’t exist. There’s a special kind of denial that I myself have also experienced where if you just ignore something with enough intensity, you can convince everyone of something, including yourself to some extent. 

That’s part of the beauty about his friendship and relationship in general with Cas. Cas see through all of the bullshit and because he rebuilt Dean he has a better chance of understanding the million layers of fucked up performance he puts in

[im-some-lionheart]

have we talked yet about how 90% of what makes dean so fucking brain-rot inducing isn't even in who he is written to be, as a character, but rather in how this character was so powerful he literally possessed jensen ross ackles into doing a series of subtle jacting joices that gave dean a depth no CW network character should ever dream of having.

Dean's appeal isn't in jackles beautiful face or in the stories the writers gave him.

it's in the way his eyes are out of focus and he shakes his head when he says "and when dad got home... ". it's in the wink and the little smile he gives Cas when he says "I got laid". it's in how flustered he gets when aaron hits on him. it's in the way his shoulders tense the second John comes into frame after being all soft with Mary at the door. It's in his decision to pick up the trenchcoat from the floating water.

there's so much power in these little things Dean just does subconsciously. Dean is the only character I've ever seen who just is and as much of a wonderful actor as jensen is, I don't even think he is aware of it most of the time. and that's why it's so beautiful.

Dean just is. And Jensen just does the things Dean would do. But I just know he wasn't planning and practicing Dean's pose change when he saw John. He just did it. Because that's what Dean would do, subconsciously. But the key is in the fact that it's not intentional. It's not like he sat down with the writers and director of the episode to decide what was the best pose change for Dean in this moment. It's not planned or strategized like that. If it were, Dean would have been just another character. But he isn't. In several ways he feels real. Because Jensen isn't acting, he's just letting Dean live through him. And every thing he does adds another layer of meaning to his trauma and who he is.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

Thinking about Dean's motif of corruption. "The very touch of you corrupts". Heaven, and Dean himself, see this corruption as rot. Hellfire. Moral decay, and, inevitably, destruction.

However, "corruption" can have other meanings, especially when defined by spn's (or most modern versions of) Heaven. "The very touch of you corrupts" when Cas first touched Dean, something took root. Dean's love, his protectiveness, the rugged life he was more or less forced into, his stubborn insistence, against all odds and in all circumstances, to prioritize family, food, hearth, a safe place to sleep and a planet that won't fall apart on him. Those roots spread- but not in any evil sense.

Tree roots.

Strong and unrelenting and vibrantly green, fed on tears, soil, blood, ash and salt, and on red meat and love. Wriggling through the cracks in Cas' celestial being, curling around the divine light and leaving rich earth behind it. Is it corruption? Is it decay? Yes. But nothing, angel or demon or antichrist or anything else, that Dean touches can help but become a creature of Earth. Most humans don't notice, humans are already Earthly beings, and most monsters are as well. Angels though?

Heaven and Hell are two sides of the same coin. The opposite of both is Earth- Earth with no care given to an afterlife, kindness and love existing for its own sake, no hypotheticals. Dirt, rot, messiness, food, hunger, tiredness, laughter, love.

and that scares the SHIT out of Heaven

they've seen angels fall, either living as humans or truly Falling, their grace charred and covered by hellfire

they've never seen one turn into a physical being before. even an angel reborn as a human is still an angel. Cas isn't becoming human. He's still an angel, but-

if the other angels can see the roots piercing through his true form, churning through grace like a sapling in new soil

what other word would they have but "corruption"?

(obligatory SAM IS NOT EXCEMPT FROM THIS. HE'S ALSO WEIRD THIS WAY follow-up bc yall will just hate Sam for no reason istg)

[emeraldsummers]

Smoker!Dean headcanons (aka if Dean was a smoker throughout the series)

As a teenager, Dean would smoke whenever he could get his hands on a cigarette, but it was pretty rare. Money was too tight to buy them, and it wasn't worth the risk of stealing them, but occasionally, Dean was able to trade for loose cigarettes. He loved the head rush and loved feeling like an adult.

Pre-series, Dean didn't start smoking in earnest until he started doing hunts without his father. John didn't like the smoking, so Dean hid it from him. Still, money was tight, so Dean only smoked a few cigarettes a day at most. His favourite thing in the world was being whiskey buzzed and sharing a cigarette with a girl.

Dean never, ever smoked inside the Impala.

Seasons 1-2 Dean is still smoking a few cigarettes per day, properly addicted at this point, and irritable when he isn't able to get a smoke break. Sam is constantly bugging him to quit, and Dean pretends he could quit any time he wants to. Sam gets non-smoking motel rooms whenever he can, which annoys the hell out of Dean.

Season 3, with the demon deal looming, Dean starts smoking more now, and by the end of the season, he is fully chain smoking regularly. Sam finds it gross but generally allows it to slide because he knows Dean needs it.

Season 4, Dean comes back from Hell with zero physical dependence on nicotine and decides to treat it like a fresh start. He doesn't smoke. He uses his experience with smoking to try (and fail) to empathize with Sam's blood addiction.

Season 5, Dean starts smoking when he's drunk, which turns into smoking when he's stressed, which by the end of the season, when he almost says "yes" to Michael, turns into him smoking all of the time again.

When he lives with Lisa and Ben, he tries to quit for their sake, but he still sneaks a cigarette outside on really bad nights. Lisa pretends not to notice.

Season 6, the smoking continues, but not as heavy as season 5. Sam is actively annoyed about it at this point, and Dean has long stopped finding smoking to be fun.

Season 7, as Dean spirals downwards after Cas' betrayal, he smokes much more heavily. It's starting to affect him physically, especially without Cas to heal him. He starts saying things like, "I'm getting too old for this." Since he isn't able to drive the Impala for most of the season, he smokes in the cars they steal, which really bothers Sam.

In Purgatory, Dean has no choice but to quit cold turkey, which is miserable, and once he's home, he continues that streak into seasons 8 and 9, his longest smoke-free period.

Unfortunately, demon!Dean picks up smoking again, and even when he's cured, smoking becomes one of his coping mechanisms for quelling the Mark.

Seasons 11 and 12, he struggles with trying to quit, going anywhere from days to months at a time without smoking before falling back into it. When Cas dies at the end of season 12, he begins chainsmoking again along with regularly getting black-out drunk, and Sam really worries for his brother's health.

After Cas returns in season 13, Dean begins working to quit again in earnest, creating a system with Sam, Cas, and Jack's help. This time, it sticks through the end of the series, but Dean does heavily consider starting up again as he spirals towards the end of season 15.

Post-series Dean is trying to maintain being smoke-free, especially since Cas is gone and Jack is hands-off. He knows any damage he does will be permanent this time, and he doesn't particularly feel like dying of cancer. But it turns out the boredom of the world not ending is worse for his cravings than the stress was. He starts smoking weed, trying to convince himself it's a proper substitute, but eventually, he just smokes weed because he likes it.

[sweetpapercroissant]

“dean winchester is a misogynist because he lies to women to get them to sleep with him and therefore clearly doesn’t respect them”

then you actually watch the show and every time dean sleeps with a woman he’s soft and there’s a gentleness even in his passion and he always makes sure his partner’s satisfied/comfortable and he does form genuine connections with the women he sleeps with even if he lies about his name and job (which is completely understandable and actually the sane thing to do considering most of america knows him as a serial killer and there’s not a lot of people around who’d bother talking to a guy who claims he hunts monsters for a living) (or for fun ig since there’s not a lot of ‘living’ in this profession) and he spends time getting to know them and offers the little bits of himself that he can and most of the time that dean has sex with a woman he sleeps over and they see him off in the morning with a goodbye kiss and genuine affection for him and if they ever run into him again they’re clearly fond and look back on their shared memories with satisfaction if nothing else and. this is the guy who doesn’t respect women? how? by believing they are adults who can want and enjoy a night of sex with no strings attached (something he’s always straightforward about btw)?? and more importantly it’s always consensual and they like him as a person and they’re clearly both enthusiastic about it (in fact there’s actually instances where dean isn’t completely enthusiastic but never the other way around).

also any time he’s been in a serious relationship where he was going to be a part of the other person’s life he tells them the whole truth, about hunting and monsters and his role in it and what being with him would entail. so i’d say he respects women just fine but maybe you need to seriously evaluate why you feel having casual sex with women is inherently disrespectful of them.

not to mention that the sex does mean something to him. even if he didn’t it wouldn’t be “wrong” or “misogynistic” to want to have sex with a woman without a relationship BUT. the sex does mean something to him. because he craves intimacy and human contact and affection and being liked and wanted and so often when he’s going through something he’ll open up to these women (jaime, anna) and they’re willing to listen to him without judgment and they’re gentle with him, with his grief, his trauma and the sex is a way for him to connect on a deeper level with them and it helps him and he’s spent almost his entire life isolated from society and can’t form long lasting relationships for much of his childhood and youth but he actually cares about them as human beings and he feels affection for them and it fulfills his desire for tenderness that he can’t expect from anyone else. and there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

[dotthings]

The Sam v Dean drama in Torn and Frayed -- Dean apologies for the fake text, Sam has yet to apologize for how he's behaved about Benny, and while I understand Sam and his insecurities and why he's being a controlling little brother with a 'tude...Dean is much more able to admit when he's wrong. And Sam has yet to give a solid reason why it's so impossible for him to give Benny any benefit of the doubt at all, while Dean is telling the whole truth about Benny and his innocence, as Sam just keeps brick walling Dean about it.

When Sam is being honest and communicating effectively is when he tells Dean exactly why the fake text from Amelia was so upsetting to him and it's because of the fear of losing people they love and something that Sam knows Dean has a fear of as well, so for Dean to do that to Sam, Sam felt that was too much. Which is fair. Note that this is the reason--the fear of losing loved ones, which is very real for both brothers.

Amelia insists Sam give up his other life entirely--without her knowing anything about it. And I think that's what doomed it. Note by contrast, Lisa offered Dean an inbetween, she dismissed the absolute, the either/or. They can make their own rules. Dean and Lisa did make that work for a time and had a better chance therefore than Sam and Amelia because there was no in between or compromise offered.

Sam on his part could also have told Amelia the truth about his life and given her a chance to respond and decide if she wanted to give it a try. But I think how Amelia spoke about Sam having to be all in or all out signaled to Sam that Amelia wouldn't have handled the truth well. I don't think he was guessing wrong on that, because Amelia seems like she wouldn't be able to handle bringing that into her life. Lisa seemed more willing to make adjustments and try to roll with it so long as there were some boundaries. Remember that the reason Lisa kicked Dean out wasn't because they couldn't make that balance work, it's because she didn't know Dean had been turned into a vampire and was protecting Ben from himself when Dean shoved Ben away. If Dean had told Lisa the truth, they would have had more of a chance. But Amelia...she doesn't seem in any way ready for all that. Even though she does love Sam.

So Sam and Amelia needed each other when they found each other but it isn't something that was sustainable.

With Benny, I cannot a single reason why Dean had to cut Benny off fully except there had to be drama for plot reasons. It's straining credulity a little, tbh. Benny fits in Dean's weird hunting life, he doesn't ask for much, he's not demanding Dean give up anything, he just wants a friend to talk to once in a while.

So I don't think Dean made the right call there and Sam was in fact pressuring Dean so hard about it and being so controlling and rigid about the Benny issue, so Dean felt like he had to give up Benny as a concession to Sam, while Sam dropped Amelia. It doesn't feel right. Sam going with Amelia would have fully upended their lives. Dean keeping Benny as a friend would not. It's not an even trade.

Torn and Frayed is the most depressing episode of S8. Cas in the wind back to Heaven, Benny cut off, Amelia ditched.

I don't think canon intends this to be the bestest thing ever. The last moments of the ep are depressing--even the music is conveying misery, and Sam and Dean look deflated and grim. I don't even feel like they chose each other for each other, they chose each other for the sake of the mission. Duty. Because of the high stakes of what they're up against and so they have to sacrifice everything for the team. And Dean gets pressured and boxed in to an absolute when it wasn't even necessary, to prove...what. That he loves Sam? He's loyal to Sam? How much more chunks of flesh does Dean have to rip off to prove that?

Nothing about this is saying they're happy, nothing about it says they don't care about Cas or Benny or Amelia. I'm not going at canon here, the canon intent is to explore these issues and is being self-critical and showing the costs. It's not that it's wrong for Sam and Dean to remain a team, but the canon is absolutely not showing this as their only happiness or that the only thing Sam and Dean care about is each other. It's sad because it's supposed to be sad. It's complicated.

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

sometimes you watch late seasons supernatural and you're like yeah okay the colours are bright and i feel no fear and the only person trying is jensen ackles. other times you watch late seasons supernatural and you are vibrating in your fucking seat because dean winchester says something as insane as i'm furious. to know that all my life, i've been nothing but a hamster in a wheel, stuck in a story. and it ain't just me. we're all trapped. sam and cas and jack and even you. and he's saying it to god's sister as she's paying the bill in a shitty restaurant

[wheretosearchforsnow]

Destiel in Season 4 and 5 of Supernatural and Death of God

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s well-known phrase “God is dead,” introducing the idea of the missing God, laid the foundation for one of the most important topics in the 20th century Existentialist Movement. The possibility of God’s non-existence means that everything that is possible to happen can happen, and if everything is allowed, how can man choose? How can man know how to live? If everything is allowed, can we define right from wrong?

Such questions are asked on Supernatural, with the character Castiel first appearing at the end of the first episode in the fourth season, which marked the series’ introduction of Christian mythology as a central them ever since. Castiel, an Angel of the Lord, initially shows complete devotion to God and identifies as servant of heaven:

CASTIEL: We have no choice. DEAN: Of course you have a choice. I mean, come on, what? You’ve never questioned a crap order, huh? What are you both, just a couple of hammers? CASTIEL: Look, even if you can’t understand it, have faith. The plan is just. SAM: How can you even say that? CASTIEL: Because it comes from heaven, that makes it just. - 4.07 It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

This argument on the morality behind the act of “purifying a city” or “taking one thousand two hundred fourteen lives” between Castiel and the Winchesters is not dissimilar with Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard’s discussion on Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. When Abraham was told that as a result of God's will that he must sacrifice his son Isaac, he was in a kind of either-or. If the message is genuinely from God, then he must sacrifice Isaac and it is the right thing to do; but if the message is not from God, then he would be committing what would be the very worst possible crime judged on the basis of Abraham's own view of human ethics.

The dichotomy here, between Castiel’s and Dean’s rationales, is that while the former believes there is a God and God and religion (in other words, heaven’s plan for earth) are the most important things, and man must do nothing but obey heaven’s command, the latter insists that there is no God and it is for man to take the total burden of responsibility for the world and for himself upon his own shoulders, with no one to give him any sign.

Though the former seems to suggest a lack of agency or necessity for decision making in moral judgement, as the plot unfolds, we see Castiel demonstrate a sense of uncertainty, the very secret he voices in the conversation with Dean in the episode’s epilogue.

CASTIEL: I’m not a… hammer as you say. I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months you will have more decisions to make. I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders, Dean. I truly don’t. - 4.07 It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

This mirrors Kierkegaard’s Abraham in his questions on God’s will. Indeed, how is one to know whether the command is from God or not? If an angel speaks to him, how does Abraham know it's not a hallucination? And if God himself speaks, how is Abraham, or Castiel, to know whether this is really God or whether the command is their own inward evil wishes? Nobody but Abraham, or Castiel, can decide and they cannot tell within his life whether he has done the right thing or not.

Perhaps it is this introspective nature in Castiel that draws him close to Dean, the human in his charge, and by implication humanity. Dean, a firm non-believer and what many, including himself, perceive to be as farthest from being servant of God as possible, detests the idea of God even in face of angels walking the earth.

DEAN: God? CASTIEL: Yes. DEAN: God. CASTIEL: Yes! He isn't in heaven. He has to be somewhere. DEAN: Try New Mexico. I hear he's on a tortilla. CASTIEL: No, he's not on any flatbread. DEAN: Listen, Chuckles, even if there is a God, he is either dead—and that's the generous theory— CASTIEL: He is out there, Dean. DEAN: —or he's up and kicking and doesn't give a rat's ass about any of us. CASTIEL glares. DEAN: I mean, look around you, man. The world is in the toilet. We are literally at the end of days here, and he's off somewhere drinking booze out of a coconut. All right? - 5.02 Good God, Y'all

Dean has no intention of trying to prove that God does not exist, as one cannot prove a negative, but the very specific objection to the traditional concept of God above parallels with the simple objection in many existentialists work that is based upon the injustice of the universe. Albert Camus has given this same type of criticism in his novel, "The Plague", in which the priest, Padalu, confesses that he is not able to understand how there can be any justification so that even eternal paradise could cancel out the sufferings here on earth of one innocent child. Why, Deans asks, if God is all powerful, does man have to suffer? If God is merciful, then how can he sentence man, any man at all to eternal damnation?

There is an optimistic side to this. As the repetitive occurrence of the term “free will” on this show suggests, if God exists, man is nothing; but if God does not exist, then man is free to choose what he wants to make himself. But for Castiel to arrive at this destination, it first takes him to undergo a two-season long crisis.

ANNA: What do you want from me, Castiel? CASTIEL: I'm considering disobedience. ANNA nods. ANNA: Good. CASTIEL: No, it isn't. For the first time, I feel... ANNA: It gets worse. Choosing your own course of action is confusing, terrifying. ANNA puts her hand on CASTIEL's shoulder. He looks at it; she drops it. ANNA: That's right. You're too good for my help. I'm just trash. A walking blasphemy. ANNA turns to walk away. CASTIEL: Anna. ANNA stops. CASTIEL: I don't know what to do. Please tell me what to do. ANNA turns back. ANNA: Like the old days? No. I'm sorry. It's time to think for yourself. - 4.16 On the Head of a Pin

If God isn’t out there, then Castiel has nowhere to turn. This dreadful realization may best be articulated through Hazel Barnes’ analogy that as if one would try to judge a Ford car without any Mr. Ford. So long as there is a Mr. Ford or one of his agents, then one has a model, one has a blueprint and one can say that the car which is coming there off the assembly line is a perfect Ford or an imperfect Ford. But without a plan, one cannot judge a car, and without God, there is no plan for Castiel and there is no final point of reference by which he can judge his values, or right or wrong, or declare that he has lived up to his possibilities or not lived up to his possibilities.

Yet despite “choosing your own course of action” being “confusing, terrifying,” Castiel is not in total despair. Dean, the human equivalent of the burden of a self-creative life, provides reference for Castiel on how to live a life as if there were no God. I have concluded thus that in the context of existentialism Castiel seeks Dean and humanity for answers and view them as his destination.

Note: this article is MOSTLY arguments in Hazel Barnes’ Self Encounter 2: The Far Side of Despair.

[t00muchheart]

John in 1x20 apologizing to Sam for stopping being a Dad at some point and becoming a drill sergeant, letting the mission become everything, and then immediately getting sucked back into that mission and not understanding why Sam didn’t kill him to get to Azazel in 1x22, framing it as I thought you of all people would understand, because when Sam told him that they were alike, that they understood each other, he accepted that Sam was all in, at any cost

VERSUS Dean seeing that Sam is in at all costs and reminding him that his life has worth too, telling him that just because they couldn’t get back the people they lost didn’t mean they needed to lose more people. When John tells Sam to kill him the scene is framed as Sam being ready to do it until Dean’s appeal convinces him not to, and Sam looking back at Dean before telling John that family is more important emphasizes that it is Dean holding things together, like he has since he was a child.

Because when John stopped being a dad and became a drill sergeant, Dean stopped being just a brother and became a dad.

[theboykingsmichaelsword]

having freshly rewatched supernatural imagine my surprise when i see teen!dean asking wtf yarrow is in s10e12 about a boy and sam having to explain not only what it is but what its used for

when way back in s2e8 aka the iconic crossroad blues not only was dean the one who noticed the yarrow first(even if he couldn't think of the name) he was also already aware that they're significant in occult practices

you know

in case you needed proof of how inconsistent spn's writing is and/or the later seasons' writing team's commitment to the dumbification of dean winchester