#dean/cas + separated by the narrative and sad about it

[shallowseeker]

DEAN and CASTIEL at the bar. Cas drops his drunken act once SAM is out of earshot. CASTIEL: (clears throat) I, um, I noticed you look... kind of uncomfortable whenever Sam mentions my leaving. Doesn't he know that you told me to leave? DEAN, trying to tell him as much as he can: Here's the deal. When Sam was doing the trials to seal up Hell, it messed him up. Okay? The third one nearly killed him. If I'd let him finish, it would have. He's still messed up, bad. CASTIEL: You said the angel, Ezekiel, helped heal him. DEAN (looks down, avoiding the question): Look, I got to do anything I can to get him back. Now, if that means that we keep our distance from you for a little while, then... Then I don't have a choice. I don't feel good about it, but I don't have a choice. It's great to have your help, Cas. Okay, but we just can't work together. CAS looks sad.

///

Dean is begging Cas to pick up what he's putting down. This is a thinly veiled distress signal. If only Cas could've picked it up and done the whole, "And is this...Ezekiel in the room with us right now?"

Also, Dean said, "for a little while." And Cas looks sad, because even a little while feels too long.

GUYS. YOU SAID YOURSELVES. TEMPORARY. Like it's a known thing between them, the temporariness of it. Sam wouldn't be sick forever, after all.

Dorks.

[bi-lullaby]

I love talking about SPN with you! Tough challenge if you're up for it: rank all 15 seasons from your personal favorite to least favorite, no ties allowed :) Have fun!

Oh dear. What a predicament you’ve put me in!

1. 1 (solid choice, me thinks. The vibes are Unparalleled. Introduced me to the LOML, Dean. Their early dynamics? Figuring out who they are, who the other is, who their family is? ugh. My heart. Also super interesting MootW episodes, charismatic, the cinematography deserves it’s own spot in the list, we feel like the Winchesters: operating from a shadowed world that’s interwoven with ours but also separate)

2. 2 (still the same vibes of the first but also angrier? there’s findings and secrets and an overachieving trama of trauma and family and grief and deep wounds from the past and revenge and worry. love it)

3. 4 (It makes me angry, sad, happy, hopeful, devastated, all of that at once and then more. I feel it’s one of the most fundamental stories to the plot of everything that comes later and it sets what came before against a solid background of the whole angels/demons/apocalypse/vessels/fate narrative, sets up a lot of the lore, it’s just genuinely good and enjoyable. Great television.)

4. 5 (The world is ending and we have no hope to stop it and yet we will? ugh. Also the reconnection of the boys. Fighting so hard for a goal that seems impossible and finding their way back tot he other. I feel this is when Cas becomes more friend than ally, which is lovely. The longing, the grief, the guilt, the horror, the hopeless and yet that doesn’t take away their fight in the end. Also In the End and Dark Side of The Moon are just. Spectacular. This one gets me every time)

5. 3 (so much angst. so much uncertainty. The unknowns. I feel this one isn’t higher only bc I watched already knowing the outcome or most of it in a way, bc I knew Dean would be alive and well for years to come bc I started when spn was further along, but for fans who watched on time? must have been a punch to the stomach).

6. 8 (I hadn’t realized how much I loved season 8 until today lol, lots of annoyances and grievances but still I enjoy and analyze it to death. I love love love Purgatory, the dynamics of the Purgatory Trio, BENNY, Kevin as a bigger character, the animosity between Sam and Dean (srsly, I think all the fics I have written mention/deal with this issue bc I’m just fascinated by both their headspaces in this and how it impacts them going forward. The trials are interesting although I felt they were a bit mishandled, and of course the many fallouts from it.)

7. 9 (same initial comment as season 8 tbh. I feel like early seasons dean is hanging on by a thread to the very end of his rope (trauma, pain, grief, etc etc) but he is hanging in there, ya know? And he wants to fight and he knows his whys. then as the years go on and the losses pile on and the pains and the more and more he’s backed into impossible corners he loses the will to hang on and I think this season is the one where we see in look at that rope and go “and why the fuck am I holding on to this?” and it’s painful and heartbreaking but also makes you cheer him on and wish for him to fet through this. I like the Bunker being a more established home base for them. I enjoy Abbadon and Metraton as antagonists although I do feel they ended up… Underwhelming? Underexplored? And Dean’s is one of my ‘favorite’ deaths the boys had. It’s so impactful and poignant.

8. 12 (I almost put it lower but alas, so many Dean/Dean-Mary dynamics moments I could not. Not the biggest fan of the BMoL but I see where they were going. I think bringing Mary back was a move that could have gone horribly wrong and in a sense I feel like it maybe wasn’t the most thematically consistent? but it allowed for fun explorations of many characters. Also, Regarding Dean is off the charts good.)

9. 6 (ohh the drama. the fallout. the would’ves should’ves could’ves. I have a love-hate relationship with soulless!sam that tends more towards love but overall a great one. I miss Lisa, there, I said it. I loved them together. I wanted them to remain that way. I loved seeing Dean be turned into a vamp, also.)

10. 10 (not much to say. I adore MoC and all about it, but I do wish some things were better handled/had more impact/were more thought out/better shown etc. Overall, great idea, not my favorite execution).

11. 11 (again, love parts, don’t love others so much. I will say, in my “dean lets go of his rope” analogy, this one is where I think he’s slowly starting to climb out of the hole he’s fallen into and see “his whys” more clearly again).

12. 7 (idk why people seem to hate 7 so much? I can’t say it’s supper impacting but it has it’s positives. And Bobby’s death! It’s so impactful, it’s genuinely a mark of splitting eras in my mind.)

13. 14. (Michael!Dean my dearest of dears. You were not here for long enough. Makes me angry and a little bitter but also great moments).

14. 13 (if you put a gun to my head I can’t recall season 13 specifically? felt like a “bridge” season ig, and I just… Don’t enjoy Jack. I know many people do, and you do you, absolutely! But he just felt like a shoehorned in deus ex machina wrapped in Cas’s more cute mannerisms and I just never connected with him or really enjoyed him as part of the family or the themes that followed his appearance).

15. (will never accept, will never like, will never enjoy, the ending is responsible for 97% of the hate for the whole season but tbh the forced “ohh look we’re meeetaaaa! it’s the lasssst sssseassssonnn” in your face level of annoyance didn’t make it all that great either. No but srsly don’t even get me started on the ending. I could spend an hour just incoherently babbling and crying and still not get my dislike across correctly).

This was quite tough, really. Thanks for the brain teaser, dearie!

[angelinthefire]

@restlesshush's replies:

The meanspiritedness of those early scenes is precisely the thing though: like, if gamble wanted us to root for cas and dean reconciling, she’d be framing cas as much more sympathetic than she does, and she’d be framing it as sad that cas and dean are currently on bad terms.

Instead, what she does is show cas refusing to fight and trying to distract from his importance to the mission in a succession of juvenile ways that we’re definitely supposed to be irritated by, while other people (mostly – but not exclusively – dean) are mean to him about it.

And then the way “I’d rather have you…” functions as a payoff of that is that Dean has succeeded in getting cas to join the fight again, and cas has finally given in to the pressure that’s been mounted on him all episode, instead of continuing to try and distract from it.

I do think it would be a Better episode of television if that scene was supposed to function as an emotional centrepiece reconciliation that had been built up to in earlier scenes where the audience was encouraged to feel sympathy towards cas by the writing rather than just by misha’s acting, but it isn’t, its point is Cas agreeing to fight again.

The main purpose of the episode is just “how do we wrap up the leviathan arc” rather than doing anything interesting with the characters as individuals, and so Cas’s relevance to gamble is largely just how he can serve that end.

(unfortunately, because it would be a better episode of television otherwise, but I do think that's what was going on)

This is honestly such a strange debate for me, and I think it's because we're coming at it with very different assumptions so I'm just going to lay out how I understand this.

The sad thing about the episode is that Cas is even behaving like that in the first place.

The meanspiritedness is not towards Cas specifically. It's ablism in general. It's a lack of sensitivity and seriousness towards mental illness. Cas is magic-TV-crazy, he's a genre-TV trope that is used for comedy/artfulness/tragedy/etc. but not a super-serious exploration of mental illness.

Obviously I prefer Edlund's writing to Gamble's. But I don't think we can 100% separate Gamble and Edlund's treatment of Cas. They worked together closely developing the season. They are both writing magic-TV-crazy. They are both, frankly, being ableist about it. The difference is that Edlund's job was to write a character-centric episode, and Gamble's job was to wrap up the season. Gamble was picking up from where Edlund left off. The difference between them, to me, is that Gamble is not as arty as Edlund is, and she has kind of a shitty sense of humour. The main point about this, however, is that the understanding of Cas that Edlund built has to be carried over into Gamble's episode. And that Gamble is competent enough to know that and she doesn't have to retread the same ground that he already established.

I think Gamble is a competent writer (though I disagree with her showrunning) and I think she understands the audience to a certain degree (not enough to not kill off Cas in the first place, but to a certain degree. Particularly after the backlash she got. She wrote the trenchcoat scene, she knew what the audience wanted and expected). And I think it would be fair to assume that the audience is already rooting for reconcilliation with minimal setup on her part. And that was the case, factually. And I think the general audience, who wasn't engaged in an online war during s7, could be expected to simply want Cas to get back to normal, to kicking ass and being amusingly awkward, and that's something that the writers would have had in mind too.

Cas' main crime, narratively, that he had to win back a portion of the audience from, was not anything to do with the leviathans. It was the fact that he hurt Sam. Which he had already attoned for by taking on Sam's trauma. That was the important thing.

Cas' madness was not a character flaw. It was a punishment. If he was cringy and undignified, it was because he was being punished for hurting Sam (and everything else to a lesser degree, but mostly Sam). This was very clear at the time and there was discourse about the ablism of it. Obviously I hate the execution of it, but narratively, Cas did need to face consequences for hurting Sam in order to be fully welcomed back into the story.

The main obstacle in the episode is not Cas' madness, or that he's being annoying or distracting. The main obstacle is his paralyzing guilt.

Right before Dean blows up at him, ie. at the interpersonal climax of the episode, Cas says: I can't help. You understand? I can't. I destroyed... everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?

That's the main problem. That Cas is paralyzed with guilt, and is using magic-TV-crazy as an escape and a kind of self-flagelation. And he needs to regain his own confidence in his ability to fight in order to move on. He needs to stop punishing himself and just get back in the game. (which is very much not how mental illness works. Unless it's on TV. Again, there's an underlying ableism here, not an underlying disdain for Cas himself).

I don't understand the separation between Dean and Cas reconciling and getting Cas to fight again as two different narrative goals. I mentioned this in a previous post, but the main expression of brotherhood and friendship in the show is fighting alongside eachother.

You're right, convincing Cas to fight again is the point. But that's for Cas' sake too. You're supposed to want him to get back into fighting shape. You're supposed to want him to fight. Because you're supposed to want him to get better, because it's assumed that you as the audience cares about him. And magic-TV-crazy-that-has-been-inflicted-on-a-character-as-narrative-punishment is something that that character *can* get better from character development.

I don't think it's supposed to be seen as Cas giving in to pressure, it's supposed to be seen as him deciding to participate in his own life again. We're supposed to cheer for him getting back into the fight, because it's good for him.

I think Gamble was writing under the assumption that the audience already cares about Cas, and she doesn't have to do anything to convince us to. I think that's a reasonable baseline assumption to make about any show, that the audience cares about a major recurring character and that the writers know that and have that in mind.

i agree with your post on dean & cas in 7x23. i go back and forth on gamble's whole deal w/ cas but when it comes to late s7 it's clear to me she gave up on getting rid of him and decided to embrace the inevitable, if that makes sense. you can't write something as romantic as 7x17 through gritted teeth. and yeah the honey!cas scenes in the first half of 7x23 are pretty meanspirited, but "i'd rather have you" feels like an olive branch, not an extension of that meanspiritedness.

Yeah, exactly. And to be fair, Edlund's "pull my finger" bit was pretty cringy too. And Gamble's bit with Cas wanting to free monkeys from cosmetic testing was interesting and in-character. Like I think Edlund and Gamble weren't on two entirely different pages with Cas, I think they were on different sides of the same page.

[norahastuff]

penny for your thoughts on salmondean codependency ?

Sure. Fair warning it’s long (was longer but I stopped myself.)

I think it’s complicated in a show that’s had so many different showrunners because they’ve all handled Sam and Dean’s relationship very differently. In Kripke’s era (s1-5) there was a romanticization of the bond. Sure there was a lot of in-depth exploration of how they wound up at the place they were at, spoiler alert: it was all because of John and his obsessive crusade to find the demon that killed his wife. That’s all he cared about and as a result, Sam and Dean had to be everything to each other. But Kripke had no intention of dismantling that at any point because he was (and always had been) writing a tragedy. Gamble continued that too. There was no room for anyone else in their lives and it would always just be the two of them against the world. So Cas had to go. Bobby had to go.

(Actually, it's funny because Gamble didn't intend this at the time, her plan was to kill Cas off, but by Edlund creating the masterpiece that is The Man Who Would Be King, he not only saved Cas from being seen as a villain, but he also deepened Dean and Cas' relationship in such a profound way and inextricably linked the two of them emotionally. And since Cas was eventually brought back, that laid the foundation for a lot of what their relationship would become.)

Up until this point, there hadn’t really been any significant dismantling of perhaps the more unhealthy parts of Sam and Dean’s relationship. Enter Carver. He stripped things down and started to explore what drove these characters. What they wanted and why they couldn’t have it. It starts with Dean being mad at Sam for not looking for him in purgatory, which sets up the whole speech in the s8 finale of Sam’s guilt about letting Dean down, but the thing is, Dean was never honest with Sam about his year away either. He never told Sam he could have gotten out much sooner if he hadn’t stayed to find Cas. I mean Dean had assumed Sam was up there alone doing God knows what to try to bring him back, and yet still he stayed in Purgatory because things were clear there. He needed Cas. Anyway, I just find that interesting, but Cas isn’t a victim of Sam and Dean’s relationship in s8.

Who gets the honour of being cast aside? That would be Benny and Amelia, two characters they introduced in s8 specifically to highlight that Sam and Dean’s relationship doesn’t allow for anyone else to be a significant part of their life. I mean that’s nothing new, we’ve watched that happen many times before. Lisa even said as much to Dean. The thing is this time? It’s framed as a truly sad thing. That moment at the end of 8x10 when Dean has just ended things with Benny and Sam leaves Amelia, and they’re sitting alone drinking beer and watching tv is such a hollow empty moment. This is not what they want. But it’s the way things have to be.

I’m actually fascinated by Sam and Dean’s conversation in the church in the s8 finale. Not so much Dean’s assertion that there is no one else he would put before Sam, but more so what provokes it, which is Sam saying “who are you going to turn to instead of me. Another angel? Another vampire?” See the thing is Dean saying he would always put Sam first is not news. We know this and it’s not really an unhealthy statement in itself either. A lot of people would put their sibling above anything else, not less a sibling who you raised and is the most important person to you. But in this context? After what Sam said? It just highlights how unhealthy they are if Sam believes that Dean having other people in his life means he doesn’t love him enough. That he’s a disappointment to him. That’s so profoundly fucked up.

(Note, Dean tells Sam that he killed Benny for him but he doesn’t say anything about Cas. I think like I said before, this is because Cas and Dean’s relationship has largely existed out of the Sam and Dean stuff up to this point - Sam and Cas don’t even really have much of a relationship yet besides both of their connections to Dean.)

And then from here, things start getting steadily worse. But we also keep being shown how bad they are. Dean lying to Sam, taking away his free will by letting Gadreel possess him. Dean sending Cas away, Kevin dying. It’s all awful. The whole “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you line” from 9x01 isn’t really said by Dean, it’s Gadreel, but that is how Dean feels. He does think that’s all he’s good for. And over the season we’re shown how much of himself and what he truly wants he’s had to give up because of his ingrained “Save Sammy” and “Sammy comes first” mentality. It’s always been this way for him. In 9x07 we see that he had found a happy home, a good father figure, and his first love, a first love might I add that he had to leave behind with no real explanation because Sam needed him, and Sam comes first.

I mean just one episode earlier we had him rushing out the door elated about seeing Cas and spending time with him, only for their time together to come to sad and melancholic end when Dean once again leaves Cas behind without any real explanation, because despite what he wants Sammy comes first. What he wants doesn’t matter.

See I think after the Gadreel stuff comes out is where the narrative starts to get a little wonky for me. You can clearly see that this was intended to be a shorter story that they ended up stretching out to a much longer one because of renewals. There’s also the fact that this is a formula show so they can’t necessarily be separated for longer than an episode or two. S10 is a rough one to get through at times, I think the themes still mostly hold up but it’s a rough one to get through.

S10 highlights all the connections that Dean has, Cas, Charlie, Crowley even, but Sam doesn’t really have those bonds in the same way.  For Sam it’s just Dean, so he goes down a reckless destructive “do anything to save Dean!” path and so many innocents pay the price, and ultimately with the release of The Darkness, the whole world.

They skirted right up to the edge of exploring just how toxic and dangerous their relationship had become in the season 10 finale.

DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A..a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.

I can’t say evil is the right word, they were never evil, but they were wilfully blind to everything and everyone else when it came to saving each other. S10 tested my love for the show because after watching it, because there was certainly a feeling that the two of them had become the villains of this story. And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with that, it’s just after 2 seasons of this I can’t say I had a lot of faith that this was going to be properly addressed or if we were going to keep going in circles around it. Keep being shown, it’s bad and then nothing much being done to fix it. Your mileage may vary on how it was handled, but I think s11 did a relatively ok job considering it wasn’t the end of the story, and the show needed to keep going.

See from Dean’s side a lot of the codependency rests on 1. His father’s orders to always save Sammy 2. His low self-esteem where he sees himself as nothing but a blunt instrument. 3. His guilt at not being able to perfectly fulfil every familial role in Sam’s life 4. His belief that no one could choose to love him but family has to love you. 5. The unhealthy example of what it should look like to love someone that he got from John. You give up everything but them.

For Sam (and honestly it’s not as clear for me as Dean’s side is so feel free to correct me/disagree on this) 1. Everytime he’s tried to leave and create his own life it’s never ended well. 2. His guilt over wanting freedom and a normal life when he was younger (I’m referring specifically to Stanford era here) 3. His guilt over everything Dean has given up for him. 4. John. 5. Jess.

Ultimately it all comes down to isolation. They both had to be everything to each other, and the deeper they got into this fight, the more people that they lost, the tighter they clung to this notion of family and brothers. I think s11 (and 11x23 in particular) was an important turning point, both for Sam and Dean’s relationship, as well as for them as individuals. Because they weren’t alone there anymore. Cas was there. Sam let Dean walk to his death. Of course, it would devastate him, but he knew it was what had to be done. And he didn’t walk out of that bar and go back to the bunker alone. He had Cas, he had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him and talk to him. Sure Dean asked Cas to take care of Sam for him (you know after Cas offered to walk to his death with him) but Sam let him. He let him be there for him. We didn’t get to see much before the BMOL showed up and blasted Cas away, but still, we saw enough.

I think that’s a significant difference to note why their relationship was different in the Dabb era. It wasn’t just them anymore. Cas was an important member of their family and given a level of importance he’d never been given before and couldn’t have been when the story they were telling was of the dangers of their codependency. Mary was back. Eventually, Jack would become a part of their unit too. Just the two of them wasn’t enough for them anymore. This is made abundantly clear with all of Dean’s desperate attempts to get Cas to stay in s12, followed by his inability to keep going when they lose Cas and Mary in s13. Similarly, Sam really struggles when they lose Jack and fail to get Mary back later in the season.

Another big moment is Dean letting Sam go alone to lead the hunters against the BMOL in 12x22 while he stays back to try and reach Mary. Like he tells Mary, he’s had to be a brother, a father and a mother to Sam and he never stopped seeing him as his kid, but in that moment he makes a choice. He lets Sam take charge and he shows that he trusts him and believes in him. He knows he can handle it.

Sometimes it’s not even a character growth thing. Sometimes having other people there stops you from making destructive choices even though that’s still your first instinct. I’m thinking specifically of 13x21 after Sam was killed. Dean would have run headlong into that nest of vampires and got himself torn apart, but Cas was there to stop him. He was able to make him see reason.

Basically, I think that for a long time, they thought the only relationship they could have was each other, which then became a self-fulfilling prophecy because their desperate attempts to keep each other around led to them losing the people around them. They eventually started to learn that that wasn’t true, they could have more, they were allowed to want more, and that it wasn’t an either-or situation. Dean didn’t have to choose between Sam and Cas. They didn’t have to choose between each other or Jack. The same goes for Mary. Different relationships can coexist without threatening each other, and not say that their relationship in s12-15 was all smooth sailing, but it was certainly so very different from everything that came before.

(There’s maybe a point to be made about how they didn’t have anyone or anything in the finale and how that relates to the story we got, but honestly I have no idea what the intention was with any of the choices made in that episode so I’ll leave it at that for now.)

[neven-ebrez]

since everyone's attention is on spn and destiel now, many people are commenting on how awkward the scene seems and if they filmed it separately. do you think there's any truth in that? i think it was filmed before covid shutdown so it's not like they had to keep the social distance or something. i genuinely don't care about the 'is jensen homophobic about destiel' discourse, i think regardless of his personal feelings he wouldn't botch the scene bc of some awkwardness he felt.

Hi anon. I personally haven’t seen anyone say the scene looks awkward (maybe if they hate Destiel they would have this opinion)? Jensen and Misha filmed together right before the virus shut down production. I’ve seen deliberate awkwardness filmed but that scene wasn’t it. If anything, there’s still a lot of narrative space in 15x18, visually. There was some other episode this year that I remember talking about things “hanging” and I’d say this episode also falls into that.

Everything with Dean and Cas visually this episode continues to play with negative space in what is by now, a long-standing visual trend between the two. Then there’s that one scene when they first return to the bunker where they circle and pass each other like two galaxies colliding or something. I’m no gif maker so I don’t have a shot of the 15x18 scene but visually it recalls this:

Then there’s another scene where Billie stalks them around the corner where they are crouched then the reveal and we see the space where together they are now visually missing. Rich used this negative space technique a lot, like... a lot.

The further apart Dean and Cas physically are, the sadder the show generally becomes, with Cas’ death frequently being the greatest distance/sadness for Dean. Just showing and lamenting the negative space, the distance, is the narrative asking for the distance and sadness to be removed. Dean and Cas yearn to be together.

So any “awkwardness”, to me, is simply what I just described. And Jensen doesn’t get mad/frustrated/whatever about Destiel any more. He hasn’t had that attitude in a long time. Here’s them around the same filming time.

Jensen loves Misha and they both love acting their scenes together. He even says stuff like this ⬇️ these days because he’s known about this scene since the show started S15. Bob Berens wrote it first thing when breaking the season.

Destiel is textually part of their story now. It just is.

[ambiguousdisorderken]

in your expert opinion what are some of the most destiel-heavy episodes of spn? i stopped watching around season 7 and have no interest in engaging w the plot of the show at all but i’m in the mood for some gay yearning ykwim

Hi anon! Thank you for reaching out to me about this, I’m, no-joke, very flattered. I’d seen a couple posts on this same question, very thorough and detailed lists on Destiel-centric episodes, but at the moment I cannot find any of them, that would’ve answered your request much faster. So, in advance, sorry, my reply is probably coming in extremely late, but I did write this from scratch, so yeah.

Even though storylines in SPN can be very shitty and hollow, I do feel that to get the full Destiel experience -that long-drawn yearning- one would have to watch the entirety of the show, even if Cas isn’t in the episode or if there’s no explicit mention of their relationship/bond because it gives you a better understanding of them as characters and of how their relationship affects the narrative.

Now, you mentioned you stopped around S7, which is completely understandable and justified given the Dick plot game was very weak and, in my opinion, annoying (so little Cas!). I’m going to start listing from S7 in case you want to refresh your SPN before jumping straight into unseen episodes. Also, since you mentioned no interest in the plot and are specifically craving those sweet crumbs of gay yearning, I’ll skip most one-sided / too subtle episodes and cut to the chase.

Lastly, I hate spoiling things, but you’ve probably seen it all on Tumblr. I tried to keep the episodes’ descriptions short, as it might come in useful. Stuck to key words, quotes and/or little comments.

 Season 7

7x01 – Meet the New Boss: Godstiel, sincere apology. Cas: “I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.”

7x02 – Hello, Cruel World: Mourning. Trench coat melancholy. The heart-wrenching eulogy: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

7x17 – The Born-Again Identity: Emmanuel!Cas, reunion, longing, hurt.

7x21 – Reading is Fundamental: Honey!Cas, hug, hurt, reunion, that painful SORRY (board game) scene.

7x23 – Survival of the Fittest: Honey!Cas, forgiveness, adorable, wified Cas. Dean hits us with: “Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas!" but also “I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

Season 8 (this season is so good and Destiel is the driving motor of it, I swear. If you can, watch it complete.)

8x01 – We Need to Talk About Kevin: Dean in Purgatory looking for the angel.  Cas is referred to as “your [Dean’s] angel.”

8x02 – What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?: HUG!!!, Purgatory reunion, face touch, very romantic. Monster: “ You'll find your angel there.” //  Dean: “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you.”

8x05 – Blood Brother: Cas vs. Benny cat fight lol. Dean: “Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

8x07 – A Little Slice of Kevin: Cas comes back from Purgatory, but before that Dean starts seeing him in places. Very tragic; hallucinating your dead significant other trope. Has That boner scene. Dean: “I did everything I could to get you out! EVERYTHING!” Cas helps Dean see what truly happened in Purgatory and not his self-altered memories. PACKED!

8x08 – Hunteri Heroici: Hilarious, romantic, intimate. Dean and Cas have an heart to heart. They actually communicate. Cas “I’ll watch over you.”

8x10 Torn and Frayed: They work a case together, and when I say heart eyes…

8x17 – Goodbye Stranger: THIS. EPISODE. Dean “I need you.”

8x19 – Taxi Driver: Separation. Naomi to Dean: "You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty; I only wish he felt the same way."

8x22 – Clip Show: Lack of trust, hurt, tense interactions. Romantic too (basically, Cas gets Dean an apology basket).

8x23 – Sacrifice: Meaningful conversation and a gay couple hit by Cupid parallel. Dean “So this is it? E.T goes home?"

 Season 9

9x01 – I think I’m Gonna Like it Here: Dean prays to Cas IN.A.CHAPEL. Worry, longing, separation. Dean “Please, man, I need you here.”

9x03 – I’m No Angel: Human!Cas and jealous!Dean.

9x06 – Heaven Can’t Wait: Human!Cas TEXT-BOOK LONGING. GAY AS FUCK. Gazing, touching, they even TALK (for real).

9x09 – Holy Terror: Adorable Cas, flirty vibes, happyish, funny. Cas: “Cas is back in town!”

9x10 – Road Trip: Cas comforts Dean, Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, overall protective!Cas.

9x18 – Metafiction. Cas finds out about the Mark of Cain.

9x21 – King of the Damned: Hug, strong boyfriends vibes.

9x22 – Stairway to Heaven: Cas gives up an entire army, for Dean. Metatron about Cas “He's in love………………………. with humanity.”

9x23  – Do You Believe in Miracles?: At this point, it’s canon stated that Cas will do anything and lose everything if that means saving Dean. Metatron to Cas “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”

 Season 10

10x01 – Black: Demon!Dean and sick/brokenhearted Cas in a slutty robe missing his man.

10x03 – Soul Survivor: ICONIC. Angel on Demon action! Cas turns down Hannah because he’s too gay and in love. Intimate Deancas talk.

10x05 – Fan Fiction: No Cas, but Destiel references. 

10x09 – The Things We Left Behind: That.Lunch.Date. Deancas introduction to co-parenting.

10x14 – The Executioner’s Song: We get Daddy Murder aka Cain. This is a Pivotal episode to understand Dean’s character development. Plus, it has Deancas interactions.

10x16 – Paint It Black: No Cas, but Dean opens up in confessionary; repressed BISEXUAL AS FUCK.

10x18 – Book of the Damned: Charlie meets Cas. Gay energies everywhere. Cute domestic little scene.

10x20 – Angel Heart: PARENTING! Essential to understand Cas from this point forward.

10x22 – The Prisoner: Just… just watch it. One of THEE Destiel episodes.

10x23 – Brother’s Keeper: No Deancas interactions but it’s the finale, and I recommend watching it because next season takes off literally right from here. No time jumps.

 Season 11

11x02 – Form and Void: Could skip to the very end which is when Cas comes back.

11x03 – The Bad Seed: Cursed!Cas. Dean takes care of him, even wraps him in a blanket. He also cradles his face. Extreme Hurt/Comfort. Jacting joices rejoice.

11x10 – The Devil in the Details: Could skip but has Casifer in it. Interesting to see his dynamic with Dean.

11x18 – Hell’s Angel: Casifer. Dean "It? It's not an it, Sam, it's Cas!"

11x23 – Alpha and Omega: Huggg! Cas willing to go on a guaranteed suicide mission with Dean. Very tender and sad.

 Season 12

12x02 – Keep Calm and Carry On: ANOTHER HUG! Dean presents his boyfriend to his mom<3 Soft and romantic.

12x09 – First Blood: Reunion hug<3, Cas pining… as in he counts his every minute without Dean.

12x10 – Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Direct parallel with canon couple. Crystal-clear mutual affection. One of the best. Angel Ishim to Cas about Dean “I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own… by cutting it out.”

12x12 – Stuck in the Middle with You: A dying Cas confesses his love. “I love you. I love all of you.”

12x19 – The Future: We find out Dean gave Cas a MIXTAPE!!! Very romantic and full of yearning, also worry and what could be seen as a betrayal (ish…).

12x23 – All Along the Watch Tower: Hands down, one of the most distressing Destiel episodes. Cas dies.

 Season 13

13x01 – Lost and Found: This is the worst because you have Dean trying to assimilate Cas’ death. Core of Dean’s widow’s arc. Jack introduction, that’s their new kid.

13x02 – The Rising Son: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?).

13x03 – Patience: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?). Dean to Sam “He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!”

13x04 – The Big Empty: Continuation of widow’s arc and Cas wakes up in the Empty. The Empty to Cas: "I know who you love. There's nothing for you back there." // Dean to Sam “I need you to keep the faith, for both of us. ‘Cause right now, I… Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.”

13x05 – Advanced Thanatology: Suicidal and hopeless Dean gets his win. Cas comes back. Gives me the chills.

13x06 – Tombstone: COWBOY BOYFRIENDS!

13x14 – Good Intentions: Happy and fun Destiel scene. So Very Married.

13x23 – Let The Good Times Roll: Season finale, Dean talks about retiring (plans include Cas of course) and just very nice to see them interact.

Season 14

14x03 – The Scar: Reunion.

14x08 – Byzantium: Deanand Cas dealing with their child’s death, then bringing him back by Cas making a deal with the Empty. IMPORTANT EPISODE.

14x09 – The Spear: Cas uses the royal We – married behavior.

14x10 – Nihilism: Dean is stuck in his own mind, and Cas and Sam try to bring him back. Cas “Please, you have to -- you have to try to remember, because the people in your life -- in your real life, out there -- we need you to come back.”

14x12 – Prophet and Loss: Dean gets his very own Dr. Sexy, aka Dr. Cas.

14x14 – Ouroboros: Basically another date (their kid tags along) and They TALK. Very intimate and established marriage vibes.

14x18 – Absence: Shits starts to go south. [ Dean: “Who cares what Jack said? We don't know what happened! But I swear, if he did something to her, if she is -- (points to Castiel) Then you're dead to me. (Castiel looks crushed after Dean says that).]

14x20 – Moriah: Tense and very upsetting. Relationship very damaged.

 Season 15 (I would advise watching the entire season because it relies heavily on Destiel. They’re the heart and the emotional motor leading the plot onwards.)

15x01 – Back and To The Future: Deancas’ in the aftermath of their kid’s death. Tension gets worse.

15x02 – Raising Hell: Tension rises, this is very intense. Cas “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

15x03 – The Rupture: Breaking point ends in divorce.

15x06 – Golden Time: Painful phone call which speaks volumes about the current state of their relationship at the time. Also, good to see where they’re standing and how they’re coping.

15x08 – Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven: Strained relationship so obvious they’re offered couples’ therapy.

15x09 – The Trap: MASTERPIECE. Back to Purgatory. Can (and is) taken as Dean’s love confession (because it is). 

15x12 – Galaxy Brain: So married. Little domestic date, you can see LOVE written in their faces.

15x13 – Destiny’s Child: AU!Dean and Sam. Not a yearning episode per se, but AU!Dean? SO GAY.

15x17 – Unity: God reveals that the only act of free will in any universe he ever created has been Cas choosing Dean.

15x18 – Despair: Cas confesses his love to Dean.

[curioussubjects]

come be a season 12 truther with me; or what if dean and cas got together offscreen

Originally, I wrote this post to celebrate “Galaxy Brain” airing as Berens & Glynn gave us “The Future.” It’s been a while since that episode aired, and some things have changed about this meta. As such, there are multiple versions of this post floating around, so make sure to go back to the source for the most up to date version.  For all intents and purposes, this post functions as a meta manifesto not unlike shipping manifestos from days of LJ past. In keeping with that tradition, this post is a close reading of Dabb Era Destiel in which I argue that by using narrative gaps, queer coding, and romance tropes, Dean and Cas are shown to be in an established relationship. Although beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth pointing out that keeping Destiel mostly off screen was a way for the creatives to bypass network censorship while still remaining true to the characters.

This post is divided into three sections. Section I focuses on giving an overview of why earlier seasons of Supernatural aren’t as compelling as season 12 as a turning point for Dean and Cas’s relationship. That said, special consideration is given to 09.06 “Heaven Can’t Wait” as a potential rest stop in our journey due to it’s significantly placed narrative gap as well as themes in the episode. However, this post isn’t going to examine season 9 trutherism in depth, though it does coexist with and allow for it. Section II analyses season 12 and proposes a timeline and justification for the shifting Destiel dynamic. Finally, Section III will offer an analysis of how Dean and Cas’s relationship has changed dramatically from previous seasons in a way that is most like the shift from a “will they or won’t they” pairing to an established one. 

Before I move to Section I, I’d like to note something this post takes for granted: Dean and Cas are the main romantic subplot of Supernatural, and, in fact, their relationship is elevated to main plot for both characters in season 15. This post won’t argue about the canonicity of Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other, therefore, and so won’t spend time looking at many Destiel defining moments. I’d also like to make clear that this post also takes for granted that Destiel is being intentionally developed by the writers starting with Carver’s Era, and more so in Dabb’s. 

I. Why Seasons 4 through 11 May Not be It

The tl;dr. here is that while there are many moments throughout these seasons that Dean and Cas could potentially get together, none of those moments are ideal for a bunch of reasons that can be summed up as really bad timing. I also think the narrative is actively pushing them towards a moment that works. We get plenty of stepping stones, especially once we hit seasons 8 through 11 (and 11 most of all).

Seasons 4 & 5:

I know there’s been a lot of get together fics over the years set in this time period, but I just don’t see it. Do I see them being intrigued and drawn to each other? Yes. Do I think either Cas or Dean would act on it? Nope. I’m not arguing anything re: Dean’s feelings, but with everything going at the time I find it hard to believe he’d pursue anything with his angel friend. Most importantly here, though, is that during this time Cas was still very alien and other. There was too much angel in him, and while he obviously came to care about Dean (and Sam) very much, I just can’t see him navigating the realm of human relationships. That said, seeing human!Cas in “The End” is the first we see of potential developments for how Cas could behave without his angelness interfering. Being human changes Cas a lot, beyond even his experience existing among humans, though that of course matters too. This development will be important later /wink.

Seasons 6 & 7:

Before anything else let me just recognize that if we could see some sexual tension in seasons 4 & 5, these two seasons come with our first taste of romantic tension. The pining! Also note the difference between season 4 Cas and season 6 Cas in terms of behaviour. He is much less the angel we saw in that barn in “Lazarus Rising.” In season 6, we have a Cas making misguided decisions guided entirely by his emotions – namely, not wanting to involve Dean with the war in heaven – which is peak human, honestly. Put a pin on how sad Dean is in both seasons with Cas’s absence. Finally, put a pin on this being our first moment of Cas doing things on his own to spare Dean and it not ending well (soulless!Sam, Cas “dying” after Leviathan) because this is *the* hurdle in their relationship (along with Dean’s lashing out and self-worth issues). With all this said, the marked distance between Dean and Cas in these seasons negates the possibility of them entering into any kind of relationship. Much like seasons 4 and 5, there’s too much going on.

Season 8:

Ah, yes, the summer of purgatory. If you thought we had pining before…! I think we’re all very clear on season 8 being a turning point for the show, not only because new showrunner, but we also get the bunker. TFW now has an HQ, which pretty soon becomes home. Yes, Baby will always be home, but the bunker becomes the *unmovable* safe haven that Baby couldn’t be. The bunker is a place to coalesce, and for all the amazing things Baby is, she is not that. The acquisition of the bunker marks a shift in the psychology of the show: with the stable home space we can start to imagine domesticity, a place to come home to, the stuff of ordinary living. Most of all, the bunker is emblematic of security, of safety –keep this in mind, as we go forward.

This season also continues to see Cas go down the path of independently solving his problems instead of asking for help from Sam and Dean (his family in a way heaven never was) – note that the better together issue is at play in different ways with Sam and Dean also, but I digress. I also want to point out disastrous instance #2 of Cas’s insistence on figuring it out on his own: he loses his grace, and the angels fall. As for Dean, season 8’s focus for him has much to do with Sam, and them coming face to face with their issues with codependency, which hit catastrophic levels with the gates of hell and Gadreel plots.

So despite all the deliciously angsty get together purgatory fics and spec, there’s too much distance between Dean and Cas on Cas’s part due to his guilt over betraying the Winchesters in s6 plus slaughtering angels plus unleashing Leviathan. We do see Dean being more emotionally open with Cas and continue to voicing his wish that Cas would just stay with him and Sam, and let them help. It’s clear as day how much Dean cares. The timing is still bad, though.

Before moving on to next season, let’s take a moment to appreciate that this is the season Dean admits being kinda done with one night stands because “always with the adios.” Remember the bunker as a sign of stability? Yeah. I wouldn’t say Dean is craving a relationship, exactly, but I think we can see that he does want something more (ahem also I’m nodding to Cas refusing to stay put just cause).

Seasons 9 & 10:

The most important thing to happen between this two seasons is Cas’s stint as a human for an extended period of time. There’s been plenty of spec and meta written over the years about the effects of being human on Cas’s grace (a proto-soul now maybe?). What we can say for sure, regardless, is that Cas is much more humanized once he becomes an angel again. The understanding he gets from being human doesn’t go away once he regains his angel powers. You’ll notice that while we still see some of season 4’s characterization, Cas is not the same as he was – he is alien to angels now and is more intelligible to humans. Additionally, in an interesting reversal from previous seasons, we now get to see the depth of Cas’s feelings for Dean (thanks, Metatron) as well as seeing him be more open emotionally, while Dean does most of the pushing away (first because of Gadreel, then because of the Mark of Cain). In short, the timing is still bad as Dean and Cas are largely kept apart both physically and emotionally.

9.06 Heaven Can’t Wait

This episode is my white whale, friends. While I’ve come to fully subscribe to the idea that something did happen between Dean and Cas during the fanfic gap, I don’t actually think it’s feasible that it marked the start of a relationship -- be it sexual or romantic. My reasoning here is quite simple: the timing is bad. Were it not for external events (Cas regaining his Grace and Dean taking on the MoC), the course would have likely differed. Furthermore, Dean’s guilt over making Cas leave the bunker as well as Cas’s own hurt and self-loathing pose a significant and as yet insurmountable obstacle, which is easily seen with how Dean and Cas’s character trajectories go separate ways.

YMMV on what exactly happened between them in that Motel, but something definitely did. Perhaps one day I’ll have a proper s9 trutherism post to link to here for more details (likely won’t be written by me, though). 

10.16 Paint It Black

From the point Dean gets the MoC until the end of season 10, anything between him and Cas is quite impossible due to distancing, to say the least. Again, yes, the fic is really good, but alas. One of the reasons I’m bringing up this episode in particular is because of the confession scene. One, it’s a rare bit of explicit emotional honesty from Dean, and two, it tells me that while he and Cas may be well aware of the Thing™ between them, it’s still uncharted waters. It’s scary, and murky, and they’re unsure how to navigated it or if they should even try. Makes sense, too, there’s been A LOT going on since s6. Anyway, he’s the full confession:

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it. […]  Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time. […]  Yeah, I’m just starting to think that… maybe there’s more to it all than I thought.

Can I just say, first, that this confession keeps me up at night because we never actually see anything done with it explicitly? I mean, obviously, I think we do in fact see the effects of this confession in the show, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this behemoth, but still, like. Damn. Ok, so, remember when I brought up that thing in season 7 about Dean being kinda done with hook-ups? Here’s where that led us. We’re seeing a Dean here who wants more than what he has convinced himself he gets to have. He wants more than dying bloody. And when he talks about wanting to experience people and feelings differently, well, that says a lot not just on the queer coding front or the romantic front. I mean, jfc, Dean is accepting the idea that he can have more in life than just hunt until he drops, and he’s specifically talking about experiences at the interpersonal level.

Do you ever see a character having an epiphany and find yourself wanting to cry because this is it right here. Dean is just blatantly admitting he wants more and maybe he can make himself be open to that (!!!), which all culminates in season 11, so…

Season 11:

The pining is still here, but it’s worse now since it’s the whole plot? It’s been *checks calendar* 5 years of this. How are any of us still kicking I don’t know. Your slow burns could never. Cool worth noting points: Cas says yes to Lucifer (bad decision #2.5, lots of mitigating effects_I don’t actually hold it against him that much but Dean is another story & not entirely rational at this point); for the first time since the early days, Dean and Cas are on equal grounds: they’ve both fucked up a lot and have hurt each other. The issues this season are outside their dynamic. Amara and Lucifer here serve as externalizing forces for Dean and Cas’s problems: Cas checks out with Lucifer because he thinks it’s the only way he can help, Dean is caught up in the turmoil of Amara, the emblem of absence and avoidance of struggle. We do get something like an affirmation from the two of them to each other via Dean calling Cas his brother (and I want y’all to consider the historical queering of that statement, and Cas’s “I could go with you.” It feels like we’re headed to them being on the same page. By the end of the season, though, it feels like we’re getting a clean slate: Mary is back, nobody died, no end-of-the-world in sight, no interpersonal crisis. We’re also getting a new showrunner, so. No wonder. We’re gearing up for something, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What this season does that is super important is that it sets up the stage for the possibility of an actual relationship between Dean and Cas, something that has, up until this point, been pretty much impossible.

11.04 Baby

Y’all know what I’m about to quote here, right? That conversation between Dean and Sam about having something with someone who understands the life. Here we still have Dean reverting to the idea that it’s impossible, which is a direct contrast to the openness in 10.16. It’s understandable, though, considering there’s been little reason to think anything like that would be possible (see all the mess and poor timing from seasons past). The quote in question, though, marks a continuing development regarding the issues Dean is struggling with this season:

DEAN: Piper? That’s awesome. Heather. One-night wonders, man. Shoot, we’re lucky we still get that at all. SAM: Really? You don’t … Ever want something more? DEAN: I’m sorry, have you met us? We’re batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But … Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

We wouldn’t be talking about this stuff all these years after Sam and Dean had a serious relationship if it wasn’t important, right? Also who else do we meet this season? That’s right! Eileen! And doesn’t that hit different with season 15 hindsight? And who does Dean have that understands the life? Whose stories have been intricately connected to his? Right now, this is all conjecture. A pipe dream Sam is revisiting, and Dean is skeptical about. Except, well. Look at what we get in “Into the Mystic” and “The Chitters.”

11.11 Into The Mystic

I’m bringing up this episode as a cross reference to “Paint It Black” as well as to complement the talk from “Baby,” and to show, again, that, for all the closeness between Dean and Cas, there’s still a marked distance they haven’t yet bridged. There’s still truths they haven’t told each other. Thanks Mildred for the delicious exposition:

Darlin’…If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on the road, it’s when somebody’s pining for somebody else. […] Oh, don’t try and hide it now. Follow your heart. Remember?

11.19 The Chitters

And here we see some validation to Sam’s imagining of a possible future with someone else. We actually see hunters who not only are married, but they both make it out alive. Jesse and Cesar get their happy ending. They make the dream come true. And the reality of it important not just for Dean to see, but Sam too.

Dean: [with realization] Oh, so … [points back and forth to Jesse and Cesar] Cesar: Yeah. Dean: Okay, that’s… Cesar puts his beer bottle on the table and looks at Dean, while Jesse is being silent. Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter? Cesar: Smelly, dirty. [turns to Jesse] Twice the worrying about getting ganked.

I’d like to point out, too, that the fear of getting ganked is thematic when it comes to the tension between Dean and Cas. More on this when we hit s13.

Alright, now, having said that, let’s take a look at season 12. Bear in mind, this is the official start of Dabb’s era, even if he kinda began taking over in season 11, and the change in vibes is obvious. In fact, 12 jumped out at me as a turning point, in hindsight, after getting smacked by the domesticity of seasons 13 and 14.

II. Why Season 12

[Out of date section. Update coming soon when spoons. After significant debate, I’ve altered the definitive start of Dean and Cas’s friend-with-benefits-with-mutual-pining relationship to between 12.02 and 12.03. I briefly explained why here, and yes it’s a shitpost--still true tho.]

Finally, the promise land, y’all. Getting right to it: what s11 was for Dean in terms of setting up the relationship stage, s12 was for Cas. In its initial beats, any way. That is, until the Kelly debacle, this was the longest Cas has been around the bunker and with the exception of seasons 13 and 14, it’s one of the first times we get to see how Cas might actually fit into the bunker-as-home. Things seem remarkably chill. Of course, we’ll notice that there’s still a lot of baggage hanging around because despite Dean and Cas being in a more stable place, they haven’t actually dealt with their interpersonal problems. I didn’t single out directly this episode, but do keep in mind Cas’s declaration in 12.09 First Blood as far as how much the Winchesters matter to Cas & how we also see Dean and Cas be particularly singled out with them seating together in the backseat of the Impala. What we also see this season is Cas trying to prove he is worthy of this family, his family. He’s not fighting for heaven or to right some grievous wrong (a la s8). No, this season he’s fighting to spare the Winchester, to bring them a win. To bring Dean a win. The major disconnect is that Dean (and Sam & Mary) already sees Cas that way, he doesn’t think Cas has anything to prove. And just maybe, Cas starts believing that too – or, at least, believing it enough.

12.10 Lily Sunders Has Some Regrets

This episode, oh my god, the goodness. In the wake of 12.09 we have Dean and Cas in a tiff because Cas mistake #3 (killing Billie and “cosmic consequences”), this is a pattern. Twice the worry of getting ganked, etc etc. But where this episode really shines is through the contrast between Ishim’s obsession with Lily and Cas & Dean’s mutual affection for each other. Ishim sees no difference here and, to him, Cas’s feelings for Dean are a human weakness. Returning to my point about human!Cas, this episode underscores that Cas’s increasing humanity is what puts him in the place where he can want what Dean wants instead of either being too alien to get it (see s4 & 5) or unable to experience it properly (Ishim).

12.12 Stuck in the Middle (With You)

Cas’s trajectory culminates here with the whole I love you (@ Dean), I love all of you (@ Winchesters). Let’s note too that Cas is dying here, in a way that is much more human than going up in light. This declaration of different types of love is entirely human. It’s also a definitive step wrt to Cas and Dean’s relationship because of what happens in 12.19. This. is. it. Oh, and, of course, let’s not forget to point to Dean’s face when Cas says that “I love you,” and how terrified he is that Cas is dying. Might make one rethink some things, hm?

12.19 The Future

This episode is simply hella suspicious, and all the kudos to Berens and Glynn for writing it. It’ll haunt me forever. Consider watching it again and just questioning everything. So. Weird things:

1. Dean’s reaction to Cas no getting in touch as opposed to Sam’s. Dean is pissed, which is Dean-speak for worried out of his mind. Sam is very worried, too, and puzzled, but he’s mostly expressing his relief that Cas is back. But Cas has gone awol before, but this time Dean is much more worked up about it; Sam takes note of this, too. Now, let’s imagine that maybe the events of 12.12 led to something happening between Dean and Cas. Then Cas decided to leave to find a lead on Kelly, but eventually Cas decides to work with Heaven and goes radio silent. For days. Having taken a chance, and something having happened between them, how would Dean react to Cas just going poof and not contacting him – despite Dean having called Cas multiple times.

2. Cas knows about the Colt. Ok, nothing off there. But when he goes to Dean’s room to talk, right after Dean leaves we see Cas looking around briefly. Like he know Dean would keep it in there. Maybe Cas had looked other places already. Who knows. What we do know is that eventually he does find the Colt not only in Dean’s room, but under Dean’s pillow. Sam didn’t even know the Colt wasn’t in the safe. So how did Cas know?

3.“He came into my room and he played me.” So, this quote right there, makes it seem like some seduction for personal gain, right? But can you see Cas actually doing that if they hadn’t gone there previously? For Dean not to suspect anything and go with it? There’s plenty of plausible deniability here, but the gaps in time in the narrative make me question what is there in those spaces. The scene where Cas tried to give Dean the mixtape back doesn’t read like “playing,” so it’s about a different interaction. Hm. Hmmm.

4. Dean and Cas’s brief conversation in Dean’s room is clearly Dean just wanting Cas to stay, so they can work (and be) together – because they’re better that way. Which, yeah, truth, but also ow.

5.And most importantly: When did Dean give Cas that mixtape??? How did that happen?

Sequence of events: Cas tells Dean he loves him – Dean is clearly shook by it – Dean gives Cas a mixtape (romantic gesture, often a declaration of feelings; in true Dean speak too lolsobs) – Cas goes awol - Dean acts like he got ghosted by his new bf -?????- Cas somehow knows the Colt is under Dean’s pillow – "He went into my room and he played me."

What am I supposed to do with that, hm? Like. Y’all realize they probably had some emotionally constipated getting together moment, right? Something that Dean clearly initially thought meant things were gonna change, now. Something that Cas couldn’t allow to happen until he could give Dean a win. Y’all are seeing this, yeah? I’m not saying they slept together and were full of feelings, except that’s kind of what I’m saying. But YMMV, there are other possibilities beyond sex. The full of feelings isn’t up for debate, though, even if the whole thing is informed by ridiculous amounts of miscommunication.

III. Seasons 13 through 15 As Established Relationship

Regardless of what happened in season 12, exactly, I can’t shake the feeling that something did happen, and something did change. My reasoning here is actually really simple: in comparison to previous seasons, Dean and Cas’s dynamic shifts significantly come season 13. I know some folks have been disappointed with some of season 13 and then season 14 for having dialed back on the destiel side of things. And, hey, maybe there’s truth to that in terms of backstage stuff, but I also want to point out that...well, the dialing back isn’t quite dialing back is it? Let’s look at 13 a little more closely:

Season 13:

So I said the deancas dynamic changed, right? I also think that change caught us unaware because the pivotal turning point that would cue us in never happened on screen as well as being subsumed by Cas’s death and Jack’s birth. But if I ask you about deancas in season 13 what would come to mind? Grief arc? Brokebacknatural? How domestic Dean and Cas are? There’s just something easy about their relationship after Cas returns from the Empty. The tension we’d grown so familiar with over the years is gone. Actually, it feels like we skipped the getting together bit of their relationship and went straight to established relationship and parenting. Some of the most peak married deancas moments we see circulating? Season 13, (and 12.10). It’s a lot, and it’s different, and it’s amazing.

13.01-13.05

Dean’s grief mini-arc. He was acting like a widower. Here’s me vaguely gesturing towards the mapping of Jonh, Mary, Dean, and Sam onto Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack. And the reunion? I can’t help but be giddy at the song choice: “it’s never too late to start all over again.” To. Start. All. Over. Again. I’m just saying.

13.06 Tombstone & 13.16 Scoobynatural

I’m not going at length about these episodes, I just want to point out that they reveal that Dean and Cas have a whole thing going on off screen: they watch movies together, Cas knows about Dean being an angry sleeper, Cas seems to have been aware of the Dean-cave before Sam was. It’s little things like this that are examples of the narrative gaps surrounding Dean and Cas that have cropped up over the years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder what else could be hiding there. And when did the movie nights alluded in “Tombstone” happen? Maybe in season 12 when Cas in hanging around the bunker? The same period when Dean and Cas seem to be coalescing into something safer and more stable? Something that we never see come to a head because plot happens and Cas dies? Something that is immediately taken back up once Cas is alive again?

Season 14:

Overall, this season is more of what we got during 13, but it had two high notes I wanted to single out before ending this already too long post.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Look me in the eye and tell me Dean and Cas talking in the kitchen about Jack doesn’t read like husbands talking about their child. Look me in the eye and tell me Cas just texting Dean to gossip about Sam isn’t couple-y as hell.

14.18-14.20

Ah, yes, the divorce arc. Awful. Terrible. The culmination of Dean’s problem in all this: he lashes out, he pushes Cas away, his anger is alienating. Cue all of us suffering. But while Dean is clearly in the wrong in how the deals with his feelings, let’s not pretend some of his anger doesn’t come from a long established, and unaddressed, rift between him and Cas, which had its last traumatic turn when Cas died in s12. Dean isn’t being rational here: he saw Cas doing something on his own, and he saw that his mother is dead. What else could happen? Why won’t Cas just trust they can work as a team? What if Cas died again? And why should Cas put up with Dean’s behavior without knowing the cause? How can any relationship work this way? But notice how caught in the middle Sam was during all this. Notice how Jack is running off and acting out. The whole family is falling apart. Divorce arc, indeed.

Season 15:

But what about what we’re building up in 15? That seems like it could be a getting together plot, too, right? Well, yeah. It could very well be. But I’d argue the tension we’re seeing isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they because they already have. We’re are watching a getting back together plot! The tension is, instead, will-they-or -won’t-they use their words to talk about the baggage that has kept them from truly being confident about their relationship. That’s the crucial step in their togetherness that they’re still missing, which is also the bedrock of the divorce arc that spanned twelve fucking episodes -- y’all, that’s half a season.

And technically? We’re not even done with yet because Cas never let Dean finish his prayer/confession in purgatory. What’s more, Cas hasn’t grappled with his role in the breakdown of their relationship, either: that he keeps going off on his own and getting hurt (and getting other people hurt), and Dean has to deal with the fallout. The deep emotional understanding, the truly being on the same page is what we’re on the edge of our seats for. We’re waiting to see what else Dean had to say, and what will happen when Cas’s deal with the Empty comes to light.

Finally, could we still have this plot without Dean and Cas having gotten together off screen? Sure, but I think the stakes are higher if they already did have something between them. If they actually have an established romantic relationship going on. Something real and tangible and as of yet much too fragile.

"...you asked what about all this is real. We are."

[katsidhe]

15.17 Final Thoughts (2/2)

Part one here. OKAY, let’s Talk About Dean™, shall we?

Dean has been flatly angry this season—really, he hasn’t meaningfully moved past the place he was in at 14.20 or 15.01. This empty rage, clawing for moral high ground, searching for some vicious place of agency and righteousness, has manifested in ugly ways all season, from the way he’s treated Cas and Jack, to stuff like executing the vampire kid in 15.04 or the bar dude in 15.07. Sam has not been exempt from complicity in this pattern; we’ve seen a lot more unthinking hunts, like in 15.10 or 15.15, wherein the motive and the story is secondary to the necessity of the Success of the Justified Kill at the end of the book. The shorthand for hunting this season has been killing things, not saving people.

Dean saying Jack isn’t family: FINALLY. thank you. It’s true, it’s always been true, this has always been Dean’s opinion, since season 13: his affection for Jack has always been fundamentally conditional. And I’m so glad to hear him openly acknowledge it in a way neither Jack nor Sam can make excuses for. (even though poor Jack, bless his heart, still tries—in the sense that he understands Dean’s straightforward hostility in a simple way that is nearly a comfort. More on that in a separate post.)

Dean’s speech to Jack in the car: wowowowow. Dean pushing Jack to suicide SURE IS SOMETHING, ain’t it? Amazing. He tells Jack, with no sense of irony or illusion, thank you for killing yourself so that Sam and I can finally be free to have a life. What’s so FUNNY here is that Dean easily could have said many things that would have been more sympathetic—like, thanks for doing this to save the world. Instead, the way he contextualizes the worth of Jack’s sacrifice is in exactly the same terms Billie used last episode: what it means for him personally.  

This is an unsightly peak of selfishness. Even during the sporadic times Dean tries in this episode and in 15.16 to contextualize his need to be free of Chuck as something for Sam’s sake as much as his own, his protectiveness is much more explicitly and significantly of Their Lives. And Their Lives are not equally Sam’s: their little world’s status quo, the car the hunt the music, belongs to Dean. The amount of ownership that Dean’s had? Made him more vulnerable to the revelation of Chuck’s control, and more unhinged as he seeks to win it back. Dean’s sense of self is much less relentlessly internal than Sam’s, going back even to childhood.

I know you feel that way about Chuck, Sam says, because he has known this feeling since season 5, the revelation that every choice he made, every tiny rebellion he thought he managed, was in service to a dark plan. He knows, and he knows Dean is not dealing well, and he knows why.  

I’ve already written a lot about the rest of Sam’s speech, but I gotta repeat anyway how much I LOVE Sam’s stubborn insistence that, yeah, Dean, you definitely protected me from Dad and Lucifer both, and it is in fact the only thing I’m 100% certain of.

Dean threatens Sam with lethal violence. This is not the first time, obviously, but the way it happened actually is a pretty fascinating break from tradition!

For one, this is not a Moral High Ground Thing. Dean is making no judgment here; he’s not killing Sam For His Own Good. Sam isn’t on his knees. It’s not that Dean thinks Sam is in the grip of some dark power. Dean knows Sam is just, y’know, disagreeing with him over Jack’s suicide.

This is also not an Under the Influence thing. Dean isn’t a demon, he isn’t possessed, he isn’t bearing the Mark of Cain. This is straight up, unthinking rage and frustration, unleashed in destructiveness.

If Dean HAD gone through with shooting Sam here, I’m certain he would have regretted it instantly and view it as an awful mistake [and probably we’d be watching him castigate himself over this terrible sad unavoidable tragedy]. Ironically enough, Jack’s accidental killing of Mary in 14.17 would then be the closest point of comparison—and that’s being way too generous to Dean. Jack didn’t actually intend to point lethal power at anyone, whereas Dean very much chose to aim and cock his gun.

Dean…. isn’t really a very good agent of free will, historically. In times of crisis, Dean has a pattern of being willing to go along with the first plan that gives him some kind of autonomy or power, even if it takes away more of his or someone else’s autonomy in the long term (see: selling his soul in s2; signing up for Team Heaven in s4; nearly saying yes to Michael in s5; letting Gadreel possess Sam in s9; accepting the Mark of Cain in s9; agreeing to throw himself into space and kill Sam for Death in s10; saying yes to Michael to kill Lucifer in s13; nearly caging himself in the Ma’lak box in s14; nearly shooting Jack on Chuck’s orders in s14; going along with Billie’s plan in s15). He often finds himself willing to give up freedom for security. Which isn’t always the wrong decision, sometimes it’s prudent! But he’s much less of a contrarian than what he sells himself as.

Sam, actually, for all the times that he’s lost his autonomy, and for all that he is often narratively subordinated, is the one who’s the eternal spanner in the works. He talks Dean down from a bunch of the previous examples. He’s the guy whose dramatic speeches are ruining all of Chuck’s fratricide fics—expressions of Chuck’s issues with his own sister. It’s Sam who had the bullet wound connection to Chuck’s mind, and it’s Sam who paralleled Amara this episode. Sam is a placater, Sam is the guy that Chuck really, really has a problem with, and I want to see this explored more.

Dean threatened to kill Sam because Sam was refusing to accept his fate. The destiny that Sam refused was killing Jack, who has been Sam’s investment, Sam’s kid, and Sam’s parallel, to help Dean escape his destiny. This feels like a thesis, or something like it: it’s an encapsulation of how Sam and Dean’s fates are tied together not just by love, but by an undeniable core of violence and a chilling imbalance of emotional power: love and protection inosculated with harm. Dean’s angry, he’s breaking down, he’s going off the rails, and it’s in the face of this that Sam, with blood on his face, offers unity: he tearfully makes his pitch, insists that Dean is good, that Dean won’t sacrifice Sam, that his protection is true.

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. CXXI

It was a love story from the very beginning.

Pain and Sadness

(15x01/15x02)

Hi! We reached the las season from Supernatural!

This is a summary of my metas from season 15, with some new additions after the end of the show.

You can find my metas from these two episode here: X, X , X, X, X , X, and X.

They Keep Fighting

We started season 15 with Destiel driving us to their big fight.

The bickering the sarcasm, is all over between Dean and Castiel.

Talking about frames and visual narrative, also symbolism in the dialogues, we have Sam and Dean in the same page about taking decisions, and Castiel in disagreement. This was deliberately written to show us how Dean and Castiel are walking away from each other.

This scene...

Gifset credit @agusvedder

It shows the mood. It also drives our attention to Castiel's intentions to separate humans from angels, he did it too when he explained Jack that Dean and Sam will die someday. And it will be linked to the very end of the show, in Wich Castiel and Jack are in another high level by rebuilding the Universe and Dean and Sam remain in Heaven.

Another scene was this one:

Gif set credit @wnterfalcon

Even when Dean is so mad At Castiel (in fact, he's mad with himself and he just put all that shit over the man he loves... Things that people used to do) even when he is mad at him, he can't stop checking on him. Because he knows Jack's death hit him strongly, and also, seeing his son being possessed by a filthy demon, it's breaking his heart. But Dean cuts his attempt of talking himself. And of course, Belphegor will mock Castiel about it.

About Belphegor, the Demon of the Divorce

At first I thought he was behaving sarcastically, as a very weird matchmaker between Castiel and Dean, but this was because he represents divorce.

He was enjoying Dean and Castiel fighting like a couple in a crisis for sure. He even will mock about Dean being handsome (indirectly Castiel being handsome). Two beautiful men in love.

Belphegor: Okay. Cool. So, people are, like, crazy good-looking now, eh?

Dean: What?

This observation is linked to season 13: "They're equally beautiful". Belpjegor is trying to mock Castiel and Dean's beauty.

Belphegor: I mean, the last time I was on Earth, I mean, I was human. Ah, it was a while ago. I mean, but, you know, we were all worshipping this giant rock that looked like a huge penis, and... Anyway, folks back then, you know? Had a lot of humps. I mean, a lot. Look at 'em now. I mean, look at you. I mean, you're, uh, you know, gorgeous.

Dean: What? Okay. When are you gonna get out of that body?

The mention of a phallic statue, and people worshipping it, is symbolically talking about Dean and Castiel being in love, passionately in love, with each other. The desire of being together. And then again, he turns to Dean's beauty. All of these comments made Dean very uncomfortable.

Another things about Belphegor enjoying the Destiel Quarrel...

First of all, let's pay attention to the spell and it's ingredients:

This spell is related to season 8 spell to close Heaven! And it's not the only reference to season 8.

And the explanation of why that heart belonged to Dean:

This has to do with the break up in episode 15x07 but also with Castiel dying in episode 15x18.

Closing this episode I want to mention two more things:

Nobody understood Castiel's silent pain, not even Dean. Castiel had to suffer seeing a demon possessing his son but also, he will have to see his body burn.

Another important reference to season 8 besides the spell was the Mausoleum with Carver's name on it.

It was a clear call back to Carver's era, to the crypt scene THE I LOVE THAT NEVER WAS because we will have ANOTHER NOT SAID ILY in this season from Dean.

And these so many call backs to season 8 not just in this season but the reminder of PURITY in season 14 with Michael are linked to the incoming Purgatory 2.0 and more Destiel.

We Are Real

Episode two, we had one couple as a Destiel mirror at the beginning, but it ended up in tragedy, just like our Destiel love story will en in 15x18.

We also had Ketch and Rowena, and Ketch dressed in pink (happiness) showing us that love can be real in wartime.

Another important scene after watching how Dean and Castiel kept working in separated teams ,was the one Castiel tried to give Dean his faith back.

CASTIEL: Ball, right. I didn't tell you about Jack, and then after what happened with your mother...

DEAN: Don't.

CASTIEL: You're angry.

DEAN: Yes, I am angry. At everything. All of it.

CASTIEL: All of it?

DEAN: This mess... all the messes. It turns out that we're just hamsters running in a wheel our whole lives. What do we have to show for it, huh? Tell me you don't feel conned. God's been lying to you, Cas, forever. You bought into the biggest scam in history.

Dean is angry for everything, but mostly, because he feels all his life has been a lie. Something written for Chuck. So he's afraid things he thought were real, are not. Like his love for Castiel. So he needs to know if Castiel is angry too. Aren't you angry that what we feel for each other is not real?

CASTIEL: You don't think I'm angry? After what Chuck did? After what he took from me? He killed Jack. But that doesn't mean it was all a lie.

DEAN: Really?

Dean needs to believe again. If not all was a lie, it could mean...?

CASTIEL: Chuck is all-knowing. He knew the truth, he... he just kept it to himself.

DEAN: Well, now that his cover's blown, everything that we've done is for what? Nothing?

Dean pushes again all his fears. He needs an answer that satisfy him.

CASTIEL: Even if we didn't know that all of the challenges that we face were born of Chuck's machinations, how would we describe it all? We'd call it "life". Because that's precisely what life is. It's an obstacle course, and maybe Chuck designed the obstacles, but we ran our own race. We made our own moves. And mostly, we did well with that.

DEAN: Did we? I'll tell you what we do know. Nothing about our lives is real. Everything that we've lost, everything that we are is because of Chuck. So maybe you can stick your head back in the sand, maybe you can pretend that we actually had a choice. I can't.

And because Dean keeps pushing, Castiel gives him the answer he needs, the answer about them, TFW, bus mostly, about Dean and Castiel:

CASTIEL: Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.

If this is not romantic, then what else can be?

To Conclude:

The beginning of season 15 started by deepening the incoming Destiel big fight.

All is unhoped, pain and Sadness. Despair.

But those three words said by Castiel "We are Real" gives the hopes we need.

Hope you liked this summary, see you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-d @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @dizzypinwheel @horsez2002 @qanelyytha

@destielle @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @belacoded @madronasky @anon-non2 @cea1996 @lisafu02 @asphodelesauvage @deancasgirl777

If you want to be added or removed from this list just let me know.

Buenos Aires, July 11 2021 12:58 PM

[littlewetbeast]

hey! sorry this is a terrible question to ask (i’m a bad fan!!!) but you always seem super welcoming and approachable about things so here goes! I stopped watching SPN at about S5/6 and then the confession reignited my love but I still haven’t watched the rest, all the cannon I know I learned from Tumblr posts (very grateful for this amazing little community).

ok so here’s the Q! why did Dean tell Cas he couldn’t stay at the Bunker? 😭 it makes me so confused, like Dean? told Cas? he couldn’t stay? what? in what world? what was his ~cannon reasons for that? and maybe also your own personal head cannon for it too if you have one? (I’m sure “regular” cannon won’t be a satisfying answer)

lmao DON'T WORRY about being a 'bad fan' i also have a very loose relationship to the source material and thoroughly reject the slightly highbrow idea that you HAVE to have watched everything. i’m glad you feel comfortable enough to ask here! <3 okay, so the general plot points from the first half season 9 are: 1. sam is dying, 2. cas is a human and separated from dean and sam so he can't help, 3. an angel called gadreel tricks dean, saying he's someone called 'ezekiel', and says the only way to heal sam is if he possesses him. 4. when dean runs this name by cas, cas assures him that ezekiel is a good angel. 5. when they reunite with cas, gadreel insists dean toss him out of the bunker because cas is hunted by other angels and can draw them to dean and sam (and gadreel), putting sam in danger. 6. dean, tricked into thinking he can’t tell the truth, just says to cas he can't stay - and cas leaves with a sad meow meow face.   now, up until this point, dean grinding his teeth and telling cas that he can't stay is pretty in character. it's shitty for him and for cas but it makes sense. HOWEVER, what is later revealed is that cas, who then starts working at the gas n sip, is homeless which is???? ridiculous. there's NO WAY dean wouldn't have sorted him out with cash and a roof over his head, etc etc etc, and that's where the fan rage comes from. he literally stayed in purgatory for a year trying to find him and now he’s not even considerate enough to give him basic human necessities? it’s, as many things in later seasons, completely ooc. luckily, spn is a show that constantly plays with alternative universes and meta narratives, so it freely invites you to pick and choose what makes sense to you. my take therefore is this: it was a stupid plot point, dean would never have done it like that, i reject it and insert my own headcanon <3 some fanon takes on this is that dean DID give cas these things but he gave them away to others he felt were more in need. which... kind of works, i guess, but it’s still a bit odd. personally i have.. many problems with season 9 in general so i actually envision things having a totally different trajectory from there. IS IT INDULGENT? YES. but spn is for my special playtime in the sandbox so i just Do What I Want. i am so passionate about the failures of season 9 that i am writing a wip about it where dean sets cas up to live with other hunters and cas gets to fuck and shoot guns because IT’S WHAT HE DESERVES. can you tell i’m passionate about this? lmao

[amwritingmeta]

I am just thinking about how it was such an asshole move to have Lucifer call as Cas and see Dean rush to the door and then not bring Cas back to life. That was something I forgot about until right now when I saw a gif of that scene

Hey, love!

Yeah, listen, I hear you, but I also reblogged a gifset the other day that so perfectly outlaid how Lucifer’s ruse is actually an underlining for what Cas means to Dean, because every other time Luci has used the “let me in” line it’s been in conjunction with showing up as the romantic counterpart of the person he’s trying to manipulate. Not that person’s best friend: their girlfriend or wife. Aka their the love of my life person.

Dean loves Cas back and this fact is shining so brightly in the subtext. It makes me all shades of thrilled and excited and joyous to even think about it!!

Is the omission of Cas from the narrative for the rest of that episode a little bit weird? Yes, it is. It would’ve been so easy for Dean to have one line to Jack our New God asking “What about Cas?” and Jack telling him “He’s at peace.” It’s very strange given how the episode started, with Dean demanding of Chuck to bring Cas back. It seems the perfect bookend moment for Dean to not demand of Jack, but simply ask. 

However, no matter how at peace Cas is, Jack knows not to leave him in the Empty, because Cas doesn’t belong there, so having Dean ask about Cas and for Jack to dismiss the question (and Dean’s inherit longing to have Cas back that always accompanies Dean’s focus on Cas) with some airy statement, only for Jack to go get Cas the hell out of the Empty, but without sending Cas straight back to Dean, would’ve seemed even more OOC for Jack when we get the reveal that, actually, Cas is alive and with Jack and their off on a father/son remodelling of Heaven adventure tralala. Selfish, Jack. Right? :P

That scenario would’ve required proper refrigerator logic, yeah? Like... what was Jack’s actual motivation for keeping those two apart then? Since the subtext is telling us so strongly that they belong together! Wouldn’t Jack know? And after everything Dean’s been through, wouldn’t the best reward be to have Cas back in his life? What sort of God does that make Jack exactly?

:P

What we get is Dean being shown to mourn Cas in 15x19 and omg do we have Dean wanting Cas back - there’s zero rejection due to the declaration of love, there’s as ever that focus on saving Cas, getting Cas back, nothing’s changed - and Dean all with the hope that Cas will show up, indicated by how he reacts to that call, and based in how Cas has always come back to him, only when it turns out that the caller is actually effing Lucifer, Dean’s immediate hope dwindles, and then, Dean’s facing Jack our New God and... well, why doesn’t Dean ask?

I think it was the only way to not have Cas back immediately, because Dean asking would’ve meant that Jack either would’ve had to give Dean actual hope that their separation wasn’t permanent, giving a less airy response than “He’s at peace” (because Jack knew that he was going to bust his dad the fuck out of eternal sleep in nothingness), or Jack would’ve had to grant Dean the reward of having Cas returned to him.

And neither option really worked with where Dean needed to be in his arc.

Well, to my mind, anyway.

Which was in acceptance of Cas’ absence. Acceptance and letting go and all the adulting that comes with moving into self-worth and a real sense of identity and letting go of the past to make way for the future, which was done very much in preparation for the letting go of Sam.

Letting go of the past and making way for the future was most clearly expressed in how Dean states that the pain of losing Cas and Jack will never go away, but not living would mean their sacrifices were meaningless, and so on with living he goes.

And the reward for this, for having integrated, for his self-actualisation, for being ready and open for whatever happiness comes his way, isn’t his sudden death - because that moment is given to him by the narrative as the final piece of the puzzle on his journey towards shaking off all that eternal sense of responsibility, and knowing peace - instead, the reward is finding Heaven remodelled by the love of his life, who has learned as many lessons on their joint journey as Dean has, and has been hard at work to make the afterlife what Dean truly deserves.

It’s a gift, Dean. 

Making the moment of reunion linked to this, rather than Dean asking for Cas back from Jack, makes more sense, because Dean needed to properly let go of his need of Cas, and make way for his want of Cas, for his love, that doesn’t need Cas’ presence to validate it, but that just is, because it’s not in the having, it’s in just being, and I would say Jack is the type of God that knows that, and that knows that the reunion shouldn’t take place on Earth, but in Heaven. Especially in the Heaven that he’s about to create together with Cas.

And yes, it’s a bit sad that we weren’t given the brothers having a somewhat longer conversation about Cas, about him professing his love etc. but it goes with the tone of the finale, and I know we can look at it as though the love story was scrubbed clean of the narrative and yes, it does suck that it was consigned back to the subtext, but it’s still very much as present as it always has been. 

Especially thanks to what’s come before: 15x18 being completely structured around couples in love losing one half and then this gentle callback to Lucifer’s pattern of behaviour when manipulating people by posing as the love of their life to gain their confidence. 

There are little holes, I know there are, within the surface of the text of 15x19 and 15x20, but the logical way of filling them in is, to me, right there. Right in the narrative itself. You don’t have to go far to find them. Does that mend the holes of the textual impression of these final two episodes? No, not entirely.

I still wish Charlie and Stevie had been brought back as a statement, because I do understand the feeling that every queer character just up and died and it’s ridiculously careless, to my mind, to leave it to the subtext to ensure us they were of course brought back with everyone else by Jack.

And I’ll never understand why we didn’t get it stated that Eileen is Sam’s blurry wife. I mean... that wouldn’t have taken any effort whatsoever and would’ve meant a whole lot, so idk. Did it just not mean a whole lot to the writers? Just seems so weird. 

Look it, we have Dean mourning Cas (via drinking and coping mechanisms), and wanting Cas back to the point of being ready to just up and die himself AGAIN (and being FURIOUS still, even though he admitted his anger got him and Cas into that room to begin with) but even if Dean kills Sam or Sam kills Dean or they kill each other, well, God had better fucking bring Cas back!! Which is like okay, calm down, Dean, this is exactly where you shouldn’t be in order to get Cas back, so, yeah, no wonder Chuck didn’t even respond to that demand.

Was it cruel and unusual to have Lucifer call Dean on the phone like that?

Yeah, it was, but it was also, in a way, if you want to look at the narrative we have and it is, end of the day, the narrative we have, a wake up call for Dean. After that he moves into teamwork mode with Sam and Jack and together they hatch the plan, the con, to defeat Chuck, and they succeed.

To me there’s threading there that emotionally resonates and makes a whole lot of sense for Dean’s arc. This final leg. The letting go of it all. The acceptance. 

And so that’s what we get in 15x20. No more coping mechanisms. Just living life to the best of his ability, honouring Cas’ sacrifice, recognising he’s going to have to live with the pain of the loss, but he’s willing to do that, because he no longer feels he doesn’t matter, or that what he does doesn’t matter, because it mattered to Cas, and that has just finally brought his sense of worth into actual stark relay and he trusts it now. He trusts there’s more to him than being the weapon. 

Cas took away Dean’s reason for his self-hatred and held up a mirror and said See yourself the way I see you. And so Dean does.

It’s beautiful. (literally) :)

Anyway, I just ramble on, but I hope that it explains why I see the good in the heartbreak, and how that heartbreak has left us with an ending that is wide open to a happily ever after that is setup by 15x18 and underlined by 15x20, and by that slow half-smile from Dean at hearing Cas is in Heaven too. That Cas is out of the Empty and free. That he’s the architect of Dean’s happiness. Because of course he is. 

Of course he is.

:)

xx

[mittensmorgul]

I commented on a tag on another post a few hours back that I had a thought I needed to make a separate post about... which I promptly typed up as a note to myself and then just as promptly forgot to actually post >.>

It’s an interesting evolution that Supernatural has made. I’ve seen people point out that the Monsters of the Week have been... lacking in true depth, probably most blatantly evident in 15.14 with the random string of hunts Sam and Dean take during a montage scene where we don’t even see most of the monsters they kill. We don’t even know what most of them are. We only see them barge through a door, weapons out, and assume the hunt was a done deal. No setup, no investigation, no “crime” committed by the creatures in question. Just... completely by the by. But there has been a shift over the last few seasons where this has come more sharply into focus, because it’s a side effect of the narrative shift to Sam and Dean coming into their own versus the whole of the universe. Where after facing down God and The Darkness, how does any sort of monster hunt even begin to challenge them? They have “leveled up” so much :’)

But in balance with that, the focus of the narrative has shifted almost entirely onto the core characters-- Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack. And for the purposes of this point I needed to make, onto the humanity of these characters.

Which brings me to the actual contents of the note I wrote myself hours ago, which was this paragraph:

I love that it’s the “human” side of the narrative that’s come into sharper focus, like in 15.15. The “human half” of TFW went off in search of a cosmic entity, while the “cosmic entity half” of TFW worked a purely human case that still touched on the goodness of humanity corrupted by blind devotion to God (or the concept of God, regardless how warped it had become).

The show, since s1, has portrayed the potential “monstrousness” in humans, starting most clearly with The Benders. Sure, monstrous humanity is the basis for most of the vengeful spirit cases they’ve been on, too. I mean, just think about what a vengeful spirit *is*-- a human soul done wrong that seeks revenge for those wrongs against the person or people who committed whatever act against them. Technically, the Woman In White from the pilot episode was just a human who did a horrific thing out of grief and vengeance and trapped herself into an eternal cycle of reliving that horror and avoiding accepting what she’d done. She couldn’t even seek revenge against the man who’d caused that grief in the first place. There’s a lot of human sadness in this show, from the word go.

And now Cas and Jack-- two cosmic beings-- have seen both the best and worst in humanity in one episode, and chose compassion and forgiveness, hoping to find help and peace for a girl who’d been twisted into violence and horror by her religious beliefs. And just... the utter humanity of Castiel, the character who introduced himself as an Angel of the Lord so many years ago, a Warrior who followed Heaven’s Orders much like Sylvia believed she was doing in 15.15. He’s become far more human than so many of the human “monsters.”

And same with Amara. When she was first introduced, she cared nothing for Creation as a whole. Her only goal was to have a word with her brother for locking her away. And when she was strong enough, and understood the world enough, and when she realized Chuck was pointedly ignoring her, she started tearing his creation down just to force him to talk to her. Like the woman in white, she wanted her revenge, but unlike the woman in white she actually got a chance to confront her wrongdoer. In coming to a truce with Chuck, she was freed to explore creation for herself, to find the value and potential joy in it. She’s experimented, learned, and explored everything that piqued her curiosity. She’s-- for the purposes of this post-- become so much more human through it.

I have no idea what I was even going for here, but I needed to get this thought down. 

[thetrap]

can't stop thinking about how an ending where dean "retires" by going to a remade heaven and sam stays on earth makes perfect sense like......not only thematically, but also aligns perfectly with what a lot of jensen and jared have been saying.

like jared mentioned how we'd all be crying during the final scene (i believe he also said that 'the tears you see in that scene are real' in reference to character/actor emotional blur, but don't quote me on that) which is super interesting to me cause you'd think that if sam and dean end up alive/in heaven together, there'd be less a sense of sadness and more a sense of peace. and then there's the fact that sam and dean saying a goodbye is very similar to how jensen and jared are saying a goodbye after fifteen years on the show, which could very well explain why jared said that the actor/character lines got blurry in that final scene.

and then there are some of jared's other comments about the ending, ie that the last time jared and jensen see each other "is the last time sam and dean see each other" or something along those lines, which might be a reference to that real life/fictional parallel.

and then there's jensen's comments about how he felt about the ending initially.....like how he struggled with it/had to go to kripke. and since i believe he's expressed a sort of peace with the brothers separate at the ending before, my theory is that dean actually chooses to move on, whereas i think jensen might've been envisioning an ending where dean sacrifices himself or something along those lines.

and then there's how jensen said he couldn't see how the show could go on after how it ends (makes sense if dean is dead/in heaven) while jared said it felt more like "goodbye for now" like the fact that he even used the word "goodbye......" and if his character is on earth it makes sense that he'd see things a bit differently. also notable is how jared, when asked about jensen's thoughts about the finale, mentioned that he thought that jensen was just a little unsure as to "how they would get there" (the ending), and how once jensen sort of realized what the writers were doing, he calmed down a little. to me this speaks to the show's intense focus on dean and cas this season, and makes me think that jensen was a little unsure as to why dean would choose heaven (and cas) when sam is still alive/on earth. but once he realized what the writers were planning to do with the deancas arc, he saw that it wasn't coming out of left field/that it made narrative sense and relaxed a little.

a smaller, related thing to consider: when jensen was asked what he was most excited to tackle this season with dean, he immediately answered cas. he sort of tacked on a joke ("full body tackle") but his initial response seemed very genuine.

tying into all of this is misha's comments when asked about a reboot/spinoff in the future, where he mentioned how resurrection is always possible on spn, like i know most people took that to mean that cas is dead but like......this is literally a running joke on the show, that no one stays dead, and i think it could easily be a reference to the cast of characters as a whole, and it makes a lot of sense for him to say this if both dean and cas are dead/in the afterlife.

speaking of cas, whether he's is in the remade heaven too is up for debate, but to me the ending of dean retiring to the afterlife makes so much sense regardless of where cas fits in. like, of course i want them to be together (that's my literal dream ending) but i think that even if cas is somehow permanently separated from tfw, dean will still end up in heaven. and honestly, just thinking about it now, all the evidence that supports the dean in the afterlife theory is actually good evidence that cas, although he might be dead by the end of the show, will end up in heaven too, since i think that it might take more than the promise of peace/retirement to make dean choose heaven. i think that it might be because of cas being in heaven (my theory is that he escapes the empty, but we discover that he has a human soul, hence all the hints we've had this season about his failing grace, and he can't go back to earth and live, but he can go to heaven) that dean chooses to retire, along with him wanting peace after finally defeating god.

in fact, if we want to go even further (this is getting so long i'm so sorry) i feel like this narrative move makes sense from the pov of the showrunner because it would basically canonize deancas without actually canonizing it.....like of course i want explicit canon, but this path would enable the show to basically give us endgame deancas without confirming it as romantic, which is frustrating but would ultimately be less divisive for the show's audience. like the showrunners/writers are all too aware of how many of us want it to be canon, and this way we sort of get that in a way that wouldn't necessarily alienate/piss off other viewers.

idk i could very well be wrong about this but taking into account the comments jensen and jared have made it just makes a ton of sense to me, and that's without getting into how it makes thematic/narrative sense, too (pilot parallel: sam and dean meeting up vs. sam and dean separating, sam's ability to lead a normal-ish life vs. dean's inability to do so, the inclusion of eileen in the last season, etc.)

[antigonewinchester]

spn rewatch, eps 5x08 - 5x10

feel very pulled in different directions with 5x08 “changing channels” and 5x09 “the real ghostbusters”. for 5x08, the tv parodies are fine and i do like when jackles/jarpad are given more humor to work with instead of just drama, but the trickster being the archangel gabriel all along is such an awkward retcon. it obviously wasn’t intended originally and doesn’t make the previous “trickster” eps any more interesting in retrospect. plus, it’s another kind of rebellious angel to add to the list, and after seeing so many of them, it loses its kick a bit. then 5x09 with the meta plotline, the fan depictions, bleh. really not enjoying the meta aspects of the show as much as i did on first watch, despite (or maybe because) i tend to enjoy meta plotlines in stories. of course there’s plenty to critique/make fun of with spn’s fandom but it has such a mean-spirited edge to it. not the fault of the ep, but it doesn’t help that i’ve seen way better narratives about stories within stories.

5x10, “abandon all hope,” is finally an episode i liked. again, there’s a bit of awkwardness with the writing have to separate cas from the rest of the group so he can’t solve all of their problems, but his interactions with meg and lucifer were at least intriguing. love lucifer trying to create a connection between him and cas, because they’ve both rebelled, right? and cas having none of it. and ellen and jo :’(( sad to see them go but their deaths were emotional and given real narrative weight. and i did not expect to get so touched by dean/jo, but it was quite sweet and heartbreaking, that unspoken what could have been. (although jo’s “i won’t sleep with you because i have self-respect” felt a little… i don’t quite know. on the nose? just there to make it sadder when she died?) and ellen refusing to abandon jo even if meant dying!! family as love and sacrifice. wonder if that kind of thing is going to appear again, huh? :)

the twist of shooting lucifer with the colt and it not working is great, esp with how the colt is so built up in previous seasons, really makes lucifer seem intimidating. lucifer’s cool arrogance towards sam continues to be horrifying, esp with how he keeps predicting sam will say yes. and lucifer as part of the heavenly family drama both as the rebellious brother and as the neglectful/harsh father of demons is great. (again, we’ve got demons on the same level as angels, since the first demons were created by an angel in the first place.)

[coplins]

(1/3) Thanks for responding. I totally see the queerbaiting/kill your gays criticism - it's clear from Misha's comments after the fact that he really thought he was doing something supportive and didn't get how it was the opposite. I wasn't upset with ignoring Eileen because that whole plot was so badly written, and I didn't mind blurry wife because that was a story they'd never have time to tell, so leaving it to be your choice of wife/co-parent (Jared's words) worked for me.

(2/3) I don't see Dean's lack of reciprocation as a problem because Jensen and the showrunners have continuously said that is not their intent in writing/acting that character, so anything folks read into it is subtext. Again, Misha thought it would be better rep than it was. It was a bad call. John isn't canonically a child abuser, just a lousy parent. Both Dean and Sam have done so many crappy things as well that honestly, they shouldn't be there by that metric either. 3/4) But I don't think the finale (awkwardly written as it was) cancels out their character development at all. They are different people - back at the starting point, but not the men they were when they started. Dean is emotionally open; he's dropped acting tough and can talk about his emotions. He can be alone and be okay. Sam is no longer afraid of his blood or turning into John; he can be a good dad. I wish we'd seen Jack and Cas, or heard them at least wish them well, even just a prayer. (4/4) But even though that was crappy to leave out, I don't think it negates the show or the characters. 19 added Cas and Jack's names to the table, and I can be happy with that as the final episode. I was prepared to pretend it didn't exist before it even aired. I AM really glad you're anti-harassment. The shit that even folks like Kripke have been getting on their pages has made me so sad. Dabb posted something about baboons and folks even thought it was about them, not his new show! (Also, sorry to dump like a huge text thing in your inbox. It's totally fine that we disagree on things. I've just seen so many crazy things like people blaming Jared and saying the episode was an ad for Walker and to boycott Walker - a ton of Jared hate in general, really. Or saying Jensen "Destiel Isn't Real" Ackles is secretly a heller who's been viciously silenced by the powers that be for years. And now Misha's getting dogpiled for trying to interact and understand how he fucked up.)

It's fine, Nonnie. :)

Okay, so, just to make one thing clear. If you enjoyed the finale, then I think it's great. For everyone who didn't get their joy sucked out of them, that's awesome! I got to see the Wincest side of my Tumblr dash go apeshit from happiness and I'm happy for them. I've since had to unfollow some of those blogs when they turned bitter and hateful towards those of us who didn't like the ending. I curate my Tumblr (internet in general) experience to avoid seeing hate thrown at ships, actors, characters, fans, or people in general. I unfollow people if they post too much toxic stuff no matter if they're Destiel shippers, angel fans, or whatever part of fandom they're in.

I try not to reblog too much angry/bitter crap either. There are a lot of posts on my dash that I wholeheartedly agree with but don't belong on my blog. And I've written my share of wank and rants over the years but seldom hit post because I don't want to ruin someone else's positivity. When I do hit post I tag it "spn wank" so it can be avoided. If I need to angry-rant I do so in chat. Sometimes I mess up. There are undoubtedly some less than nice posts in the Buckleming wank category on my blog.

Generally speaking, my M.O. is disengaging and/or vote with my wallet. I will never condone cyberbullying. No matter how famous the person, or how nasty they are, harassment isn't okay. Actions have consequences and I try to think of what they are before I act. If I vent hurtful opinions about an actor, it'll be kept in chat, with someone who understands that particular frustration. (Not related to the current situation.)

When it comes to canon, it doesn't matter what showrunners or actors tell us about how it's meant to be interpreted or how they meant to act it. Canon is what's shown on screen, period. As curious as I am about what the actors have to say about things, it isn't important regarding canon at all. I'll stan my boys no matter what their characters get up to on-screen. <3

Yeah, I've seen the theories and the dogpiling. Luckily, I've avoided seeing the Jared hate but I knew it would be there because the internet is a cesspool of people lashing out aimlessly or misdirecting their anger. Even IF they wrote the finale in a way that they thought would put a spotlight on Jared's upcoming series, HE was nowhere near a position of power to make that decision and should be left out of it. I just figured, if it was true that that's what they thought, then the Wincest bunch was their target audience for the new show. *shrug*

Interesting to hear your take on the finale. If I follow people who have your take, they're not vocal about it, or I'm simply missing it because I don't stalk Tumblr. All it takes for me to stop scrolling and go back to my writing is 3 unknown anime posts in a row or one reader-insert fic and I'm nope-ing the hell out of here. X)

I'm not going to argue against any of your points. It's great that you saw it that way. Fuck, I wish I did too.

I kinda feel like I need to address the child abuse comment I made, though. Some separate neglect and abuse like those aren't the same, some only count physical abuse, others include verbal abuse. Too many of my loved ones (both close friends and family) have experienced all three of those categories and the one who was left alone to care for her little sister as a child, definitely has a lot of mental scarring from it, so I'm counting neglect as abuse. That said, I fucking love John Winchester. So it might be Jeffrey Dean Morgan's charisma, so sue me. But John canonically neglected the hell out of his sons. We got proof of that even in this season when John drops his son off for days in a town where kids have gone missing recently. So, yeah... But, on the other hand, of course both he and Mary should end up in Heaven. Like, that wasn't even a question.

I think my strong reaction against it was how every part of the found family the Winchesters had gathered over the years was erased from the narrative as soon as Dean died. The only one who is shown as important is Bobby, a found-family member that initially was connected with John, not someone the brothers had found and connected with on their own. Bobby is also the only non-Winchester in the photos Sam has over his bed when he's dying. I don't know, man, "Everyone's here," simply doesn't do it for me.

"Family ends with blood" like the finale implied, only works if the greatest monsters in life haven't been family members, and my best friends (twins) growing up, just like my mother, were abused, mentally, physically, and sexually, by parents. I've seen the aftermath of those hellfires, how long it takes to assemble the fractures of your being and become, if not whole, at least functional and happy. For them, it was the friends they made along the way, those who loved them when they couldn't, who really mattered.

And that was one thing I really loved about SPN (and still do). Team Free Will. Wayward Sisters. All the people that they met along the way and connected with. I've loved to see Sam and Dean develop their bond by taking it from unhealthy, destructive co-dependency to step by step with several setbacks become their own individuals with lives outside of each other, yet still having the strong bond full of brotherly feels where the love they had for each other was rooted in respect for each other's differences and not who they "were supposed to be for each other". And unlike you, I can't see anything but regression in how the finale played out.

Okay, I gotta stop talking now. ^^ I have one scene my betas told me I need to rewrite in my next chapter, and another chapter half done, and I'm itching to post so I need to get on with it.

I hope I didn't put too much of a dampener on your enjoyment of the finale. My opinions don't matter. We all come from different life experiences and therefore find different things compelling and important. I don't begrudge anyone their happiness. <3

*Hugs*

[curioussubjects]

hi sorry im new and want to know why do you think what misha said about cas' ending is good news?

hi, nonny! please no need to apologize, you’re fine :) ok so the first thing to keep in mind with misha’s wishes for cas ending is that, yes, while he always ends up talking about cas sacrificing himself, that can mean a few things without it being a bad ending (read: cas dying for real and not staying with tfw). for example, cas could sacrifice his grace and become permanently human. another thing to remember is that at its core, and based on previous statements, what misha has wanted for cas was for him to have mattered, to have finally found a place he belongs, and for him to have been able to do the most good he’s able. i often find that when misha doubles down on cas dying, specifically, he’s trying to rile us up. that and j2m haven’t always had the clearest perspective on the show’s story, simply because they experience it differently than the rest of us.  also worth noting that dabb & co. are not writing game of thrones. spn isn’t ending in a hopeless grim dark way, i promise. it’s just not the story we’re being told. just look at 15.09, cas ending up in a box removed from his family is not where this is going, regardless of whether the box is the malak box or the emtpy.  now, why is it good news specifically? well, a lot of that comes from @occamshipper‘s spec videos and musings, which a bunch of us have run away with -- seriously, go look through their blog and youtube channel, it’s real fun. then we can scream about it. that said, even without spec you can look at just what the show is giving us to see that cas’s ending being ~final doesn’t mean sad and even if it means death, it doesn’t mean unreachable separation. just look at rowena, she died for real, but she’s not gone in any way. she lives on as the queen of hell. like, the boys could literally pay her a house call if they wanted. couldn’t we see an ending like that for cas? so much of cas’s guilt has been with his role is destabilizing heaven and killing angels...doesn’t it make sense that he save heaven from chuck? from itself? and if so, and he’s stuck in heaven, or some new iteration of heaven, sam and dean will end up there anyway. death has never meant much in spn for our heroes, so wouldn’t it make sense for the writers to truly go the whole way with no one dies in supernatural? what if death isn’t an end at all? it’s not goodbye, it’s i’ll see you later. to quote benny in atomic monsters: ‘’i’ll see you on the other side, brother.’’ 

so, in short, when misha says he’s satisfied with cas’s ending and that it’s final, i’m here thinking that min and the rest of us are on the right track with the spec and the clownery. that cas does the most good, that there aren’t threads of unhappiness in his character, and no unfinished business. that he can start the new chapter in his life without dragging all his baggage. i mean, that’s what i want for sam and dean, too. and jack. and all our beloved characters.  but really, nonny, if you feel unsure, watch s15 eps again. pay attention to what chuck wants (ie, what the narrative is telling us is bad), what does becky want? pay attention to garth’s life (dude has got it all). and remember that the message of the show is always family. not to the extent of codependency, but a family that is supportive, and loving, and gives you room to be yourself. it’s what we’re building towards. the self-actualization of tfw that further solidifies instead of alienate their bonds. and of course, peace or freedom may just be a false choice.

i hope this made sense and helped you some, but feel free to ask more questions! i’m seriously the furthest from concerned over how spn will end so reassurance is right up my alley, too ❤