#similarly the substance use would fall outside the realm of acceptable man pain protagonist drinking

[an-android-in-a-tutu]

an important aspect of the fuck van thesis to be clear is that cas often functions as a parody of Sam and Dean and their whole deal. Sometimes I think this is even on purpose. But mostly it's a side effect of setting Cas up to be a failed version of them and inadvertently having him reveal how ridiculous they are. Having someone naively mimic them with all the pretense stripped away inevitably reveals that Sam and Dean are kind of hilarious losers. The pop Girlies aliases are a good example of this. Gas n Sip steve is kind of a subtler one.

When Sam and Dean try to leave the hunting life they invariably find an appropriately manly occupation and stumble ass backwards into a relationship with a willing woman who usually just already has a nice big suburban house waiting for them to step up and be the man of. Cas doesn't get that, (okay he also gets a wife at some point just by stumbling naked out of the woods but that's a topic for a different day) he gets a humiliating retail job and a failed date that wasn't even a real date.

Except Dean at least is explicitly painted as emasculated in his blue collar man's man construction job, and Cas finds honour and purpose in his degrading work. And then as soon as you think about it for five seconds, you realize that Cas is a complete outsider to human society with no knowledge of how to even get a job, let alone the paperwork he needs to apply, and suddenly the fact that he managed to land a shitty minimum wage job at all is cooler than anything Sam and Dean have ever done.

Anyway because I'm sexier than the spn writers I want Cas to be a parody of the Winchesters on purpose. He does what they do but shed of its pretentions, and then is more successful for his honesty. The fuck van is ridiculous but it is only superficially more ridiculous than hooking up with someone in the back of your muscle car. And actually it's a lot more comfortable because Cas has more room and a real mattress. Similarly while much has been said about Dean using hookups as a standin for intimacy, Cas is fully aware that he's seeking human contact as much as sex, and is therefor free to be open and vulnerable and forge genuine if fleeting connections with people.

Similarly this Cas would be a hunter but instead of faking being law enforcement and protecting suburban america, he would stumble into the knowledge that unhoused people are incredibly vulnerable to being preyed on by monsters that hunters never even hear about because no one gives a shit. He can be successful at it because he doesn't have to navigate lying, it's easy to find people who are in the know and are happy to talk openly without being labeled as crazy, and failing that it's easy to find people who will tell you which parts of the city just aren't safe to be in even if they don't know or don't want to admit why. There are episodes of supernatural that reveal whole fuckin monster underground that Sam and Dean are unequipped to deal with and never learn to because they don't actually encroach on the type of people the show is actually about protecting. Cas is in his fuck van doing a deconstruction of the show supernatural and I for one love that for him.