Celestial Meow Meows

There are multiple deliberate parallels between Dean and Cas and other couples on the show, which clearly confirm that their relationship was written romantically.

In the final season, the writers repeatedly used Sam and Eileen’s romantic relationship as a mirror for Dean and Cas’s. One example: when Eileen tells Sam she doesn’t know what’s real anymore because of Chuck, Sam kisses her and says “I know that was real.” This directly mirrors the scene earlier in the season where Dean tells Cas that nothing in their lives is real because of Chuck, and Cas replies, “You asked what about all of this is real? We are.”

Another clear parallel: Sam loses Eileen and Dean loses Cas literally in the same episode, 15x18. In fact, the entire episode where Castiel confesses was built around characters losing their love interests, starting with Charlie losing Stevie, specifically to set up and mirror Dean losing Cas at the end. The writers genuinely could not have made it any clearer.

On top of that, they introduced Adam and Serafina — a human and an angel who were deeply in love — literally one episode before Castiel’s confession. That was obviously not accidental. It was clear foreshadowing and an extremely direct parallel to Dean and Castiel. Everyone knows the biblical Adam and Eve story, but Supernatural deliberately changed the narrative specifically to mirror Dean and Cas — a human and an angel, just like Adam and Serafina.

They did the exact same thing with Cain. They didn’t even cast an actor to play Abel. Instead, they created an entirely new character, Colette, Cain’s great love, specifically so she could mirror Castiel in Dean’s life. Cain literally tells Dean, “You’re living my life in reverse,” and says that Dean will kill Cas first and then Sam. Since Cain killed his brother first and then his love interest, Dean living the story in reverse means Cas is his Colette (the love interest) and Sam is his Abel (the brother). That was extremely explicit. That is not subtext — that is text.

And finally, in episode 15x19, right after Cas’s confession and death, Lucifer impersonates Cas in order to manipulate Dean into letting him in. That is the ultimate confirmation that Dean reciprocated. The show had already established Lucifer’s consistent method: he always impersonates the person’s dead love interest in order to manipulate them into letting him in. He did it with Nick by impersonating his dead wife Sarah, with Sam by impersonating Jessica, his dead girlfriend, and with Vince Vicente by impersonating Jen, his dead lover. And he did it with Dean by impersonating Cas.

Therefore, Castiel is canonically Dean’s love interest. Destiel is canon. You cannot argue against these canon facts.

We’re asking, where does the soul live?

For those who think that who we are is shaped by a life time of experiences. That we grow and change with each each heartbreak and trauma. We see the ending as something horrible. We’re witnessing the death of our beloved characters and we are grieving for them.

For those who believe in a soul, who believe that Asa and Anthony are Aziraphale and Crowley because of the something intrinsic that lives inside them, what they’re seeing is a rebirth and a second chance. In that sense the ending is beautiful. They both get exactly what they’ve always wanted. To live as humans without the pressure of heaven and hell. In that sense, the ending is a joyous one.

Sadly these beliefs are deeply held, often the roots begin as far back as our childhoods. No amount of screaming at each other about media analysis is going to change anyone’s mind. Please just accept that there are multiple ways that one can view the ending and that those who are upset are experiencing grief. This is an extremely normal and valid reaction to end of something so meaningful and should be treated with care.

That said, your grief is not an excuse to lash out and those who don’t deserve it.

behind aziraphale, you have: the bookshop, the universe as it is. they could ask god to put everything as it was, but as it was, the universe and humanity are always going to be subject to the something else of god and heaven and hell. michael so easily destroyed the universe. that's the whole point. it was easy for her to decide and to break the rules and go mad on the power. to remain in the bookshop, in this universe, is to always have that threat. aziraphale could have rewritten the book of life, but then there'd still be a book of life.

instead he wrote them the choice.

behind crowley, you have: the same twinkle lights as the south downs. the tree. the garden. the universe as it could be. where people can just be people, and no one has to save the world. it just gets to be. they just get to be. they're surrounded by their history. the nightingale still sings. i have the universe, and i have you. i have everything i've ever wanted.

CROWLEY AND AZIRAPHALE AREN'T IN THE BOOK OF LIFE

Michael burns the entire book. Crowley saves a *single* page. Yet Aziraphale and Crowley persist. Even when God "makes a universe" without them in it.... They still are. They persist. Aziraphale and Crowley are as foundational to creation as God and Satan themzelves (you'll notice Satan also didn't have a page)

Like we as the audience are lead to believe from the start that Crowley is this jaded, cynical little fucker who’s fond of one person and one person only. The typical “nothing in this world matters except you” grumpy who doesn’t give a shit about a universe that rejected him. Aziraphale, likewise, is pretty easily seen as the bigger picture guy, it’s obvious he loves Crowley deeply but it’s the mission of the larger world, the good of the people, that draws his time and energy- he chooses that responsibility more than Crowley. These are the roles we’ve seen them play and the archetypes we’ve kinda locked them in to. It matches with their grumpy vs sunshine attitudes, their aesthetics etc

Then in s2 we started noticing some cracks in it. We’ve met Angel Crowley who is a beautiful sunshiny dreamer who cares so deeply about the gorgeous world around him. Aziraphale starts to get a bit wrapped up in his own self interest from time to time, caring more about his bookshop or Crowley or even Jim than his larger mission. These little moments added depth to their characters, but ultimately didn’t shake our ideas of them. But THEN-

When they were asked by God what they would save, everything in the world has been stripped from them. The universe is lost- all that remains is each other and the final question of “what in the whole of existence matters to you most?” And we think we know what they’ll say, we think the way we’ve been taught all this time- Crowley is the selfish lover and Aziraphale is the heartbroken rejector.

But instead we meet their cores. We meet the truest stripped down versions of themselves and we learn the truth. Aziraphale picks Crowley. His lover, his life, the being that completes him. He makes the selfish, or loving, choice, no matter what it means to the world. And Crowley- Crowley is crying for the world. He is so utterly helplessly desperate for humanity to have their chance that he’s willing to throw away everything out of his sheer love for them. We’ve met the old part of him again, the artist and the lover, the selfless one he’s had within him all along. And for Aziraphale we’ve finally met the lover in him too, the one who’s finally willing to put his love for Crowley above all else.

however, it is also very apparent to me (and for the purposes of this tumblr post this is an OPINION and i am not calling anyone anything for not agreeing) that that ending was God giving them what they wanted: a universe without heaven or hell. a universe where they can find each other again and again in every lifetime (time after time plays softly in the background). a universe where they can be authors and booksellers and ace and allo and have agency and free will every single time and no matter what they keep choosing each other over and over again.

i also do not think that god would ever disappear completely from all universes. how could she undo herself? i think that they exist as they are as angels and demons in other timelines and in other universes where they also keep choosing each other. i think that they probably just reset back to something near the end of season one. where they are apart from head offices but living on earth.