Mostly Destiel and Misha Collins

the supernatural fandom is pretty toxic for me, and i find myself frustrated on a daily basis. i carefully word every fucking thing i post in hopes that maybe this time i can avoid hurting someone’s feelings, but someone’s feelings are always hurt and i’m tired of hurting people.

when i was in high school i quit basketball because it made me a mean, aggressive person. that’s kind of how i feel about this fandom. i can’t even reblog at least half of what crosses my dash because so many people - good, reasonable people - have blocked me. i’m sure i have a reputation of being an asshole because i’ve acted like a fucking asshole on here for the past four years, and that’s just not who i am in real life (at least, not anymore). 

so, uh, i’m not exactly deactivating yet bc i don’t want to lose all my writing. i may just put all my stuff on ao3, but that’ll take some time. which reminds me, i’m not going to stop writing fanfic. i have a couple things i’m working on right now, and i plan on actually finishing and posting them. so if you like my fanfic, definitely still keep up with my ao3 and subscribe if you want. additionally, you can always follow my personal blog @mnwood where i mostly scream about b99 and will probably start reblogging spn content over there, too. 

Many of us, like hounds with a scent, have honed in on that one part of the Qstiel line: “I know who you love…” But there’s a problem with taking a single line out of context: it’s easy to mold it into whatever we want to believe. Non-shippers can make a convincing argument that that one line is about Cas’ platonic love for several people just as easily as a shipper can argue that line is about singular and romantic love.  No matter who you are, what you believe, we HAVE to rewind and look at the FULL CONTEXT. And the full context is whittled down to romantic love. From what we know from canon and from the symbolism, we can easily surmise that Qstiel is referring to a singular and romantic love. 

———————-

CAS: SAM AND DEAN NEED ME.

Qstiel: “Oh save it.”                           Qstiel is calling bullshit. What has the narrative of the show been trying to define? Singular versus plural. Romantic versus platonic. And here’s Cas using the excuse that the brothers, as a unit, need him in order to get Qstiel to send him back home. .             Qstiel wants Cas to stop lying to himself. This isn’t about Sam. And Cas has no idea if he’s needed. Now Cas does want to be wanted, but only by one human (which we gather from the rest of what is said). It’s time for everyone to appropriately use we/I, us/me, them/him.  Qstiel: “I have tiptoed through all your little tulips.”             Let me save some time and space: read the lyrics to the song here. Flowers are a major symbolic tool in Supernatural. Out of all the things Qstiel could liken Cas’ thoughts to and it’s about TULIPS. Tulips represent true/perfect love with a mythology based on star-crossed lovers, one of which SAILS OFF A CLIFF… uhhh… Dabb? Is that a toss to: “So what, I’m Thelma and you’re Louise and we’re just gonna hold hands and sail off this cliff together?”).             So basically, out of everything Qstiel could glean from Cas’ mind, he picks apart Cas’ ROMANTIC THOUGHTS. He doesn’t pick up on power-hungry Godstiel and use that against Cas. He doesn’t talk about Cas’ life before the Winchesters or evne about being an angel. Nope, he brings up the tulips (true love) and in the next breath: memories and feelings..  Qstiel: “…your memories, your little feelings, yes.             This is the second time he says ‘little’. Little tulips = little feelings. Of course, they’re not actually little, especially to an angel. Feelings are a big deal! Using the word ‘little’ is a mockery to Cas’ love. It’s another way to try and make Cas himself feel stupid for thinking his love could be returned (Qstiel mocks Cas’ intelligence several times).              Listen to Qstiel’s tone, too. He’s airing out Cas’ dirty little secret, in a mocking tone and with exaggerated facial expressions. There is no reason to taunt a platonic love. Qstiel is the bully dangling Cas’ deepest secret to use as a weapon against him. He’s mentally, emotionally and physically abusive to Cas in their scenes.             And I don’t know about you, but when I had a secret love or crush, I kept it close to my heart. I would have been mortified had someone violated my mind and treated me like Cas is being treated here. Any other loves (familial, friendships) aren’t a secret and aren’t taboo. If just friends, just bros, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Qstiel: “I know what you hate. (whispering) I know who you love. What you fear.”

            Qstiel didn’t say, “I know you love them.” He didn’t say, “I know those you love.” Everything in these statements is singular and yet packed with complexity: Cas hates not being with Dean, whom he loves, and he fears his love is unrequited.           Qstiel: “There is nothing for you back there, no.”             What fear is there in love unless it is a love with great risk to one’s heart? How can he get Cas to shut up, lay down and go back to sleep? Why, show him all of the horrible things he has gone through in the name of that (singular) love, of course. Make him believe it is one-sided and not worth fighting to go back to, make him believe his worst fear. Qstiel is lying to Cas here. 

———————-

After Cas mentions Sam and Dean, it isn’t, “Oh I know you love them but they don’t love you back.” No, it was, “You think you can fool me into thinking Sam and Dean need you? We both know the truth because I saw inside your head and I saw the ONE you love but it’s a shame he doesn’t love you back. Just go to sleep and forget about him.”

This entire scene was also another, “You have to choose: us or them,” moment for Cas, which of course is also in the singular. Cas can choose himself or he can choose to go back to Dean.   Just as Cas faced Metatron, Naomi, Hannah and other angels, he also faced Qstiel, a cosmic entity masquerading in his God-given body/image and told him to FUCK OFF.

Despite the shit he’s gone through, despite the pain and sorrow, despite possible unrequited love… he still chooses Dean. His LOVE for Dean PIERCES THE VEIL OF DEATH so he can return to him.

It’s always been about one human. Dean is Cas’ weakness. It is all canon and it’s gorgeous.

Could it be their parent?

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)

“Without form and void,” is what “tohu va-vohu” is describing, though it’s meaning is more complex than that. Here’s what “Word Explain” has to say on the matter:

“tohu (1062c); from an unused word; formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness:—chaos (1), confusion (1), desolation (1), emptiness (1), empty space (1), formless (2), futile (2), futile things (1), meaningless (2), meaningless arguments (1), nothing (2), waste (3), waste place (2).”

It’s not not there it’s just…eh. A whole bunch of eh that some interpret as a literal desert with nothing in it and some interpret as the planet going, “???” before God came along and told it what to do.

And then you have the darkness, the abyss, the waters of the Ancient Sea, “Tehom.” This is what SPN personified with Amara. She is what God built the foundation of the Earth/the Universe on, thus why she bursts out of the ground when the Mark is lifted.

The Spirit of God is, naturally, God. His intent and Will, getting His hands dirty and making something from “nothing.”

That being said, SPN could be playing on the idea that this Empty–tohu va-vohu, or however you wanna spell that–was what “created” Amara and God.

They portray the Empty as a sleeping celestial entity that would very well like to, y’know, sleep. The Empty is aware of everything, of Creation, despite its slumber, and gives fuck all about All. Its peace is not having to be or do or think. “I Am,” is God’s thing; The Empty would like to not Am, thank you very much.

Now, there’s a common trope, an idea, regarding sleeping deities and their dreams being reality. And I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that both Amara and God were two “dreams” of the Empty, thoughts, that got a little too rambunctious and were consequently jettisoned out of its “head” because fuck all that noise.

Or maybe they willed themselves into being and, again, the Empty was like fuck all that noise. This scenario is an interesting idea because then that puts Castiel’s awakening on par with Amara’s and God’s. “Yo, I’m Being now.” “Yes, and I would like you to not.” “Tough shit.” “Then out ya go.” Amara lands in the backyard, God across the street.

1: Sam is always rearranging the furniture in the library so he can put his feet on something.

He’s sitting like that when they get the call. He is rocking one of the library chairs with a foot against the back rest and the other on the edge of the seat so he could balance it on the back legs and push it back and forth as he thinks. He probably hasn’t even noticed that he’s doing it.

The visual is burned into Dean’s brain, the last thought he has of a trivial sort of annoyance. A feeling that they had never had the time to settle here, not properly. Not enough to get a sofa so Sam could stretch out his great big lumbering sasquatch legs and at other times Dean could spread out on it with popcorn and a six pack and watch a TV in an actual communal room so he didn’t have to rely on Sam’s whims to watch anything larger than a laptop screen… Hell, he’d even share it if it would convince Sam to get one and move it down here…

The thought wafts back, the treacherous thought of when the batcave was new and mysterious to them, of filling the bunker with their own furniture, their own books. Their own friends.

And instead Sam is reading an old tome about demon banishing, and scratching the hardwood floor as the two legs of the chair still on the ground slip back slowly under the pressure of his propped up feet.

It’s as domestic as they would ever get, Dean thinks, and then the phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Dean.”