Lux

Normally, I don’t care what Jensen thinks about anything. But I do find it annoying that this is coming off an attempt to capitalize off the very same relationship he denies is “reciprocated.” Sure, you could deny all the parallels in the Mary/John relationship in The Winchesters (produced by Jensen’s company)…just a coincidence. We’re just seeing things.

I mean maybe you could deny it if they hadn’t used the same dialogue, scenes, costumes, music, directors and writers. They literally took that scene from Despair, gave it to John and Mary and just added a kiss. Not once. But twice. And that is just the scene from Despair, they made so many other Destiel references and call backs too. Guess it’s okay to be a little gay as long as you can make some money off it. 🤷‍♀️

someone else on my dash put it better than me but there has to be some kind of magnetic fascination to it, almost... THAT is what makes a really juicy beginning

Like hmmm

what happens between Dean and Cas isn't birds singing or rasping violins

no, it’s a kind of interference pattern... signal distortion and static that scrambles everything for a few seconds click click shhhhh, like a sound that doesn’t make sense, and now the whole world has to recalibrate itself because these crossing signals that shouldn’t harmonize...

...do.

Cas disrupts Dean's certainty.

Dean disrupts Cas's certainty.

This isn’t romance. This isn’t even trust—not yet.

It's almost like recognition without comprehension.

In a lot of ways, it's kinda scary and at times veers towards over-corrective posturing, resulting in a bunch of mean stuff that can dip into glib or cruel as they prod and and insult and threaten and test one another...

...ofc as they try at the very same time work to draw each other in

It's the "I wanna know what you're thinking" of it all

They fascinate each other because they don’t make sense TO one another in so many ways and yet, they make sense of each other in deeper, almost irrationally deep, critical ways.

They don’t know what they are yet.

But the moment they meet, the oldest story in the universe cracks open and something ancient and impossible writes itself in without permission

And because of all that, they bend the world around them

("This isn't supposed to happen. You're not in this story.")

They shatter mirrors, rip out pages, and warp would-be parallel lines until they loop de loop

But how could you not?

Imagine just… accidentally writing a Jane Austen-level romantic story. It’s genuinely so good that people could (and have) write essays analyzing the characters and their love story.

IMHO fanon seems to project more stoicism, repression, and even aggression onto him that what is often actually there, almost like they're assuming that masculinity from a rural/poor background = de facto emotionally stunted.

But what we see on our screens is that Dean is loudly emotional. He CONNECTS. He cries, begs, clings, says “I need you,” and breaks down in bathrooms and graveyards. (Aside// He even considers giving his newly disabled foster father a backrub to help with pain. Deep down, he is so fucking sweet!)

He’s raw and expressive, constantly reaching out to the people he loves. In fact, more often than not, his family tells him to “shut it down” because they're SO afraid of that emotionality getting him killed (SEE: Bobby's speech in season 7).

And I'm not saying that Dean never suppresses or represses, or that he never struggles with anger or never shuts down, or that he's never living up to the classic hero masculine archetype, because he so often IS with flying colors...

...but IMHO he is the most expressive and emotionally literate of TFW, with Jack as a pretty natural second.

Fanon turns him into a caricature because of his class signifiers; it's like it overrides what we see with our own eyes. :(

///

Meanwhile, Castiel fits the archetype of the emotionally restrained man way more—not modern tryhard bruh-ha-ha masculinity, but the classic kind: think noir detectives, samurai, old-style Hollywood, lone frontier cowboys. He’s the trench-coated loner who speaks in soft, loaded silences, who says more with a stare than a paragraph.

Cas is stoic hypermasculinity—not because he’s heartless, but because he doesn’t know how to express that huge supernova-sized well of emotion that sits in his chest (Aside/// and yanno... feeling was punishable by death in Heaven).

AND that's not to say that Cas isn't sometimes emotional, or failing spectacularly and slipping into a his loser outsider dork nerd status, or expressing moments of astonishing gentleness...

It's just that fandom often flips their defaults in such a cartoonish way, calling Cas the soft, emotionally open one and Dean the hard-ass. Why? Because Dean’s coded as rural and working-class, and fandom has a long history of distrusting and aestheticizing that kind of masculinity without engaging with it honestly.

///

People love the look of Dean’s pain—the Impala, the leather jacket, the worn-out eyes—but not the truth of it. They don't SEE him. They romanticize his trauma while ignoring how open he actually is. Dean isn’t repressed. He’s exposed. LIKE A RAW FUCKING LIVEWIRE NERVE.

Cas is the bottled-up one, the one who hides behind duty and silence. Dean begs to be chosen. He shows up, again and again, with his heart in his hands.

If you drop the fanon filters and actually watch what’s onscreen, it becomes super clear: Dean is the most emotionally transparent of the trio.

Fandom just isn’t always ready to admit that working-class vulnerability actually counts.

EDIT:

The term angels’ angel!!!! is a deliberate nod!!! to classic noir phrases like “a man’s man!!!!”

That's Cas's default mode of operating. That's the shape of him.

When it was popularized, a "man’s man" wasn’t the loud, brash action hero we see on today's screen (i.e. SPN'S Gabriel). Instead, the ideal man was quietly confident, controlled, and understated. His strength came from calm endurance, not flashy bravado or nonstop theatrics. It was about presence, grit, and honor:

//

BONUS ASIDE: Speaking of Gabe, this is why to me it's sooooo funny when they show Gabe getting intimidated by Cas's dick. This kind of awkward moment SHOULD have had a wisecracking dude like Gabe cracking a sexual quip to play it all off, but instead, he scrambled backward, totally off balance while Cas didn't give a flying fuck about it:

and also it was funny penis jokes are always funny

That's not to say this Cas isn't ALSO sometimes waylaid by nerves (HE CONTAINS THE MULTITUDES!!!)

And it's SO FUNNY because in 5x03, when he says he looked deep into the sex worker's eyes, it was so INTIMATE and OFF-BRAND FOR A BROTHEL VISIT.

But that got me thinking even more... the whole thing is a mismatch for Cas's archetype, right? Brothel visits totally clash with the sense of self-contained honor and restraint he represents.

His archetype is built on earning value through action, not emotion. He fights the battle, protects the innocent, holds the line... and maybe, maybe someone loves him for it in the end.

But his mode of masculinity rarely asks. He doesn’t pursue emotional fulfillment for its own sake, because that would require admitting he wants something, and wanting is vulnerable. In a way, his nervousness is right in line with his archetype. (It's when he's breaking his archetype in season 6, i.e. fighting above his weight class, posturing about his height, watching porn, making out with Meg, etc that he's more sexually pragmatic/less nervous.)

BUT ANYWAY

While fandom sometimes reads Cas's quiet distance as "softness," the show actually presents him as something much sharper and lonelier.

His mythic masculinity is distant as it is legendary, tragic in how *unreachable it seems. It's at it's core... about being burdened, revered, and alone.

:(

But sadly...

...when Cas tries to break free from that mold and step into family life, it's like the archetype doesn’t fully convert. Instead of finding rest or connection, he becomes the ever-working, never-sleeping, emotionally drained dad—still trapped in his role, wearing his "work clothes 24/7."

Family life becomes another kind of duty, one he can’t allow himself to have without wrapping it in a mission. And besides that, he needs them SAFE, so he switches one battlefield for another.

Meanwhile, all they really want is for him to just COME THE FUCK HOME and be happy. *SCREAMS INTO THE VOID*

IMPORTANT EDIT: But on the flipside, Cas’s emotional guardedness isn’t just stubbornness or deceit... it’s shaped by very real, high-stakes consequences.

The whole mode of the man’s man/angel’s angel is to avoid vulnerability, be strong, and protect others—but also never show selfish emotions or want things for yourself. For Cas, emotions are not ONLY vulnerable but often lead to severe punishment (hello, Heaven). Later, being happy/emotionally connected was literally punishable by death (hello, The Empty).

He was emotionally handicapped by very real, HUGELY spiky and often lethal barriers.

anyway, i love cas too

BONUS

when even SAM is saying come home you stupid fuck, that's your sign.

SPECIAL NOTE: OFC no one is all archetype. That's the point. We're the multitudes!!!!

That's what Mary's whole arc was about in s12, I think. She friggin' pulverized clean lines about the "mother" role. Which interestingly enough... suits her family fairly well.

Dean and Cas are not their personas or archetypes.

In many ways, it almost feels like they're actively fighting against them, because those modes of operation PREVENT them from reaching what they truly want (love, fulfillment, happiness, connection).

And it's about the integration of self, maestro!

— sunlit lovers, m.j.

DEAN STUDIES 101: AN (ABRIDGED) SYLLABUS

(THE GOOD) SUPERNATURAL (THAT LIVES IN MY HEAD)    ⋙ “SCOOBYNATURAL 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO”           ↳ seraphcastiel’s secret good supernatural, part one

team free will runs into a few familiar faces while on their long-awaited beach vacation, but spooky island gets a whole lot spookier when jack and scooby doo suddenly disappear….

I saw a post a while back and everything coalesced in my brain. Why have I been so broken-hearted about this stupid fictional middle-aged (abused, broken, hurting, lonely) white man's death who I have come to kin way, way too hard?

Because, for Dean, the happiness was in the having. And we never got to see it.

I loved Castiel's speech, including the idea that, for him, his happiness wasn't in the having of Dean, but in the loving of Dean. That's pretty beautiful and profound and great for him. But for Dean (and me, and us), he missed his chance at that same happiness because he needs to have it. He's a touch-staved, self-loathing, abuse survivor who doesn't believe he ever amounted to anything more than the blunt instrument in his long-dead father's torturous hand. He NEEDED to have Cas. He needed to HAVE Cas.

And I'm not talking about sex, or lust, or whatever. It's the same as the weight in Cas' phrase "the one thing I WANT is something I know I can't HAVE." And I see--especially after recent events--a lot of people focusing on the "want" part of that phrase, but we never got to see the "have" part. To me, that's what I needed from the finale. That's what I wanted for Dean at the end.

You know, we as real, non-fictional, ordinary humans will probably never have heavenly, incomprehensible, Cosmic Consequences-level loves in our lives, but what an amazing final lesson it would have been for Supernatural and Dean and Cas to show how a broken person can be loved and how that person can accept love in return. Show how two middle-aged (ish) people with so much trauma who have never really, truly been loved (or in love) can lower their walls, if only for each other, and just... love. (And live.)

Because I sure as hell don't know how. And after all Supernatural has taught me about (found) family, what a gift it would have been to show me I could be loved too.