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#and my most realistic expectation is cas does return and dean is just like
babygirldennis · 3 years
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I would like to officially warn u all that i fully intend on regressing to my Clownsona for one night when the supernatural finale airs.
This blog began as a spn blog so it is only right i see it through yknow
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incarnateirony · 4 years
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S15 Remaster: Grace, Souls, Conversion; Effects of the Fall; The Journey of Man; Self-Godhood and Free Will.
Alright, so over in another thread (x) @curioussubjects​ evoked an interesting take about the effects of the fall vs grace/souls and the meaning of the two, and I remembered having an old post that was a bit of a mess from early S13 where I applied Qabbalistic concepts to SPN not long before the actual... Qabbalistic and Hermetic elements started manifesting (The Shadow, the Empty/Ain Soph, etc) and before I pretty much started flipping theological shit.
The other thread was already becoming titanic with a hodge podge of other philosophical musings between users (I think @winchestersingerautorepair​ and @thecoffeebrain-blog​ are still pending to add their additions to it once life clears them), so we sort of mutually agreed to save this discourse for another thread while I took some time to remaster and update the old talking points.
It's a fundamental point that is generally vaguely brushed over, or often has modern concepts plugged into it in streamlined media form rather than exploration: What makes a soul, what makes existence, what makes meaning in our lives.
This, in fact, is the fundamental question and exploration *of* the soul, which Dabb's SPN seems to be tackling fairly directly.
So let's explore the differences and transitional conversions of grace and soul as we've witnessed in SPN. I'll be starting with my take, but of course, as all philosophical discussions go, this is best a conversation of shared concepts.
Also uh, this post was kinda on-request but is literally ridonculously long. Fuck Andrew Dabb for being the only person on the face of the goddamn planet that can make me write infinite words about esoteric philosophy about a TV show.
So this conversation gets a bit difficult to even know where to begin. I'm going to notch a few notes for everybody to keep in mind: Season 6: Death can not destroy souls. Souls are the most powerful known force in the universe, and he who has the most Is Become God. Season 13: Only god can create new angels, they are the biological definition of an asexually reproductive species (as opposed to sexual orientation identity) -- they are unable to create among themselves, and must be created by a supreme force in command of the grace that creates them. This will passively brush over the oft-discussed topic of angel sexuality as well, but that is far from the core point. Season 14: God calls souls "complicated" to handwave away making new ones. Season 15: Yet again, Belphegor tried to consume souls to become a great power, reflecting S6/7 Castiel's arc.
Now that I've sort of dropped those as a lead-in of applicable concepts, I'd like to move forward.
Now as per my S13 listing, we've all seen this fandom turn over and try to apply human sexuality and identity labels to angels over and over again and, while I understand that and mean no offense to that in general, I feel like approaching it from that angle of the human perspective and lens makes a great deal of the substantiative qualities of SPN's discussion of the human soul vanish into the aether. How are these things related? Let's talk!
Sex isn’t the only part of this discussion. As they are wavelength lifeforms, rather than biological, they aren’t really dependent on biological functions. Many of their native elements pass to their vessels: They don’t eat, sleep, or have general body functions… normally.
Their senses are all sorts of different, too. They see in the astral, they taste and smell in molecular compounds, and especially early-vessel-claiming, they seem to have next to no actual pain response. It’s like, well, some giant wave form stuffed in a meat sack they use like a marionette more than having genuine attachment to. Early on angels could waltz through gunfire without flinching and take a knife to the chest with a very bland look of, “Really?”
When it comes to discussing angels and grace, I'm going to pull some sections from the linked post at the start of this:
We know the biblical concept that all things are made by grace; we know Chuck controls his fake construct, but not the free will of the human soul. Consider Gabriel’s constructed worlds where he can manipulate the fake people inside it and snap them away in veils of blue, they’re just pieces of a machine. “I’m the cage.” The human body is part of the sandbox, but the soul is something beyond it.
If angels are living aspects of grace, wavelengths of celestial intent for Chuck’s machinations, the programs that keep the matrix in order – and fallen angels are the rogue programs – they’re still relatively connected to being just… an animated, if intelligent rock or any other piece of the universe. To use more Matrix terms: Just more lines of code. But Castiel’s break in that was contact with his profound bond with Dean that left a mark on him, a brand, just like Balthazar’s soul claims. This tie was powerful enough to be stronger than even Amara’s connection to Dean, for example.
The human soul is the essence of the one true good, realistically – The One Thing that exists, truly, by which all other things come, the Prima Materia – “What Jack did wasn’t evil, it was the absence of good.” – this is actually a hermetic concept but that’s a whole other bag of words, that’s how I quoted that line before the episode aired from the title alone but MOVING ON
If we look at Eileen for example, her ghost is still deaf. Her body/cage/vessel in life never introduced her consciousness, her humanity, to the tactile sense of sound as it exists within Chuck’s sandbox, ergo her spirit doesn’t know it. But it is the soul, like the sleeper, seeking the meaning of its existence and where it is home that commands the body, and leaves the body, and ends up in chuck’s other matrixes of control like heaven and hell that keep people distracted, keep humans from returning to the primordial man that rivals or maybe even betters God.
That all said, human Cas for example suddenly had the full awareness of experience, rather than an autonomous sentient part of the universe chained to divine intent, free or not; that freedom and liberty came by way of the human soul. (Per metatron, Season 8 finale, “When you die and your soul comes to heaven,”)  But with his tie to Dean, and humanity, and a soul his hands laid on, the extraction of his grace also left… but what? A soul born of Dean, really.
Whenever his grace came back, that universal power and awareness, he lost those senses, but he didn’t lose many of the attributes that came with. In fact he pined for them.
Also if we go Jungian with the inky man/shadow as the primordial man or spirit of man, Anthropos, while it didn’t reflect Lucifer, Billie, or soulless Jack it reflected Castiel.
I’ve held the theory that Castiel still has a soul like the nucleus of an egg buried beneath a titanic presence of universal power.
I’d also further endorse this by pointing out while metatron cited Cas having a soul in the S8 finale, when Jack lost his, neither Dean nor Cas thought Cas could empathize as well as Sam could.
In example, Castiel is the only one the Shadow reflected, not Billie, not Soulless Jack, not Lucifer, just Castiel; I’ve even gone so far as to speculate that the smiley attempt at communication was the sort of subconscious borg having the essence of Jack’s soul trying to communicate with his spirit/mind otherwise alert based on consumed grace in the Empty. Speculation, yes, but… potentially loudly resonant.
The journey of man to self-godhood is a complex and tangled affair, traveling through facets of the self represented by a wide array of *ideas* we have begun to face in the show (including color schemes Dabb has actively employed)
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If you venture into my shorthand visual post about The Shadow, Anima, Animus, and the Self (x) you'll find how the show has chosen to address this. Similarly, the masculine and feminine paths of universal progenation would be worth a cursory read (x).
Similarly, @winchestersingerautorepair​ recently sent me a chart from a 1973 book titled "The Colors of Love" discussing Hellenistic use of color in association (which, minding alchemy's growth path through time, is hugely relevant). As Maeve said, "John Allen Lee is the mvp by the way. Hes at the crossroads of psychology and LGBT concepts of love and sexuality, and has a fascinating career and life story."
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Before I fully locked on to just how loud Dabb was being in his use of alchemy rather than casually tapping on it, you may remember a series of color metas I built specifically on these very colors (and, let's face it, black light doesn't exist, but blue does, and has similar psychological associations). Click this (x) to go to my color metas on tumblr regarding Optimism, which follows this path. Unfortunately my Nihilism one is either untagged or I only posted it on Pillowfort. But you’ll take note I just sort of avoided/dodged/ignored established fanon color meta in favor of other stuff, just a heads up there if you’re expecting me to follow anyone else’s pre-existing fanon -- it ain’t there.
This is all an aside to the actual question of *souls*, but an important framework to how Dabb is choosing to explore the journey of the soul through its many aspects of Being.
To defer back to what I quoted from my other post about Gabriel's universes: What makes humanity different from the moving bodies performing functions of controlled story, rather than guided elements, inside Gabriel's world? If we were to, say, drift into Doctor Sexyverse, or Cop Proceduralverse, nobody seemed to flinch or even be aware of Sam and Dean breaking the script, they continued on their own paths until Sam and Dean "played their parts". But what made Sam and Dean *different* from them?
Explaining freedom to angels is "a bit like teaching poetry to a fish," said Castiel, now bound to humanity since laying his hands on the human soul in hell that, even the S8 DVD commentary mentions, is how he has come to know, love and, as they say, be "enamored with" humanity. We have seen it now-- blank stares of confusion from breaking their course of action, their function. Their predesigned purpose that they were wavelengths of intent for within the machine. They aren't all so different from Gabriel's creations in the end, with Doctor Sexy's Nurses being not too unlike angels to Chuck. They are there for a path and a reason, and should they be somehow interrupted from that function, they seem to lose all purpose.
To convert this to another method of understanding than "matrix code", in case that isn't sinking in with anyone, think of angels as forces of nature. The hurricane means no malice, it simply exists as a function of or even result of universal laws, and often evokes great rebalancing effects that change the course of history for a huge amount of humans and other creatures that it's basically oblivious to. The hurricane does not understand your feelings much less care about them. It is here to do what it does until it is done with what it does. This very concept is why so many ancient gods are primitive archetypes of natural forces.
If we cease trying to box angels into human perceptions for the want to identify with them in such a representation-light landscape, the field opens up to something infinitely more complicated. Such as: what makes Castiel so different? I've already addressed that, of course, in this post, but let's pitch that as a conversational hook again.
"You want to know why we're meant to stay away from those humans? It's not because we're a danger to them. It's because they're a danger to us."
Now BECAUSE sexuality is the angle this fandom has heavily thrown its discussion chips into beyond the other senses, I'm going to move forward into that topical field:
Anna, talking to Dean, lists a long flurry of reasons to become human, among which sex was stapled. In later seasons, Cas comes up with a different list, but it’s more reflective of his emotive view of humanity, and doesn’t include the sex. Either way, it actually leaves interesting take on the human soul’s function (which is also a silent part of something I’ll get to later** ) as per the trinity of mind-soul-body sometimes called “The Threefold Nature of Man” in a lot of classic mysticism. **
So why would Anna include sex in the list if others can enjoy it? There’s various reasons of taking this into consideration, and I consider most headcanon potentials valid since… you know, there’s really no clear statement on this.
- Most angels have a copilot and that’s just creepy AF - It could be subliminal commentary of wanting to enjoy a native drive for it rather than a learned one, since affections and emotions are also canonically attached to the human condition (as well as the 3fold Nature discussed later). - It could have to do with gradual humanization effects (will discuss shortly) - Misc other.
Barring our specific presumption of why this hangs in the air, the detail is that it simply *does*. Perhaps the truth is between all of these, with each angel unto their own.
Anna lurked, invisibly, on earth observing men as long as she knew. Now, gradual humanization effects is a complete headcanon proposal associated around  all elements to be covered in this discussion. That is to say, most angels that have exhibited sexual behavior and enjoyment of various goods have either been fallen or in their vessels for a LONG TIME, perhaps gradually removing the disassociation from the body and gaining familiarity with its functions.
Yes, we can evoke Balthazar’s sexual activity, but we must also evoke his appreciation for wine and food and music and all of the other things that we have canonically, even mechanically witnessed in Castiel (inability to appreciate food or drink, in example, as an angel.) So WHAT makes Balthazar different that he CAN experience all of these things (beyond the potential of Plothole AF)? There is literally something he has that other angels don’t. The second Cas clicks back to angel, he can’t appreciate food anymore and beer does nothing for him, but Balthazar can enjoy alcohol? There is LITERALLY a difference of template of EVERYTHING going on here, not just sexuality. We can postulate it all we want, but the only one that immediately comes to mind is “gradual humanization”, as we haven’t the FOGGIEST idea how long he has had his vessel. Unless we assume various appreciations of his are Just An Act, but then why not assume it’s performance behavior on the sexuality too? Pick one or the other, don’t run the line on both. (Also if you want to be under the assumption that despite terminal soul dealing it was his first vessel run, I’m going to leave this as a note, and a REMINDER of his meddling in attachment to, handling, trade and use of human souls for his own means, and tuck this aside until we GET to the meaning of human souls.)
The VERY SAME can be said of Gabriel. And Gabriel we KNOW has been on earth as Gabe for a VERY. LONG. TIME. His sweet tooth is what got him busted. Again, it’s not just about his sexuality, it’s his entire composition is somehow DIFFERENT from otherwise canonical function of angels.
Again I point out there’s also a big ??????? on Naomi because again… 400 year old Crowley in Mesopotamia. We have no educated way to even ADDRESS that one because… is it a time warp? WTH??? Even Mark called this a plothole. Literally we have to headcanon how they were even there together before we headcanon what was even going on in a big old pillar of ridiculous headcanon, so I’m going to float that off in a box labeled with a question mark and admit, it’s just random AF. The “fling” is also implied and unclear. So I mean- we’ll just… note that and keep moving on why it’s never impacted my perception of this much.
How long fallen was Lucifer?
Hannah brings an obvious question to mind in challenge to all of my surrounding premises, but this is literally where “choice of experimentation within a vessel” comes into play, as with all of them. I’m human now, this seems like a fun thing to humans, let me try the thing; that’s all I’ve ever read that as. You may have your read of it otherwise, but angels try a lot of things. And I’ll bring this up during canon talk.
The concept of humanization-with-time does have some further established presence of S13. When Lucifer is still an angel but largely drained of his grace, he too begins feeling compulsions of hunger, cold, and basic human instinct he was previously immune to. Diminished power, and the closer one comes to being of Soul Rather than Grace, the more they seem to resonate. Anna carved out her grace to fully enjoy humanity and was born into it, experiencing its gifts of awareness. Cas can no longer fully enjoy humanity as an angel. We don’t know what Balthazar’s status is. And so on. But it appears that by VARIOUS METHODS, such as the depletion of grace or just being a long-assed time to attach to a specific vessel, they do end up ATTAINING various behaviors.
Preparing to speak on Humanized Angels.
What really triggered this premise to me was the recurring humanization of Castiel. And again, this goes far beyond just sexuality preferences. I’m going to do a brief break to get to that ** I marked above about the threefold nature of man before expanding.
** Mind-Soul-Body trinity:
Angels have the mind/spirit (grace) and body, but lack a soul; grace is closer to their natural body’s composition than molecular and transmits a wavelength thought into whatever sack they’re using to operate. But there’s a disconnect here in classic mind-soul-body structure (which is sometimes alternately listed as Body-Spirit-Soul, with Soul as the mind instead, and Spirit in place of the alternate listing of Soul? People swap these terms interchangeably but you’ll find a common pull). There’s multiple takes on this. For example, we’ll go with the standard accepted biblical take as a first ideation of it, considering the various judeochristian influences of SPN.
Please NOTE I’m going to list several variations of this, and have no hard cast “this is the exact model” they’re using, as much as “this is a recurring theme in religion and philosophy”, which, while SPN is rarely 100% accurate to any one specific model, they often call on.
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The EXACT itterations of this vary, and there’s no real saying which exact respective “silent ven diagram” they’re using, but as if a triple circle overlapped with Mind, Body, Spirit with the balance we as humans know at the core. Removing a rung of this strips out major overlap of function.
The inner spirit, insight, will and memory reaching from spirit/mind to body by WAY of the soul, for the spirit to engage the human senses within the constructed universe
CASTIEL
Well, perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long. There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.
HANNAH
But t-those are human things.
CASTIEL
Yes.
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To fully understand this chart, I again point to (as earlier in this post) this previous post about primordials, explaining the chain (x), Anima Animus and the Shadow (x) and also its association with the paths on way to enlightenment at the source of creation which is explored, for a particular path, right here (x)
Just another way to stack out this chart, including the adventure of Anima and Animus, as well as the id/ego/superego I’ll discuss soon; However, you can see the literal concept is the same. There’s an inner mind, a central essence of the inner court that reflects close to the aspects of Humanity Cas told Hannah, and then the “living room” of the body, and the senses. Same deal. Again, "I'm the cage."
You see a running theme here?
The Soul is essentially commonly received as a vehicle between the higher mind and the body (as well as possessing aspects of our emotion, and sense of self, such as how Sam lost parts of himself without his soul) That, without which, we are lacking various critical anchors of the human experience that we often see lacking in angels.
This therein raises the challenge, “But Soulless Sam was ALL ABOUT the sex.”
That’s where species difference comes in.
We’ll talk psychology a bit, wherein we have the psychological variances of id, ego and superego rather than just body-soul-mind/spirit. They essentially perform the same functions (base instinct drive, early personality function, learned and refined function with choices etc, to boil it down to super-simplistics).
“According to this Freudian model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.” – Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XIX. Translated from the German under the General Editorship of James Strachey. In collaboration with Anna Freud. Assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson, Vintage, 1999. [Reprint.] ISBN 0-09-929622-5
A Sam with no soul has his base species survival instinct but his acting mind. A Cas with no soul has HIS base species survival instinct (in lack of sexual reproduction as much as potential learned appreciation under the above spoken methods) for an id, if any, and a curiously arranged body until other elements come into play. The ego and superego, such as the application of a soul, leaves room for the gradual inclusion of preferences to anything within this model, such as angels developing their own ORIENTATION once having a vehicle by which to come through.
There’s a few other points to notice about the transition. The Mind/Spirit is capable of questions and doubts, or faith. “I’m not a hammer, as you call it; I have questions, I have doubts.” - S4 Castiel.
The mind is capable to think and to reason, but complex emotions are a challenge to it without a soul, which also filters our thoughts and memories from upper mind into the body, wherein we gain connectivity to the physical senses and the realm we experience.
But the universe -- the wavelengths of intent that make it function -- simply can not experience itself, any more than any other code running on your computer can experience itself. It is you, the human, that experiences the results of that code, and views and understands it and reaches out to aspects of life through it. Grace, should all things be made by it and through Chuck, as the thing that creates this code/intent of angels -- it simply is, and runs, and functions.
So BACK TO THE HUMANIZATION OF ANGELS,
Castiel has humanized or near-humanized three times and we're pending on a fourth. Briefly in the hospital, he was braindead (lacking Jimmy’s brain function, but instead having his own mind) while his heart remained pumping, meaning the body/vessel was alive, but the remaining grace WAS in fact functioning in place of a mind.
CASTIEL 5.21 I just woke up here. The doctors were fairly surprised. They thought I was brain-dead. (…) CASTIEL You could say my batteries are – are drained. DEAN What do you mean? You’re out of angel mojo? CASTIEL I’m saying that I am thirsty and my head aches. I have a bug bite that itches no matter how much I scratch it, and I’m saying that I’m just incredibly… DEAN Human. Wow. Sorry.
However, it was depleted, and this is addressed in effect later on by Metatron removing grace. As grace is removed,
METATRON 8.23 And now something wonderful is going to happen, for me and for you. I want you to live this new life to the fullest. Find a wife. Make babies. And when you die and your soul comes to Heaven, find me. Tell me your story.
Now Castiel goes on to return to himself by going all cannibal and whatnot, but that’s its own story. The simple fact of it is, with the mind housed in a vessel, but the grace attached to it depleted, the body seems to generate something like, equivalent to, or equal to a human soul in its function.
Now to reflect back
2014!CASTIEL 5.04 So, in this way. We’re each a fragment of total perception—just, uh, one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind. Now, the key to this total, shared perception—it’s, um, it’s surprisingly physical. 2014!CASTIEL spots DEAN. 2014!CASTIEL Oh. Excuse me, ladies. I think I need to confer with our fearless leader for a minute. Why not go get washed up for the orgy? The WOMEN leave. 2014!CASTIEL You’re all so beautiful. 2014!CASTIEL stands and stretches his back, grunting. DEAN What are you, a hippie? 2014!CASTIEL I thought you’d gotten over trying to label me. (…) 2014!CASTIEL I wish I could just, uh, strap on my wings, but I’m sorry, no dice. DEAN What, are you stoned? 2014!CASTIEL Uh, generally, yeah. DEAN What happened to you? 2014!CASTIEL Life. (…) 2014!CASTIEL You want some? DEAN Amphetamines? 2014!CASTIEL It’s the perfect antidote to that absinthe. DEAN Mmm. Don’t get me wrong, Cas. I, uh. I’m happy that the stick is out of your ass, but—what’s going on—w-with the drugs and the orgies and the love-guru crap? 2014!CASTIEL laughs. DEAN What’s so funny? 2014!CASTIEL Dean, I’m not an angel anymore. DEAN What? 2014!CASTIEL Yeah, I went mortal. DEAN What do you mean? How? 2014!CASTIEL I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving. But when they bailed, my mojo just kind of— psshhew!—drained away. And now, you know, I’m practically human. I mean, Dean, I’m all but useless. Last year, broke my foot, laid up for two months. DEAN Wow. 2014!CASTIEL Yeah. DEAN So, you’re human. Well, welcome to the club. 2014!CASTIEL Thanks. Except I used to belong to a much better club. And now I’m powerless. I’m hapless, I’m hopeless. I mean, why the hell not bury myself in women and decadence, right? It’s the end, baby. That’s what decadence is for. Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? But then that’s, that’s just how I roll.
Now, we can try to extrapolate that it’s “all the drugs,” but drugs or not, while decadence includes MORAL decline, it also is this:
dec·a·dence ˈdekədəns/Submit noun moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.
And Cas doesn’t get words wrong (unless he’s trying to make an awkward conversation starter with Dean as what’s almost a routine for them, always in idioms and never in definition). In fact, he has a very on-point vocabulary. How often does someone evoke “Insouciant”?
Calling it decadence defines this as a luxury to Castiel. The entire episode is like One Giant Exposition of the differences: being breakable, prone to decadence, bang a few gongs on the way out. Yes, it includes drugs; hell, he’s now subject to being INFLUENCED by drugs, contrary to being able to drink down the entire bar before “starting to feel something” or needing to drink the whole liquor store before the grace stopped implicitly filtering it enough for him to stagger in on Sam. At some point, Castiel decided these were ALL his coping mechanisms, but this is an adaptation of some period of humanization between late 2009 and 2014.
This could be considered a one-off of Zachariah’s manipulation or whatever if we choose to ignore Edlund saying it was a real universe, but then we get the SAME THING hitting us again in season 9, if under a different, immediate scope rather than “end result.”
9.01 CASTIEL looks at his bloody palm. CASTIEL It hurts. (…) MAN How about we get you some water, hmm? CASTIEL I, uh, I don’t drink water. (…) CASTIEL It’s okay. I don’t eat.
and
9.03 CASTIEL (Chewing on the toothpaste) I’ll be moving on tonight after work. It’s time. The MAN nods and hangs up his towel. CASTIEL Can I ask you something? MAN Sure. CASTIEL walks into one of the bathroom stalls. CASTIEL Do you ever tire of urinating? I’ll never get used to it. (…) HOMELESS MAN You’re new at this, aren’t you? CASTIEL Food… sleep, or passing gas, it’s all very strange. And it’s occurred to me that one day I’m gonna die. CASTIEL and the HOMELESS MAN just look at each other curiously. CASTIEL Well… I better try falling asleep. It’s quite a process, isn’t it? (…)
Now, we’re going to take to the raw moment of Castiel and April,
She kisses him gently on the cheek, but stays close and eventually kisses him on the lips. CASTIEL seems surprised at first but then joins in.
Cas is surprised… and then joins in. Castiel did not expect this, but falls into it of his own action. No force was implied, and the moment leading into it was all of a few seconds, rather than any persistence or insistence.
A few more bits,
APRIL So, that was okay? CASTIEL Very much so. Um… what I did, that was, uh… correct? APRIL Very much so. CASTIEL (Smiling) (…) APRIL So what happens next for you? CASTIEL More of this, I hope. They smile and start making out again.
I don’t exactly get the feeling that she’s entirely leading this situation on all by herself, to the dismay of several gatekeeper ship or sexuality stans.
More elements with regards to humanity in this episode,
CASTIEL I am really enjoying this place. Plentiful food. Good water pressure. Things I never even considered before. There really is a lot to being human, isn’t there? DEAN It ain’t all just burritos and strippers, my friend. CASTIEL Yeah. I understand what you’re saying. SAM You do? CASTIEL Yes, there’s more to humanity than survival. You… look for purpose, and you must not be defeated by anger or despair. Or hedonism, for that matter. DEAN Where does hedonism come into it? CASTIEL Well, my time with April was very educational. SAM Yeah. I mean, I would think that getting killed is something. CASTIEL And having sex. DEAN chokes on his burrito for a second. DEAN You had sex with April? SAM Yeah, that would be where the hedonism comes in.
This isn’t just Castiel talking about having sex for the first time. This is Castiel acknowledging the allure of hedonism for the first time (…not minding the timewarp of 5.04, which didn’t happen Because AU.)
And here, also 9.03, before meeting April CASTIEL is once again wandering through the noise and the people. He is trying to take everything in – he glances from a hot dog stand to a woman’s breasts to a supermarket. The whole place is noisy and crowded and confusing. He is overwhelmed.
In 9.03, among this onslaught of Castiel’s change in visual, sound, sensory, and other instinctual acknowledgment of a change in the senses (see back to the 3Fold Nature and the acquisition of a human soul), we also get Castiel rubbernecking at a woman’s chest for the first time, before encountering April; the transcript doesn’t do the moment proper justice with the pure level of focus directors and editors called to it. In fact, we get slow camera pan and a rubberneck that might as well have ended with him walking-flipping into a trashcan blindside.
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With all of these stacked connotations aside, I find it difficult to interpret anything but it being installed as a yet-again evocation of a difference in function.
Episodes 1 and 3, the first two episodes Castiel is in during season 9 after losing his grace at the end of season 8, DELUGE us with a current of differences of all of his sensory faculties.
Once his state is “corrected,” (for lack of a better term - Castiel seems to yearn for his humanity back through the show) the show makes a point of showing us a reversal as applicable,
SAM What? What are you talking about? CASTIEL When I was human, you know, I had to eat constantly. It was kind of annoying. SAM Yeah, a lot of human things are pretty annoying. CASTIEL But…I enjoyed the taste of food – particularly peanut butter with grape jelly, not jam. Jam I found unsettling. SAM [sitting on the table next to CASTIEL] So, what? Now you can’t taste PB and J? CASTIEL No, I-I taste every molecule. SAM Not the sum of its parts, huh? CASTIEL It’s overwhelming. It’s disgusting. [looks longingly at the sandwich] I miss you, PB and J.
Once again, paradigm shift. What he once appreciated, amidst the VAST wash of senses they told us about, just seems… null now. Something is missing, and something is different. Again, the universe can no longer experience ITSELF.
Now, I’m going to fall back a bit to cover what would possibly be framed as an argument against all of this, but frankly builds into it,
Back in season 6, Meg was UNABASHEDLY FLIRTING WITH CASTIEL and trying to prompt him to “move some furniture around,” and, in a learned “last night on earth” move, Castiel makes a motion in 6.10
Meg grabs Castiel by the neck and kisses him, at the same time removing his sword. Castiel pushes her up against the wall and returns the kiss with interest. MEG: What was that? CASTIEL: I learned that from the pizza man.
NOTICE. LEARNED THAT.
With FORWARD PROMPTING from Meg, and existing example (porn), Castiel did in fact make a move. That is to say, “learned behaviors” and “personal orientation” beyond “species reproductive instinct”. But as made clear by April, this never led anywhere particular, never completed, and while he expressed wanting repeats with April during being human, this is the only actual example we have of it.
In short: throughout the show, Castiel finds new things and tests new things. These new things become bizarre little childlike obsessions at times even. This one… obviously a little less childlike. (clears throat) But again, this is a process of “learned motion.” (though I’m somewhat disturbed that canonically Emmanuel-Cas sees her face and is absolutely horrified at her appearance, meaning this is also not likely even by nature of physical/spiritual attraction as much as personal, almost a demisexual trait with experimental curiosity which, as an independent idea beyond “holy shit she’s a demon”, is a healthy phase.)
But by way of learned motion/acquired taste and function, we then have the question of “why doesn’t Cas repeat this if he clearly enjoyed season 9?” Well, I can name a few. We can go over the fact that Cas simply doesn’t explore social venues that make it ready. Or we can mention his seeming lack of compulsion for it which ...is a topic of this post. Or we can simply reflect to the *challenges* of hedonism and what it will, in this post, continue to implicitly adventure as the cage and trappings of the human body and experience within what we call “life”, which the human soul extends well beyond.
But it leads us to an interesting series of questions about Castiel and Dean’s seemingly changed interactions in season 12, on a subliminal level.
And no, I’m not implying they’re boning. When Dean is no longer getting strung across a variety of cosmic elements to save him directly from the crosshairs of, or from himself, we’re getting this weird vibe of gruff jealousy, bickering, and infighting. As if Castiel, settling in more among them, is channeling increased humanity. Despite being an angel in some crippled capacity still, personality traits acquired from his human period are still there, leading to believe the soul element never ENTIRELY disappeared, as much as with further ding-dang-donged up grace, we have to wonder - is this almost a sliding scale? Or can both run mutually when one doesn’t overshadow the other? The exact specifics of this mechanic would be unclear.
But all of these complexities is why I find it nearly impossible to, in my head, reduce it to the simple “well some like it and-” because I have always read an intentional base-beat of differentiation between the human and angelic experience including, but not limited to, sex.
There’s a subtle hint of some osmosis of this in what I mentioned above with Hannah. “Perhaps I’ve been with them too long.”
CASTIEL
Well, perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long. There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.
HANNAH
But t-those are human things.
CASTIEL
Yes.
And so why I find it impossible to just address “angel sexuality” as its own topic. This may just be my brain at work, but I don’t see all of this effort in dividing their experiences, in a show that addresses theology and concepts like the human soul, to be arbitrary and random and I just see SO much beautiful complexity IN the shift of his sexual behaviors, among other operations. It’s not just about Castiel’s sexuality, it’s about addressing the complex creatures that are humans, and what builds us at a core. Frankly, from that end, it doesn’t matter if Cas is bi, ace, straight or pan – Castiel has been human, and wants to be so again. And it, along with other things littered throughout the show, have given us great insights on the soul, or the lack thereof, and all of these beautiful building blocks.
And so to roll away from approaching sexuality so heavily, and instead ball and bundle that up as part of the human experience within the body, the reflection of the human soul, I hook again: The universe can not experience itself more than Windows OS can experience itself; it requires the essence of man to experience the result of the work of grace and by which it finds many things of itself, even within the trappings of a human life.
The fact that humans are afterwards caged elsewhere is a whole other discussion me and others have been holding in the original linked post, so let's step away from that and instead go back to the concept of, far and away beyond sexuality, what makes a soul, and how is it different from the created universe.
If we were to apply these concepts -- angels, bodies of grace, as parts of the universe and how it functions -- versus the irrevocable free will fundamental to the human soul, dividing bodies from just being roving parts of the construct like Gabriel's realms -- to our dialogue in regards to Castiel as our seeming oddball with a crack in his chassis, "And the universe came to humanity, and laid hands on humanity, and fell in love with humanity to come to know it; it abandoned its own purpose and functions due to this connection to the concept of the human soul, and began to live and dream and love as a man, rebelling against its predesigned function; and one day, the orphic child of both the universe and man looked through the eyes of the universe to first see man, and itself was born from the universe unto man, to live and learn as a man and hold its dominion of both human sovereignty and creator of grace, mastering both realms." in regards to Jack's very creation, and why he is such a huge threat to Chuck's power and control of his realm.  
As a powerful creature of grace, he can take and reroute those elements without issue by authoritative command of the independent liberty of the human soul, free thinking and not just a Doctor Sexy Nurse in motion.
But the question is conversion, which we've seen in both directions, be it Castiel acquiring a human soul or Jack converting humans into angels with his command of both of these dominions. The best I could liken it to is AC/DC energy conversion. It is worth noting, however -- grace can be drained without permission, it is not tied to freedom. Humanity is the body of choice: be that humans choosing to surrender that in the name of glory and power to simply become part of universal functions, which isn't so different from choosing to burn one's own soul away in the name of spells, magic or other power; or the human spirit attached to its cage of a body and life still needing to concede and give permission to be taken BY the forces of the universe, surrendering the potential impact of their own choices within their own moving cage to what the universe would will of it.
Ironically, if you use an AC inverter to power a computer or television, the power supply in the device is converting the 120-volt alternating current into a much lower voltage direct current. The sensitive electronic circuits in these devices need low, regulated voltages to work, so you're actually converting DC to AC so it can be changed back into DC again. You can't use straight direct current without the AC to DC inverter because the device's power supply needs the AC power in order to properly step down and regulate the voltage. That is to say, in conversion parts are lost, but they can still be transmitted; so while Castiel was subject to the human experience, he still struggled with parts like dreaming. It was a young, small spark of a soul, converted from another energy form, and likely with his connection to Dean acting as the inverter.
Demons go to the empty; demons are former human souls that corrupted and lost the light that made them inherently "good." That which defines them. They have collapsed to the pressures of Chuck's universes and let their flame go out. But realistically, that's also antagonized by other human souls in hell trying to escape their own torment.
It has been seen, time and again, that the only thing that can destroy a human soul is... the human soul.
*takes a breath*
And now to explore what @curioussubjects​ has been saying about The Shadow as a recycling Bin of souls, which would predate the universe and even Chuck, I simply repeat this segment, to help master-off this post:
If we take the Shadow as the reflection of the collective soul, which then becomes the substantiative Prima Materia through which all things come (x), including even the potential of Chuck and Amara as manifestations of the primitive concept of masculine and feminine, light and dark as among the first thoughts in the cosmos. But in such by it all things are born, even the universe or the gods, in this proposed theory. It is the primitive self asking (per the far-above chart), first–well, WTF, why am I thinking, but after that – who are they, and then who am I, and then eventually who are you, before the end of the soul’s journey on its path is Who Art Thou, long ventured within the constructed realm to learn what it means that we even exist.
Those first thoughts then create the totemic pillars of creation by which it can explore the very meaning of existence, even if its own thoughts have made cages and trappings for itself in the expansion of infinite time, but those cages are themselves the vehicles of higher learning and experience, and without those cages, the rest is for naught.
This is the nature of the Prima Materia, the One Thing by which all comes which I linked above. If the soul and Prima Materia are synonymous, then while the universe comes by grace, then all things -- even grace -- come by way of the raw template of the collective soul, which then structures all resulting thought and experience through an infinite series of independent human experience that defines who were are, independent to ourselves, beyond the vat of primitive consciousness that binds us.
The question even comes, why not just reset time? But I am good with who I am. I am good with who you are. This isn't just a story. It's our lives. So god or no god, you go to hell.
And so the reincarnate journey of the man, through the many deaths and rebirths of Sam and Dean and lessons gained within the universe, begins to lock on to the meaning of the independent self in what it means in full, beyond the challenges sent by the creator that may very well be a reflection of our own primal thoughts, our doubts, our fears, our internalized challenges not too unlike the Shadow which again I raise, and point back to the above-linked protogenic discussion of the masculine and feminine paths: In this premise, are Chuck and Amara anything less than the Animus and Anima of humanity, should the Shadow be their forefather?
The path of alchemy, before it became pursuit of literal gold, was about self completion and sovereignty. The phases I have listed above, as well as a brief overview of Dabb's use of it, but if anyone wants a visual aide in these, check out these three videos (x) (x) (x) and remember that Chuck desperately wants them to believe that nothing Gold can stay, should it complete this path; because should man become Gold, they also become God, and he has no authority here. Because in the end, if we abandon the cages -- be it human bodies or heaven -- in here, in this headspace that is Chuck's, we're all just projections of the primitive man trying to find our independent meaning in life. So in here, we're all the same. So in here, Chuck's all talk. And Chuck's afraid, and even wounded by elements of his own creation fallen into the free hands of man.
And so to FULLY hook back, the effects of the fall --
To be detached in various tiers from the divine spheres of constructed intent, and surrendered unto man, or touched by man, or tied to man, or even converted unto man simply seems to be removing the lines of code that defines the constructed universe and instead leaves only the experience of soul, be it directly gained or by proxy. And with that comes many things -- be that the oft-discussed sexuality of angels or any of their other senses, but also their ability like Castiel to understand "complex" ideas like independent thought and function that is otherwise like "explaining poetry to fish" to his kin. I remind you of Agent Smith in the Matrix, who was essentially infected with the power of the One that completely started warping the laws of the universe and, eventually, left the universe, to become the body of man outside of the universe.
It is the universe falling into man, as man at some point seems to have fallen into the universe. And their child now waits beyond the universe, holding council with Death and the Inky Man over what to do from here.
The human experience is double-sided. By it we learn, experience, and exist; but as chuck designed the sandbox, so too did he the bodies as cages. So be that "hedonism" or anything else, these are limitations and bindings. It is not the limits themselves, as much as what we learn in facing them, that becomes who we are as people, and what meaning we bring to our own existence. And this, some angels themselves have chosen to convert and surrender themselves to, some more successfully than others, but the ultimate point between all of them is "Free Will", whether they like PBJ, sex, or good water pressure at the same time -- something that only comes from divorcing themselves from the divine spheres, when otherwise they're numb to bullets or a knife through the heart. The universe simply operates. Man experiences. The universe learns more of itself only by way of man, as man learns the universe.
There are those who fall that do not embrace humanity, but instead explore their creation. These are rogue programs, but still limited in their function. Be that angling out a line at a river, or just needling humanity as lesser ants. But these do not come to the same essence of humanity that those who choose to fall into it and truly experience it do. They still lack a great deal of motivation or purpose, as in breaking away from their programming without gaining genuine compulsion to want, to seek, to find, they find fascinations between their own strips of code that immerse themselves in, and sit, and observe, still not too unlike Anna before completely divorcing herself from her grace.
It is humanity, be it indirect or direct, that proxies the ability to experience, desire, and enjoy, and that more than anything is the nature of man and his power. It is the path of the Soul between Gevurah and Hesed; from the divine spheres descending, passive intellect and active intellect from the different pillars, and hidden higher learnings, reach by way of Spirit and Mind towards the individual self, strapped across passive and active emotion to learn the individual self. From the angle of man, in the material world, and the body as a manifestation of it, our ego, identity, and other evolutions of the mind TOWARDS the self of individuality lead from Tiferet, by path of the soul, into those emotions to climb the tree towards the divine self. Hell, I'll repost the chart so you don't have to scroll.
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Castiel, the consciousness of the divine, with active spirit and mind, and intellect, descended towards the individual self within the realm of ego and super ego, and learned of them through Dean Winchester, while hedging at the sphere of emotional complexes and the identity of the self by which he chose to fall into the world and humanity, into and below and between the cross paths of the soul, and in those paths attained a soul. Dean Winchester, on the other hand, was lifted to explore the upper spheres in reverse, to understand the divine self gradually, and with time, as we now prepare to face within season 15.
Man is freedom. And some fall into it. But man can conquer the tree of his own ironic fashioning. The only absolute is what thou wills of it.
The rest is commentary.
Let there be gold. But all that is gold does not glimmer.
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xfanfics · 4 years
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Destiel Fic Rec List Part 5
Last Updated in October 2014. Posted in May 2020 for posterity.  Listed in no particular order - the total rec list will have ~250 fics. Header graphic used with permission.
This part of the list contains: 32 fics.
Other Destiel Rec Lists: [1]. [2]. [3]. [4]. [5]. [6]. [7].
 _____
Casturbatus Interruptus by gaugbrojotr E | 6k | Canon!verse, Hot, , PWP
post-9.01, in a slight AU wherein Cas comes to live with the Winchesters at the Bunker. Written before 9.03. Crossposting from Tumblr. Written for a prompt from hightopsandsharpies: "Okay, so Cas is a virgin, and has no idea what pleasure is and Dean decides to show him and Cas gets all cuddly and needy afterwards. Dean walks in on Cas masturbating. He’s doing it all wrong, but when you’re a bazillion-year-old virgin, that’s to be expected. Dean decides to lend him a hand in a totally platonic, non-romantic way. Things get a little out of control.
 that awkward moment when... by highermagic E | 7k | Hot, wing!Kink
All in all, with a full tank of gas and his radio turned up loud, Dean was in a pretty damn good mood. All that vanished into shock and concern when the sky lit up like daylight, as though someone had decided that black was so passé for nighttime.
 This Temporary Flesh and Bone by misachan E | 5k | Canon!verse, h/c, wing!kink
Castiel doesn't serve Dean, fine, Dean has no problem with that - he just wants to know why Castiel's showing up in his dreams again.
What a fabulous little Fic. Very emotional. S4 cas is my FAVORITE.
 Only Fools Rush In by baka_sensei E | 18k | Canon!verse, soulbond
Dean does something and in angelic tradition that means he's become Castiel's fiancé. Dean doesn't know if he wants to get married, but he doesn't want to let Castiel down either. Cas lets his feelings run away with him, Gabe is a total dick, Sam is concerned, and Dean has to make a choice.
 Learning Curve by blualbino T | 1k | Fluff, Canon!verse
Cas has nice lips. They’re soft looking. Plush even. Dean can do this.
 Dinner At Katz's by nanoochka E | 2k | Hot, canon!verse
Dean might have to teach Cas how to have a When Harry Met Sally-esque orgasm, but he certainly doesn’t have to fake it.
 Free With His Hands by watermaline E | 2k | canon!verse, handprint!kink
The first time it happens, Dean chalks it up to…well, he doesn’t chalk it up to anything, he’s too busy coming his brains out in his jeans with Castiel’s hand on his shoulder.
 Desecrate that Sanctuary by brokentoy E | 3k | Hot, Alt!Canon Verse
Dean develops a fascination with Cas' bones.
 What Once Was Sacred by saltandbyrne E | 55k |  Hot,  AU, Cop Dean, DJ Cas
Los Angeles detective Dean Winchester works tirelessly to atone for the sins of his father one case at a time. When his best friend Charlie drags him to visit Sam at his new job, Dean stumbles onto a bizarre string of deaths that brings him uncomfortably close to his past.Dean can't stop thinking about Castiel, an enigmatic DJ who plays the sexiest music Dean's ever heard. A chance encounter at Castiel's house reveals that Castiel is an incubus, and Dean must face the lies and the reality of his childhood as a hunter. Dean comes to see that he and Castiel have more in common than he thought, and that guilt can be the hardest thing to cast aside.
Freefall by LastKnownWriter E | 128k | Hot, Fluff,  AU, Teacher Dean, Firefighter Cas
AU. The most exciting kindergarten teacher Dean Winchester's life ever gets is when he plays mechanic in his uncle Bobby's shop on the weekends. That is until a birthday party goes tequila-nova and he trips into a one-night stand with an incredibly hot firefighter named Castiel. Dean's life gets a lot more exciting after that.
 The Best Years of Our Lives, My Ass ❤ by ireallyhatecornnuts E | 110k | Hot,  Fluff,  HS AU but not really,
AU after Season 8, episode 6, "Southern Comfort." Dean goes to sleep in a motel room in Texarkana, and he wakes up 17 years old, in his childhood bedroom in Lawrence, Kansas, 1996. He has no idea how he got there, why his parents are still alive, why his brother is an adorable freshman with no memory of his adult life, and why the only ally he has in this place is the angel he left behind in Purgatory – somehow also 17 years old. They have to get out, that's the important thing. Only, falling in love with his angel wasn't a part of the plan....
It's like a HS AU... but better! I love how Dean is given a second chance at growing up, and Cas gets to engage with his humanity is painfully familiar ways. Some homophobia from non-central characters.    
 deus ex nihilo by Valyria E | 7k | AU, dubcon, god cas
Lost on an uncharted island, Dean Winchester is captured by the local villagers and offered up as a sacrifice to their winged god. Castiel takes one look at Dean and decides he wants him for a mate.
 Twist and Shout ❤ by gabriel E | 97k | Angst,  AU, Main Character Death
What begins as a transforming love between Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak in the summer of 1965 quickly derails into something far more tumultuous when Dean is drafted in the Vietnam War. Though the two both voice their relationship is one where saying goodbye is never a real truth, their story becomes fraught with the tragedy of circumstance. In an era where homosexuality was especially vulnerable, Twist and Shout is the story of the love transcending time, returning over and over in its many forms, as faithful as the sea.
Do I really need to say anything? Twist and Shout is one of my favorites simply because it made me bawl. Didn't love the characterization, but I still liked it overall.
Carry On ❤ by TamrynEradani E | 148k | Hot,  AU, Sub!dean, Dom!Cas
 When Sam gets into Stanford, Dean needs a bigger paycheck than Bobby's garage can give him. Luckily, he knows a guy.
Forget 50 Shades of Grey, they should make this fic into a movie! Even if you are not a fan of Sub!Dean, give this fic a shot, because it is nearly perfect.    
Glasses by Samanthapin E | 9k | Fluff, High School AU, punk!cas, nerd!dean
Teasing turns flirting turns dating turns grossly soppy boyfriends
 beer and bacon happy hour by outpastthemoat G | 2k | canon!verse, s8
The problem is that Dean’s been having good ideas all night. “No one insults the trenchcoat,” Dean says, and drives his fist into the other dude’s face. Dean figures he was bound to run out of good ideas eventually.
 Hard Road ❤ by aleishapotter E | 54k | Canon!verse
Dean discovers a few truths about himself when he and Cas are forced to go undercover on a hunt to the very last place Dean ever thought he'd find himself: a gay resort called "Last Hope" that is geared towards helping troubled homosexual couples repair their relationships. This fic is hilarious and hot--my favorite things.  
 Dean Smith Verse by TamrynEradani E | 17k | Hot,  BDSM, AU, Sub!Dean
Dean Smith is a man of routine. Castiel takes him apart.
Bratishka: Little Brother by Valyria E | 33k | Cop AU, Cop Dean, Lawyer Cas
Dean thinks he knows pretty much everything there is to know about his best friend Castiel Novak - he's a smart, gorgeous DA who probably lets Dean get away with more than he should to see the bad guy locked up - but it turns out Cas is hiding some dark family secrets.
 the way to a man's heart by mkhunterz M | 15k | Fluff,  Canon!verse
Dean teaches Cas to cook, and other things as well.
 Branded by garrisonbabe E | 12k | | canon!verse, soul bond, marking/claiming
Michael mocked Castiel, telling him he'd never get Dean the way he truly wanted. No matter the mark on Dean's soul, he'd never get him the way the archangel could take him. Dean finds a ritual that fixes that and a few other issues.
 Our Bodies, Posessed by Light by obstinatrix E | 39k | canon!verse, sastiel bromance, Fluff
Purged of all his souls, Castiel is a changed being, stronger than an angel and too powerful for Jimmy's body to contain. Happily, there's an archangel's vessel on hand, and he could use fixing, too. Dean isn't too happy about the idea of his brother acting as a vessel for Castiel, and Sam can guess why, but it isn't until Castiel gets inside his head and they learn to share the vessel -- and their thoughts -- that Sam realises Cas is as in love with Dean as Dean is with him. It's unfortunate that there's nothing much to be done about it now, but Castiel will get another vessel soon. The Winchesters will make damn sure of that. In the meantime, it's up to the three of them to establish their own strange accord, and Dean realises more fully than ever that it's Castiel, and not his vessel, that he loves.
 So Glad We Made It  ❤by scaramouche M | 16k | Fluff,  AU
At twelve years old, Dean makes a friend, who becomes his best friend, who will eventually become the love of his life.    
Oh, the best friends who grow up together AU. I have a soft spot for fics like these-- comes with pining, awkward misunderstandings, and a good basis for a realistic relationship.
 Shut Up (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is) ❤ by kototyph E | 23k | Fluff,  college au
Dean's done some pretty stupid things, but getting drunk-hitched in Vegas to a colleague he barely knows might just take the cake. His surprise husband, Castiel, is a little weird but likable despite that, and Dean figures they’ll go back to Boston, get a quiet annulment, and go their separate ways. Six weeks later, he’s still married to one of the strangest, most genuine and definitely most dangerously lov-- likable guys he's ever known. Dean doesn't know why or really even how it’s happening, but it’s getting harder and harder to remember that he has divorce papers to file.
FLUFF EVERYWHERE! This is definitely a feel-good fic and I love reading it when I'm sad. Or just you know, whenever.
 But the Fire is So Delightful by kototyph E | 5k | Hot, hate then love, College AU
Apparently, it’s been snowing all day. [Dean is a Douchebag Fratboy with a Cherry Ass, Castiel is Angry and Aroused]
 Stitches by askance T | 23k |  Fluff, h/c, blindness, Canon!verse
Castiel survived Leviathan--but only barely. Vessel mauled and eyes destroyed, Cas is barely clinging to what's left of his grace when Dean finds him naked and alone on the reservoir's edge; in a panic, Dean brings him home to the cabin where he and Sam have been holed up off the grid. What follows is the slow process of the angel's recovery and the unexpected changes that come with his being blind, and in the three months this takes, their little family slowly begins to patch itself back together in forgiveness, love, and darkness.
 When Charlie Met Cas by riseofthefallenone E | 25k | Fluff,  canon!verse
Charlie is back in all her glory. The Winchesters have showed up on her doorstep and she’s making the best of it the only way she knows how. By being the little sister Dean never wanted and shipping the shit out of Destiel.
The Life After the Morning After by saltyfeathers T | 17k
Dean and Cas get uber drunk on their last day of University. They end up married. Neither of them seem to mind.
The Girlfriend Experience ❤ by Rageprufrock E | 15k | Hot,  Canon!Verse, First time
While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.
Classic Casturbation fic. Complete with steamy sexytimes, hilarious dialogue, and fed up and clueless Dean. Perfect.    
Hands, From Which All Things Are Built by MajorEnglishEsquire T | 14k | Canon!Verse, s8
Castiel travels with the angel tablet and without the Winchesters. One day, Dean gets a text from some anonymous number. (They speak in the language of need.)
Cowboys and Real Estate Angels by almaasi E | 36k | AU
Castiel crosses paths with the ever-charming Dean Winchester at a rodeo show in Texas, of all places. Dean's singing days are long bygone, but his crowd-pleasing skills haven't waned one iota. Unexpectedly, Castiel finds himself in Dean's bedroom; they take and they give, and discover that sometimes strangers can find love like this, too. (And if a man's faith can't be put in God, it needs to go somewhere...)
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spaceshipkat · 5 years
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Hey I wanted to know what your opinion on the whole gritty dark realism thing in modern media that we have going on??? I started watching a oldish anime (tbh it’s only from like 2011) and even though it dealt with pretty dark topics, I suddenly remembered how watching media is supposed to be fun, and I actually went and watched Good Omens afterwards, and I got that same feeling, and it just sucks how “realism” sucks the joy out of things. There’s a reason we turn to fiction after all
hi anon! so my answer is...twofold, i think, bc 1) i do enjoy the gritty dark realism thing going on (though i really, really wish people would move away from the whole “everyone must suffer and the ending can’t be happy bc that’s how you really drive home suffering and grimdark and current society”) bc it often sheds light on topics that need to have light shed on them, and 2) i also do enjoy the more upbeat fiction that’s been created over the years (the kind that ends with a happy ending hard-won and whose plots aren’t steeped, marinated, and glazed with suffering and darker than dark darkness), and i wish it would be much more commonplace in common media. GOT, i think, has simply ushered in this new era of “everything must be darker than dark”. 
re: Good Omens, if i understand you correctly, you think it falls into the gritty dark realism category? if so, i disagree (respectfully!). to me, Good Omens has that perfect balance of dark and light, and its stakes carry the same weight as the darker fiction out there without falling into the same category of “everyone must suffer and the ending can’t be happy” bc, in large part, the ending is very happy: Satan is no more, the end of the world isn’t nigh, everyone lived but they had to work hard to get there, Crowley and Aziraphale have their breathing space and, imo, the roots of a real romantic relationship starting (i mean it was always romantic but secretively, if that makes sense. now, they can hold hands and kiss in public without being worried that they’ll be immediately smote over it bc Heaven and Hell have both agreed to leave them be thanks to their body swap), and Adam is simply human. even though everyone survives (even the bookshop and the Bentley) we (or at least i and the GO blogs i follow/my friends who’ve seen the show/read the book) don’t feel cheated by the lack of loss bc the characters had serious problems to deal with that made the ending feel hard-won and satisfactory. the arcs the characters went through (though Aziraphale’s is the most overt, imo) were realistic, compelling, and fulfilling. 
to stop myself from rambling (i’ve been known to do that with GO lately), we can compare that to the ending of Game of Thrones and how i hope Supernatural ends. GOT’s ending was beyond disappointing bc d&d seem to think that the only plausible ending is one where the characters suffer and/or die, and the endings they give us are ridiculously unsatisfying. i mean, we have Bran on the throne (despite the fact he has never said he wanted it--and personally, i hate and disagree with the whole “you don’t want power and that’s why you deserve/need it” shtick), Jaime dead (despite his redemption arc and character growth that would make it implausible for him to return to Cersei in the hands of good writers), Jon exiled to the North (i wasn’t upset by his ending, but i know others were), Dany dead (again, i wasn’t upset by the ending bc i never really cared for her, but i know that there were a lot of people who were upset and i do feel for them bc it was a shit ending for her), and fucking Bronn on the council (or whatever the hell the term is). how does any of that make sense? i don’t personally know a single person who was completely happy with the ending, despite the stupid award nominations that the writers and show got. GOT is a show of constant suffering and unhappy endings, and the fact it ended that way, too, left a lot of people disenchanted with it and upset over it. and yeah, some people argue that it was realistic for the show to end that way and keeping in-tone, but therein lies the crux of the matter: why must everything be dark and full of suffering? (how many times can i say dark and suffering in this answer?)
in Supernatural, i’m in a few endgame positive camps: the Winchesters both surviving*, destiel being canon (even if that canon is literally just Cas and Dean holding hands or saying “to the world” to each other in the same tone of voice Aziraphale uses in episode 6: i, for one, would probably melt into a puddle of goo over either of those endings for destiel, bc they say a lot without saying much. i think a lot of people who aren’t endgame destiel positive don’t seem to understand that that would scream everything to those of us who are positive, or who want destiel to be explicitly canon by the end. we don’t need them to fall into bed with each other for us to be happy--or at least i don’t--but i digress), and Cas becoming human by his own choice. Supernatural is definitely a dark show, but it has its light moments (i wouldn’t have stuck with it and fallen so in love with it otherwise, unlike with GOT bc i was far more a casual viewer there) and i really hope that the writers decide to end on a light note, too, so as not to fall into the same camp as GOT. if it does fall into the GOT camp, this 15-season show will go down, at least to me, as one of the biggest tragedies in fiction of the 2000s and 2010s, and even though the show brings me a lot of comfort, i don’t think i could look at it the same way if that’s how they chose to end it come the finale. the characters deserve a happy ending (to quote Dean, him, Sam, and Cas retired with their feet in the sand--and with Jack now, too, obv), and i hope that the writers choose to make this the dark story with light at the end instead of the dark story with an even darker ending. 
and i think that’s the best way i can describe my opinion on the gritty dark realism stories that have become so pervasive. write those dark stories (my stories are always dark) but infuse them with enough light to make people find comfort in them, to leave them happy by the end, to give them that sense of satisfaction for a conflict with an ending of victory. for as long as i’ve been writing (literally half of my life now, since i started when i was 12 and i’m now 24), i’ve always written a hard-won ending with a bit of hope, even if there was a lot of darkness toward the end, even if it’s the first of a series. i don’t enjoy stories that are an entree of darkness with a side of darker darkness complete with a darker than dark dessert, so i tend to steer far from those or prepare myself going in (with Supernatural, i’m optimistic about a light ending, but i’m also keeping my expectations in-check bc i can’t be certain). 
i’ve said before that i hope that Good Omens the TV show’s success ushers in a new era of stories ending on a light note so people leave them happier than they came in (or satisfied by a hard-won victory that doesn’t end in suffering for everyone involved even if they’re on the winning side: GOT versus Good Omens, really, since GOT is 100000000% guilty of that fucked up kind of ending) and can find comfort in them. i want my books to be the kind where people can reread them for the comfort of finding that happy ending, and i hope i’ve achieved that (since i’m only just now getting into standalones, i’m really only just beginning to challenge my ending chops since my other books were the first of series and thus needed to have that hard ending with a dash of hope, whereas my standalones are free to end with hard-won happiness--tbh, @ripley-stark would be the only one who can say if i’ve achieved that, considering she’s the only one on here who’s read my first standalone from start-to-finish), bc those are the kinds of stories i seek and appreciate and love. 
does that answer your question? i think i just rambled a lot, as per usual. heh. 
*to go off-topic and fall into the land of speculations that i tend to stay out of, Jensen and Jared have both said they want Sam and Dean to die by the end bc that’s the only way they’d ever stop hunting. recently, Jensen said that the ending wasn’t what he expected and that he had to come to terms with it, though he now understands it and thinks that the audience will, too. there’s a huge part of the audience who want Sam and Dean to die by the end, too. however, Jensen’s comment has only further cemented my endgame positive outlook, since if Sam and Dean survive that would go against what he and Jared have wanted or expected to happen for years now, thus forcing him to come to terms with it. i know some people have been really worried by his comments, and obviously we shouldn’t put much stock into them bc the ending is a year away, it was an interview and you can’t rely on interview answers to make solid predictions, and PR isn’t showrunning, but it only helped bolster me upon going into the final season. 
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orionsangel86 · 6 years
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Season 14 Wishlist
Alrighty then! As per the last few season’s, each autumn before the season premier I will write a wishlist of things that hopefully will happen in the coming season, which I will then go through once the season is over.
For those of you curious:
Here is my wishlist for season 12 and here is my season 12 wishlist review
Here is my wishlist for season 13 and here is my season 13 wishlist review
Now as a slight disclaimer I need to stress that this isn’t meta, or me promising anything to happen (since I’m not a showrunner nor psychic) and is purely meant for fun - having said that most of the items on my wishlist are at least somewhat realistic wishes and within the realms (at least in my opinion) of actually happening.
So without further rambling here we go:
A decent arc for Michael!Dean. Yes, we all expect it to only last 3 episodes. which I find deeply disappointing. I would prefer if things are not as they seem and it turns out to last far longer than that.
Scenes inside Dean’s head. Like we got with both Cas and Sam when they were possessed, I really want to know where Michael has got Dean stashed away inside his head - and exactly what kind of experience that is for him. I can think of a whole bunch of different ways that could go - will Michael put Dean through hell? Or will he distract him the way of the Djinn with his idea of heaven? I am extremely excited by this idea and hope they don’t pass on the potential.
The missing scene from 13x23 when Dean said yes to Michael. There was definitely more to that and I hope so much we will see it - though I don’t think this is particularly likely.
Cas’s grief. Obviously. Last year I was all about Dean’s grief arc. This year, I need Cas’s to be just as bad. This is 10 years since the original story. Stopping Michael and changing allegiance to stand with Dean was Cas’s origin story - Remember how he reacted in season 5 when Dean was thinking about saying yes to Michael? Oh ho ho I can’t even begin to imagine how this will affect Cas. I want this to be a mirror of last year, and far worse than season 10. 
Sam’s continued leadership role. Now where I want to see Cas absolutely broken with grief over Dean’s possession, what I think would compliment it perfectly is Sam’s fearsome determination and functional leadership. It would be a great way to show how far the brothers have come to breaking the toxic codependency which has bound them to each other - that Sam is capable of functioning without Dean and without immediately trying to sell his soul or give his life for his brother. 
Sam and Cas working together. One of the things that I really hated about the start of season 10, was that without Dean around, Sam and Cas’s relationship just fell apart, and Sam was made to look pretty much like a douche by the show implying he had kicked Cas out of the bunker and blamed him for breaking his shoulder?!? (I found the whole thing very out of character for Sam but then destiel’s continued refusal to become canon tends to make Sam look occasionally douchey - but that is a meta for another day). Give me Sam and Cas as a team. Supporting each other in their grief and acting like the brothers (in-law) that they are.
Jack and Cas father/son bonding time - I mean I saw the promo and it looks like Jack is gonna be grounded for a little while... >.> but once he has written 100 lines of “I will not suggest killing my dad in front of my father” I think Cas will forgive him. I’d like to see Cas trying to teach Jack human things or mundane tasks with Dean watching them with a fond expression!
Addressing Dean’s abuse trauma - this one has been going around on tumblr recently so I’m latching on to other wonderful meta a bit here, but since last season explored Sam’s Lucifer trauma (and to an extent Cas’s Naomi trauma), it would be fitting if this Michael!Dean arc is followed up with an arc of recovery for Dean, not just from Michael, but from everything he has suffered since the apocalypse.
More seeing “behind the mask” with Dean. I think he has already massively grown into himself and out of his fathers shadow, but I’d just like more examples like with the chick flicks and the cucumber water.
Cas truly breaking free from heaven. Now I think that the ideal situation would be that Cas is the one to fix heaven, and that he leaves the angels by choice, and with them all respecting him and being thankful to him. But Cas needs to start to break free from that duty and obligation that he still feels to heaven. Even in season 13 he carried that guilt, and whilst this is more endgame stuff, I desperately want to see more progress on this. 
More hints towards Cas desiring human things and human feelings and basically desiring humanity for himself (no jokes guys, this time I DON’T mean Dean). I am a staunch human!Cas endgame girl after all. The show spent a lot of time in season 9 and 10 building on this for Cas and then it went a bit quiet. I’d like to see those threads picked up again.
In fact, when it comes to Cas, how about he starts answering some of those hundreds of unanswered questions that have been thrown at him since Carver era? How about he finds his place, where he belongs and AS WHAT in general? Cas, you have a home now and a family. Stop lingering in doorways. 
Sam showing us more of his personality. I think now that his Lucifer trauma has been somewhat addressed, Sam should be a bit lighter and more carefree. I’d like to know some more about him other than his obsession with serial killers which is frankly a worrying hobby Sam!
Mary and Cas bonding - in fact I just want to see all of the rest of Dean’s family bonding with Cas more. I want more knowing looks from Mary and even a conversation about the topic - oh wouldn’t that be a dream!
Dean coming out of the closet. Yes yes I know I know. Every year... But it is 20gayteen and next year is 20BITEEN and dammit the world is full of rainbows right now - Bert and Ernie made it official... Why can’t Dean Winchester? I’m totally cool with someone slipping THIS to Dabb. I won’t even ask for credit. ;)
Last year I wanted Sam to build on his relationships outside of Dean and we did pretty well last year with that. But of course, I want more. Maybe some Sam x Rowena? I’m game. 
On that note WITCH!SAM. I am still a huge lover of Sam practicing magick. It’s a story line with so much potential.
More badass ladies kicking ass. Aww man we were kinda blessed with this last year weren’t we? Keep it up show. Please keep it up.
Billie continuing to play a large role as Death. I find her captivating and want more.
Wayward Sisters returning. It still hurts, but we need to know what happens next.
JODY AND CAS NEED TO MEET GODDAMMIT. Also I want Cas to reunite with Claire again.
As per last year: The return of the mixtape. BRING BACK THE MIXTAPE (yup I’m gonna wish for it until I get it).
Please dress Cas up. The closest we got last year was the cowboy hat and the dreadful nazi uniform of AU Cas. Why can’t we have him in plaid? PLEASE.
Absolutely no Lucifer, Lucifer vessel or any hint of Mark Pellegrino. Plus no Kentucky fried chicken pantomime villains either. I’ll be happy if season 14 is free from this nonsense.
Saving the best for last, what do I always wish for above all else? You guessed it - DESTIEL. Do I want it to be canon? Well yes eventually of course. But in season 14 my wish is for their story to continue as it did in early season 13. More obvious destiel content, more of destiel built into the narrative and ideally, made explicit. A love confession? Even if only to a third party? That is undeniably romantic. Zero “no homo’s” would be nice. I just wish for further development on the destiel narrative. That is all. 
As always feel free to add to this with your own wishes! 
BRING ON SEASON 14!! :D
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orionsangel86 · 6 years
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Agree 100% with your villain meta, but: I don't understand why so many meta writers hold Dabb in such high esteem. He's not a particularly good showrunner, doesn't know how to build a myth arc, keeps killing off women and minorities, has made more steps back than forward with Destiel...I mean, he's gay or something, but is that really all we care about?
Thanks for agreeing with my villain rant... though I have a problem with some of the things you have said. 
First of all, Dabb isn’t gay. But his sexuality doesn’t really have to do with anything so lets leave that out of it k? I mean we do have two gay writers and that’s excellent because it gives me a bit more faith that they won’t end up screwing us over on the destiel front and therefore making this show into the biggest queerbait in all of TV history. (I just don’t see them wanting to be part of something that would be such a huge let down to LGBTQ+ communities ya know?)
But anyway, the reason we like Dabb is because he focuses on the stuff that we enjoy, that we sink our teeth into. The emotional arcs, character development and building on themes that we have been screaming about for years:
The breakdown of the toxic codependency
The destruction of Dean’s performance mask and toxic masculinity
The development of Cas’s humanity into something he is accepting after finally rising like the beautiful phoenix he is out of the ashes of his depressed and broken former self
... to name a few.
So whilst I agree that the mytharc plots are not his strong suit, I still hold him in high regard because I can see what he is trying to do with the characters. The biggest issue the mytharc plot has right now is that it has been left in the hands of Bucklemming, which is a terrible decision all around (and has been since season 12 when they really sank their teeth into the mytharc and rolled with it) though I kind of blame Singer for that more than Dabb - because nepotism. 
So yeah, Dabb has the issue of trying to tighten the reigns on these awful awful writers who wouldn’t know a decent story even if you smacked them round the head with the entire works of Shakespeare... whilst also trying to be nice enough not to piss off his co-showrunner by insulting his wife. I actually feel for the guy because hell, I wouldn’t wanna be in that situation.
Also your point about him killing off women and minorities is kind of flawed... because actually Dabb has been pretty good at keeping them around and if they DID die, he’s pretty much brought them all BACK?
Rowena, Billie, Mary, Even Alicia isn’t technically dead and will most likely return. The Wayward Sisters certainly aren’t (and please don’t use Kaia as an example she is basically set up to be both the main antagonist and love interest in the spin off and is in a prime position to get a hell of a lot of screen time so nope, I don’t count her death.)
In fact the only character whose death still bothers me is Eileen. Which yes, is a touchy subject. You’ll note her final few episodes were all Bucklemming...
Onto the biggest point you have mentioned that I have issue with is about destiel. In what universe has Dabb era been bad for destiel?!?
Okay, so I have quite a few asks building up in my inbox on this topic that I am avoiding until I can sit down and sink my teeth into this apparently common complaint. But I am gonna touch on this here. You guys really think we aren’t moving forward with destiel? Because my opinion is the total opposite of that. Dabb era has given us more than I EVER DREAMED OF getting on this bloody show. Even though I have always been optimistic about destiel, now I feel like it is a less optimistic, more realistic view in my opinion that destiel is endgame. I have never believed in it more. Season 12 was a bloody blessing for Destiel and season 13 has been even better. We are at a point where canon is a hairs breadth away thanks to the brilliant way they have set it all up. The only place I can even think this negativity is coming from is impatience. You all want destiel to be canon like NOW. 
But that’s not how this story goes, for a start there is the moonlighting problem, but also because their whole appeal is that they are, in a way, star crossed lovers, who destiny keeps trying to pull apart, but they always find each other again regardless. You don’t become the greatest love story ever told with 100 hours worth of fluff and romance. You need the tension, the drama, the angst, to build a perfect love story. It has been established in canon that Dean and Cas both love each other deeply. On Cas’s side, thanks to 12x10 and 12x12 it is pretty clear that his love for Dean is romantic (though still subtextual) but on Dean’s side? Honestly right now I think it is impossible to view Dean’s love for Cas as platonic. The mixtape made sure of that. The first five episodes of season 13 solidified that, and 13x06 put the cherry on top. 
Where Carver era built the foundations for a solid destiel romantic subplot, Dabb era has built the frames, the doors, the windows, etc, to the extent that we can truly see the shape of what it will look like as a canon pairing. This is the house that destiel built. It’s freaking beautiful. 
There are a few key indicators I am looking for in the rest of season 13 that I feel we need this season if Destiel is going to be brought to text by endgame, and if I get those indicators then nothing will shift my perception. If I don’t, I will need to readjust my expectations, but see this is the reason why I like Dabb as a showrunner. He does an excellent job on the stuff I care about. Thankfully I don’t give a shit about Lucifer, and whilst I want a mytharc plot that is enjoyable and of a high quality, I’m fine with it so long as I get the emotional development from the characters I am so invested in. That is what Dabb excels at. 
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xfanfics · 4 years
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Destiel Fic Rec List Part 4
Last Updated in October 2014. Posted in May 2020 for posterity. Header graphic used with permission.
This list contains: 33 fics.
Other Destiel Rec Lists: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.
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Casturbatus Interruptus by gaugbrojotr
E | 6k | Canon!verse, Hot, , PWP
post-9.01, in a slight AU wherein Cas comes to live with the Winchesters at the Bunker. Written before 9.03. Crossposting from Tumblr. Written for a prompt from hightopsandsharpies: "Okay, so Cas is a virgin, and has no idea what pleasure is and Dean decides to show him and Cas gets all cuddly and needy afterwards. Dean walks in on Cas masturbating. He’s doing it all wrong, but when you’re a bazillion-year-old virgin, that’s to be expected. Dean decides to lend him a hand in a totally platonic, non-romantic way. Things get a little out of control.
 that awkward moment when... by highermagicv
E | 7k | Hot, wing!Kink
All in all, with a full tank of gas and his radio turned up loud, Dean was in a pretty damn good mood. All that vanished into shock and concern when the sky lit up like daylight, as though someone had decided that black was so passé for nighttime.
 This Temporary Flesh and Bone by misachan
E | 5k | Canon!verse, h/c, wing!kink
Castiel doesn't serve Dean, fine, Dean has no problem with that - he just wants to know why Castiel's showing up in his dreams again.
What a fabulous little Fic. Very emotional. S4 cas is my FAVORITE.
 Only Fools Rush In by baka_sensei
E | 18k | Canon!verse, soulbond
Dean does something and in angelic tradition that means he's become Castiel's fiancé. Dean doesn't know if he wants to get married, but he doesn't want to let Castiel down either. Cas lets his feelings run away with him, Gabe is a total dick, Sam is concerned, and Dean has to make a choice.
 Learning Curve by blualbino
T | 1k | Fluff, Canon!verse
Cas has nice lips. They’re soft looking. Plush even. Dean can do this.
 Dinner At Katz's by nanoochka
E | 2k | Hot, canon!verse
Dean might have to teach Cas how to have a When Harry Met Sally-esque orgasm, but he certainly doesn’t have to fake it.
 Free With His Hands by watermaline
E | 2k | canon!verse, handprint!kink
The first time it happens, Dean chalks it up to…well, he doesn’t chalk it up to anything, he’s too busy coming his brains out in his jeans with Castiel’s hand on his shoulder.
 Desecrate that Sanctuary by brokentoy
E | 3k | Hot, Alt!Canon Verse
Dean develops a fascination with Cas' bones.
 What Once Was Sacred by saltandbyrne
E | 55k |  Hot,  AU, Cop Dean, DJ Cas
Los Angeles detective Dean Winchester works tirelessly to atone for the sins of his father one case at a time. When his best friend Charlie drags him to visit Sam at his new job, Dean stumbles onto a bizarre string of deaths that brings him uncomfortably close to his past.Dean can't stop thinking about Castiel, an enigmatic DJ who plays the sexiest music Dean's ever heard. A chance encounter at Castiel's house reveals that Castiel is an incubus, and Dean must face the lies and the reality of his childhood as a hunter. Dean comes to see that he and Castiel have more in common than he thought, and that guilt can be the hardest thing to cast aside.
 Freefall by LastKnownWriter
E | 128k | Hot, Fluff,  AU, Teacher Dean, Firefighter Cas
AU. The most exciting kindergarten teacher Dean Winchester's life ever gets is when he plays mechanic in his uncle Bobby's shop on the weekends. That is until a birthday party goes tequila-nova and he trips into a one-night stand with an incredibly hot firefighter named Castiel. Dean's life gets a lot more exciting after that.
 The Best Years of Our Lives, My Ass ❤ by ireallyhatecornnuts
E | 110k | Hot,  Fluff,  HS AU but not really,
AU after Season 8, episode 6, "Southern Comfort." Dean goes to sleep in a motel room in Texarkana, and he wakes up 17 years old, in his childhood bedroom in Lawrence, Kansas, 1996. He has no idea how he got there, why his parents are still alive, why his brother is an adorable freshman with no memory of his adult life, and why the only ally he has in this place is the angel he left behind in Purgatory – somehow also 17 years old. They have to get out, that's the important thing. Only, falling in love with his angel wasn't a part of the plan....
It's like a HS AU... but better! I love how Dean is given a second chance at growing up, and Cas gets to engage with his humanity is painfully familiar ways. Some homophobia from non-central characters.    
  deus ex nihilo by Valyria
E | 7k | AU, dubcon, god cas
Lost on an uncharted island, Dean Winchester is captured by the local villagers and offered up as a sacrifice to their winged god. Castiel takes one look at Dean and decides he wants him for a mate.
 Twist and Shout ❤ by gabriel
E | 97k | Angst,  AU, Main Character Death
What begins as a transforming love between Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak in the summer of 1965 quickly derails into something far more tumultuous when Dean is drafted in the Vietnam War. Though the two both voice their relationship is one where saying goodbye is never a real truth, their story becomes fraught with the tragedy of circumstance. In an era where homosexuality was especially vulnerable, Twist and Shout is the story of the love transcending time, returning over and over in its many forms, as faithful as the sea.
Do I really need to say anything? Twist and Shout is one of my favorites simply because it made me bawl. Didn't love the characterization, but I still liked it overall.
 Angel Slayer by emwebb17
E | 138k | Jensen/Misha, Mystery, AU
FBI Special Agent Jensen Ackles tracked a serial killer dubbed the Angel Slayer for six months in Washington, DC—the murderer was vicious, depraved, carved the names of angels into the victims’ chests…and eluded capture. Over eight years later, a murder in small Elton, NH has too many similarities for Jensen to ignore. Paired with a green agent, Jared Padalecki, Jensen travels to Elton to solve the case that has been haunting him for nearly a decade. In the course of the investigation the agents come across a local police officer named Misha Collins—who may have a deadly connection to the Angel Slayer.
 Carry On ❤ by TamrynEradani
E | 148k | Hot,  AU, Sub!dean, Dom!Cas
 When Sam gets into Stanford, Dean needs a bigger paycheck than Bobby's garage can give him. Luckily, he knows a guy.
Forget 50 Shades of Grey, they should make this fic into a movie! Even if you are not a fan of Sub!Dean, give this fic a shot, because it is nearly perfect.    
 Glasses by Samanthapin
E | 9k | Fluff, High School AU, punk!cas, nerd!dean
Teasing turns flirting turns dating turns grossly soppy boyfriends
 beer and bacon happy hour by outpastthemoat
G | 2k | canon!verse, s8
The problem is that Dean’s been having good ideas all night. “No one insults the trenchcoat,” Dean says, and drives his fist into the other dude’s face. Dean figures he was bound to run out of good ideas eventually.
 Hard Road ❤ by aleishapotter
E | 54k | Canon!verse
Dean discovers a few truths about himself when he and Cas are forced to go undercover on a hunt to the very last place Dean ever thought he'd find himself: a gay resort called "Last Hope" that is geared towards helping troubled homosexual couples repair their relationships. This fic is hilarious and hot--my favorite things.  
 Dean Smith Verse by TamrynEradani
E | 17k | Hot,  BDSM, AU, Sub!Dean
 Dean Smith is a man of routine. Castiel takes him apart.
Bratishka: Little Brother by Valyria
E | 33k | Cop AU, Cop Dean, Lawyer Cas
Dean thinks he knows pretty much everything there is to know about his best friend Castiel Novak - he's a smart, gorgeous DA who probably lets Dean get away with more than he should to see the bad guy locked up - but it turns out Cas is hiding some dark family secrets.
 the way to a man's heart by mkhunterz
M | 15k | Fluff,  Canon!verse
Dean teaches Cas to cook, and other things as well.
 Branded by garrisonbabe
E | 12k | | canon!verse, soul bond, marking/claiming
Michael mocked Castiel, telling him he'd never get Dean the way he truly wanted. No matter the mark on Dean's soul, he'd never get him the way the archangel could take him. Dean finds a ritual that fixes that and a few other issues.
 Our Bodies, Posessed by Light by obstinatrix
E | 39k | canon!verse, sastiel bromance, Fluff
Purged of all his souls, Castiel is a changed being, stronger than an angel and too powerful for Jimmy's body to contain. Happily, there's an archangel's vessel on hand, and he could use fixing, too. Dean isn't too happy about the idea of his brother acting as a vessel for Castiel, and Sam can guess why, but it isn't until Castiel gets inside his head and they learn to share the vessel -- and their thoughts -- that Sam realises Cas is as in love with Dean as Dean is with him. It's unfortunate that there's nothing much to be done about it now, but Castiel will get another vessel soon. The Winchesters will make damn sure of that. In the meantime, it's up to the three of them to establish their own strange accord, and Dean realises more fully than ever that it's Castiel, and not his vessel, that he loves.
So Glad We Made It  ❤by scaramouche
M | 16k | Fluff,  AU
At twelve years old, Dean makes a friend, who becomes his best friend, who will eventually become the love of his life.    
Oh, the best friends who grow up together AU. I have a soft spot for fics like these-- comes with pining, awkward misunderstandings, and a good basis for a realistic relationship.    
 Shut Up (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is) ❤ by kototyph
E | 23k | Fluff,  college au
Dean's done some pretty stupid things, but getting drunk-hitched in Vegas to a colleague he barely knows might just take the cake. His surprise husband, Castiel, is a little weird but likable despite that, and Dean figures they’ll go back to Boston, get a quiet annulment, and go their separate ways. Six weeks later, he’s still married to one of the strangest, most genuine and definitely most dangerously lov-- likable guys he's ever known. Dean doesn't know why or really even how it’s happening, but it’s getting harder and harder to remember that he has divorce papers to file.
FLUFF EVERYWHERE! This is definitely a feel-good fic and I love reading it when I'm sad. Or just you know, whenever.
 But the Fire is So Delightful by kototyph
E | 5k | Hot, hate then love, College AU
Apparently, it’s been snowing all day. [Dean is a Douchebag Fratboy with a Cherry Ass, Castiel is Angry and Aroused]
 Stitches by askance
T | 23k |  Fluff, h/c, blindness, Canon!verse
Castiel survived Leviathan--but only barely. Vessel mauled and eyes destroyed, Cas is barely clinging to what's left of his grace when Dean finds him naked and alone on the reservoir's edge; in a panic, Dean brings him home to the cabin where he and Sam have been holed up off the grid. What follows is the slow process of the angel's recovery and the unexpected changes that come with his being blind, and in the three months this takes, their little family slowly begins to patch itself back together in forgiveness, love, and darkness.
 When Charlie Met Cas by riseofthefallenone
E | 25k | Fluff,  canon!versE |
Charlie is back in all her glory. The Winchesters have showed up on her doorstep and she’s making the best of it the only way she knows how. By being the little sister Dean never wanted and shipping the shit out of Destiel.
  The Curious Case of Wee Baby Cas Things by tracy_loo_who
G | 4k | Gen, crack
In which Dean and Sam get saddled with a herd of Cas-like baby animals. Meanwhile, Castiel just wants a hug.
 The Life After the Morning After by saltyfeathers
T | 17k
Dean and Cas get uber drunk on their last day of University. They end up married. Neither of them seem to mind.
 The Girlfriend Experience ❤ by Rageprufrock
E | 15k | Hot,  Canon!Verse, First time
While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.
Classic Casturbation fic. Complete with steamy sexytimes, hilarious dialogue, and fed up and clueless Dean. Perfect.    
 Asunder by Rageprufrock
E | 23k | Sam/Ruby, Hospital AU Fluff,
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19:6)
 Hands, From Which All Things Are Built by MajorEnglishEsquire
T | 14k | Canon!Verse, s8
Castiel travels with the angel tablet and without the Winchesters. One day, Dean gets a text from some anonymous number. (They speak in the language of need.)
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