Cas and Dean could have been totally platonic.

But they decided to make it romantic.

During seasons 4-5 we could have had all the Cas / Dean scenes minus the UST. We could have had heated arguments that turned into a mutual understanding and Cas learning that he had always been different, always loved Humanity and through both Sam and Dean fallen and decided to rebel to help them.

They could have kept it as this:

But they didn’t. They made it all about Dean and added scenes like this:

Side note: they could also have TOTALLY portrayed Dean as a dude-bro straight as a rod hetero guy.

But they didn’t

In fact there’s so much talk about Dean being bisexual it’s just… everywhere, not just on tumblr but in so many reviews and articles about the show e.g. just the latest one I’m aware of:

http://uncannymagazine.com/article/dean-winchester-commander-shepard-walk-bar-fanon-matters/

Then throughout the later seasons, they could have backtracked. They could have said hey, that was all fun, but nah, let’s keep Cas and Dean as a more brotherly familial love, to tie in with the “family don’t end in blood” theme.

I would have TOTALLY gone with that, happy Dean and Cas and Sam, all together as brothers, could have been AWESOME.

But they didn’t.

They consistently wrote them through ROMANTIC storytelling.

I’m just going from the season 7 resurrection because prior to this it was most likely not ever going to be endgame if it’s true they were going to kill Cas off.

Season 7:

- They could have not cast someone who looks like Dean’s female twin as Cas’ wife when he is amnesiac.

- They could have not had Meg call Dean his boyfriend first and make Meg/Cas romantic while Dean looks on with both Daphne and Meg with hurt in his eyes.

- They could have not introduced a queer character and make her immediately bond with Dean right at this point and then continue this theme over the years.

Season 8: 

- Purgatory could have been a bro-ment, except they gave that role to Benny and placed Cas firmly in the romantic role, especially post purgatory with Dean’s visions being paralleled to Sam’s of Jess and his boner moment in 8x07, literally, wtf, that is not brotherly affection. 

- They could have not had multiple episodes after Cas’ putting himself in harms way to save Dean in purgatory that revolved around a Supernatural being doing this for the human they loved.

- Then a whole story around brainwashing which one gets the other out of through telling them I love you I need you, followed by a whole storyline of Dean behaving like a JILTED LOVER and Cas trying to fix it, meanwhile Sam looks like the awkward person caught in the middle between a couple fighting, NOT his own two brothers!

Season 9: 

- They could have had a story where Dean chose Sam over his best friend and newly found blood-brother, who he did a blood pact with and loved dearly in Bad Boys, but no, it was a ROMANTIC parallel. 

- They could have had Cas not have sex with April or it be Sam who killed her and clutched his face in agony, so Gadreel felt it and healed him while Dean was knocked out. They could have then had Dean NOT sensually wrapping his mouth around ANYTHING OTHER THAN A PENIS SHAPED BURRITO whilst making sexual innuendos to Cas. But they did.

- They could have had the bar scene in 9x09 be all about the 3 brothers having a great time together, playing darts, having fun and chilling, rather than having a flirting winking thing going on between Dean and Cas and Sam just looking on open mouthed like WHAT IS HAPPENING WHY AM I HERE. 

- They could have had a story that wasn’t focused all around sex in Rock and a Hard place, but they chose it to be sexual (when that ep was supposed to come right after 9x06).

- They could have had Ephraim going after people who were in pain and suffering due to familial loss when he went after Cas, but they didn’t, they made it a ROMANTIC parallel again.

- They could have NOT had a renowned romantic song about loneliness, a deep shade of blue, the sun not shining anymore (when there had been so much Cas = sun visuals this season prior to this) and being “without love” with an “I NEED YOU” playing over softly interspersed images of Cas and Dean’s sad faces, when they had to separate due to duty (seriously, the one shot of Sam is just of him looking at Dean and worrying about how he is feeling during the intro before the lyrics play. Pfft).

- They could have had Dean help Cas get ready for his date by doing a Charlie-esque totally platonic scene where he took him shopping for a sweater and jeans, rather than making it look like he was undressing him with his eyes, forgetting to leave cos he’s just staring at him and looking longingly at him while calling him Tony Manero, a heavily subtextually bisexual character.

- They could have NOT paralleled Dean and Cas’ huge emotional traumatic break up in 6x20 with canon star-crossed lovers in 9x20. But they did.

- They could have had Metatron talk about how much Cas cared about puny humans and how he’s a sap for the mud monkeys, rather than making it ALL ABOUT SAVING DEAN WINCHESTER and using words like HE’S IN LOVE (giant ass pause)…. with Humanity.

- They could have then not had Amara telling Dean that he literally represents humanity and Chuck backing this up. Pff.

Season 10:

- They could have used Hannah as an actual romantic love interest for Cas rather than paralleling her unrequited love with Cas’ perceived unrequited love of Dean and using her to EXPOSE this. Or they could have just not made Cas’ story sexual/about romance AT ALL.

-They could have had SAM be the person Dean gets soft around instead of Cas or if they wanted to make Cas the brotherly figure, they could have done so in a way that didn’t scream ROMANCE like putting them in a date-like set up, making Crowley call Cas Dean’s BOYFRIEND, exposing how he’s doing it all for Dean and dying for him whilst paralleling this to Hannah’s romantic/sexual interest in Cas. 

- They could have NOT repeatedly paralleled Cas with Cains’ WIFE in the Dean/Cain parallel, the love of his life, who softened him and made him want to be a better man.

-They could have had Dean get just as squicked about Destiel as W*ncest in the 10x05 fan fiction episode but they DIDNT. They made Dean squicky about W*ncest and testing the water with Sam by mentioning Destiel, then getting embarrassed by it instead of grossed out.

Season 11:

- They could at any time have made Cas/Sam stronger by the way by this point. But they didn’t. They purposefully made Sam/Cas less strong than Dean/Cas for *reasons* and those aren’t because Cas and Sam don’t care about each other and love each other as brothers/best friends because they repeatedly state that they DO. So go figure.

- They could have had the Angels torturing Cas as not making it sexual whilst talking about his loyalty and love for the Winchesters. But they did.

- They could have had Dean worry for and fight for Cas while he is possessed by Lucifer in a totally brotherly fashion as he would with Sam, but they made it ROMANTIC.

- They could have had the banshee in 11x11 go after people (again in parallel to 9x06) who were in pain due to familial loss rather than ROMANTIC loss when it went after Dean. They could have had the heartbroken manager look and say things that DIDN’T remind us of Cas before this happened, BUT THEY DID. They could have left it there but instead they gave us Mildred telling Dean that he’s PINING for someone. Just before he tells us in 11x13 that he is NOT pining for AMARA. So WHO is he PINING for?! Who has gone missing AGAIN? Who is he repeatedly over this and the next season worrying about?

-The monster in 11x13 didn’t have to be a DARKEST DESIRES monster (and not a love monster) and the story focus on unrequited love and therefore expose that although Dean’s feelings are of dark desire here, he states they are NOT love and that he ISNT pining for Amara…. SEE ABOVE.

-Amara could have gotten to Dean through a MULTITUDE of different options, through their own apparently strong bond. But they DIDNT. They did it through CAS and specifically THROUGH HIS HEART. I MEAN JEEZ.

- They could have NOT introduced at this point two characters who are gruff awesome hunter men who TOTALLY personality wise, story-wise and visually through their shoulder patting interactions are GIANT METAPHORS for Dean and Cas, while referring to the earlier ‘settling down with a hunter’ discussion in 11x04 through DEAN curiously wondering “what’s it like, settling down with a hunter?” after having mixed up brother / romantic vibes off them.

-They could have had the ‘you’re our brother’ moment in the car in 11x23 feel wonderful and fulfilling but instead (because of all this previously and the way it was framed) it felt OFF and WRONG. Because this isn’t the full truth is it Dean.

- They could have not had the whole season be a giant metaphor for this through Amara mixing up a brotherly and romantic “bond” (their words not mine) through Chuck and Dean.

THIS WHOLE SEASON COULD HAVE NOT BEEN A GIANT EXPOSITION FOR DEAN’S ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR CAS AND HIS OWN INNER MONOLOGUE OF SELF WORTH AND ACCEPTANCE, LEADING TO HIS ARC AND CLIMAX OF THIS IN SEASON 12 AND SPECIFICALLY 12x22.

Season 12

- They could have introduced Cas to Mary as their brother from the OFF but at no point did either of the boys tell her that Cas is like a brother to them. She just… assumed he fit in as “one of her boys” and in the family by proxy and is the one who consoles CAS while he is not able to function while Dean is missing (but was able to function totally perfectly to find Sam with Dean) and she always looks to DEAN when talking about Cas. I WONDER WHY.

- They could have NOT had Crowley call Cas a “love slave” or had Dean glance over at Cas when he picked up the satiny pink panties. But they did.

- They could have NOT had an ambiguous double-over voice of Sam telling Mary “I love you” and Dean talking to Cas on the phone. That was TOTALLY UNNECESSARY and just made everyone pause and rewind to figure out what was said.

- They could have had a backstory filling in the blanks around nephilim that didn’t also have a story about an Angel falling in love with a Human and him projecting this onto Cas and Dean as his human weakness whilst also explaining that Angels are not supposed to have romantic or sexual feelings for humans at all and that it means they are bad, wrong and should be killed, that it is a sacred oath not to do so, meanwhile showing Cas as extremely duty bound and still loyal even though he has fallen.

- They could have had Cas CLEARLY tell the boys he loves them as family and they are dear dear brothers to him. Instead we got a season of double clarifications leading up to this where it was CONSISTENT that the first was to one person and the second was to everyone, on top of every other time Cas has done this the first is ALWAYS to Dean, so the ambiguously seeming “I love you, I love all of you” was blatantly a romantic / familial divide between Dean and Sam. Before you even look at the fact that he can’t hold eye contact for the first but looks at Sam for the second and the reactions of Dean and Sam show that they know exactly what this means. 

- They could have had Dean give Cas ANYTHING OTHER THAN A ROMANTIC TROPE 101 lesson 1 first 5 minutes into the class MIXTAPE as a gift of ‘familial bonding’. But no, they used a romantic one.

- They could have not used the band chosen on the tape a band that is consistently made romantic through the Mary/John link and even before this a way for guys to get into Jo’s pants and a way for the siren to first try to seduce Dean.

- Throughout the whole show they could have given Dean any romantic love interest where it wasn’t directly linked since season 7 with him losing Cas, feeling like he just wants comfort and SETTLING for someone else. Then in 12x18 they could have NOT made this totally clear by at this point showing it to us through him firstly worrying about Cas AGAIN, in a 2 season long repeated hammering home of Dean worrying about Cas more and more and Sam trying to console him, then settling for the omelette right afterwards and being UNSATISFIED by it.

- They could have NOT paralleled Sam pulling Dean away to the rift with Dean pulling Sam back from Jess.

- They could have NOT paralleled Dean falling to his knees as a standard romantic trope to Cain doing it for Colette.

- They could have set the whole thing up for YEARS so that Sam and Dean have a much more similar bond with Cas, a three-way brotherly bond that could totally fit with the “family don’t end in blood” theme, just as Bobby was their surrogate father and Jody their surrogate mother, Cas could have been both their additional, chosen brother, given that Dean and Sam were so forced into their codependency, their choosing to be together and add another brother could so nicely cement their own bond too by adding Cas in his way.

But instead they chose to make their relationships palpably and obviously different, even though Sam loves Cas as a brother, for *reasons*.

In Conclusion:

EVERY TIME Dean/Cas has been narratively paralleled with 2 people on the show it’s been a ROMANTIC couple (eg. Violet/David, Maggie/Donald, Jesse/Cesar, Bobby/Karen, Mary/John, Betsy/Cacao, Chronos/Lydia, Cain/Colette…) not BROTHERS (as Dean/Sam have e.g. Lucifer/Michael, the kids from 1x18).

When Cas and Dean have been targeted by monsters it’s often because of a ROMANTIC reason - one which on the surface might look like it’s for example Nora or Amara but is textually shown NOT to be, meanwhile setting their own interactions in the same episode between each other as heavily subtextually romantic.

They could have made Dean/Cas a brotherly relationship and that could have been AWESOME and totally relevant to the themes of the show. But they CHOSE to make it romantic.

I SHIP DEAN/CAS AS A ROMANTIC PAIRING BECAUSE THE SHOW MADE ME DO IT.

Dean… Everybody you love leaves you in the end.

sorry sorry but its just like. being in denial about your love for your best friend until you know it can save him and also that you won’t be around long enough to have your heart broken because you know he’d tell you to fuck off otherwise. and then seeing the love in his eyes as you’re taken and being taken away realizing you were wrong the entire time

100k fics and counting… Get some, boys.

💙 Posting for the DeanCas Happily Ever After Fest starts today! 💚

Our wonderful participants will post their work throughout the week until June 8th.

✏️ There will be fic, art and poetry! 🎨

Take a look at our blog to find the posts promoting the posted works!

You can find sneak peeks of works to come on our blog here.

It is worth noting that Dean is very clearly not lying in the center of the bed.

This position and framing is made for us to realize/feel that there is a new bedside table (on the side of the vacant place in the bed) and also that Dean is leaving room for someone/something else. In almost every other shot of Dean‘s room, his pillow is in the middle of the bed.

He stopped sleeping in the middle of the bed, just on the off chance that [redacted] would sneak in and lie beside him. If that isn‘t the most romantic shit you‘ve ever heard. That‘s Mr. Darcy level romance people.

Yeah they shot this, and the scene of Cas in bed - on the other side of the bed so they’re paired perfectly, I can’t believe there aren’t more manips of them together tbh that’s what they wanted us to do!

The DeanCas Happily Ever After Fest: Sign up!

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The theme of this fest is “Happily Ever After.” This originated as an idea for Dean and Castiel’s canon-verse honeymoon, but participants can create any piece that fulfills the theme of Happily Ever After. Your creation can be canon-verse, diverge from canon at any point, or you dive into AU-world!

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Having been in SPN fandom for years now its really fucking funny when random minor facts get brought up again and suddenly you are reminded of things that you knew, but for some reason just accepted as yet another insane thing about Supernatural.

Like yes. Dean DID fuck an entire baseball team. Yes that is a legitimate reading we can pull from the canon text. Yes this is fucking insane. But for some reason previously I just added it to the mountain of insane knowledge this show has canonically given me about Dean Winchester.

Like this is a guy who *canonically* enjoys wearing ladies underwear, has a cowboy fetish, has a thing for getting slapped around, is hot for Zorro and a TV character called Dr Sexy, is generally sexually submissive, has had all male orgies previously *with the king of hell*, has an honest to god tentacle kink, has had hook ups with men in bars on at least 2 occassions (one in which he definitely bottomed), and yeah, fucked an entire baseball team.

This is all information extrapolated from the canon text. I did not pull ANY of this out of thin air. If you pay attention, Supernatural has probably told us waaaay too much information about Dean's sexual preferences.

It is absolutely hilarious to me that ANYONE has the audacity to claim Dean as a heterosexual red blooded Straight Man™, let alone a dominant or vanilla one. The show has fundamental on many levels canonically confirmed this is not the case. Its just done so via blink and you'll miss it moments so that the jokes go over the heads of the people watching on a surface level. Because the show has never had Dean outright say "I am a bisexual man who enjoys a variety of sexual kinks and in particular like being submissive and fucked up the ass." People will dismiss everything we HAVE been told as irrelevant and "not canon". Subtext is still part of the story and the subtext paints a VERY clear picture of Dean Winchester.

Certainly enough for us to all imagine in great detail the exciting things Dean got up to on his wedding night with his angel husband.

Oh no.

12x12 Cas tells Dean he loves him, then backtracks and nearly dies of black goo but is saved

15x18 cas finally tells dean he loves him romantically with no backtracking, then dies from black goo and is not saved

I didn’t need to put these together...

Dean's reply could've saved him, was supposed to save him... the black goo was cas's own depression and feelings of unworthiness devouring him, and the remedy was supposed to be the reply, the acknowledgement, the confirmation that Cas was loved too, that he was worthy. And then they didn't let him speak again.

^^^

Here it is! This is part one of my two part Supernatural Manifesto. This first video essay is an in-detail dive into Destiel over the years and how it has changed both within and outside of the show. (Reblogs are much appreciated to help spread.) Hope you enjoy!!

It has subtitles available now!

Watching s4 and 5 is funny because already before the middle of s4, dean’s realizing that he maybe trusts Cas. Cas is different, Cas is just a guy following orders. Cas is one of the good guys. And then by On The Head Of A Pin he’s like, “Yeah, this guy. I can trust this guy. I LIKE this guy.”

And in 5.01 he’s genuinely annoyed with himself that he’s upset Cas is dead. Like not just bummed they lost a powerful ally, but genuinely sad. And he’s not supposed to be sad that a fucking Angel is dead, even though he rebelled against heaven for Dean. He’s still part of this whole apocalypse thing, Dean should be stoked but really he’s just like “damn, I’m never gonna hear Cas again.”

5.02 he just gives Cas his most prized possession after the Impala, just hands it over because cas is pissed and Dean thinks he’s kinda fucked in the head bc he’s kinda turned on by this Thing who wants to yeet him back into hell because he can’t stop being an annoying shit for five minutes.

5.03 Cas comes to him and is like “hey lol wanna go on a suicide mission with me? Promise he won’t kill you, you’re too important, but I’m probably dead again.” And dean’s like yeah, fuck, ok, I guess yeah, it’s the least I can do for you right? So he finds out Cas is a virgin and he’s like, great, perfect, let’s get him a hot lady friend for the night and I’ll hook up with a girl and I won’t have to think about my crush - NO, NOT CRUSH, NOT ALLOWED TO THINK OF AN ANGEL LIKE THAT - I won’t have to think about Cas but he’s getting laid. Great. And then Cas is Castiel and he unintentionally makes a girl cry and Dean is so absurdly, needlessly charmed by how earnest he is, that it’s not even funny. Dean wants to protect Cas when they’re interrogating Raphael, wants to protect his feelings, and that’s weird, that’s not what you do with something that can kill you. And he TALKS to Castiel on the way back when they’re in the car, he talks about his own daddy issues, and then Castiel just LEAVES and deans like “lol Dean u idiot, he doesn’t care about you.”

And then, and then!!!! 5.04, Dean finds himself in this world where he realizes that Oh No, five years into the future he’s not only hooked up with Cas, he might love him. And this Dean, this future Dean, just absolutely destroyed everything about Castiel and what makes him Good. Never mind that it’s not his fault at all, Dean can’t get that image of Cas stoned out of his mind setting up an orgy out of his head and he’s like “good job Dean, you’re so worthless that you corrupted a fucking Angel. You took a perfectly good Angel and gave him PTSD.” And then Cas saves him from this terrible universe and Dean’s like “oh. Oh no. I think I love him.”

They mean so much to each other so fast and they’re both FURIOUS about it because they were never supposed to mean anything!!! Dean wasn’t supposed to turn Castiel’s whole world upside down, and cas wasn’t supposed to mean anything to Dean. AND YET, AND YET, THEY’VE BARELY KNOWN EACH OTHER A YEAR AND THEY’RE ALREADY HUGELY IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN EACH OTHERS LIVES.

Are. You. Kidding. Me?.

WAS ANYONE GOING TO TELL ME THE REASON SEASON 9 PACING IS SO AWKWARD WAS BECAUSE THEY CHANGED THE EPISODE ORDER AROUND?! 

source: @tinkdw​ post in 2018 linked above and confirmed on 2013 media websites

Dean suddenly having two nightstands for one episode and one episode only was confirmed to be a deliberate choice by the director who is generally a set designer. That was supposed to be right after Dean learns Cas is human? and has had sex? and thinks Cas will live at the bunker?!

That makes SO much more sense.  and I…I’m… anger crying inside? Maybe? Yes. This is SO INFURIATING.  

Jeremy Carver told Misha Collins to play Cas as a “jilted lover” in Heaven Can’t Wait; Misha originally said “Carver told US” before correcting himself.

It’s an episode in which Dean makes up an excuse to go see Cas and lies to Samdreel about it. Dean reacts when he hears Cas has a date.  Dean and Cas have that moment in the Impala before Cas’s date.  

Metatron was going to decorate Cas’s Heaven with half naked Dean wallpaper while ‘cheek to cheek’ plays.

Dean and Cas have that bar scene and then Performing!Dean compensates with an awkward moment where Dean postures and lies about finding April attractive.

This was all planned. This was ALL CANON. and THIS SHOW. …. and These people.

Repeatedly told fans they were crazy. Imagining things; Told wider media that the fans were crazy. Brought fans in close, and dropped a VERY unusual amount of interplay between fans and creatives, but was telling the world they were crazy. That’s… SUCH a classic abuser move.

This show’s textual plot involved a bisexual main character and an angel who loved him. This show’s main plot textually involved an angel who canonically creates free will.  and this show’s real textual canon main plot, is ultimately that the love between them allows them to bring free will to the universe….

and the fandom were all imagining it?  

I don’t know why this is what broke the ranting floodgates for me. There has been plenty already; the finale, the script leaks… but it did, apparently.

GO FORTH, BE GAY, DO [not physical] VIOLENCE.

Cas moves into a new apartment, and everything seems perfect until he discovers his new upstairs neighbour is Noisy. 

And the most intrusive kind of Noisy. 

It doesn’t take Cas long before he learns exactly what Dean Winchester sounds like when he comes. The soundproofing is so bad, sometimes Cas feels like he’s in that upstairs apartment with Dean. It had never been a problem in the past, no one else has ever been this kind of vocal. 

In one of his sleep-deprived crashes, Cas comes up with a stunning conclusion: 

Why not seduce Dean Winchester, win his affection, begin a monogamous relationship with him, and then finally Cas will be able to sleep again - since, he reasons, he won’t mind if he’s part of the noise fest. If he then dumps Dean, maybe he’ll force the other man to move out, leaving Cas back to his peaceful evenings once more. 

Which all seems like a perfectly reasonable a plan, until Cas is on his third date with Dean and realizes maybe he likes the other man a little bit more than vengeance and his plan will allow for. Whoops. 

“I don’t get it,” says Cas. “So we’re going to watch a movie that’s bad on purpose.”

Dean smiles, winking. He pours more butter on the popcorn until it looks sufficiently doused.

“A scary movie that’s bad on purpose,” Dean says, wiggling his eyebrows as if it clears anything up.

Sam snorts behind them, stealing the popcorn bowl just as Dean is reaching for more salt and butter.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t get it either,” Sam says. “He’s going for the ironic hipster vibe, I guess.”

Dean pauses, pointing a finger at Sam, eyebrows raised.

“You shut your mouth,” he says, probably more harshly than necessary, and both Cas and Sam laugh.

Sam sits down on the couch, already digging into the popcorn before Dean shoves his shoulder, pushing him off.

“Wrong seat,” Dean says.

Cas furrows his eyebrows, and so does Sam.

Dean turns back to Cas, grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers together. He smiles, soft. Warm.

“Other couch, Sam,” he says, eyes locked with Cas’s. “This one’s for us.”

Sam rolls his eyes and moves to the smaller couch, even if he’s hiding a smile. Cas isn’t hiding his, though. Dean’s hands are warm as they sit, one of Dean’s arms finding its way around his shoulder.

It’s cold outside, Cas knows, but it’s warm in here where he can feel the vibration of Dean’s laughs next to him, or when he feels Dean’s soft kiss in his hair when he can’t stop giggling at a part of the movie no one else seems to find funny. But the rest of the movie, in Cas’s opinion, is terrible, and he has no qualms about saying so to Dean, who just nods with a smile:

“The worst,” he says enthusiastically, like it’s a good thing.

But Cas likes being here, surrounded by the smell and feel of Dean, listening to his comments throughout the movie.

And, late at night when Sam is gone, Cas’s eyes closed, head in Dean’s lap almost asleep, he hears Dean whisper as he runs his fingers through his dark, messy hair:

“Ok, from now on forever, you can pick the movie.”

It’s a little sarcastic, and probably meant to goad Cas on in case he was still awake, but Cas doesn’t care, because the truth is, the only word he hears is: Forever.