#which does end up in mirabelle getting powers beyond controlling

[oriorchids]

and now

odile

[autisticandroids]

Oh patron saint of mpreg, tell us, what is the absolute gold standard canon divergent mpreg scenario with Cas and Dean?

so for me the gold standard is for cas to get pregnant due to some kind of magical or metaphysical situation that dean at least does not perceive as sex. bonus points is cas is hesitant about it but refuses to explain why (because he doesn't know how dean will deal with the concept of himself being able to potentially get cas pregnant), so dean is like "we're doing it anyway" and then they do it and then cas doesn't tell anyone that he is pregnant until circumstances force the information out of him. and then dean has to deal with the fact that 1) cas can get pregnant, 2) cas is pregnant, 3) it's his, and he does so pretty poorly.

the rest is under a cut because this post is over 2.5k words long.

my favorite times for this to happen are at the end of season nine, just before dean dies and gets demonized in do you believe in miracles, and at the start of season twelve, just before sam and dean go to jail, because the pining in both those scenarios is delicious but it is so much more powerful if cas is also pregnant, and never even told dean. double points if the truth somehow comes out while they're separated so when dean comes back it's like. yeah cas is pregnant. it's yours. welcome home dean now you have to coddle cas' emotions because he thought he would have to raise your baby alone.

the season twelve scenario is particularly delicious because 1) we can have lucifer slut shaming cas in front of crowley in rock never dies, so crowley knows before dean, and 2) much more importantly, mary is there, and i am obsessed with like. okay. several things.

- the idea of mary getting all baby fever because she misses her boys and this is like. a baby she can take care of because she never got to take care of sam

- the idea of dean working through some of his parentification trauma by coparenting a child with the parent whose place he felt he had to take

- the idea of mary coming in and projecting her insane 1980s gender roles all over cas, suddenly treating him like a woman, stripping him of agency, etc. and like. dean would also do this even though he's not from the eighties, but mary would do it double strength, and they would reinforce each other, it would be a nightmare

- also mary trying to relate to cas on the Travails Of Motherhood etc. and cas being like ?????????? like i cannot stress enough that the weird gender roles she projects onto cas are also standards that she held herself to back when she was a Wife And Mother. while cas is like mary i am not a human woman and also i don't see what "having to look pretty for my man when i'm all baby bloaty" has to do with anything. that's not something i feel like i have to do

oh and 3) could you imagine lily sunder has some regrets if cas was pregnant? unfathomable episode. like ishim and mirabel's reaction but ALSO lily's. and it would fix the number one issue i have with lily sunder, which is that the resolution of the moral dilemma is "well AKSHUALLY the kid was human and not a nephilim so killing it was bad" rather than "it was bad to kill lily's baby, full stop." like ishim's cover up and using the machinery of power to manipulate the truth is very compelling, but the fact that it results in the moral essentially being "it would have been okay if the kid had been a nephilim" suuuuuucks.

basically, there's a reason i have two entire mpreg aus set in season twelve.

and then the delicious part in the season nine version is like. one, dean is away for much longer and he could be anywhere. also he's a demon and he's cheating on cas with crowley. and then even when cas gets him back he's still cursed with the mark, so we can get all weepy over that. you know. i'm the one who's going to have to watch you murder the world and i'm eight months pregnant. etc etc.

but the other thing that's juicy about this version is that cas is still semi-involved with the other angels at this point, like he's roadtripping around with hannah and they're trying to get heaven under control, so carrying a nephil is going to really affect those relationships. so he's going to be probably disliked by the other angels, and there are MANY opportunities for slut-shaming, but at the same time, the other "outcast" type angels might respect him for violating heaven's dictates.

and then of course there's his grace vampirism victorian wasting disease. in canon he's perfectly happy to let himself die, but if he were having dean's baby he would absolutely not do that, that's dean's baby he's endangering there. so of course there's the terrible guilt of having to kill other angels so he can live, plus potentially preparing to die shortly after childbirth so he doesn't have to keep killing. delicious.

and on top of all this cas can get slutshamed by metatron in, depending on when exactly he gets knocked up, meta fiction, stairway to heaven, and do you believe in miracles. plus stairway to heaven would be insane like all the angels would know that cas is pregnant. they would see it in his grace. like cas' angel army would just. know that he was pregnant with a nephil, and have to accept that because he's their leader. in love with humanity indeed.

i'm trying to think of other good times for this drama with cas getting secretly pregnant through a nonsexual interaction to take place. it would be great in season six. like: he's doing a blasphemy with his body but at the same time he's this big important rebel leader so they can't say shit about him, and also he's pregnant while fighting these big important battles (fun and sexy), AND this is like, hot on the heels of the realization that something about his feelings for dean is untoward, expands beyond the bounds of ordinary friendship and camaraderie. like he realizes that, and maybe even that he has sexual feelings for dean, and then he gets immediately knocked up. stunning.

it would ALSO be extremely fun for it to be some kind of... i don't know, magical longer gestation times, whatever, but for cas to have gotten pregnant sometime in s5 and only realized during the Year Of Lisa. LOVE to watch a man rake leaves while both metaphorically carrying the taint of taboo sexual feelings for him and literally carrying his child.

but the thing about season six is, first of all, cas isn't really... envisioning a future with dean. not the way he does in the later seasons. like does he fantasize about a future with dean? yes. like. he really did watch that motherfucker rake leaves. but it's only fantasy. he expected to never speak to dean again after swan song until dean prayed to him in the third man. he's obsessed with dean, but it's distant. remote.

like, we talk about cas babytrapping dean in the later seasons with jack, and he absolutely does, and he would do it even more if dean got him literally pregnant, but that babytrap is about... how do i put this. it's about winning dean's affection. late seasons cas knows that he's going to die by dean's side. the difference that babytrapping dean makes is that maybe it will get dean to be nice to him in the mean time, instead of discarding him like so much toilet paper.

but season six cas doesn't think of it like that. if he were gonna babytrap dean, it would be in the more traditional sense of forcing dean to stay with him in order to raise their child together. and he would never do that. he wants dean to have a happy future, which in his mind does not include him. like, compare here "he's retired and he's to stay that way" in the man who would be king, where cas assumes that dean is happy without him and expects him to live out his days peacefully without ever seeing him again, to "i'm the one who's going to have to watch you murder the world" in the prisoner, where cas assumes that he will be by dean's side for centuries.

but anyway, the other, much more important problem with season six is that cas has a war to fight. like, in the later seasons, cas really has nothing. even when he's on tenuous good terms with the angels, he doesn't really have a home with them. the winchesters are his family, and he'd give up anything for them. he has nothing in his life. he's at rock bottom, and this becomes truer the further along you go. late seasons cas has nothing he would prioritize over serving the winchesters, and he would be happy dropping anything he was involved in to have and raise dean's baby. parenting would give him a purpose that he no longer has, because everything else has been stripped from him.

but in season six cas has a life outside of them. like yes, he has a war to fight, but he also has a place in heaven, with the other angels. he belongs somewhere, he has solid connections to the outside world. even if he didn't have a war to fight, i don't know how excited he would be to have and raise a baby (even dean's baby) because he simply has other things he could be doing. he's involved in the world beyond the winchesters.

like, the reason cas wants to be a parent is that he is totally alone and totally purposeless. having a child gives him both a reason for being and someone who will always love him and who he can care for. if he doesn't have that hole in his life he might not be so eager to fill it with a baby.

for all these reasons, this plotline really doesn't work in season six, because you simply cannot justify cas not getting an abortion, unless you do something nasty like make angel abortion impossible, which i don't love.

you COULD somehow put the impregnation just at the end of season six, maybe just before the man who would be king, such that cas doesn't realize he's pregnant until he's already godstiel. you guys are unfortunately very aware of how obsessed i am with pregnant godstiel.

actually, @jeanne-de-valois has a concept of like. a single, madness fueled midnight hookup immediately pre-tmwwbk (or maybe even during, but prior to the superman mistake), where cas is simultaneously so stressed from being stretched so thin from the war and the lying and the shady dealings, and so high on being The Big Man In Heaven, that he's bold and out of his mind enough to actually come onto dean, like he just appears one night in dean's bedroom and is like, fuck me, and dean is like 👁👄👁 okay. so they have one single adrenaline and madness fueled hookup, and then everything immediately goes to shit.

and i think that's a great place for cas to get pregnant, and then he doesn't realize until he's become god, or maybe he does and he's just like "i'll deal with it later," either way godstiel is like oh? i carry dean's heir inside me? i will have dean's baby. i will have dean's baby it is my right and also my boon to him and also a symbol of my great and magnanimous love for humanity. and also maybe i will put giant paintings of myself pregnant with his child up in churches. what about that. which would be fun. don't know when he would give birth though. actually it would be insane if he gave birth as emmanuel and was just like. raising dean's nephil when dean found him again. nuts. but it just doesn't really have the same flavor as late seasons mpreg. doesn't compel me nearly as much. like the symbolism of godstiel being pregnant with dean's child is fun and sexy but them actually raising the kid afterwards doesn't compel me nearly as much, so it's better to leave literal mpreg to the later seasons and let godstiel mpreg reside in symbolism and fantasy.

or maybe the fetus gets stolen by the leviathans when cas walks into the lake and dean has to battle his leviathanated nephil daughter as the main villain of s7. like she's dick roman's secret weapon. i think that would be fun, actually. kind of an emma situation but drawn out over the whole season. and he thinks cas is dead for most of it so she's all he's got left of cas and a mess cas left for him to clean up. big sexy.

and as a bonus, i will also tell you the best time, imo, for dean to get pregnant: near the end of season eight. possibly a single, tragic farewell fuck in sacrifice when cas is planning to lock himself away in heaven and they're never gonna see each other again. and this impregnates dean with cas' nephil.

but then cas is human. and he can't do anything about it. like generally if they managed to get dean pregnant somehow, cas would immediately talk him into an abortion (which wouldn't be too hard; dean's natural white midwestern man who doesn't vote aversion to abortion would be at war with the horror of being pregnant, and the horror would win), or might not even inform dean that he's pregnant, and just quietly end the pregnancy without dean's knowledge, because cas would never put dean through that. but if cas is human, he can't do that. and furthermore, that nephil is the last evidence of his angelic nature that persists. it's the last of what he used to be, the last of his grace. and there's something absolutely delectable about that.

then of course dean would have to leave the bunker if he was pregnant with a nephil, because angels would be after him, and he wouldn't want to lead them to gadreel, so i am imagining dean discovering that he's pregnant and then showing up in a panic at the gas n sip like "actually cas i'm also out of the bunker will you go on the run with me?" and then they go on the run and have to live in motels again and cas gets to live with take care of dean who is pregnant with his child which is essentially his dream, and he doesn't have to feel guilty because he's no longer capable of giving dean an abortion so he doesn't feel obligated to get him to have one. ideally cas gets re-angeled just in time to give dean an angelic c-section. or maybe they rely on a normal human c-section in a hospital and cas stays human and they are two humans raising their nephil, which is also fun to me.

[siren-of-redriver96]

so I have this theory about Encanto:

Pepa is the most active in “We don’t talk about Bruno” - but there’s something more here, something different in what we see of her.

(spoilers)

By all means, the ending shows she doesn’t actually dislike him - in fact, she’s so happy he’s back she practically picks him off the ground to hug him.

So, why was she so upset talking about him before? I say it’s not mostly because of the wedding, or Alma’s expectations on how they should universally react to him leaving. It’s because she missed him on a painful level.

Of all the family in the casita, she’s arguably the most nervous/emotional. Her ability is connected to weather and she’s often shown bursting out on one way or another.

Point being, everyone else is much calmer by comparsion. But not Bruno.

I’m convinced that, for most of their life, he was the only one who could really relate to how she was feeling - anxious, nervous, emotional, easy to tip over, you name it. He could understand, relate even.

And then he up and left, with no explanation or trace. Moreover, he left her all alone with people who could be supportive, but not really understand how she was feeling.

I say this is the reason she didn’t want to talk about him beyond what happened at the wedding (further, she couldn’t understand why he had reminded her of rain until he got the chance to tell her). It hurt too much.

Need more proof?

Camilo wears a ruana much like Bruno’s, and they’re the only characters to be shown wearing one - she dressed her son the slightest like her brother she could get away with.

Edit:

Wait ...

Mirabel is wearing green glasses ... green for her eyes. Jep. I’d say Julieta suggested she pick this one.

(btw yes she is a healer, but eyesight problems are usually connected to the eyeball being too long or short, which healing powers can’t fix because there is no physical problem or pain - it’s just the way it is)

Also - is it just me or does she have the same haircut as Bruno? Aww....

All in all, it’s kinda like with Isabela - as in that the only reason she was mean occasionally was because she clung to every chance to feel control over someone else, while feeling controlled by others, especially her grandmother.

Pepa was the most active about shunning the memory of Bruno away because it hurt to remember that the only person who understood her had left her.

And yeah, the ending kinda prooves this theory. Anything she mentioned in “We don’t talk about Bruno?”

It doesn’t matter any more. No more expectations to take abuela’s standpoint, no more missing him. There he is, that’s all she wanted.

[shirtlesssammy]

Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Recap

What the ever-loving Chuck were we gifted with this week? My mind is reeling. Fair warning: There’s going to be uncontrolled DeanCas feels in this recap.

Then:

Man, first dates, amirite? Also, Lucifer has a fetus on the loose.

Now:

We open with Super Intense Gamer Girl not taking a single hint from Arcade Employee to get out. She’s got some Rampage to destroy (Is that the right term? My arcade knowledge barely extends beyond Ms. PacMan.)

And from out of nowhere, Nadine Hurley shows up to intimidate Gamer Girl away from her game. 

Gamer Girl isn’t so much a gamer girl, but an angel named Benjamin, and his angel powers don’t work on Nadine –ok, I’ll give up the ghost,  it’s the eponymous Lily Sunder. Lily quickly takes control of the situation, whipping out TWO angel blades and going to Kick-ass town on Benjamin. Before she can end him, Benjamin starts chanting in Enochian. “That’s right, call your friends,” Lily whispers –and we cut to several unknown angels, AND CAS!–before she stabs Benjamin through with her angel blade.

Meanwhile, at the bunker, Dean is busy in the war room looking over Cas’s handy “I’m going to find that Nephilim the old fashioned way” board. Sam wanders in and compliments all of his hard work, but Cas’s pissy husband is less than impressed. Where the heck can this nephilim fetus be hiding? <Insert Brother Banter Mom Talk> Then Sam asks if Dean is talking to Cas yet. Dean responds with a curt, “No.”

I counter with a:

Sam tries to play peacemaker: Cas saved them. Dean admits that he isn’t pissed; he’s grateful (next time buy your husband a dozen roses or a case of artisan mead), but he’s worried about the so-called “cosmic consequences” of the broken deal. Sam insists that Cas thought he was doing the right thing. Always. It’s at that moment that Cas wanders in and confirms that he was doing the right thing, before announcing he has to go. Sam wonders if he’s found Kelly, Lucifer’s baby mamma. No, it’s something personal. “Meaning what?” Dean questions. Cas explains an old friend called out for help, and Cas needs to know if he’s still alive. Sam jumps up eager to join. “We’ll come with you.” “Both of you?” Pause. Pause. Awkward. Pause. And then Dean: “Sure…Gotta make sure you don’t do anything else stupid.” Whew Dean, that was close, you almost let your emotions show for a second. Sidenote: Is the truck parked in the bunker garage next to Baby?

*Awkward Car Scene Alert*

The boys are chewing up the miles in the Impala in complete and uncomfortable silence. Sam practically begs to turn on the music, but is shut down by Dean. Like, what the what? Mr. “I’ll avoid talking about shit forever” wants to sit and stew in this strained miasma? Sam then tries to engage Cas in conversation about what they’re walking into. Cas, too, is apparently enjoying the miasma, but much to Dean’s incredulous reaction, he eventually opens up about Benjamin. Benjamin wouldn’t call for help lightly. And hoo boy, Dean’s apparently done with the silent treatment because the sniping that ensues between these two is pure lover’s quarrel GOLD. Like, Dean almost swerved off the road!

Is this real life? And it only gets better my friends. Cas explains how Benjamin cares greatly for his vessel, and wouldn’t bring harm to her if he could help it. “Wait, so Benjamin’s a woman,” Dean interjects. Benjamin is an angel; his vessel is a woman. And she’s more than just a vessel, she’s….a friend. Air quotes all over that statement.

TFW investigate the murder, and Cas looks at the broken-winged burn marks in pain. The arcade employee is giving his account of the evening, and when Cas abruptly tells him to leave, Sam wonders if Cas is ok. He’s clearly not. He’s baffled how Benjamin, a gifted soldier, could let this happen. It’s then that Dean finds a partially hidden angel blade. Upon touching it Cas realizes that it’s not Benjamin’s, and Lily finds a connection to Cas. (Super cool angel shit that we didn’t know about before!)

They all head out to meet Ishim, another angel Cas served under before he had his own battalion. At the restaurant, Cas tells Sam and Dean to wait outside -Ishim doesn’t like humans. And with one final stab of sarcasm at Dean, Cas mic drops and walks away.

Ishim is at a booth with another angel, Mirabel. Cas comments that they’ve kept their old vessels. There’s some underhanded snarking towards Cas for not being careful with his vessel (thankfully Chuck was on top of that!) AND for helping everyone lose their wings (Grrr, angels are dicks.) AND for killing Uriel and Balthazar (losing Balthazar probably still hurts Cas.). “Are you here to insult me or talk about Benjamin?” Thank you, Cas, for getting to the salient point of this meeting.

Sam and Dean wait patiently -well, Sam does, Dean paces a hole through the sidewalk– outside, until Dean can’t take it anymore. He bolts for the restaurant with Sam in close pursuit.

Omg, Cas’s “DEAN” just slays. Can’t his husband follow just one small request? Nope, because Dean smooshes his way into the booth (He has to get extra close because a moose has to fit beside them)

Ishim sends Mirabel to check for any followers, all the while adding packet after packet after packet of sugar to his coffee. Dude.

Mirabel wanders off alone outside, and promptly gets stabbed by Lily.

Back in the diner, Dean wants pie, and Ishim wants to give Cas shit for mucking it up with humans. #ProtectiveHusband Dean pulls out a ruler. All Destiel Reality aside, it was really great to see Dean and Sam stick up for Cas. Hearts. Ishim then suggests that all of them should head to a safe house to talk more privately. Ishim then heads out to check on Mirabel. Dean and Sam pester Cas about why he’s willing to put up with “Super Dick”. Cas curtly explains that he will put up with Ishim to learn more about why angels are dying. “I have to go.” Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. (Um, note to self: Make Sam reaction shot gifset for this episode.)

Ishim finds the lifeless Mirabel behind the restaurant. Lily strikes with very little warning, but only grazes him. They scuffle, and Ishim tries to smite Lily, “You can’t smite me, Ishim. I’m not powerless anymore.” Oooo, who is Lily?! TFW finds them and Cas takes a slice out of Lily, before recognizing her. I see he’s gifted with the Winchester Photographic Memory. <Flashback to Olde Tyme Lily> Guns drawn the brothers draw her attention away from Cas. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt any human. Just let me finish what I started,” she says.

Dean: “Not gonna happen, Patches.”

She then lights up the sky, temporarily blinding Dean, and makes off in her get-away convertible.

At the church safe-house, Cas insists on tending to Ishim’s wound. Ishim insists that he’s fine. Cas goes on to wonder how Lily is still alive. Sam is confused that they know her. Dean calls Lily One Eyed Willy. I died laughing over something that wasn’t that funny. Cas then tells the brothers how they know this angel killer.

Flashback!

Maine, 1901.

Ishim’s flight of angels are on Earth to handle an angel that fell in love with a human. They have a child together. Nephilim are forbidden by the oldest laws in heaven and it”s time to set things right. Also: Cas is in a female vessel. Obv. she’s a great-something-something of Jimmy. Also, I want to cosplay as fem!Cas so much. 

The flock of angels confront Lily and her angel lover, and condemn Akobel to death. Ishim then tells the others that he’ll handle the woman and child alone.

Back at the church, Sam and Dean reel over Cas’s revelations. Cas defends it as “horrific but necessary.” We learn that the woman’s name is Lily Sunder, a professor of apocalyptic literature who studied angels and speaks fluent Enochian. Ishim speculates that she’s using demonic magic to keep her young and protect her from angels. (Me: hmmm can’t angels vanquish demons? If demons had THAT kind of magic, wouldn’t they use it?) Sam and Dean want to go talk to her which Cas stridently argues against – it’s too dangerous.

Cas has had a rough couple of days so when Sam tries to argue that Lily has a justifiable grievance that might make her less willing to talk if angels show up, Cas takes it personally. In what is surely an echo of his inner monologue he asks, “Are you saying that those angels deserved to die? Do you think I deserve to die?” (Me: hugs Cas SO TIGHT.) In typical Winchester fashion Sam and Dean override Cas and head out.

Lily stands in front of her mirror and pulls up her bloody shirt to reveal a deep gash in her side. She takes a breath against the pain and works up some kind of glowing magic between her fingers before healing herself, angel style.

Back at the abandoned church Castiel tends to Ishim’s wounds. Ishim prattles on at Cas about simians and how Cas should be setting himself above them. “When did you get so gooey?” he asks before speculating that God’s prohibition against angels interacting with mankind was really to protect the angels from corruption.

“My friendship with Sam and Dean has made me stronger,” Cas replies as he prepares to heal Ishim. He pours celestial energy into Ishim and pulls away with a gasp, the job done and his energy expended.

^^ Included purely out of an appreciation for beauty. ^^

Sam and Dean track Lily to a chintzy hotel and corner her in the hallway like she’s a startled raccoon. She whips out two angel blades. (So, a raccoon with angel blades.) “We come in peace,” blusters Sam. After both sides affirm that they’d rather not kill each other, Sam tries to defend Cas. “It’s not Cas’s fault that Heaven has these crazy rules about nephilim.” (Er, probably not the strongest defense in the world, Sam. Might want to go back to law school.)

However, at the mention of nephilim and her daughter, Lily’s face changes. She looks angry for a moment, then drops the blades and approaches them. “Her name was May, and she was beautiful.” We flash back to the day her daughter was killed. On that day, Alkobel told her to take her daughter May and run.

Lily hid inside the house, rapidly gathering papers before a bright light shone in through the windows and she tried to run with her terrified child. As Ishim walked inside the house in her flashback, Lily recounts her history with angels. As a scholar, she found a spell to summon an angel and called Ishim to her. Ishim became obsessed with her and like a super scary domestic abuser, came back into her life later on to destroy it. He killed Akobel, Lily’s protector, and vowed to “break her heart” like she broke his. He murders her daughter and leaves her alive to mourn.

All of this is tragic, of course, but Lily drives the pain home with this: “I had my daughter long before I ever laid eyes on an angel.”

“Oooooh shit,” think Sam and Dean.

Dean, in a comically unsubtle aside, asks Sam if he believes her. Sam mumbles that he does and Dean whispers about calling Cas. After two rings he gives up (Dean. Bean.) and Sam murmurs at him that he should just go and check on Cas…

Lily interjects with all the humor of a centenarian watching two children. “She is no threat whatsoever to humans and she can hear you.” Ha ha ha, Steve Yockey, you magical unicorn. What a delicately balanced scene.

Back at the church Ishim does douche pushups celebrating his revitalized body while Cas slumps nearby, exhausted. Cas fishes around for his cell phone…

At the hotel Sam asks Lily why she waited so long to hunt Ishim’s flight of angels. “Patience is a talent,” she explains (Destiel Fandom: So say we all.) She couldn’t make a move on angels while they had the power of flight but now that their wings are broken, she actually has a chance. Sam asks her about the dark magic but she corrects him. She is using Enochian magic. She points to the eye patch as the visible casualty. The non-visible casualty is that every time she uses an Enochian spell a piece of her soul burns away. She used to dream but not anymore. Sam, as a formerly soulless dude, gets it and gives her the squint of pity.

She tells Sam that Ishim will kill Dean when confronted and this gets Sam’s attention.

Meanwhile, Dean busts into the church to find Cas nursing what looks like a heavenly migraine on the battered sofa. Dean tells Cas that Lily’s daughter was human and that Ishim is playing them. At which point Ishim sidles in, insidiously.

Cas immediately confronts Ishim about the truth about Lily’s daughter. Ishim calls her a liar, to which Dean replies, “If she’s a liar, she’s pretty good at it. You, on the other hand, kind of suck.” Cas turns his sad, angry puppy gaze on Ishim.

Dean whips out an angel blade to attack Ishim but gets thrown across the room. Cas, still weakened from healing the angel, gets the crap beaten out of him while Dean draws an angel banishing sigil on the wall. Cas’s head rolls back, eyes fluttering shut, while Ishim vows to “cure him of his human weakness.” Ishim takes up a blade and approaches Dean. That’s right. DEAN IS CASTIEL’S HUMAN WEAKNESS, like the good, non-crazy version of Ishim’s obsession with Lily. There’s a reason why #destiel exploded all over Tumblr this week. (Boris interjects: Uriel is sitting back in angel afterlife saying “Called this back in season 4, bitches.”)

Dean has his hand poised over the sigil but Ishim urges him on. Ishim will be fine but Cas, weakened, might end up a “bloody smear on the wall.” Cut to dramatic closeup shots of Ishim, Dean, and a wounded Cas. Dean drops his hand from the sigil BECAUSE HE LOVES HIM TOO. (Guys, I just do not know where these all CAPS interjections are coming from today. So strange.)

Lily busts in, though, ready to kick some ass. She whales on Ishim like a badass.

Dean and Sam try to help but get tossed across the room. Ishim tells her she’s done but she whips off the eyepatch and exposes her angel eye. She uses her mind mojo to hold Ishim back. He starts to pull loose but Cas pops up from behind (for the second episode in a row) and knifes Ishim in the back.

Fuck yeah, Castiel!

Cas collapses, kneeling before her like a penitent (which, you know, he always pretty much is). As Lily stands over Ishim’s body Dean asks her if she’s done. The underlying message being, of course, that she’ll have to watch her back for Winchesters if she tries to go after their Cas.

Cas tries to soften Dean’s aggression a little and apologizes to her. He was wrong but that’s no excuse. If she can’t forgive him, then he’ll be waiting for her.

Back at the bunker Dean drops a beer in front of Cas as both Winchesters settle around him at the map table. “Well, this will do very little for me,” says Cas, “but I appreciate the gesture.”

They both assure Cas that he isn’t weak. He’s loyal and strong. Dean pulls his head out of his ass to kind of slantways apologize to Cas for being a dick about Billie. He’s not mad, he’s worried.

They close out the episode talking about Kelly’s and Lucifer’s unborn child. Cas says that the baby is potentially catastrophically powerful. But now he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“What’re we gonna do?” Dean asks. (About the child, but also probably generally speaking.)

“Let’s drink and hope we can find a better way,” Cas proposes.

Here fuckin’ here, Cas!

Natasha: So many great things in this episode! I really liked how we learned about Lily’s character. There’s so much we don’t know about all those spaces in her life - her studies, her affairs, her later quest for vengeance. We get to see other angels who have apparently just been lying low on Earth? (Missed a few, Hannah.) Dean and Cas squabble and Sam is just done… You guys a battalion of angels is called a “flight” and I’m crying with joy. And, of course, Castiel is so in love with Dean. flops over and dies

Boris: Read this meta on Lily and Charlie Bradbury. Feels. Also, do you think Andrew Dabb remembers writing about Jesse, the Antichrist? Like, Luci is still out there. I don’t believe for a second that the Holy Hand Grenade worked. So, if Lucifer is walking free, that means Jesse has his powers. He’s got to be more powerful than an arch-angel nephilim. And yeah, this episode. Not only did we get a pre-apocalypse Cas story, but it tied in nicely with the current season’s storylines of Lucifer, and mothers, and Destiel becoming canon. And for everyone predicting Cas’s death and for everyone predicting Sam’s death: STOP. The cosmic consequences simply mean they won’t get their beach vaca this year. *Boris pouts in corner* Finally, I will echo Natasha: Cas is SO in love with Dean.

Lily Sunder Has Many Quotes:

This silent treatment thing is silly.

I’m pretty sure it ain’t jellybeans and g-strings.

Oh, he speaks.

He’s sarcastic. But he’s thoughtful and appreciative too.

If I plan to do anything else stupid, I’ll let you know

When I knew Castiel, he was a woman soldier.

How can anyone know them and not love them?

I’m not a hero. But sometimes doing the right thing requires sacrifices.

These are my friends. My friends who don’t listen very well.