#nephilim stuff

[shallowseeker]

Performing Dean, the AV Club, and Jack as varsity MVP

In Ouroboros, SPN 14x14, Dean makes this adorable quip to Cas & Jack, who mostly aren't bothered by Dean's masculine posturing.

"Him. He's AV club."

(@winchestergifs Image credit)

And yet, barring a handful of sports references to Jayhawks and The Cubs, Dean shows only a mild interest in sports, usually in passing or when he's posturing to Kevin Tran. He doesn't position himself into sports metaphors nearly as much as he does with his little movie references.

Fact is, he's a music, media, literature, and dance kinda guy. I'd even go so far as to say Dean is the ONLY character who could keep up with the "story mega-nerd," Metatron.

(Metatraon is perhaps coded as THE most AV Club guy ever in the history of Supernatural, even compared to Charlie. His whole arc is an extended Revenge of the Nerd arc.)

///

Anyway, this is Dean's usual shtick: transference. Dean is the AV Club kid at heart:

(images LLA, Winnercast)

You know. Art—poetry—love. Human things. Humanity.

Dean bequeaths these interests to Jack, who gets most of his socializing through music and media. It's heavily implied later in the series that (outside of Cas), Jack is Dean's media buddy.

Jack is heavily into Dean's music (Jack's fave artist is "The Who"), and in SPN 14x16 Don't Go Into the Woods, Jack laments that he's watched Lost Boys (with Dean) at least thirty-six times.

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But what of Cas & sports metaphors?

Unlike Dean, Cas instinctually positions himself (and his skills) into sports metaphors, as a player.

In fact, there is some evidence that the rules and aggression inherent to sports would be embraced by battalion angels. In 12x10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, we see the angel Benjamin obsessively embracing the fighting game simulation in the video arcade.

Sports satisfy mock war games, and war is what angels do.

So, canonically we see Cas relate himself to tactical moves like Hail Mary (orig. football quarterback throwing a long, powerful pass) and also as the aggressive point guard in basketball, the "ball handler."

Cas simply doesn’t care about AV Club barbs or using female code names because he’s not threatened. Of note, Sam isn’t threatened either. In fact, if pressed, Sam views getting worked up about that kinda stuff as overcompensating.

And Cas? Cas's shame comes not from human gender but from the angel-human divide. That's where his complex seems to lie. "Female" is to men as "human" is to angels, perhaps.

Another funny thing to note is that Cas overexplains the sports terms to Dean here. As the audience, we know that Dean knows what these common phrases mean, so it's funny.

But consider this.

Because Cas is intimately familiar with Dean’s TV watching habits, he knows that sports and true crime do not feature much. And thus, he gives a thorough explanation of the sports thing to Dean, just to be on the safe side. Just in case Dean doesn't know. Lol. Thanks, Cas.

(image FamilyBusiness.com)

Jokes aside, when Cas thinks of sports, he's views himself as an aggressive type of player.

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Metatron as the Ultra-nerd

Metatron's got a bone to pick with Cas. He hates him as much as he hero worships him. Metatron is the odd duck to the rest of the angels. Even when Metatron "powers up," the other angels call him a nerd and choose "the popular guy," Cas. (Because Cas has always been "the angel's angel" among the soldier class, even when he epically fucks up.)

TYRUS: I like being an independent operator. And I hear you're losing. And I hate your face. METATRON: Well, I could get a new face. TYRUS: You'd still be you -- a nerd trying to be one of the popular kids. Mnh-mnh. METATRON: Okay. Time for the hard sell. TYRUS: Please. You knife me, and all my guys will go running to Castiel.

And Metatron is jealous as fuck. Transparently so.

Frequently in season 9, Metatron casts Castiel and Gadreel as the dumb soldier-jocks to his lovable lit-nerd. They’re brain-damaged puppies that girls go gaga over for no good reason, while he, Metatron, is The Nice Guy who’s totally gonna get the Good High-Paying Job and stick it to the jocks and the hot cheerleaders that disrespected him. He’s got a superior brain and he plays 3D chess and—

(Image TheFamilyBusiness.com)

Right. Moving on then.

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And Jack? What can I really say? Jack is a loveable doof, just like Cas. But Jack, symbolically and visually?

But Jack’s in varsity-level:

(Image LLA) - Jack in his little angelic varsity jacket.

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Jack's heavy burden is indeed due to his great power, and also because he's expected to live up to the angel of the house (Cas) immediately upon being born.

Everyone expects him to be as good as Cas immediately:

From 13x01 Lost and Found:

JACK: "My mother, she said Castiel, he would keep me safe. She said the world was a dangerous place. That’s─that’s why I couldn’t be a baby or a child. That’s why I had to grow up fast. That’s why I chose him to be my father.”

And 13x04 The Big Empty, Dean is keeping Jack at arms' length, ixnaying the possibility of getting too close to him:

DEAN: Look, you wanted the kid here, he’s here. All right? But I’m not gonna hold his hand and tuck him in at night. Pass. I’m not gonna be his mother, and neither are you. 

A consistent theme in the Psalms is that the father is our refuge. He is our shield (Cas) and our shelter. He protects us from harm. Like a fireplace, he is the sentry that smites the enemy and wraps us up in winds of protection.

///

There’s a terrible assumption in the modern world that if fathers aren’t there to temper the worst in our boys, they’ll grow up to be evil. Undisciplined, loose cannons.

Violent.

(That's why it's such a problem that Cas is missing.)

Within this dark viewpoint lies a fear that the violent boys will will turn on the weaker (in this case, human) members of the household as they grow into even more violent young men. At worst, they grow into adulthood and overpower the aging father. (SEE: The gas station scene at the end of season 13, where Jack throws Cas and moves to choke out the clerk in a fit of rage.) Then, they overpower everything else and unleash their violence outward, to society.

What’s the common history in the mass murderer, the school shooter, the serial killer? First, they kill their mothers. Oh Mary…Mary, Mary...

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After he grows to love him, Dean doesn't want to view Jack as Varsity. It's scary.

Due to Jack's superior strength, it's much more comfortable to position Jack as Loveable-Weirdo-Nerd.

There’s a reason Jack is parented very, very differently from everyone else in the series, and it reflects modern American anxieties related to boyhood. (Compare to Alex, Claire, or even Dark Kaia. Daughters.)

There's so much tension. This tension is very species- and power-dynamic specific. Because while Sam & Dean can be earthly fathers, they cannot be cosmic ones. That vacuum would only be filled either by Castiel...or Lucifer. :(

///

Anyway, Jack is Varsity. He’s already lettered as a child-soldier during his stint on Michael's Apocalypse!World. When he loses his grace, Jack becomes very tense and agitated. He misses the competence, the power. He's used to being precocious. In the 14x01 script, he longs for the days of being able to kill 300 demons at once. Later, Sam has to remind him that he himself didn't even kill a demon until well into his 20s.

But even weak, Jack is persistent and driven. Maybe a wee bit obsessive. Overall, he pretty low fear and recklessly leaps into the fray to prove himself. It's no wonder that Harper Sayles Daphne-coded relatively quickly decides to replace Vance with Jack, who she views as virile, even without his powers! While depowered in season 14's Ouroboros, Jack kills Noah the Gorgon, a demigod.

(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)

[elyslesnothing]

Imagine the amount of times Fury probably pranked Absalom.

Of course, her fellow Nephilim were no exception, but she was the one and only to ever defy and prank her leader in such way. While gaining both appreciate and rather intimidated glares, Death was also ridiculed for the lack of control he had over his sister, and constantly advised to "get rid of her".

He always turned suspiciously deaf whenever these accusations were thrown.

[shallowseeker]

Endverse Cas and the Nephilim strategy

Based on later characterizations of Zachariah's powers, Endverse!Cas is probably Zachariah's fanfic.

Zachariah conceptualized this Castiel "mirror" as everything Dean hates in himself, of course.

But the orgies were Zach's assumption that Cas would become Master Strategician. In his mind, of course, Cas'd be trying to create Nephilim to win the war against Lucifer (and sadly, his grace is too damaged to inject).

Dean getting uncomfortable about the orgies was just an unexpected bonus (and quite illuminating).

EDIT: I do think Zachariah isn't that charitable though. He (a) thinks Cas is trash and (b) wants to scare the shit outta Dean by having Cas become what Dean thinks of himself*

[shallowseeker]

The soldier-angels and high-ranking-angels seem low-key terrified of fathering Nephilim...

But OFC, they don’t talk about it to outsiders. And I imagine the higher the angel ranks, the worse the crime of becoming a father.

(Also, perhaps if people knew about nephilim, they’d probably attempt to kidnap and force them to father them, no? Witches, for example? They'd be very keen to try to carry the children, especially if they can do Rowena's little sachet-immortality trick.)

I think of Cas in the brothel, wide-eyed and nervous. It's more than taboo. It's dangerous. I don’t think he’d have gone through with intimacy as a graced-up angel. At most, he planned on trying fellatio. (Which is why he started trying to talk her down.)

Gabriel’s hedonism feels like complex masturbation, an over-the-top performance he picked up from Loki. He actually forgets the porn stars in the retelling of his history in season 13x20's Unfinished Business. (Until Dean reminds him.) It smacks of artifice and smokescreen.

On the other hand, Gabe actually seems flustered/thrown by Rowena for a moment, right at the start of her flirting. He's perhaps not as smooth as he pretends to be.

When he lands on Cas's dick in 13x21, he doesn’t have a witty comeback. And The Gabriel we've been led to know (witty, quick with innuendo) should.

Something’s just off with Gabriel's relating to sex, and it makes me think he may have more anxiety around human-angel relations than he lets on.

Lucifer didn’t have sex till Kelly (so he says). He’s not at all shamed to tell people it was his first time because he doesn’t view human masculinity/virginity/social conquests as That Important or Impressive. For him it was about the child getting produced, which was The act of rebellion at its core.

After Chuck left, it was the final straw for Lucifer. He wanted a child to fill the void of loneliness, and to give his life meaning, which is why he tried to take Jack off-world. Lucifer tried desperately not to be absent, and he wanted Jack as a supply for his confidence.

[elyslesnothing]

"Oh, brother, I though you've known it by now. I don't trip."

- Death, probably, at some point in his mental youth

[elyslesnothing]

Young Death headcanon

He used to be... a complete womanizer in his youth. You couldn't get to a realm and not see him flirting with the females he liked there, hooking up, then casually, almost coldly breaking their hearts some time later without being remotely disturbed. For a time he's quite ashamed of, there used to be a rumor in which he mastered a minor version of Lilith's abilities. No matter what the truth was, he did this so often he actually stumbled upon many ex's way after he became a Horseman. Not very pleasant encounters...