It’s The Secret Angel Agenda, You Wouldn’t Understand

listen i get your frustration about how people treat jack, i hate when people reducd him down to just a destiel baby too. but as an autistic person myself, i really disagree with you calling people that like baby jack ableist. he's canonically 4 years old and had to have his childhood basically stripped away from him due to how dangerous it was. i don't think people enjoying the thought of him getting to have that chance at a happy childhood is as cruel and evil as you seem to think.

it’s actually a little more complicated than i sometimes make it out to be, but let me square some misconceptions away first before I get to that.

1) Jack’s childhood was never stolen or stripped from him; he specifically chose to be a teenager/young adult because of Kelly’s warnings, and he is narratively treated like one from there on out.

2) there’s never been any canon instance of him wishing he was a child or had a normal childhood—in fact, whenever people do regard or treat him as one, it’s only ever been shown to upset him. there’s also the fact that Jack literally says out loud that he isn’t a child, so unfortunately “giving Jack a chance at something he never wanted” isn’t a good enough justification for me.

The things he has expressed, however, are—

wanting to be a “normal” human teenager and experience human teenager things, like falling in love and getting a parking ticket (also read: not wanting to be a messiah figure that’s always being chased and manipulated)

wanting to be strong and capable enough to protect his loved ones, hating when he isn’t strong or capable enough, and hating when others perceive him as weak, defenseless and less capable (also read: he hates being infantilized)

frustration that his limited experience and naïveté give him less self control over his powers, making him more dangerous and more vulnerable for manipulation

wanting autonomy over himself; his identity, his chosen family, his decisions, his powers, etc. pretty much goes hand in hand with wanting to be more capable. Jack’s character is literally built around him struggling to have autonomy, and as cold as it sounds, children just don’t have that. so, to actively and repeatedly take away something he’s had to fight for just sits so wrongly with me.

3) While his canon chronological age is two, Jack is also canonically developed to being either 18 or in his early twenties (ie the “I’m 22” line). He’s also still treated like a young adult and continuously placed in adult situations: being tortured, dying, expressing both romantic and sexual interest in Harper (and her reciprocating), being called hot by the girl in Gimme Shelter. In various scripts he’s referred to as a teenager, a young man, an adolescent, etc. “Kid” is a very broad term for anyone that’s younger, also, so please don’t try to act like that means he’s a real baby.

It’s basically the same situation as other born-adult characters like Vision or Superboy; Vision is three years old and already a husband/father with Wanda. Superboy is only sixteen weeks old throughout the first season of Young Justice and has a girlfriend, Megan.

4) This is the complicated part of it. It might shock you to learn, but I’m actually fully aware that nobody who likes baby!jack is a raging ableist with malicious intent towards autistic people. Because Jack wasn’t intentionally written to be autistic, and only coded via the traits and mannerisms given to him (topped with AlCal’s own portrayal + eventual confirmation of the headcanon), the idea of making a chronological two year old adult an actual two year old was fairly harmless, and like you said, done with the intent to give him a chance at a happy childhood.

However, since he was confirmed as autistic, there have been plenty of other blogs pointing out that turning him into a child or continuously insisting that he canonically is—especially since he’s intended to be an adult—is basically teetering on the edge of accidental ableism. I don’t know about you, but insisting that a grown adult with autistic traits is “mentally a toddler” is extremely gross, and I don’t want to be in even the slightest vicinity of anyone who believes it. The other problem I have with it is that all of these blogs were basically ignored. I’ve been ignored. I’ve gotten more engagement on my 1000th day destiel shitpost than most of my posts about Jack’s infantilization, and that speaks very loud to me about how much the fandom really cares.

There’s also the fact that baby!jack is basically the only content ever made around him, and even in adult jack content, all of his personality and growth is still basically so watered down and infantilized and far removed from actual canon that it should be considered an OC at this point. it’s an extremely frustrating experience for people who are actually interested in his character, bc we basically have nothing to engage with in the fandom now—which has also been pointed out out time and time again, only to be ignored time and time again, because again, the fandom doesn’t care, especially since it’s such easy canon fodder for hashtag domestic destiel.

I don’t think baby!jack fans are cruel or evil for enjoying it, but I do think it’s worth calling out that they repeatedly ignore any criticisms of it, whether that’s the underlying ableism, the general frustration with his character treatment, or the fact that the content they engage in actively takes away some pretty meaningful representation from autistic people. Honestly, the worst of it is when they literally accuse people in the fandom of pedophilia (I am unfortunately not joking about this) for finding a grown man attractive, because they’re so attached to the notion that he’s actually a baby and, yet again, actively ignore anything that says otherwise.

THIS IS WHAT I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT! It’s not “Jimmy’s soul thinking the woman is hot” IT’S CAS! CAS LIKES WOMEN! CAS LIKES MEN! CAS LIKES HUMANITY! He was uncomfortable with the sex workers because he had never been in that situation before! It wasn’t a gay panic, it was a bi panic! He obviously liked the straight pizza man stuff that was on the tv, and even used it on Meg! He constantly flirts with Meg while being cuckoo with Sam’s trauma, and has a wife as Emmanuel! After he gets his memories back, he flirts with Meg yet again and even shows interest in “moving furniture” with her! He ends up married to the djinn queen somehow! He gets flustered when Rowena flirts with him! He wasn’t disinterested with Hannah in her original vessel, he just didn’t see it as an appropriate time for them to be doing all that when they had a mission! They literally kissed in the next scene after that! Yes Hannah chose a male as her second vessel, but her first vessel didn’t want to be a vessel anymore! I’m sure Hannah chose the closest vessel she could find! Castiel sees the true form inside of the body, not the body that Hannah was inhabiting! We learn this with Sister Jo when Michael visits her in Dean’s body, we’re shown his true form through her eyes! It envelopes the entire vessel! Castiel loves souls and true forms! He called Meg beautiful even when he could only see her true face! HE HAD SEC WITH APRIL AND BOASTS ABOUT IT! HE CALLS APRIL HOT AND WANTED MORE WITH HER BEFORE SHE BETRAYED HIM! This is all over the place but it’s all true and can be seen through context clues, the script, facial expressions, and body language! Dean seems to be Cas’s only fully 100% male love interest in the whole show! Throwing away all of Cas’s history because of the love confession is bogus! Rah rah rah rant over, the point is Castiel is QUEER. NOT STRICTLY MLM/GAY!

Honestly, one thing that bothers me quite a bit is the amount of times I see people define Cas as a gay man. He isn't a man. Nor gay. He has no gender and he is bisexual. I know his love for Dean shines like the sun and blinds like it, but Cas has shown interest in women too a few times. He is a bi angel. He is the queer angel.

dni lists don't work and i am well aware of this but just know that if you are a zionist/pro-israel and/or you think the israel/palestine situation is a "neutral situation" please know that you are extremely unwelcome here and will be made to feel that way. free palestine

SAM JUST CALLED MARY MOMMA IN APOCALYPSE WORLD WHILE NAMING THE PEOPLE WALKING PAST HIM 😭😭😭😭 I’M TEARING UP

sorry for being hot and insane. can we have problematic sex now?

i forgot how funny the sam/cas meeting is... Sam is like “oh my god mister angel sir it’s an honor” and Cas is like Greetings, Blood Freak

I made a uquiz :>

it’s so easy to read gadreel’s behavior in early season 9 as inherently suspicious or nefarious especially when watching for the first time especially ESPECIALLY when it turns out he was lying about his identity but it really does make me go off the wall insane that gadreel escaped from heaven’s torture prison where they’d kept him since the GARDEN and his first action on earth is to go find the winchesters and seek sanctuary with them. i know he’s not, like, selflessly attempting to save sam out of the kindness of his heart, but he is trying to ingratiate himself with the only two humans he knows who might be willing to take in an angel with a bad reputation who wants to find redemption on account of, you know, that’s exactly what they did to castiel. i don’t think he showed up to that hospital with the intent to trick or deceive. dean prayed and said somebody come help my brother and gadreel really truly tried. and when it does come time to offer to trick sam, gadreel fully defers to dean’s judgement. gadreel says god may never forgive me but if dean winchester likes me then maybe that can be good enough