I have two thoughts on the “I love you” scene and I’ll post them both here.

1) it can be read as platonic or romantic depending on your googles (no shipping wars needed).

If you pay attention to Cas’ speech, it’s all about Dean’s love! Love for his brother, his family, his world. Castiel admits that because of Dean he cared about Dean, Sam, Jack, and the whole world.

If you recall Cas’ entrance in the show, he was the perfect angel-soldier going along with his duty. It’s seeing how Dean was, his love, that caused him to see the love in life. It reminds me of what Jack said, about G*d being in everything. (And now I really kind of want Dean to take Chuck’s place???!!!)

Also, it’s an “I love you” not an “I’m in love with you.” This is the biggest platonic or romantic clue. It could be the pure angelic love that the angels were originally told to have for Earth and the humans — as a guardian angel, as a friend, as a brother. It could also be seen as romantic, but Dean never says it back (and identifies as straight in the show so it would sadly be unrequited).

2) my biggest reason, the “moment of true happiness” factor

imo, it’s honestly a huge disservice to Jack to have Castiel’s “moment of true happiness” be his love for Dean. As soon as they realized the truth about Jack he has always been on his side, loving him and protecting him, and giving up his life in a deal for Jack!! For his love of Jack to not be considered happier than his love of Dean is wack. Especially when one of the biggest themes of this show since the pilot in 2005 is the theme of familial love (and it would have been such a nice parallel!).

(Also, there’s so much romantic/sexual love in media when there should be more focus on other kinds, familial, fraternal/friendship, etc, but I’m saying this more as someone in the ace-spectrum so…)

i was rewatching the umbrella academy s1 recently since the new season is coming out soon, and all i could think was that Luther really Peter Quill’d it