Castiel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wayward_angel) wrote2012-06-04 09:43 pm
wayward_angel) wrote2012-06-04 09:43 pm
Entry tags:
[OOC] Yet another Castiel RP journal
So I avoided watching Supernatural for the longest time, partly because I needed another fandom like I need a kick in the shins, but I did finally break down just in time to have to wait for the last few episodes of Season 7. I did not expect to fall so hard for this show, or for Cas.
Anyways, I've made this journal in the full awareness that there are about fifty million Castiel RP journals out there.
As of the moment, this journal is not part of any particular community or canon, apart from a musebox I share with friends. RP stuff linked here will probably be mostly stuff from there, or possibly meme communities if I venture that far. If you're interested in RPing with me, I am willing to play Cas from virtually any part of canon, including AU Hippie Cas, Crazy! Cas, and possibly trying-to-be-God Cas if somebody is really wanting that. Just let me know what you want to RP and we can talk it over OOCly. I also may adjust icons or add gifs or something because I lack the icon space to cover all parts of his canon.
That said, to give some idea of my own take on the character, here's some additional notes on how I perceive his relationships with other characters and his mental states in certain points of canon under a cut. I may be flexible on some of these, but you need to ask. I'm friendly and open to private msg at any time!
Dean Winchester
Cas is continually both frustrated and fascinated by Dean, and the latter is strong enough to keep bringing him back. He's seen Dean at his absolute worst, his bared soul when he was in Hell and torturing other souls on the rack, and still there's so much in this mortal man he admires. Dean may not like to talk about his time in Hell, but he does own up to it and managed to regain his moral compass as soon as he was free. For all his flaws, Dean has a strength of character and conviction that Castiel can't help but be in awe of. Additionally Dean has a devotion to family that seems to run far deeper than anything his own kind have claimed to feel toward each other.
I am not a Destiel shipper, in part because Dean seems very much into the ladies, but if you're a good player and really want to RP Destiel I may be open to that.
Sam Winchester
Castiel likes Sam, but in some ways they're more alike in personality and therefore the younger Winchester brother doesn't hold quite the same fascination for Cas. They're both deep thinkers, worriers, and very driven in their personal quests for Right. Cas sees a strength to Sam, and especially feels personal embarrassment over the Famine incident where Castiel fell prey to gluttony, but Sam managed to turn the same thing to a controlled action that saved the day. Cas recognizes Dean is more dependent on Sam than Sam is on Dean, but also that they're very reliant on each other and sort of a matched set. He'd go to almost as great lengths to save Sam as he would to save Dean, but it might be for slightly different reasons. Sam's darker side and his link to Demons makes him just a little wary, just as he's grown wary of the darker side of himself.
Bobby Singer
Cas and Bobby haven't had as much interaction, but enough for Castiel to be very aware of the mentor position he holds with the Winchester boys, and he appreciates him just for that. He doesn't feel close to him, but has had some wary hope he could consider Bobby a friend. He's not too sure Bobby is so fond of him, though, especially after the injury that left Bobby in a wheelchair, just as Cas himself was rendered unable to heal the damage.
Watching the boys let go of Bobby for good(?) (7x23 Survival of the Fittest) hurt, but as much or more because Cas was unable to do anything about all that happened to Bobby and the boys, rather than any deep attachment to the man himself.
Balthazar
Although Balthazar and Castiel were in the same garrison, Castiel was not his direct captain, and that put them on nearly equal terms. They're roughly the same age, and both soldiers who've served the same missions, fought shoulder to shoulder and possibly saved each other in the heat of battle a time or two. Where Castiel has always been socially awkward, Balthazar is friends with everybody, ready to be the life of the party and first to call for a round of drinks after a fight, metaphorically and literally speaking.
As much as Castiel is admired by the rest of the garrison for his skill as a soldier, they all considered him kind of a downer at a social gathering. They respected him a little too much to invite him along to be the butt of jokes, so they just tended not to invite him at all. It may be the first time Balthazar invited him along to something it was out of pity, or compassion, or it might have just been his friendly nature. Along the ages he learned to value Castiel for his intensely serious devotion- to God, to his brothers, to what was Right. He may have also appreciated that even if Castiel didn't get a lot of jokes, he was also slow to take offense even when he knew they were being thrown at him. Cas grew to have a deeper appreciation for Balthazar because he was one of the few angels who took the time to get to know him, who was consistently a friend, and who never cracked a joke behind Castiel's back that he wouldn't say to his face. Cas is no dummy and he knows exactly what Balthazar means when he says Cas has a stick up his ass, but he also lets the comment ride because he understands it may be true, and that Balthazar values him deeply as a friend anyway.
I may have some Calthazar leanings, because my gf is playing Balthazar, but I'll reserve them for games with her. Outside of those, Cas honors Balthazar as the closest friend he has among the angels. The guy stood up for him at the trial where he was accused of clouded judgement, came out of hiding to fight on Castiel's side in the civil war, and has generally proved his loyalty.
This is also why it hit him so hard to realize Balthazar had betrayed him, when Cas was fighting to preserve the Free Will that Balthazar himself had argued was so worth saving. He was angry at what felt like a deeper betrayal than even what came from Dean and Sam. He was angry at a lot of things, at the time. He's regretted all that anger since, and all he did because of it.
Meg
Castiel is an angel. Meg is a Demon. These things do not go together. When Cas woke up in the asylum, though, Meg was there watching over him, and she helped him struggle through the return to his senses that followed. She probably even played a few board games with him. As much as Castiel doesn't like what Meg is, he's come to see the more human aspects of her and appreciate what she's done for him regardless of the why. He may see some things in her that she's unwilling to see in herself. Certainly his vessel finds her vessel attractive, and possibly vice-versa, although it bothers him a little that he still can't understand why she keeps calling him Clarence.
I'm not really a Megstiel shipper, but I can be talked into it.
Gabriel
Gabriel is an archangel, and Castiel was one of several captains in one of several garrisons of soldier angels, so the two of them really haven't had much to do with each other. He knew Gabriel well enough to recognize him on sight, and realizing he'd abandoned Heaven knocked down Castiel's respect for him a peg or two, at least at first. His opinion on that may have been revised since.
Lucifer
Castiel considers Lucifer the enemy, because he's been the enemy practically since Cas can remember, or at least since he was given purpose as a soldier. He's not sure he understands why Lucifer rebelled, and he's pretty sure he doesn't want to understand, because he's terrified he might become the next great enemy of Heaven himself.
Jimmy Novak
Once upon a while ago, Castiel was in need of a human vessel again, and he'd kept track of the family line, and Jimmy Novak was it. Castiel was pleased to find he was a good Christian, and a decent man, even if he wasn't physically quite the fit for a soldier and captain of angels. That he had a family was a minor annoyance. Cas asked, and explained, and when Jimmy Novak said 'okay' he took. After that Cas was kept busy with other things, while Jimmy sat along for the ride tucked away quietly and carefully in a corner of his mind.
Then Cas was pulled out of his vessel and put on trial for being too attached to humans, and demoted for it, only to return and find his vessel and family in immediate and very messy danger. What followed was the cleaning up of a personal matter, not Heaven's business, but he couldn't avoid being made aware of Jimmy's strong personal feelings on all that had happened, and with his new and greater understanding of humans it struck deep. He didn't dare show that, though, and the situation ended with him regaining Jimmy as a vessel, for the long indefinite future. Castiel can't afford to worry about how the loss affects Jimmy's wife and daughter. The only mercy he can offer now is to keep Jimmy asleep as much as possible, so he won't have to suffer in the back seat. He feels some lingering guilt over the mess, but there's not much he could or would have done differently, either.
Daphne Allen
Anyone remember her? Emmanuel's wife? The woman who God told to find a wet, naked amnesiac in the woods and take home. Castiel didn't know who or what or why he was when she found him, but she took him in and clothed and fed him, helped him set up a legal identity as best she could, even though that involved a marriage of convenience. Castiel was grateful to her then, and he remains grateful to her after regaining his memories. She was very kind and patient, and through his time with her he gained a little better knowledge of the human perspective.
He didn't love her, in any romantic sense, and it's hard to say if she felt that way towards him because they were still getting to know each other through the mess of his amnesia. She visited him at the asylum, once, and wondered what happened. Once he remembered his place as an angel, she seemed just a little smaller, to Cas.
My head canon is that there was no sex, because their marriage was more of a practical thing, and they really weren't together all that long according to canon. It strikes me they both would have been taking things slow. If Cas hadn't gotten back his memories, they might have settled into a domestic life and maybe even love, but that's just not how things turned out. I'd like to think Cas had the sense to go back and explain things to her after they fled the asylum. Maybe I'll write a ficlet sometime.
Crazy!Cas (Post-7x21 Reading is Fundamental)
Crazy is such a generic and subjective term. As soon as Castiel's memories came flooding back, as he was killing demons to get them into the mental hospital, I think he started to feel the weight of guilt for what he did leading up to the opening of Purgatory, and after. When he took on Sams's mental condition, he may have seen Lucifer at first, but he was fairly quick to realize that was a hallucination, and with that realization Lucifer faded. He just may have had other hallucinations, though, even as he knew they weren't real. Sam knew Lucifer wasn't real, but he still couldn't shut out the things he said, and the hallucination acted as a mouthpiece for every shred of self-doubt and blame he had. It's reasonable to assume Cas may have gone through the same experience, although his own guilt and who he would have seen telling him all about it would have been different. Ultimately he slipped into a coma or a long-standing nightmare, but he's an Angel and does have some ability to heal and build walls that Sam didn't have.
He was woken by the unsealing of the Word of God, and it's just possible he wasn't done healing yet.
Avoiding conflict of all kinds is a way to avoid hurting anyone else, as Cas is aware of just how much hurt he's caused in the past, and also he's avoiding the rage and anger that fueled him to do some of it. Even before the opening of Purgatory, Castiel was furious, angry at God, and later angry at friends who seemed to keep turning on him even as he fought for what the same friends had taught him was worth fighting for. That spiral of anger only fed the souls and monsters and Leviathans once he took them in, until of course they got so strong they simply overpowered him.
In the Asylum he learned about board games, and maybe saw a few National Geographic specials. He saw other mental patients and how they coped, or didn't. Ultimately he's using the childlike interest in the world as a defense mechanism, slipping into that state whenever he gets overwhelmed by things. It's not wholly intentional, and it may confuse others which topics are safe (talking about taking on Sam's mental state, for instance), and which are not (talking about the Leviathans).
He may heal yet. I think in Purgatory he'd be able to quickly come around to fighting monsters in Dean's defense, but if faced with fighting other angels again I think he'd go to pieces. He's still healing, and he's still mostly at a stage where he's struggling to cope with the guilt of what he's done, so much that it's hard for him to clean up his messes.
He's also learned from somewhere that humor is a useful tool for breaking the ice in awkward social situations, so he's trying that, even though he's not very good at making jokes and never has been. There are bits and pieces of knowledge of human daily life picked up from his time as Emmanuel still floating around in his brain, and he's trying to work out what applies now, so that may account for a few of the differences, too.
Hippie!Cas (5x4 The End)
It seems probable Cas was taking a leaf from Balthazar and Gabriel's book when he decided it was time to throw morality to the winds and live it up. Balthazar at least might be pleased to see he finally got the stick out of his ass, except that I doubt Balthazar or Gabriel is around in that version of the future. If they were, Castiel would have tried to make contact with them just for some formerly-angelic company, so something bad must have happened to them. There's a hint of desperation in the way Balthazar faked his own death to grab what he could while he could, and Castiel's throwing himself into excess echoes that. He remains loyal to Dean, because there's nothing and nobody else left to be loyal to, but he mourns the loss of the man his friend once was, and it's just another stick of fuel on the fire of grief. He can laugh now, because the drugs make him giddy, and there's nothing better left to do.
I cannot imagine a game with future Cas not being angsty, but I'm game if somebody wants to play it.
The Angel Who Would Be King (Entirety of Season 6)
Castiel may be naive about certain things, but he's no baby in a trenchcoat, he's a soldier of millenniums longer than humanity has records for. He's fought his own kind, he's fought demons, he's smote the wicked and whoever his superiors told him was wicked, and he's been the consummate company man for an eternity. He's always been a very firm believer in Right and Good with capital letters, and known that he was on its side.
Slowly realizing that the orders filtering down from his superiors were not necessarily Right was a breaking point for Cas, and just the first in a line of dominoes. In some ways, he may have been the very last angel to fall, because he was the last to hold out against any doubts, the last to let go of Faith. First he realized his superiors were fallible, then he realized they could even be very Wrong, and then getting the message that God didn't seem to care was the straw that broke the camel's back.
He got angry. So angry, so deeply and quietly enraged with a cold burning fury that it started to color everything slowly. He tried to forge the anger into a weapon to fight for what was Right, and after what had happened already he felt that the angels having Free Will and therefore the encouragement to think about and question orders was important. Balthazar further tried to convince him how important Free Will was, and that it was worth fighting for. At the same time he felt very alone in the struggle, because Dean, Sam, and Balthazar seemed reluctant to come to his aid, and when they did it was too little, too late. When they realized what a dangerous path Cas was on and tried to stop him, he saw it as the betrayal by the very people who had taught him to fight for what he felt he was fighting for, and his anger turned on them.
Additional Notes:
I don't believe Castiel has any specific sexual orientation. I do believe he has an interest in women over men due to the impulses of his vessel, but Angels are genderless and as such not selective about the gender of who they may be attracted to. It's also clear from Balthazar and Gabriel's antics, as well as Castiel's own reaction when Dean discovered he's a virgin, that angels engaging in sex isn't all that uncommon.
Castiel is a kind of a nerd angel, in his way. He's not a child, he's been a soldier for much of his existence and he's a very good soldier, one of the Captains in his garrison up until he was demoted for his attachment to the Winchesters. The other angels respect him for his prowess in battle, and it speaks of his skill that he was the first to reach Dean and pull him up in Hell. That said, Castiel has always been socially out of the loop. He's not good at making jokes at all, and slow to get other people's jokes, and just generally a little bit awkward even around his own kind. This has caused him to not be the kind of guy that gets invited to parties, whatever angel parties may consist of, or any other sort of informal gathering. His lack of sexual and social experience rises from this.
I ramble. A lot.
Anyways, I've made this journal in the full awareness that there are about fifty million Castiel RP journals out there.
As of the moment, this journal is not part of any particular community or canon, apart from a musebox I share with friends. RP stuff linked here will probably be mostly stuff from there, or possibly meme communities if I venture that far. If you're interested in RPing with me, I am willing to play Cas from virtually any part of canon, including AU Hippie Cas, Crazy! Cas, and possibly trying-to-be-God Cas if somebody is really wanting that. Just let me know what you want to RP and we can talk it over OOCly. I also may adjust icons or add gifs or something because I lack the icon space to cover all parts of his canon.
That said, to give some idea of my own take on the character, here's some additional notes on how I perceive his relationships with other characters and his mental states in certain points of canon under a cut. I may be flexible on some of these, but you need to ask. I'm friendly and open to private msg at any time!
Character Relationships
Dean Winchester
Cas is continually both frustrated and fascinated by Dean, and the latter is strong enough to keep bringing him back. He's seen Dean at his absolute worst, his bared soul when he was in Hell and torturing other souls on the rack, and still there's so much in this mortal man he admires. Dean may not like to talk about his time in Hell, but he does own up to it and managed to regain his moral compass as soon as he was free. For all his flaws, Dean has a strength of character and conviction that Castiel can't help but be in awe of. Additionally Dean has a devotion to family that seems to run far deeper than anything his own kind have claimed to feel toward each other.
I am not a Destiel shipper, in part because Dean seems very much into the ladies, but if you're a good player and really want to RP Destiel I may be open to that.
Sam Winchester
Castiel likes Sam, but in some ways they're more alike in personality and therefore the younger Winchester brother doesn't hold quite the same fascination for Cas. They're both deep thinkers, worriers, and very driven in their personal quests for Right. Cas sees a strength to Sam, and especially feels personal embarrassment over the Famine incident where Castiel fell prey to gluttony, but Sam managed to turn the same thing to a controlled action that saved the day. Cas recognizes Dean is more dependent on Sam than Sam is on Dean, but also that they're very reliant on each other and sort of a matched set. He'd go to almost as great lengths to save Sam as he would to save Dean, but it might be for slightly different reasons. Sam's darker side and his link to Demons makes him just a little wary, just as he's grown wary of the darker side of himself.
Bobby Singer
Cas and Bobby haven't had as much interaction, but enough for Castiel to be very aware of the mentor position he holds with the Winchester boys, and he appreciates him just for that. He doesn't feel close to him, but has had some wary hope he could consider Bobby a friend. He's not too sure Bobby is so fond of him, though, especially after the injury that left Bobby in a wheelchair, just as Cas himself was rendered unable to heal the damage.
Watching the boys let go of Bobby for good(?) (7x23 Survival of the Fittest) hurt, but as much or more because Cas was unable to do anything about all that happened to Bobby and the boys, rather than any deep attachment to the man himself.
Balthazar
Although Balthazar and Castiel were in the same garrison, Castiel was not his direct captain, and that put them on nearly equal terms. They're roughly the same age, and both soldiers who've served the same missions, fought shoulder to shoulder and possibly saved each other in the heat of battle a time or two. Where Castiel has always been socially awkward, Balthazar is friends with everybody, ready to be the life of the party and first to call for a round of drinks after a fight, metaphorically and literally speaking.
As much as Castiel is admired by the rest of the garrison for his skill as a soldier, they all considered him kind of a downer at a social gathering. They respected him a little too much to invite him along to be the butt of jokes, so they just tended not to invite him at all. It may be the first time Balthazar invited him along to something it was out of pity, or compassion, or it might have just been his friendly nature. Along the ages he learned to value Castiel for his intensely serious devotion- to God, to his brothers, to what was Right. He may have also appreciated that even if Castiel didn't get a lot of jokes, he was also slow to take offense even when he knew they were being thrown at him. Cas grew to have a deeper appreciation for Balthazar because he was one of the few angels who took the time to get to know him, who was consistently a friend, and who never cracked a joke behind Castiel's back that he wouldn't say to his face. Cas is no dummy and he knows exactly what Balthazar means when he says Cas has a stick up his ass, but he also lets the comment ride because he understands it may be true, and that Balthazar values him deeply as a friend anyway.
I may have some Calthazar leanings, because my gf is playing Balthazar, but I'll reserve them for games with her. Outside of those, Cas honors Balthazar as the closest friend he has among the angels. The guy stood up for him at the trial where he was accused of clouded judgement, came out of hiding to fight on Castiel's side in the civil war, and has generally proved his loyalty.
This is also why it hit him so hard to realize Balthazar had betrayed him, when Cas was fighting to preserve the Free Will that Balthazar himself had argued was so worth saving. He was angry at what felt like a deeper betrayal than even what came from Dean and Sam. He was angry at a lot of things, at the time. He's regretted all that anger since, and all he did because of it.
Meg
Castiel is an angel. Meg is a Demon. These things do not go together. When Cas woke up in the asylum, though, Meg was there watching over him, and she helped him struggle through the return to his senses that followed. She probably even played a few board games with him. As much as Castiel doesn't like what Meg is, he's come to see the more human aspects of her and appreciate what she's done for him regardless of the why. He may see some things in her that she's unwilling to see in herself. Certainly his vessel finds her vessel attractive, and possibly vice-versa, although it bothers him a little that he still can't understand why she keeps calling him Clarence.
I'm not really a Megstiel shipper, but I can be talked into it.
Gabriel
Gabriel is an archangel, and Castiel was one of several captains in one of several garrisons of soldier angels, so the two of them really haven't had much to do with each other. He knew Gabriel well enough to recognize him on sight, and realizing he'd abandoned Heaven knocked down Castiel's respect for him a peg or two, at least at first. His opinion on that may have been revised since.
Lucifer
Castiel considers Lucifer the enemy, because he's been the enemy practically since Cas can remember, or at least since he was given purpose as a soldier. He's not sure he understands why Lucifer rebelled, and he's pretty sure he doesn't want to understand, because he's terrified he might become the next great enemy of Heaven himself.
Jimmy Novak
Once upon a while ago, Castiel was in need of a human vessel again, and he'd kept track of the family line, and Jimmy Novak was it. Castiel was pleased to find he was a good Christian, and a decent man, even if he wasn't physically quite the fit for a soldier and captain of angels. That he had a family was a minor annoyance. Cas asked, and explained, and when Jimmy Novak said 'okay' he took. After that Cas was kept busy with other things, while Jimmy sat along for the ride tucked away quietly and carefully in a corner of his mind.
Then Cas was pulled out of his vessel and put on trial for being too attached to humans, and demoted for it, only to return and find his vessel and family in immediate and very messy danger. What followed was the cleaning up of a personal matter, not Heaven's business, but he couldn't avoid being made aware of Jimmy's strong personal feelings on all that had happened, and with his new and greater understanding of humans it struck deep. He didn't dare show that, though, and the situation ended with him regaining Jimmy as a vessel, for the long indefinite future. Castiel can't afford to worry about how the loss affects Jimmy's wife and daughter. The only mercy he can offer now is to keep Jimmy asleep as much as possible, so he won't have to suffer in the back seat. He feels some lingering guilt over the mess, but there's not much he could or would have done differently, either.
Daphne Allen
Anyone remember her? Emmanuel's wife? The woman who God told to find a wet, naked amnesiac in the woods and take home. Castiel didn't know who or what or why he was when she found him, but she took him in and clothed and fed him, helped him set up a legal identity as best she could, even though that involved a marriage of convenience. Castiel was grateful to her then, and he remains grateful to her after regaining his memories. She was very kind and patient, and through his time with her he gained a little better knowledge of the human perspective.
He didn't love her, in any romantic sense, and it's hard to say if she felt that way towards him because they were still getting to know each other through the mess of his amnesia. She visited him at the asylum, once, and wondered what happened. Once he remembered his place as an angel, she seemed just a little smaller, to Cas.
My head canon is that there was no sex, because their marriage was more of a practical thing, and they really weren't together all that long according to canon. It strikes me they both would have been taking things slow. If Cas hadn't gotten back his memories, they might have settled into a domestic life and maybe even love, but that's just not how things turned out. I'd like to think Cas had the sense to go back and explain things to her after they fled the asylum. Maybe I'll write a ficlet sometime.
Character Mental States
Crazy!Cas (Post-7x21 Reading is Fundamental)
Crazy is such a generic and subjective term. As soon as Castiel's memories came flooding back, as he was killing demons to get them into the mental hospital, I think he started to feel the weight of guilt for what he did leading up to the opening of Purgatory, and after. When he took on Sams's mental condition, he may have seen Lucifer at first, but he was fairly quick to realize that was a hallucination, and with that realization Lucifer faded. He just may have had other hallucinations, though, even as he knew they weren't real. Sam knew Lucifer wasn't real, but he still couldn't shut out the things he said, and the hallucination acted as a mouthpiece for every shred of self-doubt and blame he had. It's reasonable to assume Cas may have gone through the same experience, although his own guilt and who he would have seen telling him all about it would have been different. Ultimately he slipped into a coma or a long-standing nightmare, but he's an Angel and does have some ability to heal and build walls that Sam didn't have.
He was woken by the unsealing of the Word of God, and it's just possible he wasn't done healing yet.
Avoiding conflict of all kinds is a way to avoid hurting anyone else, as Cas is aware of just how much hurt he's caused in the past, and also he's avoiding the rage and anger that fueled him to do some of it. Even before the opening of Purgatory, Castiel was furious, angry at God, and later angry at friends who seemed to keep turning on him even as he fought for what the same friends had taught him was worth fighting for. That spiral of anger only fed the souls and monsters and Leviathans once he took them in, until of course they got so strong they simply overpowered him.
In the Asylum he learned about board games, and maybe saw a few National Geographic specials. He saw other mental patients and how they coped, or didn't. Ultimately he's using the childlike interest in the world as a defense mechanism, slipping into that state whenever he gets overwhelmed by things. It's not wholly intentional, and it may confuse others which topics are safe (talking about taking on Sam's mental state, for instance), and which are not (talking about the Leviathans).
He may heal yet. I think in Purgatory he'd be able to quickly come around to fighting monsters in Dean's defense, but if faced with fighting other angels again I think he'd go to pieces. He's still healing, and he's still mostly at a stage where he's struggling to cope with the guilt of what he's done, so much that it's hard for him to clean up his messes.
He's also learned from somewhere that humor is a useful tool for breaking the ice in awkward social situations, so he's trying that, even though he's not very good at making jokes and never has been. There are bits and pieces of knowledge of human daily life picked up from his time as Emmanuel still floating around in his brain, and he's trying to work out what applies now, so that may account for a few of the differences, too.
Hippie!Cas (5x4 The End)
It seems probable Cas was taking a leaf from Balthazar and Gabriel's book when he decided it was time to throw morality to the winds and live it up. Balthazar at least might be pleased to see he finally got the stick out of his ass, except that I doubt Balthazar or Gabriel is around in that version of the future. If they were, Castiel would have tried to make contact with them just for some formerly-angelic company, so something bad must have happened to them. There's a hint of desperation in the way Balthazar faked his own death to grab what he could while he could, and Castiel's throwing himself into excess echoes that. He remains loyal to Dean, because there's nothing and nobody else left to be loyal to, but he mourns the loss of the man his friend once was, and it's just another stick of fuel on the fire of grief. He can laugh now, because the drugs make him giddy, and there's nothing better left to do.
I cannot imagine a game with future Cas not being angsty, but I'm game if somebody wants to play it.
The Angel Who Would Be King (Entirety of Season 6)
Castiel may be naive about certain things, but he's no baby in a trenchcoat, he's a soldier of millenniums longer than humanity has records for. He's fought his own kind, he's fought demons, he's smote the wicked and whoever his superiors told him was wicked, and he's been the consummate company man for an eternity. He's always been a very firm believer in Right and Good with capital letters, and known that he was on its side.
Slowly realizing that the orders filtering down from his superiors were not necessarily Right was a breaking point for Cas, and just the first in a line of dominoes. In some ways, he may have been the very last angel to fall, because he was the last to hold out against any doubts, the last to let go of Faith. First he realized his superiors were fallible, then he realized they could even be very Wrong, and then getting the message that God didn't seem to care was the straw that broke the camel's back.
He got angry. So angry, so deeply and quietly enraged with a cold burning fury that it started to color everything slowly. He tried to forge the anger into a weapon to fight for what was Right, and after what had happened already he felt that the angels having Free Will and therefore the encouragement to think about and question orders was important. Balthazar further tried to convince him how important Free Will was, and that it was worth fighting for. At the same time he felt very alone in the struggle, because Dean, Sam, and Balthazar seemed reluctant to come to his aid, and when they did it was too little, too late. When they realized what a dangerous path Cas was on and tried to stop him, he saw it as the betrayal by the very people who had taught him to fight for what he felt he was fighting for, and his anger turned on them.
Additional Notes:
I don't believe Castiel has any specific sexual orientation. I do believe he has an interest in women over men due to the impulses of his vessel, but Angels are genderless and as such not selective about the gender of who they may be attracted to. It's also clear from Balthazar and Gabriel's antics, as well as Castiel's own reaction when Dean discovered he's a virgin, that angels engaging in sex isn't all that uncommon.
Castiel is a kind of a nerd angel, in his way. He's not a child, he's been a soldier for much of his existence and he's a very good soldier, one of the Captains in his garrison up until he was demoted for his attachment to the Winchesters. The other angels respect him for his prowess in battle, and it speaks of his skill that he was the first to reach Dean and pull him up in Hell. That said, Castiel has always been socially out of the loop. He's not good at making jokes at all, and slow to get other people's jokes, and just generally a little bit awkward even around his own kind. This has caused him to not be the kind of guy that gets invited to parties, whatever angel parties may consist of, or any other sort of informal gathering. His lack of sexual and social experience rises from this.
I ramble. A lot.