#I’m not obsessed with Cas to the point where I project it on to everyone else in the show | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kbsd · 3 years

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not sure if you’ve answered this before, but what’s your process look like when you make an amv? i’m just curious and in constant awe of ppl who can make videos like you do :)

hello all!!! i have answered this before and i have a vid help tag with other asks i’ve gotten about stuff like this! but i’ve gotten several more messages along these lines so i’m just going to answer a bunch of them together (under a cut since i love to ramble about editing lol). i do just wanna say i’m definitely not the authority on video editing and obv everyone has their own techniques!

edit: i just finished typing all this up and it’s SO long so sorry in advance LMAO god bless anyone who reads this entire thing

so i work in news tv and we have a very specific workflow for writing scripts, sourcing video, producing, and editing. i’ve just applied that to making amvs! for every video i make, i copy the song lyrics into a google doc and adjust them to match the song i’ve cut (i often will trim songs for time and/or content purposes). then i start planning! i’ll mark down what clip i want to use for each lyric next to that line, and any sound bites i want to use (with episode numbers!). i’ll color code between video and sound bites and lyrics, so my scripts end up looking something like this (for my honeybee amv):

doing the planning ahead of time makes everything much easier when it’s a video that spans the whole show or involves a lot of sourcing, like honeybee or sports analogies. that way when i get to the actual editing process, i already know what i’m going to do and have a game plan. for videos like happy ending or believe it or not, where i’m mainly just pulling from a few episodes, i can just plan it in my head as opposed to writing it all down, and produce as i edit. obviously i do make in-the-moment decisions while editing—sometimes a shot doesn’t work the way i thought it would, or i go where the video takes me—but planning ahead definitely helps. i know some people use spreadsheets as well, with columns for lyrics, video clips, and sound bites if applicable. once you find a system that works, it actually goes pretty quickly.

as for sourcing clips themselves/finding clips within episodes, i talked about that here and kind of here. the short version is that transcripts are a must, and the supernatural wiki is hugely helpful by cataloguing all the hugs, prayers, phone calls, etc. in the show. gifmakers that tag episode numbers on their posts are your friends. it gets easier the more video you make—that’s another huge reason i make the google docs for each video (even the ones i plan in my head, i end up going back and making a loose script with episode notes just for reference). if i can’t remember where something is but i know i used it in another video, i can easily reference past scripts!

i also cut all my videos in the same project in premiere pro, so i can flip between them easily. instead of checking a past script, i can just go to the video sequence itself and copy the clip i’m looking for! this was especially helpful when i match cut together the 5x18 and 4x22 wall slam shots for my bestie video, and then stole it from myself for honeybee hahaha. at any given time i have at least 8 sequences open:

because of the sheer volume of videos i make, it’s worth it for me to download the entire show—i have all 327 episodes in HD, plus deleted scenes. if you think you’re only going to make a few videos, i’d start with scene packs. you can usually just google “destiel [or whatever ship/character you’re looking for] scene packs” and there will be any number of ones you can download. if you need other specific scenes, you can always download/torrent individual episodes or screen record netflix (that’s what i did before i got HD download links). i’m happy to share my links if you DM, but be warned it’s a lot of disk space (about 500GB on my hard drive). someone also compiled every destiel scene, downloadable here.

having every episode already loaded in premiere for all my projects also makes it a lot easier to source clips. once i use a clip in a video, i’ll put a marker on the episode file, so that after a while i have most of the important scenes/lines marked to easily find them. to give you an idea, this is my episode file in premiere for 12x10 lily sunder has some regrets (markers at destiel scenes, the car fight, hot girl cas, etc.). markers are the green tabs along the bottom:

premiere also lets you color code and name markers, so ONE DAY i will go back and color code them all. the ones above are all the same color, but in a perfect world, i’d have a myraid—for destiel shots like hugs, touches, looks; for important pieces of dialogue; for action shots; etc. but for now this works ok for me, so that’s a project for another time!

between detailed scripts, one giant premiere project, markers, the wiki, and my own memory, i have so many points of reference that i can usually find any clip i need in about 2 minutes max. sound bites are often harder to start out, or tiny specific shots i haven’t used before, and that’s when i turn to tumblr gifsets or beloved mutuals to crowdsource. but if you’re as obsessive about marking/keeping neat scripts as i am, it gets easier and easier with every video you make. that’s part of why i’m able to cut videos together so quickly. (also i want to stress i do this for a living and have to produce/edit a new piece for my show every day so i’m used to it. and compared to constantly updating content/sources and news that changes every day, 327 highly documented episodes that never change are much easier to handle hahaha)

this is all great for me since i make so many videos and plan to continue doing so, but if you’re only making a few, this level of work isn’t worth it imo. really it’s all about developing a system that works for you. whatever you do with episodes/sourcing, though, i cannot recommend planning things out in a script ahead of time enough.

everything i just mentioned is producing, though. for the editing process, i usually do it in this order:

music first. any parts i want to cut, i make sure it all sounds smooth

then soundbites. i usually try to weave them into the lyrics—i have characters talk in breaks between lines or instrumental sections as much as possible. i’ll sometimes go so far as looped/extending an intsrumental part to make room for the soundbite i want there lol. if i do have dialogue over a line, i do the sound mixing/levels at this point as well to make sure everything is audible/one doesn’t overpower the other. (also i always include the video that goes with these bites when i drop them in, and decide later if i want to show the character speaking or have other clips cover the dialogue)

once i have all the audio locked in, then i bring in all my other video clips. sometimes i edit completely chronologically, sometimes jumping from section to section—it depends on the song or how i’m feeling

double check sound mixing. i usually listen to my videos through a few times, with headphones and without to make sure it’ll sound good no matter how people watch it

once i have picture and audio lock, i go through and color correct my clips. i’m basic and just use lumetri color in premiere, and usually just play with brightness, saturation, temperature, and tint until i like it

render and export! :)

i always have several audio tracks, but i try to keep my video tracks condensed. i’ll drop clips on a V2 level, and edit a section there, and drop the whole chunk down to V1 so i know it’s finished. that way when i leave and come back i can know where i left off/what’s done/etc. to give you an idea, this is the timeline for my what the hell video:

i always render as H.264 with high bitrate, and make sure to check “render at maximum depth” and “use maximum render quality” for the best quality. i’m sorry, but i don’t know what the equivalent options are in final cut, imovie, kdenlive, etc. i post on youtube mostly so i don’t have to sacrifice quality, but usually just using a lower bitrate will get you under the tumblr file size limit and it’ll still look good.

as for the anon who asked about “polishing”: first of all, thank you!! second of all, it’s in the details. all of this is a matter of taste and my own insanity, but here are some little things i always try to do:

after i color correct, i blur out any credits from the starts of episodes. i use gaussian blur for this, but really any blur tool works

as much as possible, i avoid clips where we see a character’s mouth move but don’t hear the words. in tv/film we call it “lip flap” and i just think it looks messy. also i’m trained to avoid it at all costs at work hahaha. it’s more for serious videos that this matters a lot to me (e.g. i think i did a really good job eliminating lip flap in my happy ending amv)—for comedy videos i don’t sweat it as much

i put audio fades on the start and end of every single audio clip i use, even if i don’t think i need it, to make sure everything sounds smooth

i use markers for timing, especially in action-y videos like what the hell. i’ll put a marker on the clip i’m using at the exact moment a punch lands, and in the song on the beat. if i have the magnet/snap in timeline tool on i can just easily snap them together instead of having to spend time finagling it

this is such a small thing but i dip/cut to black for a tiny bit at the start and end of every video. this way if i post with tumblr video player, there’s black between the loops, and it gives you a beat before the video restarts. i do this even on videos i post on youtube, just because i think it looks nicer/more professional

this is 1,500 words so i’m going to stop myself before i pull something. if you have follow-up questions feel free to ask and i’ll continue to add them to the vid help tag, but any more questions about sourcing clips or my process in general i’ll just link this post going forward. anyone who made it this far, i am sending to a telepathic kiss. thank you for reading and happy editing!

#i typed this all up at 4am so i'm just scheduling it to post sometime today #ask #vid help

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demenior · 3 years

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Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons:

I love talking about my own work and

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories.

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God.

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’.

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency.

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics.

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression.

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question.

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”.

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish?

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance!

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired).

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc.

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years.

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did.

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.)

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

#the love it takes series #to exist again fic #to become a man fic #dem speaks

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norahastuff · 3 years

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3x03 - Bad day at Black Rock

I’m hard pressed to think of a Ben Edlund episode I don’t adore but this one is definitely a gem. Perfect balance of humour, pathos and just straight up absurdity. I mean the one liners alone in this one:

“I lost my shoe.”

“Don’t play with my Jesus.”

“I’m amazing. I’m Batman!”

“Oh don't go away angry, just go away.”

I’m particularly partial to how the religious hunter Gordon sent after Sam, who has Jesus paintings and memorabilia all over his RV, starts to believe the lord is guiding him onto the right path when really it’s just bad luck resulting from losing a cursed rabbit’s foot. It’s especially interesting in light of season 4 where everyone’s running around thinking this is all God’s will, when really God wasn’t saying anything to anyone, but the blind faith that he commanded allowed the angels to get away with the things that they did.

I know it’s not foreshadowing or anything, there were no plans to introduce heaven/angels/God at this point, but it’s clear that many of the writers, Edlund included, were always thinking about the concepts of God and faith and role they played in people’s lives and mindsets. Come on his exact words were “as it turns out ... I'm on a mission from God,” as well as “It's God, Creedy. He led us here for one reason. To do His work. This ... is destiny.”

This is also the episode where Bela is introduced, and damn do I love that woman. She’s just such an interesting character (even though I’ll always wish we got to see more of her and who she was underneath the polished in control image she showed the world.) I especially love how she challenges the so-called nobility of hunting. Sure it’s saving people, hunting things, but for most hunters, especially earlier in the series, the saving people thing was more of a by product than the ultimate goal.

Bela’s a really great counter to Dean in that regard because she can read him, they’re similar in some ways, and she can see when he’s projecting, particularly when it comes to the John Winchester of it all. Dean’s emotional arc in this season centres around his low self esteem, how he doesn’t believe he deserves to be saved, and as long as he’s done his job, which is to protect Sammy, that’s all that matters.

Later in the season, he realises maybe that doesn’t have to be true. I mean of course all his self worth issues aren’t magically solved, and in fact the whole “You don’t think you deserved to be saved?” thing gets worse after his guilt over the things he did in hell, so much so that it breaks Cas out of his righteous stoicism when he gets a glimpse at who Dean really is for the first time(more on that here if you’re interested) but Dean does have a moment when he believes he could want more from his life. More than what his father “the obsessed bastard” had let him believe he could have.

Interesting then to see how Bela described hunters in her first appearance:

Being a Hunter is so much more noble? A bunch of obsessed, revenge-driven sociopaths trying to save a world that can't be saved?

I mean she’s right about the obsessed, revenge driven sociopath part anyway, even Dean recognises that, though he can’t admit it to himself just yet. He’ll come face to face with himself soon enough and realise just how toxic John’s mindset was.

Oh and while we’re on the topic of Dream a little Dream of Me, and Dean seeing himself as “daddy’s blunt little instrument” and how he believed his father saw him as just a soldier whereas “Sam he doted on. Sam, he loved,” that little moment in John’s storage locker is particularly poignant.

As they’re inspecting the contents of the locker, Dean finds a trophy. Turns out it’s Sam’s, a soccer trophy he won as a boy, and Sam’s surprised and touched that John kept it for all these years. Don’t worry though, John didn’t forget about Dean, as they look around at the next shelf Dean realises John has kept something he was proud of Dean for too

“Oh, wow! It's my first sawed-off. I made it myself. Sixth grade,” he says as he pumps the shotgun.

Daddy’s blunt little instrument huh? Oh Dean...

#spn rewatch #3x03 #my spn thoughts #spn #bela talbot #dean r.m.h.f. winchester #spn meta

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sortasirius · 4 years

Note

Any ideas on Claire (maybe w/Kaia) and Jack post finale interaction as TFW kids? They would be the most chaotic duo/trio, remembering what a bamf Claire is, how much Jack enjoyed his time with those teens in s14 (he really needs friends asap!!) and how he bonded w/Kaia in s13/15 Also! maybe a prompt, them trying to delicately ask Sam or even Jody about wtf is destiel’s status (before those two idiots get together) and Sam/Jody getting super awkward but actually explaining some of it? Xx

My chaos children, I love them, I sorta made this about everyone in wayward bc I desperately miss those ladies and will never get over the injustice of them not having their own show.

These were so fun to do!!!

After they beat Chuck, Jack ends up going to Jody while Sam/Eileen and Dean/Cas just...take some time for each other and themselves.

Jack knows Kaia, obviously, but he’s accepted by all the ladies immediately. Donna especially adores him.

Claire teaches Jack how to throw knives, and he accidentally breaks two of Jody’s windows before Jody finds them an abandoned field to throw projectiles in

Jack tells Claire that she reminds him of Dean. Claire rolls her eyes but swells with pride.

Claire also makes Jack tell her everything about Cas, about what kind of dad he was to Jack, what she learned from him. Jack tells her everything and more, he tells her how much Cas loves her.

Jack doesn’t really like to go hunting anymore, so he stays home with Alex and Patience when the others go hunting, they teach him how to make a really good mac and cheese and teach him the difference between curry and cinnamon (they almost learn that the hard way when making an apple pie)

Kaia and Claire want to take Jack everywhere, because he’s never really been able to just be a kid, so they end up spending a lot of time skipping rocks at a creek by Jody’s house. Jack learns to talk to them openly about just about everything, and it helps Kaia open up to someone other than Claire too.

They all spend Friday nights watching movies, Jack asks a lot of questions

Kaia and Jack talk about the different worlds they’ve seen, and are able to help heal each other’s traumas

Jack, in classic Jack fashion, is also the one who asks blatantly about Claire and Kaia. Claire turns beet red and Kaia looks away immediately, but it’s only a few days later that they start holding hands. Jody thanks Jack later, he doesn’t really understand why

When Sam or Dean or Cas check in on him, Jack talks their ears off about all the things they did that day, from the very mundane window cleaning to the clearing out of a vamp’s nest and learning how to use Donna’s flamethrower.

Jack finds a second family in Sioux Falls

Pairings: Claire/Kaia, Dean/Cas

Words: 1219

Claire Novak is no idiot. She may have been a little oblivious about how Kaia had felt about her at first. Look, she had just been carrying around a lot of guilt and thought Kaia would hate her for leaving her, it’s perfectly natural. But she’s gotten better about seeing things that are right in front of her, especially since she and Kaia had been, well, dating, for nearly two months. She turns all mushy every time she thinks about that.

Point is, Claire can tell something is going on with Dean, and it has something to do with Cas. But everytime she asks him about it, Dean just huffs and rolls his eyes, tells her it’s nothing or that she’s seeing things. Even Cas is no help, training his eyes to the ground and asking her not to talk about it.

Claire has had just about enough of the weird energy being created. Hell, they all have. Patience and Alex said to leave it alone, that Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack were only visiting for a few days, checking in on Kaia after everything, bringing Jack by to meet everyone, but Claire has never been one to just roll over when presented with a problem, so she’s going to get to the bottom of it, even if Dean and Cas themselves are no help.

“Hey Jack,” Claire sits down heavily next to him on the porch swing in the back, where he’s watching the hummingbirds fight over the sugar water in Donna’s feeder. Kaia trails behind her, leaning against the doorframe leading into the house. She didn’t particularly understand why Claire was so…obsessed with finding out what was going on, but they were in it together now. (Again, it makes Claire feel mushy).

“Hello!” Jack is a little weird, but a good weird. He doesn’t get any of the movie references Claire makes but understands all of Dean’s, which is a travesty, Dean has terrible taste in movies, but he’s got a kind, open face and reminds Claire of Cas quite a bit, so she likes him.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Jack is still watching the hummingbirds, but Claire assumes he’s listening, so she just dives right in.

“What’s up with Cas and Dean?”Jack turns back to her, looking a little confused.

“What do you mean?”

“They seem, um, weird. When they’re together.”

“Oh that,” Jack turns back to his birds again, “They’re always like that. It’s getting worse, but they ignore me when I ask about it.”

Claire slumps. Dammit. Back to square one.

“Claire,” Kaia grabs her hand as they head to their next target. Claire stops immediately. She still can’t get over the fact that Kaia is here, with her, and still likes her apparently, even though she left her for dead in the Bad Place.

“Yeah?” she gives Kaia a smile, which is returned with interest. Claire’s heart is going to burst out of her chest, just watch.

“What are we doing? Shouldn’t they figure out their own stuff?”

“Ugh, as if they ever would. I get that they’re older than us. In Cas’ case like, thousands of years older than us, but if we don’t figure this out and fix it, they never will.”

Kaia sighs, leaning in to kiss her. Man, Claire was never going to get enough of this.

“Fine,” she smiles again, “Lead the way.”

Jody is working in the garage on a weapons project for Donna, something about powering up the flamethrower or something?

“Hey Jody,” Claire gives her the smile that will tip Jody off immediately that she wants something, but there’s no time to waste here, Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack are only here through tomorrow.

“Hey girls, what’s up?” Jody turns to face them, “Oh boy, what do you want?”

Kaia laughs.

“Nothing much, just wanted to know if you know what’s going on with Dean and Cas.”

“Dean and Cas?” Sam’s voice comes from the open garage door and he appears, carrying a box of books for Patience. Unsurprisingly, they were essentially best friends now.

“Hey Sam,” Claire puts on her best smile again and Jody sighs loudly, not that it would stop her, “Yeah, they’re just acting weird around each other. We, well I wanted to know what’s going on.”

Sam’s face whitens by degrees, and he looks from Claire, to Kaia, to Jody, who just shrugs.

“Uh…”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Okay, that’s a stupid analogy, but you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know anything…” Sam hedges, but that is not going to be good enough for Claire today.

“But you know something,” Kaia interjects, and now Sam knows he’s outnumbered, because Jody is looking at him with as much interest as Claire and Kaia are.

“Just that. Well, ugh,” Sam is swaying from foot to foot, like a deer about to bolt, “Even I don’t know what’s happening but…things are escalating. Stuff that was only simmering below the surface before is now boiling. They don’t say anything, but um, I think there’s something there.”

Claire grins.

“Great, that’s all I needed.”

“You did not hear this from me.”

“Sure sure.”

Sam makes his escape before they can ask him any more uncomfortable questions. Claire and Kaia high five as Jody laughs.

“Don’t make them too uncomfortable,” she warns, turning back to her workbench and flamethrower, “They’re our guests.”

“Come on Jody,” Claire grabs Kaia’s hand again, “It’s Dean.”

“So,” Claire leans against the Impala as Dean works under the hood. She knows him well enough to know that that would put him in a good mood.

“So?”

“When are you gonna make a move on Cas?”

Dean bangs his head on the hood of the car.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Dean stares at Claire, who stares right back, listening to Kaia, Patience, and Alex laugh from the living room window. Dean’s eyes snap to the sound and then back to Claire, then up and down the empty street. His ears are turning redder by the second. She knows she has him.

“Yeah I heard you I guess. Just don’t understand where the hell this is coming from.”

“You’re not exactly subtle,” Claire points out, as Dean’s blush deepens, “Also you two have been acting weird since you got here. So me and Kaia did some reconnaissance.”

Dean looks at her with a set in his mouth, like he’s ready to argue. Claire just grins at him.

“Reconnaissance?”

“We asked Jack, and then Jody, and then Sam about it.”

Dean slides a hand down his face. It seems like he’s admitting defeat. A good thing.

“Listen it, it’s nothing. We’ve just got our own crap to work through, and we’ll work through that crap, and then get back to normal.”

“Or you could make a move on him.”

“Claire.”

“Dean.”

“Why do you care, anyway?”

“Because stupid, I care about you and I care about him. And if this will get you out of your weirdness then I’m all for it.”

Dean looks into the engine block of the Impala, sighs, and then slams the hood shut.

“Fine. Fine. But if this doesn’t work, I’m melting down your knife.”

Claire grins and runs off to find Kaia. Mission accomplished.

#my writing #prompts #dreamhunter #destiel #spn #supernatural #headcanons #kaia #claire #jack kline #my bbs #lilly answers #aristocat21

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orionsangel86 · 4 years

Text

Hey Everyone,

As you have probably noticed, I have neglected this blog for a long time now. I haven’t been on any fandom related social media at all actually. But I figured since I am currently in a good mindset, I want to write a post just outlining some things which basically boils down to a goodbye letter to Supernatural fandom.

Long rambling post below the cut...

This year (and the last) has just taken it out of me in terms of general negativity online both in fandom and in the real world. At first I got tired of fandom (mostly because Twitter is a cesspool of policing and bullying) and then I got tired of everything else (the world sucks right now, and my mental health basically stopped me from being able to participate in any form of online activism – just because I’m not blogging about something, doesn’t mean I don’t support the cause ya know?). Earlier this year, right around the time of the UK lockdowns, I had surgery and a recovery period in which I spent a lot of time with family, and just reacquainted myself with the real world. I think perhaps the coronavirus pandemic made me realise that long before lockdown began I had already been isolating myself from my real life and diving further and further into an online black hole.

It was years in the making. Supernatural fandom preoccupied my thoughts for such a long period of time it got to the point where every moment of my non working time seemed to be spent either online scrolling my tumblr dash or twitter feed, or reading fanfic or doing something fandom related. I invested so much of myself into this show and fandom that I think I forgot who I was before I was a Supernatural fan completely.

After my wake up call in late 2019, which lead me to break free from an extremely nasty clique, I have tried to re-enter fandom on my own terms, as well as attempt to enjoy the source material and the fandom creations to ignite some new spark of love and interest in the show. Yet as much as I have tried, I have failed to do so.

I was thinking recently about someone I used to follow years ago before I ever created a blog. When I was still just lurking in the tumblr shadows and followed the likes of Mittens, Lizbob, and other meta writers of the period, there was a blogger whose name I can’t remember but she was the funniest blogger I had come across. But when the show killed off Charlie Bradbury, she quit. I had never even interacted with her, as I was barely getting my blog started at the time, but I’ll never forget a post she wrote about her feelings on the show. She had recently started watching something else (I think it was Sense8 but can’t recall entirely), and that this new show had given her everything she had never thought she could have from her fave before. She wrote about how her relationship with Supernatural had become abusive. That for years the writers of Supernatural continued to throw punches at fans like her – women, LGBTQ+ people, people of colour, and yet she continued to give it all her time and attention, brushing off the punches because she was so damn devoted to the characters. Then this new show had come along, and it was like she had seen the light. The killing of Charlie Bradbury was the last straw, and she dumped Supernatural’s ass and fled into the arms of her new love.

I hope she is doing fantastically today.

What she wrote has resonated with me for years. I was a fairly new Supernatural fan at the time, and therefore didn’t really understand what she meant. A TV show can’t be abusive. Can it?

Of course, we are speaking in metaphor here, and in no way are these metaphors meant to reduce or limit the truly serious situation of actual abusive relationships, but every now and then, when a new episode of Supernatural has left me feeling upset, disappointed, frustrated and grossly let down, in some cases affecting my mood for days at a time, and therefore my mental health. I have thought back to those words she wrote and quietly agreed with them in my head. Yes. This is a metaphorically abusive relationship.

When I discovered earlier this year that Castiel was most likely going to be killed off in some sort of bullshit self sacrifice before the end of the show, I was extremely distressed. When I found out that my favourite person of all time Misha Collins, supported this ending for Castiel, and may have even been the one who pushed for it, I was more than distressed, I felt betrayed by the person I cared about most. I’ll admit to you all now that in my weakest moments I have fantasized about standing in front of Misha and screaming at him exactly just what kind of affect his “ideal ending” for Castiel will have on his fanbase, on their mental health, and potentially their own safety. This fantasy has me guilt tripping him and doing everything in my power to make him feel utterly shit about the decision. I know what you are thinking – don’t blame Misha, the guy has his own problems and we all know he projects his own self esteem issues onto Cas – and yes, I know this, like I said its only a fantasy to get me through my darkest moments. I don’t hate Misha at all. But perhaps I do love him a little less nowadays than I did back at the height of my fandom life. That’s at least still a little bit more than my feelings for Jensen and Jared which now I can only describe as complete indifference.

I am admitting all of this now knowing full well it will ignite shock and anger among the more die hard fans of J2M, to explain why I need to just leave this fandom completely, or more accurately, why I have already left fandom.

Over the past 10 months of 2020, I have watched a lot of TV (there isn’t much else to do during a lockdown when you are on crutches with your foot in a cast!) and the one thought that occurred to me over and over again was “this show is so much better than Supernatural”.

I kept comparing everything I watched, from the quality of the scripts, the actors, the special effects, to the inclusiveness of the shows. Just so many beautiful and interesting stories that seem to understand their audience, and understand how to entertain and impress without resorting to cringe humour, outdated jokes, and prejudice, not to mention misogyny and queerbaiting – yup, I said it.

The thing is, I think these thoughts have been creeping over me slowly for longer than just this year, but I have been desperately batting them away the way Dean Winchester bats away his own gay thoughts. Unlike Dean though, eventually I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I cannot continue to carve out space in my own soul for this show, which incessantly beats me down regardless of my devotion. The creators, the network, the writers, and sometimes even the cast, have all shown that they don’t care about me as a fan. I’m not some gun toting dudebro living in middle America, so why should they give a damn about me? I’m clearly not their target audience, nor have I ever been.

I know many of you will vehemently deny my personal opinion of Supernatural now. That is absolutely fine. I am sorry to be admitting it, but I had to. I feel like once I finally write out these words, I have got it off my chest and can close and lock the door on Supernatural for good.

Without Supernatural, I am able to focus on my real life, I am able to find pleasure in other things, new things, interesting things, that bring me joy and joy alone – not disappointment and frustration. I found a new job this year, which has been a huge accomplishment as I was stagnating in my old one, and several new hobbies under my belt. I moved to a new flat, I have a lovely flatmate who has been a godsend throughout lockdown, and I have rekindled friendships that I was neglecting due to my Supernatural obsession.

All in all, I am finding post-Supernatural life far more rewarding and content than my life in fandom. It has taken me a while, but I am over the show. And whilst I will always hold a special place in my heart for Castiel, it will be as I know him in my own mind; as the wonderful, strong, powerful and determined angel with a soul, who loves so strongly, and who is worth so much more than his own creators give him credit for. He is up there with Aziraphale and Crowley, with The Doctor, and Buffy, as one of the greatest characters of all time.

So the Supernatural writers and creators can take whatever ending they have decided upon, and shove it up their asses. I am sorry to say that Sam and Dean Winchester are also lost to me. Any love I had for them was destroyed by their later season depictions. Castiel alone is the only character worthy of that space in my heart now. If in time he longs for a companion, I will find one for him, but it won’t be the Dean Winchester of the canon show. Canon Dean hasn’t been deserving of Cas for a long time now.

Perhaps I am still a little bitter about the ending. Perhaps the finale won’t be the disaster I expect it to be, perhaps Dabb will somehow turn it all around last minute following whatever travesty Bucklemming have given us in 15x19. Either way, I won’t be watching.

So this is me saying goodbye to this blog, at least until I have decided what else to do with it. It certainly won’t be a Supernatural fandom blog anymore. It wasn’t all wasted though. I did get a wonderful friendship group out of this fandom, and I have certainly expanded my knowledge of film and television analysis, as well as having enjoyed a great many memes.

I guess in the end, my internal war with my inner bitter Cas girl finished with her winning, and writing this post. Once it is posted however, I will put her to sleep with thoughts of a happy Castiel, who has swapped his wings for a beating human heart, and is living on a beach somewhere beautiful, refurbishing an old Victorian house, and greeting his kindly elderly neighbours. There’s a gay bar on the main strip, and the bartender is quite a dish. Green eyes and light brown hair with a killer smile. Castiel thinks he looks familiar, like a memory from a past life, but they’ve definitely never met, because this man is kind.

Now that she is asleep, there is nothing left for me here. Goodbye everyone. Whether you manage to enjoy the finale or not, I truly hope you too, find your peace.

#personal #a goodbye message to fandom

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pigtownchronicles · 3 years

Text

Chapter 1.1 - A Reunion at a Gallery Show

“There’s a spot!”

“It’s too tight. I’m gonna circle around and get that one we just saw on the other block.”

“That one’s probably gone already, just squeeze in here!”

Dennis had already passed it, and Barry sat back in his seat with a sigh, but let his husband circle back around. By the time they’d reached the spot they’d seen a few minutes before, he’d already thought of the perfect little jab, but the spot was still open, and Dennis pulled in without trouble. There, see? It’s closer to the gallery anyway.”

Barry gave a little huff, and got out of the car onto the sidewalk. It was a weekday evening, but the walkway was still flush with people going to dinner at the various restaurants around them. The couple were there to support a gallery show by Samuel, who was an old college friend of Barry’s. An ex, technically, but that was well buried by them both. Samuel had been the flamboyant, outré fine arts major known for his extravagance and openly gay work on campus, and Barry had been the closeted business major just beginning to poke his head out. Barry had been drawn to Samuel’s freedom, while the artist had enjoyed prying open the scared little baby queen, as he’d called him. None of it had been particularly healthy, and the breakup had been explosive, forcing Barry out of the closet, and while he had been bitter about it at the time, with distance and a good therapist, he’d come around to crediting Samuel with a good amount of personal growth. The two of them had reconnected on facebook eventually, and were better friends than lovers.

Dennis knew the history between the two of them, but he didn’t understand why Barry liked Samuel’s company at all. His personality was about as distant from Samuel’s as you could get in many ways. Pragmatic, practical, with a reputation as a bore and a square. The two of them had met through a mutual friend after Barry graduated and landed his first job, and a few years later, had gotten married after a steady engagement. Dennis worked at a hospital in the city doing lucrative knee replacements, while Barry had focused on climbing the corporate ladder. The two of them were a classic TWINK scenario--TWo Incomes, No Kids--though their physical twink days were well behind them at this point. Dennis was quickly approaching forty, and while he assured everyone that age was just a number, he himself was finding some personal reservations and difficulties with it, not that he bothered sharing that with anyone openly. At some point, his boyish charm had slipped away, replaced with a burgeoning bearhood, and a growing waistline to go with it. He was currently experimenting with a beard, and waffled on shaving it off every day. It had a bit too much grey in it for his liking, and it only emphasized his own age. Barry liked it, however, and so it stayed for the moment.

Barry was a couple years younger, and seemed to be coming into his own at last. His career had gotten off to a rocky start, and had remained so over the years. Barry blamed it on the latent homophobia of the corporate world, and while Dennis was sympathetic, he pinned more of the blame on Barry himself. He lacked focus and drive, tended to flit from one project to another, and didn’t really have the leadership and confidence he imagined he did. Barry didn’t like to hear any of that though (another flaw, Dennis thought) and so he coddled him along. His salary more than provided them with a comfortable lifestyle after all. Barry, in turn, considered Dennis to be a bit dismissive of his own contributions to their lifestyle. The aloofness his husband had could drive Barry mad at times, along with his refusal to cede the moral high ground at any moment. But despite their frustrations, their relationship was comfortable, and neither saw any reason to disrupt that. Dennis checked that the car was locked, while Barry brushed his hair into place. Then they oriented themselves, and set off for the gallery where Samuel was exhibiting his latest work.

“So what has Samuel done this time?” Dennis asked him, “That last show of his didn’t make any sense to me.”

“He’s assured me that this one is more grounded, but I’m not sure what that means exactly.”

“Fewer dicks maybe?”

“Doubtful.”

“I just find it a bit crass.”

“Honestly, he’s toned it down a lot over the years.”

“What did you ever see in him?”

“Honestly? He has a great hole. He makes you feel like you’re the greatest fucker in the world.”

Dennis’s lip sneered a bit. He’d never been the most sexual person, and didn’t really understand people’s obsession with it. When Dennis did fell the urge, he’d usually just jack off, or at most, oral only, preferring to top. Since getting married, the two of them didn’t do much together, or separately. Work came first for them both, though Barry would binge on occasion, going to a circuit party on a weekend while Dennis stayed home. It didn’t bother him, so long as he didn’t do drugs or fuck bareback. Barry assured him that the parties he went to were classier than that. “I’d never want to fuck someone on meth, could you imagine?” he said once. Dennis couldn’t, and he’d left it at that before Barry might elaborate.

They reached the gallery not long after that and stepped inside. There were a surprising number of people there in Barry’s opinion, and of a slightly more elevated persuasion than the other shows Barry had attended. More suits, fewer drag queens in outlandish flair, though there was a gaggle of them tittering in a corner. Samuel had confessed once that he usually hired them to attend--after all, a gay artist with no drag representation isn’t really a gay artist at all.

The work was a bit more toned down, in Barry’s opinion. A couple of pieces he could imagine hanging on his bedroom wall (Dennis would never allow it of course) but nothing that he could hang out in a main room where someone from work might see it. Leather, denim, cock, hair. The bodies were twisted out of proportion, almost abstracted. Dennis waved down a young man with a tray of champagne, took a glass, and proceeded to meander, while Barry looked around for Samuel.

It didn’t take long to find him. He had cleaned up for the occasion, and Barry was always impressed with how well he could look when he allowed himself a bit of respectability. Tall, broad shouldered, long hair slicked back against his scalp and down to his neck, with a short beard trimmed up around his mouth. He had a thicker frame, but carried it well--managing to tread the line between beefy and chubby better than Dennis did. It helped that he had a better sense of style at least, or at least cared to know what fit him well, and lean into it. He was chatting to someone who looked rather wealthy, probably trying to drum up a sale. Barry hung back until they had moved on, and then slipped in for a hug before anyone else could commandeer him.

“BarBar, you came! So glad to see you,” Samuel said, bending down and planting a kiss of each of Barry’s cheeks.

“Yes, well, I was sick and tired of staying at home on the weekends. Dennis can be such a bore at times.”

“Yes, well, you knew that when you tied the knot. No use being bitter, it will sour your soul,” Samuel said, then gripped Barry by the hand, “Speaking of, I have someone I want you to meet,” he said, and pulled him along.

Barry sighed--Samuel was a serial philanderer. No one stuck around for long, but they were always, well, something. This one proved to be no exception. Barry found himself looking up at a rather imposing fellow wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts that did nothing to disguise the size of the cock he was packing in the front of them. “Barry, this is Parker. Parker, this is a old friend of mine, Barry.”

The muscular fellow stuck out a hand, gripped Barry’s, and while he had long practiced a firm handshake for the business world, this one left him feeling like his hand might cramp. “Nice to meet ya,” Parker said, and then pulled Samuel close. “When are we getting out of this joint baby, you said we were gonna party tonight.”

“Not too much longer, I promise. These rich fucks are boring the piss out of me--no offense Barry.”

“None taken, I guess,” but Barry did feel boring, and sizing up Parker, who seemed to grow more muscular each time he looked at him again, he was feeling a little jealous, a little aroused, and a little bit of FOMO creeping up on him. Samuel was just a year younger than him, and despite all of his own successes, looking at him he still felt envious of his confidence.

“Evening Samuel, it’s a very nice show,” Dennis said, wandering over to join the three of them. He stuck a hand out to Parker and introduced himself, and seemed unfazed by his substantial grip.

“So glad you could join us, Dennis. Barry says it’s been a challenge prying you up from the couch on the weekends.”

Dennis ignored the jab. Their mutual distaste for one another was well known. Dennis considered him to be a phony, while Samuel considered him to be a tasteless square. Neither cared enough about the other to make an issue of it, and Barry smoothed it over well enough with his usual enthusiasm.

“Barry, why don’t you come out with us tonight? I’m having a little afterparty at Depot, have you even been there? Hell, when was the last time you two even went out? The last year or so, it feels like the city is breathing again, you know? You have to come, it’s amazing. They took this old warehouse, and kept all the scaffolding, just dropped a stage and a bar in the middle of it. You wouldn’t believe the shit people get up to in the corners.”

“Fuck, last weekend, Hugh told me he saw a four guy train up in the rafters,” Parker said.

Dennis heaved a sigh, and generally, Barry would have taken the cue, excused them both for the evening, and gone home to Netflix and bed. But between his annoyance about the parking situation earlier, and the euphoria he alway got for the first few hours he was with Samuel again, he decided to throw caution to the wind. “Fuck it, why not?” he said.

“Barry--”

“Come on Dennis, just one drink. We don’t have to be out long.”

Dennis was caught off guard, and had never been good at putting his foot all the way down. Samuel assured them that it was just a few blocks away--they’d be home before their couch could even miss them. They slipped out the back of the building and into an alley, and the four of them headed for Depot, on the edge of what was, at the time, just beginning to be called Pigtown.

***

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#pigtown

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thegeminisage · 3 years

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Hi! I hope you're doing okay, I got Covid back in October when I thought I was on perfect behavior and it sucked! Feel free to ignore this, but if you have time I would love to learn how you decide whose POV to write from? I have never written a fic before and somehow find myself 20k into an outline and I have so many ideas for different scenes I want, but that would mean skipping into so many people's heads. I'd hate to cut them, but I don't think I have the writing chops for 3rdP omniscient.

thank you <333 sorry this reply to your ask is so late, i haven’t been feeling well lol

so yeah, generally speaking unless you’re doing omniscient third, which is like, What. then you wanna stick to one character per scene and avoid head-hopping (delving into more than one character’s thoughts/narration) at all costs. the good news is you can have as many povs in your story as you want to, and it's possible to tell the audience things about another character without your pov character having to know about it.

i like to pick just a few povs per story, or sometimes even just one, to keep things from getting too out of control. otherwise i get obsessed with who has the most screentime, whether or not it’s EQUAL screentime (did i accidentally give the men 4x the wordcount of the women, etc), did i include everyone, that sort of thing. i PERSONALLY think it’s easier to manage just a couple than to go all out. you can alternate if you like - i had one story where with two povs and whenever there was a scene break it swapped to the other one. i also did a short story with cally for @cambionverse where we had like 6 or 7 povs and everyone got one scene each. sometimes i restrict myself to one pov per chapter.

but it doesn’t always have to be so organized like that - especially for larger stories and beginners, a lot of povs doing Whatever can work too. the very first fic i wrote, when i was just a dumb lil tween, had like a billion povs, and it was something like 150k at final wordcount. huge. starting out with a lot of different character voices for your first project(s) will help keep you flexible, too - i write almost all of my supernatural fic from dean’s pov because it’s easy and i’m lazy and i’ve got his voice down pat. but that’s not the only style to write in, so having a lot of voices to pick from might be a good way to keep u from getting "locked in" if that makes sense

a good rule of thumb when trying to decide on the pov character for either the story or just the scene is “who has the most at stake?” i hope it’s OK to use a supernatural example again - if “dream a little dream of me” was a fanfic, we’d definitely write it from dean’s point of view, because he’s the one experiencing the character growth, realizing that his dad was wrong and that he doesn’t deserve to go to hell. on the other hand, “hello cruel world” would definitely be a sam point of view fic, because he’s the one being tormented by the possibility that what he thinks is reality might not be real after all.

you’re not always limited by your pov - you can tell readers stuff that the pov character might not understand. i’m gonna use an example from my fic (sorry) bc it’s the first one that comes to mind:

"You're not gettin' anywhere near Naomi,'' Dean declares. "Hell no. I don't care how close the angels are to extinction, if I ever see her face again..." He uses his fork to mime a decapitation, complete with sound effects.

For some reason, it looks like Cas is holding back a smile.

^ this is dean’s pov. if you watch supernatural and you know how badly naomi hurt cas, you can pretty easily infer that 1. dean is still holding a grudge and feels strongly about what she did 2. cas is pleased to see it 3. he’s smiling because of dean’s protectiveness 4. he’s trying not to smile and make it weird because it’s an embarrassing sappy feeling and no one is supposed to know they’re together. DEAN doesn’t get it because his emotional intelligence is generally in the subzero range (bless), but WE know both cas and dean, so WE do.

or this bit:

"What about Dean?" John asks finally.

"Oh," says Sam, like he'd forgotten. "I wouldn't expect to see a girl on Dean's arm anytime soon. Or ever. That's just—something he struggles with."

^ this is from john’s point of view, and he has no idea dean and cas are together, but WE do. we also know sam hangs around them all the time, so we can maybe guess that his wording is deliberate - he either knows or suspects the two of them are together. so even though our pov character doesn’t know about the relationship, we know, and we also know that sam might know. see what i mean? you may not have to cut as much as you think if you can find a way to say it from another pov (outsider pov fics are great at this trick - trawl the ao3 tag for more examples).

other than who has most at stake, you might pick who has the better voice to fit the tone - dean is full of deanisms, and doesn’t use a lot of flowery language, so if you’re looking for a something poetic, he might not be the best first choice next to college boy sam or 4.5 billion year old castiel. on the other hand, he’s an easy pick for a funny scene. not that dean can’t be serious or the others can’t be funny, but you get the idea. (cas’s pov from the brothel bit in 5.03 would be hilarious despite him having no sense of humor at the time.)

the biggest factor for me though is how i find myself “headwriting” it. sometimes when i’m in the car or the shower or cooking or something, i’ll start absently composing sentences or imagining scenes from whatever i’m working on. if they’re from a certain point of view because that feels the most natural, then unless i’ve got other restrictions in place that prevents it, that’s usually the one i’ll use. it’s an intuitive thing - if it doesn’t come to you easily at first, it’ll probably get easier with time.

anyway, sorry that was such a long answer, but i hope that helps!! good luck with your fanfic, you're gonna have so much fun i can tell already <3

[fic advice masterpost]

#liz answers asks #alternategranger #liz loves writing #broken road #spn for ts #long post

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whydoyouwantmyname · 4 years

Text

Imagine not telling the boys something important (Part 2)

Part one

“Tell me something Ailsa?” Eve asked, her voice echoed through the walls of the motel room your mind had manifested as you laid on the queen bed, the static now replaced by the projection of the world that Eve was seeing, it looked like a truck stop.

“Why do you keep calling me that.” You groaned

“I think it is cute.”

“Of course you do, alright Eve, what is your question.”

“Out of everyone I didn’t think a 207 year old cambion would be a virgin, care to enlighten me?”

“I figured you already creeped around in my memories and found it.” You answered as you sat up, and made your way to the mini bar, which instantly restocked itself, as she replied, “Nah, I didn’t feel like digging too deep.”

“Just deep enough to figure out my whole life story?”

“Exactly.”

“Well if you must know, it is so much easier to avoid feeling, and the annoying humanity I have if I just don’t let people in romantically.”

“Which is why you never made an attempt on dating Dean, even though you two are obviously meant for each other.”

“Exactly, and honestly if you do see them, please don’t tell them, I would rather..”

“I understand, I swear not a word.”

“Thanks Eve, if you weren’t investing people with your spawns, and possessing me, I would say you were pretty cool.”

“You have no idea what Crowley is up to, do you?” She asked, her voice soft as you opened your fifth miniature and downed it with no issue.

“Not a clue, but knowing the king of hell, I am sure it is something designed to get him into a position of greater power.”

“Well he is seeking to open the doors to Purgatory, for what I am not aware, but he is killing my supernatural children’s souls and imprisoning them. Rumor has it, he is not working alone, he has an angel on his side.”

You stopped mid sip, your whole body frozen as you thought, slowly lowering your arm you asked, “An angel.”

“Do you know him?”

“I fear I might.” You whispered, reflecting on your memory as a previous conversation played in your head.

You were standing alone in the living room, a lore book in hand as you paced the room, it was a rare moment where both Winchester’s were outside, leaving you alone in a blissful silence, which was soon to be interrupted by the sounds of angel wings.

“How they ever allowed you in this house is still a foreign concept to me.” He formulated the statement as you lifted your head towards him, his blue eyes piercing your figure as you raised an eyebrow, “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean Castiel?”

“How have you managed to hid the sins you drag around with you, suppress the screams of the souls your precious hounds have torn to shred, how do you manage not to shiver in the nippy air of earth, when the flames of hell flicker at your flesh?”

“Cas, what are you implying?”

“You are a liar, and a…”

“I would choose your next sentence extremely carefully, unless you want an angel blade driven through your chest.” You warned, his face grim as he growled, “The trap will reveal who you really are, don’t worry.”

“Oh you mean that one?” You stated, pointing to the ceiling, where a classic Singer masterpiece decorated the ceiling, the book slamming shut in your single hand before being placed on the desk, as Cas smiled, almost pleased that you were caught, until you approached him slowly, his eyes filling with confusion as you got right up in his face,”Looks like you should do your homework Castiel, before you make threats to the woman who has been traveling with the Winchester’s for three years now.” Your once filled hand extends quickly, seizing his throat in your digits before using your strength to push him into the wall, leaning in you got right up in his ear, “Unless you want to see what these red eyes can really do.”

It wasn’t until you saved his ass that he truly learned who you were as a hunter, all negative feelings drifting further away with time, until he was finally comfortable enough to call you a nickname, Angel.

“So your father is working with the man who calls you Angel?” Eve replied, almost forgetting she could also see your thoughts.

“He must, Cas is the only angel I could imagine him trusting.”

“Well you’re a smart cookie, any idea…”

“Not a clue.” You answered, glancing at the TV screen as you noticed the tv screen, her eyes set on a trucker before she pushed off the wall. As she started towards the 18 wheeler, you couldn’t help but notice that Eve glanced over at the wall, the corner of your mouth lifting.

“What are you smirking about?” Eve questioned

“Nothing at all.” You replied, before a pie magically appeared.

“Like I said fellas, I remember pulling into the truck stop, and next thing I knew I was at work. I have no idea how I ended up there, or anything that happened after I pulled in.” He stated, looking to Sam and I, my head somewhere else as he spoke.

“And where do you work?” Sam asked

“Starlight Canney. After I came to, I called home, hoping my family was there. I didn’t think anything of it when she didn’t pick up, that was…” a small sob escaped his lips as Dean looked to the other officer, “mind if I have a look at the security cameras footage?”

“Not at all, let me just pull ‘em up.” The officer answered as Dean left Sam and Bobby to question Rick.

As the other officer set Dean up, all his mind could do but wander back to a memory where she was.

“Jesse.” You pleaded, the small boy's eyes flickered towards you as you remained frozen in between Sam and Dean, neither of them could see you, but the demon possessing Julia could, and Jesse.

However Sam and Dean remember it much differently then what truly happened, they remember Sam stopping Jesse, and Julia’s demon, before driving off to the next motel. However you knew it went differently

“Don’t listen to her son, you are going to do great…” As the demon talked, you lowered your own head, as Sam and Dean’s heads suddenly fell forward as the demon laughed, “So you do still know how to use your powers.”

Looking up your eyes were completely crimson red, and glued to the demon, “I can’t wait to tell my father about what you are doing, and I hope I have the pleasure of…”

“You haven’t stepped foot in hell for over 20 years, what makes you think…”

“Do you even know who my father is?” You screamed, suddenly whatever held your body stiff slowly melted away, as your arms lowered, “You’re just like me?”

Looking from the black eyed demon to Jesse, you slowly stepped forward and crouched in front of the small boy, “Yeah, my dad is a demon just like yours.”

“Jesse, don’t listen to her.” She started forward, however she suddenly became mute, and frozen, Jesse looking towards her as it happened before turning back to you, “Did they tell you lies too?”

“No, they actually don’t know, but I know that they wanted to tell you this to protect you, because it is really scary at first to learn that you are part evil.”

“Does that mean I am going to do what she said, am I going to end the world?” You could hear the small boy’s voice quicken in fear, as you put a hand on his arm and smiled, “No, all it means is that you are going to be able to do things other kids can’t, cause even though you are different, you are still human, and that means you have good in you. Listen Jesse, I am 206 years old, and have had a lot of opportunities to do some wicked stuff, and instead of doing that, I am helping people just like you.”

“You aren’t evil.” He whispered, almost as a reassurance to himself, as you responded, “And neither are you.”

“How do I beat this?”

“Well, you are going to have to run away, here.” You reaches into your bag and pulled out a notebook you had been filling with all things to do with the life since 1981, the pages worn and the book spine was well used, and with a smile you stated, “This has everything in it that I have learned over the years, it will help protect you from both angels and demons.”

“I need protection from angels?”

“Yes darling. See the angels don’t understand that we aren’t all bad, they just see the demon side of us.”

“They’re narrow minded.” He replied as you smiled, “They are just scared. You will have to move around a lot but just lay low, here you can also use this.” You pulled out a 100 dollar bill, and handed it to him, “Do you understand?”

“What will happen to my parents?” He asked

“Well they will stay here, it is too dangerous to bring them, just because the demons and angels might try to hurt them if they know where you are.”

“Have they ever done that to you?” Your face lifted to Julia, a wicked smile on your face as you thought of all the shit the demons did to Dean while in hell, and what Ruby did to Sam. “Yeah, but the Winchesters are the two strongest men I know, and no punk ass, black eyed scumbag is going to break them, not as long as I’m around to stop it.”

Looking towards you Jesse whispered, “How do I run away?”

“Just think of yourself going to a place, and just like that…” you looked down to see him gone and heard a slight thud behind you, a smile on your face as you slowly rose and looked at Julia,who went to move but remained frozen, and mute, “I like you better as a mute statue.”

As you approached her, you monologued, “Everything I said about the Winchesters is true, and I hope you all figure it out soon that nothing you do will ever make them stop hunting the bad guys. So just drop your little obsession with these two, because you got what you wanted, Lucy is running all around creation, trying to end the world. I just hope for your sake he doesn’t turn on you like he did God.”

With a single lift of your palm you sent her back to hell, her scream echoing the empty space as you watched the black goo melt into the floor from her eyes, once she was gone you turned to see Sam and Dean had fallen to the floor, the invisible force holding them still disappearing with Jesse. You walked over to the two of them and placed your hands on their heads, filling it with false memories as you mentally called out to your father.

“I was busy.” He snapped as you lifted your head to see Crowley standing before you, his eyes lifting from you to Julia’s body, “Have I ever mentioned I love it when you get feisty with your own kind?”

“All the time, yet you only allowed me to file your paperwork. Now help me get these two idiots in the Impala.”

“Here ya go, this is the footage from that night. Not really anything exciting.” The officer told Dean, snapping him from the false memory you had planted in his head. Taking a seat in the Rollie chair he muttered a thanks and started fast forwarding through the tape, until he saw something that made him stop, looking at the camera was a pair of glowing eyes, and upon rewinding and going frame by frame he saw the way the face distorted, and the eyes clearer, along with something he was not expecting to see.

“[Y/N].” He whispered, backing up the frames to before your face distorted, a slight smile was on your face, your hair was down, and you were dressed in a tank top and skinny jeans. He couldn’t take his eyes off of your face, the way your lips smeriked up as though you were taunting the camera, like you knew they would find out you were the one doing this. With the frame still pulled up he quickly rose, the chair pushing back so quickly it hit the wall, alerting Sam and Bobby to his distress, before he stormed out of the office. Frustration filling his body as his mind stated over and over that he had failed you.

When Sam and Bobby finally came out they found Dean sitting on the hood of the impala, his eyes just staring into a void above as they approached him, “Dean?” Bobby asked

“It’s her.” His eyes never leaving the sky as his voice was gruff and soft, “whatever we are hunting is inside her head.”

“We will figure it out.” Sam whispered as Dean finally lowered his head, his eyes red rimmed, bloodshot and puffy.

“Will we?” He replied.

About an hour later Dean and Sam were sitting in the motel, milling over notebooks trying to find anything on what could be possessing [y/n], “I mean it could be a shapeshifter.” Sam offered as a possible answer as Dean knitted his fingers into his greasy hair.

“Sam you saw her face distorted on the security footage, no shapeshifter has done that before.” He sighed out as Sam lowered the book.

“Are you sure you are okay dude?” Sam asked, the sound of his own question making him feel like it was a dumb thing to say, anyone with two eyes could have been able to tell that Dean was falling apart every second, especially now that he knew that something had possessed you. Dean’s index and thumb moved from his hair to the bridge of his nose, the two digits squeezed the flesh between his eyes as he let out a sigh, “This is why hunters can never fall in love.”

“Dean..”

“Sammy, please don’t feed me your positive outcome bullshit right now, we have no leads, no information of what is possessing her, we have nothing. As far as we know there could be no cure, it is possible that we could try everything and that thing will still be in her head.”

“And we will, don’t forget Dean, she wasn’t just your friend. She was mine and Bobby’s too, and we will save her.”

Before Dean could respond his burner was ringing, his response turned into him flipping it open and muttering, “Whatcha got Bobby?”

“I need you and Sam to get your asses down to Starlight Canney, Rufus and I will meet ya outside.”

“Rufus is with…” Dean started but he was cut off by Bobby’s like going dead, Dean looked at Sam and promptly stated, “Bobby found something, I think.”

While the boys drove to the canney, Cas was opening the doors to an abandoned warehouse, a glowing light seeped out from under it as he revealed the grey lab space that he and Crowley had built. Crowley was seated at the table, a sheet of paper before him as his hand scribbled across the page with a pen. Cas looked over the railing at him, as he stated, “Stop staring at me like you do the Winchester boy.”

“I have news.”

“Did you find me more souls?” Crowley’s head still did not lift as he spoke, it wasn’t until Cas replied that he finally became alert, “No, it is about [Y/N].”

“What about her?”

“She has been possessed, the boys are trying to track her down, but whatever is inside of her is ancient.”

“Eve.” Crowley hissed

“Why would Eve be…”

“She knows we are trying to open purgatory, and wants to stop us. Is she creating an army?”

“I won’t call it an army, but she is creating hybrids.”

“And she has my little girl on like a meat suit.” He stated more than asked, frustration clear in his brow as he slammed the pen down, “I thought the Winchesters…”

“They are looking for her right now. I can’t see her though, so I was wondering…”

“Eve will make her go dark to everyone who could have been able to find her, I can have my spies on the lookout for her, but Castiel….” He started before pausing, the reality of his next statement taking a toll on his still beating heart, “[Y/N] will die if you remove Eve.”

“Not all of her.” Cas replied before leaving, as Crowley leaned back in his chair, his heart breaking for his little girl.

#supernatural imagine #supernatural imagines #supernatural one shot #supernatural one shots #supernatural oneshot #Supernatural oneshots #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #SPN imagine #SPN imagines #SPN one shots #SPN one shot #SPN oneshot #SPN oneshots #SPn fanfic #SPN fanfiction

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officialbroski10-blog · 4 years

Text

i’ll be your ohana(brian kendrick x oc)

a/n: i really could not think of a good title nor will i ever release this

a/n: welp it’s time to publish this. my magnum opus, my passion project that has taken me a year of on and off writing. lots of shit has happened in the span of a year.

•|•|•

PLOT: echo celeste (the oc) meets brian kendrick while she’s sitting on the beach in the middle of the night. upon coming closer, brian is intrigued by echo, and decides to talk to her. they soon find out how much they have in common.

many cameos will be made by various indy wrestlers that you may not know. if that’s the case, look them up online, they’re phenomenal workers!

also this takes place in honolulu, hawaii for some odd reason but oh well

Rating: this part is all fluff and angst

•|•|•

echo celeste was not what one would consider to be normal. she didn’t sleep much, was obsessed with things people took for granted, and could often be found staring at the sky sitting on waikiki beach at times when everyone else would be asleep. she described herself as an occult soul, unsure of her place in the world. on this particular night, the full moon was out, one of her favorite things to see in the sky, which made it just barely bright enough for her to do sketches on the beach.

brian was also not the definition of normal. he was a wrestler, for christ’s sake! he felt that normal society would never understand him, and was still stuck in some sort of emo teen phase. he looked different than most, preferring to let his hair grow out. whenever he was stressed, he found himself walking on waikiki at unholy hours in the night, which coincidentally was the same beach echo frequented.

maybe it was the way the moonlight hit her, but brian was mesmerized by echo. her lavender hair seeming like something straight out of a scifi movie, or like the wings of a fairy. her face scrunched up in concentration made her glasses almost cover up the tip of her nose. Either way, brian just had to talk to this woman, even if she turned out to be a figment of his imagination.

“hey there, whatcha working on?” brian asked, making sure he wouldn’t startle echo. that plan didn’t work.

“jesus fuck you scared me!” echo said in reply, also giggling at the end.

“oh sorry about that,” brian apologized, “i didn’t mean to do that to you! my names brian. brian kendrick. and what do they call you?”

“my full name is echo celeste svensson, but call me echo or echo celeste.” she smirked. “i’m working on a sketch!”

“oh that sounds cool! i’m assuming you’re an artist, then?”

“you would be correct! what do you do for a living?”

brian wasn’t sure if he should say he’s a wrestler. almost everyone who he told about his career had shunned him, saying that wrestling was fake. but he felt strangely at ease with echo, almost as if she had a calming aura about her that told him everything would be alright.

“i-i’m a wrestler. its not the best paying job in the world, nor the most liked job.” he admitted, seeming ashamed of what he did as a living. echo’s eyes almost burst out of her head. she was a huge wrestling fan, and this was one of the first wrestlers she ever met!

“that’s nothing to be ashamed of, brian! maybe i could catch one of your matches sometime. got any coming up soon?” brian’s eyes lit up, like a child on christmas day. nobody had ever shown interest in his line of work!

“uh, yeah, i do, today at 7pm-“

“then you can see me there! so, what brings you out here at 4AM on this friday morning?” echo questioned. it was rare for her to run into anyone on the beach at this hour, let alone anybody interested in what she was doing.

“i had a nightmare, and it helps me clear my mind if i take a walk in the night. i don’t have all my marbles, and when combined with a rough childhood, i get nightmares pretty often, but not normally bad enough to where i have to take a walk to calm myself.” brian obviously was not in a good frame of mind, and echo could sense that. she could relate with what brian was going through. she had an okay childhood, but got bullied all through school, which traumatized her and made her unable to trust most people. she never trusted anyone when she first met them. brian was an exception to this rule.

“hey brian, it’s okay. i got you, bud.” echo said, wrapping a blanket around her and a now-teary eyed brian. “everything will be alright. do you have a place to stay?”

the answer came as a surprise to echo. “not anymore. just got an eviction note and i have to move out all my stuff by noon. i don’t really talk to anyone here on the island, and don’t have any place to stay.”

“oh my god, that’s horrible! well i’ll tell you what: you can stay with me at my place for as long as you need to. you don’t have to chip in to pay for rent, and i can give up my bedroom for you.”

“t-that’s too much, echo! you don’t need to give me a spot to live at! i mean, i don’t deserve this-“ brian was awestruck at this proposition. nobody offered him anything in life, and he had gotten used to just dealing with things himself.

“oh, please! it’s the least i can do for someone who is actually interested in what i do. let’s go get your stuff, brian.”

•-•|•-•

“and there! we got all your stuff here safe and sound.”echo sighed, a bit exhausted after helping brian bring his stuff to her apartment.

by this time, it was almost 5am, and it was blowing echo’s mind to think that just two hours ago, she hadn’t known brian kendrick, and now he was moving in with her! he felt like an old friend at this point.

brian only had one medium box full of his clothes, but one huge box filled with wrestling memorabilia. three large binders contained various wrestling dvds from many different places, and pictures of him in action.

“would you like to get some breakfast or something? there’s a coffee house called apostles of smoothies nearby that has really good smoothies. then, while we’re there, we can figure out what our schedule will be. that sound good?”

brian responded with a gigantic hug. since he initially told echo about his situation, he couldn’t bring himself to talk. and echo understood that. she wasn’t much of a talker, either.

•-•|•-•

“logan, you son of a bitch, get over here!” echo yelled at her old friend logan black, owner of apostles of smoothies. logan was also a professional wrestler who, as his second job, ran a coffee house/wrestling arena on the beach. it was located in an old surf shack, with artwork of various artists decorating its walls. logan and echo were old friends from before they moved to hawaii. they grew up together in the middle of manhattan, and frequented concerts and wrestling shows together.

“well well well, look who we have here! you want your regular?”

“sure thing!”

“and who’s the guy with you today? is he a special someone?” logan asked. echo turned a bright red and punched logan in the arm.

“um hi, my names brian kendrick.” brian extended his hand out for a handshake.

“the names logan. this here is apostles of smoothies, the only coffee house/wrestling arena in honolulu! would you like something today?”

“i’ll have whatever echo’s having.”

“sure thing! if you’re a friend of echo’s, you’re a friend of mine. don’t worry about paying, it’s on the house.”

“logan,” echo teased, “you’re going to run out of business if you keep doing this!”

“i only do it for you, echo celeste svensson.”

echo rolled her eyes at logan.

“do you want to sit outside?” echo asked brian. “maybe we could talk over today’s schedule while we watch the sunrise.”

brian nodded in agreement as echo and him sat at a table facing the ocean.

“and here you go! two celestial sunrises for you guys!” logan said, giving them the smoothies.

“so, brian, i was thinking of getting some work done in the studio this morning, and ordering pizza for lunch around 12. is there anything you want to do today?”

brian’s response warmed echo’s heart. “i’d like to spend time with you today, if that’s alright. it’s gonna rain all day, so we’ll maybe watch a movie or two together and make a castle out of blankets. do you think you could hold off on your work in the studio until tomorrow?”

echo made some weird noise of excitement, like a giddy schoolgirl. “i’d love to watch a movie with you!”

•-•|•-•

echo queued up a mini studio ghibli marathon of her two favorite movies, my neighbor totoro and kiki’s delivery service. luckily, brian liked those two choices.

after they finished the movies and pizza, echo put on some chill step mix to calm her down. not that she was overly hyper, she just loved the feeling of being calm and loved, which was how she felt with brian in her apartment. the feeling of being loved was something echo had not felt since she moved to hawaii, three years ago.

however, the concept of being loved and safe was unfamiliar to brian. every time he thought about his past, it made him feel really down and not okay. all the years of repressing his bad memories had turned brian into a shy, broken, and unsure man. but he felt like a different man with echo, like he was missing a piece to his puzzle.

he looked down at echo, who was just snuggled into his side, looking at him lovingly.

“fuck it, i’m just gonna do it.” brian decided, leaning in to echo, lips meeting.

to say the kiss was amazing would be an understatement. the two fit together like puzzle pieces. brian pulled echo in, like a magnet. his lips met hers in a passionate embrace, with just the right amounts of roughness and romance. after an eternity and a half, the two finally broke apart, catching their breath.

“holy shit,” brian gasped, “that was totally uncalled for.”

“to be honest, that was exactly how i wanted my first kiss to go, brian.”

•-•|•-•

“well well well, look who’s back again!” logan yelled, scaring echo shitless. “you coming to see brian wrestle?”

“yeah, how did you know he wrestled?”

“looked up his info on the internet. he’s quite the journeyman, he’s been all over the states! wonder why he came to hawaii, though.”

“hey echo,” brian said, calling over echo, “i’d like you to meet some of my friends. you may know them. Say hello to Tony Booze.”

“Hey there Echo, I’m Tony.” Tony introduced himself, shaking Echo’s hand.

•-•|•-•

There were seven matches scheduled for that night’s event. Echo loved them all, and couldn’t keep her eyes off the action! But Brian was not in any of them, yet she still had a grand old time.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your main event of the night here at Oahu Championship Wrestling!” Echo and the crowd of around 150 fans cheered. Judging by how good the matches were already, she was going to be in for a treat. “This next match is a No Holds Barred match, and it is for the Oahu Heavyweight Championship!”

The opening notes to Raining Blood by Slayer invaded the airwaves, and so did a chorus of boos as a tall, buff, and tattooed man made his way to the ring, adorned in a black cape and crown. He was the current champion. “Making his way to the ring, from the ninth circle of Hell, the King of the Hallowed, VOID!”

“And his challenger,” Body Talks was now beginning to play, “the Unholy Savior Of The Masses, Grayson Del Toro!” The match kicked off with a fever pitch, both participants delivering clobbering blows to each other, like two drunken men at a bar.

Fifty minutes later, and VOID had retained his belt in an absolute masterpiece of a match. But, he still continued to beat down a bloodied Grayson Del Toro. Then, a cloaked figure ran down to the ring, mercilessly attacking VOID with a steel chair shot to the head. The crowd was at a loss for words. They absolutely despised VOID, and were genuinely afraid of him. The fact that someone decided to attack VOID was beyond them. “Could it be Brian?” wondered Echo.

After the referees separated the masked attacker from VOID, he revealed his face to the crowd, who popped so loud that the walls shook. “Ua hoʻi wau.” He dropped the mic. It was none other than Brian.

He walked over to Echo, and invited her into the ring. He gave her a black flower crown and stole VOID’s cape, dressing Echo in it. “I am Brian Kendrick, and this is my queen. Together we will rule this company, and usher in a new age of chaos.” He then placed his lips on Echo, who was quite surprised by the events that were transpiring. What had gotten into Brian? Well, whatever it was turned on Echo, impressed by this dark side.

#the brian kendrick #wwe imagine #wwe fluff

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midnightcrewsubs · 4 years

Text

MEDITATIONS ON A STRONG MAN... (REPOST)

Since this is the last episode of a series that has taken years to release, I asked (or attempted to anyway) pretty much every person who was involved in this project if they'd like to say a few words regarding their thoughts on this series and working on it. So without further ado:

HeatMetal - Founder of Over-Time, Translation checking for last dozen or so episodes, Coolest Dude in Town

stronger is good even though his costume is weird

Steel A Jeeg - KITsubs co-founder, Lead Editor for post-sjutton eps, occasional timer, old person

"Jeeg may have won the battle, but the war still rages on. Onward down the endless road of battle."

sky79 - Timing & Lead Translation episodes 23-39, translation checking for 1-22 v2s

(ANY COMMENTS MOCKING HER SPELLING WILL *NOT* BE TOLERATED)

Something about Stronger? Hmmm.. actually I think it's one of the borest KR series. Especially in the middle, when they revived Titan. But on the other hand, it shows some good scenes, when "villians" are fighting (or at least they try) between themselves for the position they have (or which they could have). I was disappointed when they showed Tachibana as comic chara. .mean, he doesn't deserve it. He is someone, who fought with all Riders after all, so I thouhgt it's somehow

And Shigeru .. he alone is a chara, I wasn't sure how I should feel about at beginning. Sure, he is hero, who protects the world, but the way he uses is a little too "showy". Like he thinks, no one is better than him. But there is something heroic about him. Would you be able to remodel yourself for the sake of your friend? Or something else? He threw all his life away, since the result was him being a cyborg. What could mean, he is immortal in some sense. So he lives forever, even when all his friends or people he knows aren't here.

And in the end, he stays alone. That's sad, don't you think? I think, the decision to remodel oneself takes courage to do it. In the end, when I knew the actor is dead, I've started to like him. Because, we will never see him like that. The actor is dead. In the last episodes, he was similing so brightly and happy, that I could only cry. We will never see that smile again. And the feeling which he gave with his smile at that time was really nice for me.

What I am thankful for is, that this serie brought all the Riders together. This is something I like. I still think the Riders are living in one universe so they should know each other. Going Fighting only alone is something I don't prefer. Showing, that there are others fighting with you for the same goal, is the thing I imagine, when I hear the word "Rider".

About Yuriko. I was crying when she died. Really. It was such sad ending. And something I thought it's useless. Why couldn't she stay alive? It would be nice to see, how are both of them living after the end. Happily ever after? Or living apart, and remembering the fights they fought together? Since they both liked each other, is there a way they could have lived together? This we will never know.

I'm not sure if I said everything I wanted I've never thought about talking about it

Abigail - MCS co-founder, Editor for first half of series, occasional timer

I truly enjoyed this series. A fun main characer, fun villians, and silly Showa plots come together in a good way and puts this up there with Black as my favorite Showa Kamen Rider series.

It was fun working on what little I actually did to help sub Stronger (which really wasn't much at all to be honest), and I hope you all had as much fun watching it.

I want to give a special thanks to Jeeg and the KitSubs guys for helping us finish this after real life happened. You guys are amazing.

So with that, I end this post of my thoughts that no one actually cares about with this.

RIP Titan and Shadow, you were too good for this world and I really wish you would have got to fight with each other the entire series. Finally, may Stronger continue to fuck with people forever more.

Zetta - MCS Co-Founder. Belgian, Translation checker for episode 1 and first few post Sjutton episodes.

Stronger is a cool guy and I'm happy he's completely subbed.

Ryoma - Editing for first half dozen eps, All around Deutschbag

I never thought I'd see the day where Stronger is fully subbed... also screw you, Cas.

Sandy - Timer involved with v2s of episodes 2-21

As a series, Stronger has a dedicated spot among my favorites of the Showa era. As a hero, Shigeru has a dedicated spot among my favorites, ever. Stronger is an exciting, emotional ride, from beginning to end, and I’m beyond thrilled that it’s finally been completed for everyone else to enjoy. Soar through the sky!

Bunny Hat - DVD Encoder, timing assistance, master of DVDs

[Don't really have anything to say] other than how much I hate it when Toei uses laser-disc masters for DVD releases.

Kilo - Project Organizer, distro & Editing, useless

I can almost remember it like it was last month when Abi was talking to me about stuff he had going on and I offered to help with a certain project that was giving him minor technical headaches. I didn't really know what Kamen Rider was aside from references in Kururu Gunsu. But I just fell in love with the persona of Jo Shigeru. The actor portraying him had this (to use a now overused phrased), arrogant swagger that exuded strength and confidence. Along with delightful side characters like Tackle and Tachibana and over the top villains like MISTER TITAN, it started me on this path to obsession with tokusatsu, kamen rider and fansubbing.

I've made friends, I've lost friends, I've lost sleep, I've laughed and cried. I'm not sure if I'd do it all over again, but I'd definitely be drawn to and etertained by Stronger no matter how my life turned out.

I'm extremely thankful to everyone who... well "assisted" is too light a word to describe all the manhours and effort put into this project, but I'm happy to have known them all and that in the end it wasn't all for nothing and that now lots of people can potentially enjoy this show as much as I did!

Champstice - Timer involved with v2s of episodes 2-21, Irish Person

Stronger is a show of firsts: First time a rider had a powered-up form, as opposed to just having a sound effect play. First time the antagonists truly fought amongst each other, as opposed to the occasional internal quarrel that usually ended with an evil character that appeared only in that episode being killed off. And the first time we had a female Kamen Rider (Frankly, SPIRITS only explained why she wasn't considered a Kamen Rider after she died, not why she wasn't considered one while alive).

At the same time, it's full of the same spirit and energy that makes Kamen Rider so enjoyable to watch. At least to me anyway. I hope everyone that's been watching Stronger since it was first picked up by MCS truly enjoys watching it's finale. And to those of you that plan to watch it at some point, whether it's soon or not for ages:

Honestly, you're in for a treat.

#showa kamen rider #kamen rider stronger #masked rider stronger #kamen rider #showa tokusatsu #tokusatsu

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xldsims · 5 years

Photo

Sorry, some of these asks got super-stale. :P

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Anonymous asked:

Hi. I love the content you've put out so far but I can't find the Tali download link for her cc. Is that CC not available and if it's not would you consider releasing it? Thanks for creating and sharing as much as you have.

[R]: Sorry it isn’t available at the moment still :/ Unfortunately, just haven’t got around to finishing her up. There’ll be versions of her circulating around tumblr, but my version won’t be available for a while (Just don’t have the time I used to for long arduous projects) :(

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Anonymous asked:

Where’s Tali ;n;

[R]: She’s in CC development hell :( (That’s all I can give you atm DX)

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Anonymous asked:

Hi! I want to say that you are my go-to cc for males and I just cannot thank you enough for making them. It made my male sims even hotter than before. I was wondering if you could also make Aaron Dingle a downloadable sim too? I fell in love with his face and ugh, I can't stop thinking about him. I hope you consider my request. If not, then I understand. Thank you.

[R]: All you have to do is ask :) I’ll upload them sometime hopefully when I’ve got more time to dump sims :P

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Anonymous asked:

hey! i'm sorry if you've been asked this before but, if you have time, would you be able to make the maverick jumpsuit for female sims? it would make the perfect modest swimwear!

[R]: I don’t see why not? I could definitely try and convert it for females. Shouldn’t be too hard since it’s mostly just a texture and not a mesh that needs to be converted.

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@maximusity asked:

what does "XLD" mean

[R]: Ya’ll gotta be trolling me at this point :P (Or if you’re new, there’s a segment on my FAQ for it XD; it’s not what you think it is XD)

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Anonymous asked:

Applying Aaron hair breaks the forehead. The other hair is fine. It 's too bad that only Aaron hair is broken. That hair is too pretty. It would be great if it was modified.

[R]: Broken how exactly? I’ll need to know what exactly is breaking otherwise there’s no way I’ll know what to fix? (Cause mine’s working just fine- if it’s about the shiny head, I’m still unsure how to fix it and I usually look past if myself)

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Anonymous asked:

Hey! First of all I just started modding my game and I'm loving your content so thanks for putting out some great cc for us :) My question is how you get your male sims to have that super round belly look. I checked your FAQ and saw the answer about the extended slider mod but it didn't produce the same look for me. Specifically, it's the sims that showcase your outie belly button accessory, etc. Are those sims just alien pregnant, or is that actual cc? If it is cc can you share it here? Thanks!

[R]: I'll definitely have answered this before, but no, it’s not CC, and yes they’re pregnant XD

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Anonymous asked:

I LOVE your Drowned Out skin for TS4, but I noticed it really reduces muscle definition, so when I'm making bodybuilder Sims, their muscle definition isn't prominent. Do you have a version of Drowned Out that maintains/adds muscle definition or know of a compatible skin to use WITH Drowned Out? xx

[R]: Tbh, I’ve been having some of the same thoughts, and I’m kinda missing the higher definition muscles (I initially meant to drown them out cause they could be a bit much by default, hence the name) but I’ll definitely tweak at some point to accommodate higher muscle definition :)

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@silviasilene asked:

Hello! I just downloaded the garrus costume and I have to say that's truly amazing! but when you look at it from a far it's looks like a strange polar bear costume and I was wondering if there's something to fix it (It doesn't bother me that much). Excuse my english and thank you 😘

[R]: I'll fix this, I swear! :P Hopefully by my next break. That and hopefully make it BGC. It’s always just hard to find time between projects and time in general :(

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Anonymous asked:

How do I use the pregnant belly overlay?:)

[R]: Just find it under skin details and apply it *WHILE* in modify sim in CAS (probably after they’ve popped in the first trimester). Unfortunately, I’m no modder and haven’t got a way for them to apply during pregnancy :/

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Anonymous asked:

Hi, Could You upload a Gil Brodie sim, please. P.S I love Your Blog:) (Michael)

[R]: In time :P I’ve still gotta upload all the other Mass Effect sims I promised everyone :P Sorry it’s taking so long!

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Anonymous asked:

Omg I'm living for your male hair cc. I can never find enough (granted I only ever look on tumblr) but damn I am so excited to try these out xx

[R]: Thanks! Tbh, all the good MM male hair is on tumblr and only tumblr. I don’t look far afield either so I can’t say that for sure but that’s the impression I get :P Glad you love the cc though!

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@daddyklingon asked:

Do you by chance release your houses in any way or form? Your Del Sol Mansion looks so amazing.

[R]: Yeah, they’ll just need a few touch ups, and I can upload the tray files here :)

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@lovearound5am asked:

Hello, do you think you could possibly share the psd from your Ocular Nova default eyes? I would like to possibly use them to create new mermaid defaults replacement eyes or perhaps other occults. Thank you.

[R]: Not sure if you’re still wanting them, but I made them available a long a while ago here!

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Anonymous asked:

There's actually a same gender romance mod for all three games that restores the MShep/Kaidan romance in ME1 and makes it seamless. The ME2 version of it fixes the email too.

[R]: I was following this for a while, and it seemed dead end for a while. Thanks for letting me know they finished it! I’m pumped to see how the game plays!! XDD

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@theglowworm2008 asked:

I just got re-obsessed with Mass Effect, as well! So, thank you for your hairs/facial hairs that I can add to my Sims as I grind through the first ME. Lol. Oh, and your Kaiden romance email! I can't wait to try that out since I'm currently doing his romance in the beginning. :)

[R]: Thanks, I really appreciate it and I can relate. I always love coming back to it (especially for MShep and Kaidan XD)

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Anonymous asked:

eres gay?

[R]: Esencialmente sí :P/ Essentially, yes :P

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Anonymous asked:

[R]: Not sure if you’re still wanting them, but I made them available a long a while ago here!

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Anonymous asked:

Where can we download the The Major V4.1 and V4.2?

[R]: Here in this content pack! (It’s all in one .zip file :))

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Anonymous asked:

The Holt facial hair lilac swatch is pink, not lilac

[R]: Damn, I’ll get that fixed asap! Thanks for letting me know.

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Anonymous asked:

can you make the strangerville hair with a receeding hairline? instead of just a line :o love all your hairstyles/ beards that you make

[R]: I’ll see what I can do when I have more time for it :)

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Anonymous asked:

hi! is the just outta bed hair its own mesh or do i need the gt pack to use it?

[R]: No, it’s BGC, you shouldn’t need gt for it :) (Up yours EA. xD)

#xld #xldsims #xalder #ask #anon #theglowworm2008 #lovearound5am #silviasilene #maximusity #daddyklingon #answer ask-a-thon

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

Text

7.13, The Slice Girls.

Yes, yes, bucklemming and their creepy magical babies, but let's put that aside and talk about Sam and Dean and what this episode says about them, instead, for once. Instead of letting the focus on the creepy baby blind us all to what's actually happening in this episode, and what it says about s7 (and s6 too, and honestly a good chunk of Sera Gamble's approach to storytelling in general since she was the architect of these seasons even if she didn't pen this particular episode) overall.

Because whoa... it's kinda... not friendly to Sam...

My tag about how Sam and Dean are entirely different people, with different psychological composition, different mental and emotional processes, came about at the beginning of s11 (when the show was using a two-episode mirroring structure, thematically pairing episodes until the midseason 10, 11, 12 worked together as a triptych, and in a season where the final message the characters had to accept and learn was the understanding of Balance Of Opposites, these differences were on stark display) is "sam sympathizes and dean empathizes." It felt like a baseline difference in how each of them approach the world, and something necessary for US to understand their entire dynamic.

And that's on PERFECT display in this episode.

I've been talking throughout my s7 posts in this series about how Sam can't even see how compromised he is. Despite the fact he spends the entire season actively hallucinating Lucifer and openly admits he has difficulty telling those hallucinations apart from reality, he remains convinced that he's coping with it effectively (via the magic button of sanity he believes the scar on his hand to be), and all he has to do is press that button any time Hallucifer pops up, and everything will be fine again. This is Advanced Level Pretending The Bad Thing Doesn't Exist To Make It Go Away. And he can't understand AT ALL why Dean is intensely wary of him, and is unable to fully trust in Sam's perceptions or decision making abilities throughout most of s7.

(which... I mean turns out to be totally valid, but that's for another post... or at the very least, much later in this one... for now, let's try to stick to 7.13, Mittens, and avoid running off ahead of yourself for once... okay we have that settled, back to the point)

We don't see much of Sam actively Hallucifering in this episode, nor relying on the old Hand Squeeze maneuver, but it's impossible to watch this episode and draw the conclusion that Sam was an Objective Observer of Reality here. He's completely entrenched in his personal bias regarding Dean's actions, behavior, and mindset. And again, it's incredibly frustrating to watch.

Sam is so utterly convinced (because he HAS to be in order for it to continue working for him) of his own self-control, of his own stability, of his own soundness of mind, of his own perceptions of the world to be the One, True, Right, Correct Understanding. If that fails him, then as Dean told him in 7.02 when he first squeezed that wound on his hand to bring him back to reality, then "Stone One" of the foundation of his ability to cope with anything at all will just shatter, and his entire sense of self will slide away with it, and his unstable construct of sanity will collapse.

(which... happens two episodes later, but again, I'm getting ahead of myself... *slaps self and gets back to the point*)

Sam NEEDS to believe in his own "correctness" here. And sadly, part of that sham of belief involves the go-to mindset of s4-- that Dean is somehow "broken," that Dean is the one clearly not coping, or not engaging with reality as Sam interprets it, and that it's Dean's perceptions that are inherently suspect. Because Sam doesn't know a different way of relating to the world. He sympathizes.

I've written a lot about the difference between Sam as Sympathetic and Dean as Empathetic, but a super-quick and messy breakdown of this for the purposes of understanding my whole entire point here:

Sam understands others through an examination of them as filtered through his own personal past experiences and his own personal feelings and beliefs. He assumes that everyone else understands the world in this same way, and when someone's reactions or behavior deviates from his own personal experience, from how HE would behave or react in a given circumstance, he frequently disconnects or misinterprets, or attempts to re-file his observations or reclassify the other person in question into something he CAN relate to and understand.

In other words, Sympathy. (versus Dean’s empathy, where he is more able to set aside his own reactions and see people as they are, themselves. It’s what makes him so good at cold reading strangers, being able to put himself into their shoes rather than needing to imagine their shoes are identical to his own...)

We finally see a small subversion of this in Sam’s interactions with Jack in early s13, wherein he projects his own past experience onto Jack, applying the same things he experienced (or even wished he had actually experienced when he was younger) regarding his own psychic powers that he once believed may have made him "evil." Or at the very least made him "other." And Jack directly calls him out for his treatment in 13.03, which gives Sam pause, forces reflection, and drives him toward actually seeing Jack, rather than just seeing Jack as a projection of his own personal beliefs.

I really hope this makes sense... because 7.13 is demonstrating the root of this lack of understanding as the toxic and dangerous thing it can be, when pushed to this sort of deliberately self-deluding extreme. And of course Sam's ongoing ability to walk and talk and function at all completely relies on his ability to do this during s7 (which... ick is one of the reasons I think a lot of folks really have trouble with the entire narrative of the season, even if they haven't put their finger on why, because this is a super-icky, incredibly uncomfortable thing to watch).

Meanwhile, in addition to everything else going on, from the Leviathans being gooey and creepy and plotting world domination as their endgame goal while largely working to achieve it in plain sight, disguised as humans as they slowly infiltrate... everything and influence everything from politics to real estate to healthcare to the food supply to achieve their ends, to everything Dean relies on for his own personal comfort and stability and connection to the world being gradually stripped away from him (beginning with Cas and running right along through his own literal identity), this episode will steal yet another small physical comfort from him-- human sexual intimacy.

He's already lost Cas, his car (the singular constant in his entire life and the closest thing he's ever had to a home), his actual identity, his innermost thoughts (which went along with the identity when a leviathan took his form), comfort food (the TDK slammer slammed him good), Bobby, and even-- to an extent, due to his ongoing concern for his mental health-- Sam. Dean is... adrift... and now he can't even allow himself the simple pleasure of human touch and physical intimacy (even shrouded in the lie of a false identity... he can't even fake it for self-comforting purposes anymore). And yet, he still knows himself, far better than Sam does. And yet for Sam to maintain his self-control, he needs to believe that it's Dean who is deluding himself and succumbing to the depression Sam is not allowing himself to own.

Dean spends the majority of this episode actually doing his job, making connections, and coming to an understanding of the case through his own personal experience of it. While Sam puts the entirety of his reliance on coming to an understanding of the case on the Academic Validation of an "expert" in ancient Greek. Sam dismisses Dean's direct experience by rejecting it as inherently flawed-- because Sam doesn't necessarily trust his OWN ability to have made these observations himself, yet is 100% dependent on the conclusion that only his own observations are remotely reliable, lest his illusory grip on reality shatter entirely.

Dean, meanwhile, is not similarly compromised in a fundamental way, despite his increased drinking, which Sam uses as yet another excuse to dismiss Dean's assessment of reality. Dean's still insisting that he believes that Bobby's ghost may be haunting them, while Sam explains away each new incident rationally-- or so he believes, as the evidence mounts to a ridiculous extent. It gives Sam the false impression that Dean is emotionally compromised to the point his judgment has become irrational and based on his emotions, rather than his point of view and direct experience that Sam simply can't grok, and therefore needs to dismiss to maintain his belief in his own rationality.

These themes will become the "beating a dead horse dot gif" of s7, continuing even after Sam is healed by Cas in 7.17, proving they're inherent to Sam's fundamental makeup, rather than just a side effect of this "soul damage" he suffered with, or the demon blood he was addicted to in s4.

I'm still attempting to force myself to remain focused on just this episode, though, so I'll conclude with a few direct observations:

DEAN: I'm outside Lydia's. SAM (on phone): Oh, come on, man. What, are you obsessed or something? DEAN (on phone): No, I'm telling you. I have been eating at the buffet of strange all afternoon. SAM: Meaning what? DEAN: I'll tell you the second I know. But something ain't right. SAM: Or you're obsessed. DEAN: Shut up. I'm serious.

Despite Sam being told real facts by "experts" that the murdered men had all visited the same club Dean had the night before, he easily dismisses Dean's observations of something weird happening with the woman he'd hooked up with. Sam even tells him he's lucky he "dodged a bullet" since Dean hasn't been killed like the other men he's investigating, and is incapable of even making the connection between what killed those men and the "strange" things Dean's seeing with his own eyes regarding Lydia's rapidly growing daughter, Emma. Sam has to jump through increasingly flaming hoops with a straight face to maintain his belief that Dean is simply obsessed with this woman, that Dean is continuing to slack off, that Dean isn't objectively addressing The Facts™ as Sam understands them.

SAM: So what? I mean, so maybe she has another kid she didn't tell you about. DEAN: Nope, just the one. Emma. But that night, when I was with her, she didn't have any. And I was at her place, man. There was no playpens, no blankets, no rubber ducks. SAM: Right. Like you would have been focused on that kind of thing. DEAN: Hey, dude, that's the first thing you notice. Red flags. Then, all of a sudden, boom – baby. SAM: Yeah, the one you thought talked. DEAN: Oh, it talked. And not baby talk, either. SAM: Now you know so much about child development? DEAN: I know enough to know that they don't say, "Hey, Mom. Who's that guy?" So, cut to... Lydia's handing this kid who's calling her mommy over to these two women, right? But this is not a baby. No, no, this kid's got to be five. And same name – Emma. SAM: You know, George Foreman named all his sons George. DEAN: Are you deliberately messing with me? Dude, I know weird. Okay? There is no non-weird explanation for this. This morning, Emma was a baby. By sunset, she's Hannah Montana. Early years.

And yet Sam is still intent on the "expert" opinion of the professor they asked for help, over and above anything Dean might insist he's personally experiencing. Here, have a very short but complete meta encapsulation of this entire dynamic:

SAM’s phone rings. SAM: It's the Professor. DEAN: Oh. Good. The Professor. Yeah, I'm sure he'll crack this wide open. SAM: Shh!

Dean is sarcastic and dismissive of the professor, the supposed expert who deals in theoreticals and mythology, and not the reality Dean has directly experienced. Meanwhile Sam shushes Dean, dismissing not only his direct experience, but Dean's frustration at Sam’s repeated dismissals.

And here we have it again:

SAM: There's this whole crazy side to Amazon lore that Professor Morrison didn't even mention. DEAN: That's 'cause he doesn't believe in it, which is a real handicap when you're trying to deal with it.

THIS IS SAM'S WHOLE ENTIRE PROBLEM IN A SINGLE EXCHANGE. and then the moment Sam finds something In The Lore™, written down in a book where it's impossible to dismiss, he realizes that Dean hasn't been making shit up or somehow misinterpreting his own lived experience:

SAM: The lore says they reproduced quickly – as in, after mating, they gave birth within 36 hours. The babies grew incredibly fast, then the aging process became normal. Which is one way to make an army, I guess. The mating cycle is every two years. They send out all the women who have reached child-bearing age. DEAN: Which lines up, 'cause this happens every couple of years in different towns, right? SAM: Yeah. And we know for sure that at least some of the vics hooked up with strange women days before being killed Amazon style. DEAN: Hooked up in the same bar I met Lydia, right? SAM: Yeah. DEAN: And then suddenly she's got a little baby in like fruit-fly time. That baby turns into a little girl just as fast. SAM: Wow. So maybe you're – you’re, uh... DEAN: Don't say it.

But rather than questioning EVERYTHING ELSE Dean has been saying over the last few days (or longer, regarding his experiences related to Bobby's ghost), Sam holds on to the rest of his beliefs even more tightly. And he reframes this entire revelation into a different validation of his original thesis-- that Dean's still compromised, Dean's not being objective, Dean letting his emotional damage control him, and it's still A Problem. Because if that's still the case, then Sam is still Maintaining Control Of Himself, and not-compromised himself.

Sam latches on to this and refuses to let go, dismissing Bobby's ghost as a potential explanation for anything, dismissing Dean's evaluation of a document and again running off for a "professional opinion."

DEAN: Maybe it's useful. SAM: It's in a pile of "maybe it's useful." Besides, it's in Greek. Nobody reads Greek. DEAN: Yeah, except Greeks. Oh, and Bobby. SAM: And Professor Morrison. DEAN: Really? SAM: I'm going, Dean. You stay here, keep the door locked. Don't go anywhere. I mean it.

Meanwhile, this approach leaves Sam vulnerable. While at the professor's office, he's attacked by one of the Amazons. While left alone in their motel room, Dean's confronted by his Amazon daughter. He doesn't immediately kill her, though, despite drawing a gun on her before she can attack. And she is talking with him rather than outright attacking anyway, so he lets her talk. To me, this is the key exchange:

DEAN: You look exhausted. EMMA: And starving. It's been a tough sweet 16. So you believe me? EMMA: You'll help me? DEAN: If you really want help.

He is willing to help her escape her life IF SHE REALLY WANTS HELP. We know that when Sam does return, he literally sees a side of Emma that she never reveals to Dean-- the Amazon red eyes-- which convinces Sam that she's a monster incapable of not being monstrous.

A knife drops into EMMA’s hand from her sleeve. DEAN closes the refrigerator and points his gun at EMMA. DEAN: You were asking if I believed you.

I.e., no, Dean didn’t believe her, but he was still willing to hear her out, from an understandable “I’m still gonna point this gun at you while we chat” perspective. When Dean wavers, Emma uses that to question his ability to kill her at all... which is shockingly reminiscent of Dean's inability to kill Jack, even under direct orders from God, in 14.20:

EMMA: It's weirdly hard, isn't it? It is for me. DEAN: Knock it off. EMMA: How could it not be? You're my father. DEAN: Hey! We're not gonna do that. EMMA: But it's true.

So while Dean had wavered in just outright killing Emma, waiting to see if she would succumb to her monstrous nature and try to kill him first, Sam makes the choice to kill her immediately. And in his defense, he even invokes Dean's killing of Amy Pond back in 7.03 as proof that Dean is still compromised:

SAM: What did you say to me... when I was the one who choked? What did you say about Amy? "You kill the monster!" DEAN: I was going to! SAM: Oh, the hell you were! You think I'm an idiot? DEAN: What, you think I am? SAM: Dean, you were gonna let her walk! DEAN: No, I wasn't. That's ridiculous! SAM: Look, man, she was not yours. Not really. DEAN: Actually, she, uh, she was, really. She just also happened to be a crazy man-killing monster. But, uh, hey. SAM: You know what? Bobby was right. Your head's not in it, man. When Cas died, you were wobbly, but now... DEAN: Now what? Oh, what, you're dealing with it so perfect? Yeah, news flash, pal – you're just as screwed up as I am! You're just... bigger. SAM: What?! DEAN: I don't know. SAM: Look... Dean, the thing is, tonight... It almost got you killed. Now, I don't care how you deal. I really, really don't. But just don't – don't get killed.

Because that's what it boils down to, even underneath "stone one" and his Magical Scar Button, the foundation Sam laid that stone on was Dean's assurance, Dean literally guiding him through the mess of hallucination and reality that he'd been unable to separate out for himself, which Dean gets that Sam isn't actually dealing with outside of pushing the button every time Lucifer pops up for him. And without Dean, Sam knows his entire baseline for holding himself together would be gone. And isn't that just terrifying.

Because what Bobby was actually worried about wasn't Dean's head not being in it, but Dean's ability to carry the weight of all of this amid the relentless assault of the universe. From 7.09:

SAM: Yeah. Yeah, I kind of mean more like, uh... more like ever since my head broke... and we lost Cas. I mean, you ever feel like he's -- he's going through the same motions but he's not the same Dean, you know? BOBBY: How could he be? SAM: Right, yeah, but what if -- BOBBY: What if what, Sam? You know, you worry about him. All he does is worry about you. Who's left to live their own life here? The two of you -- aren't you full up just playing Snuffleupagus with the Devil all the live long? SAM: I don't know, Bobby. Seeing Lucifer's fine with me. BOBBY: Come again? SAM: Look, I'm not saying it's fun. I mean, to be honest with you, I-I kind of see it as the best-case scenario. I mean... at least all my crazy's under one umbrella, you know? I kind of know what I'm dealing with. A lot of people got it worse. BOBBY: You always were one deep little son of a bitch.

Bobby never actually said to Sam that Dean’s head wasn't in it. He gave Dean a bit of a talking-to after this, which is distressingly similar to what both Frank and Eliot Ness also tell Dean over the course of the next few episodes, but he never said this to Sam. This is SAM'S interpretation, based on SAM'S assessment of Dean, which informs Bobby's "buck up or else, you're a hunter not a person" speech to Dean from 7.09. Because this was what SAM needed to hear and believe to keep that "umbrella of crazy" firmly in place where he could manage it.

And as the universe continues tearing away at Dean's entire reality, that shield of "professionalism" is just about all he has left. And Sam unintentionally undermines even that at every turn.

What a horrific mess.

#spn 7.13 #s14 hellatus rewatch #sam sympathizes and dean empathizes #winchester family dynamics #using your words #spiders georg of the tnt loop

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snake-feather · 5 years

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NOREEN INNOCENT

Full name: Noreen Emerentia Innocent Macpherson.

Nickname(s): Nim, Nore, Nori, 42, Yeehaw Morticia.

Date of birth: December 27th, 1996.

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Faceclaim: Karlie Kloss.

Gender, pronouns: Female. She/her.

Sexual orientation: Unknown.

Occupation: Musician, singer/guitarist.

Current project: The Holy Church of Richard Linklater.

Languages spoken: English (native).

Alignment: Neutral Evil.

Hogwarts house: Slytherin.

Personality type: ENTJ-A - The Commander.

Zodiac: Capricorn (leo moon, scorpio rising).

Five positive traits: Clever, farsighted, confident, optimistic, careful.

Five negative traits: Wily, self-indulgent, disloyal, entitled, mercurial.

Ten tropes: Rich Bitch, The Proud Elite, It’s All About Me, Unexpected Virgin, Screw the Rules, I'm Famous!, Kill The Poor, The Hedonist, Big Brother Worship, Stop Worshipping Me, Trophy Child.

Inspo song: Planned Obsolescence by Gojira.

Obsessions: Goats, demons, Pokémon, ghosts, fashion, hating Carrie Underwood.

Quote: “I’m an American, I don’t have to understand anything.“

Introduction: The child of 80s pop sensation Elliana and producer Jackson Macpherson, music was in Noreen’s blood. Or at least her parents insisted on that. Her place in the music industry was decided on before she could even speak, much less sing, and her childhood was full of guitar lessons and vocal coaches. She became a troublemaker and fought against the Big Plan, but progress was made nonetheless and although her heart wasn’t quite in it, at 17 she got to a point where her talent was reasonable enough to step into the studio and record an album. It was no great joy for her, not least because she was being forced into cowboy boots and a stupid sweetheart persona when her older brother Alex got to do his own thing in New York with no consequence. In public, she was all y’all and bless your heart, being romantically linked with country star Avery Reed whose guts she hated. It was good for business, though, or at least everyone kept saying so as the resentment grew. Finally, Noreen snapped at the CMT awards, telling Avery exactly how she felt about him to the great horror of their shippers everywhere. After being kicked off local radio for foul language, she fled her small town to kill Country Noreen and start over with her best friend Matty. Now, The Holy Church of Richard Linklater awaits the true stardom they so deserve.

Relationships:

Alexandre Innocent Macpherson: older brother.

Elliana Innocent (née Ellen Ingles): mother.

Jackson Macpherson: father.

Mathias Blair: best friend for life forever, rival, bandmate.

Avery Reed: nemesis, unwanted suitor. ( @lillyninette )

Imani Larson: personal assistant.

Addison Crowe: collaborator, friend... mild crush. maybe. ( @wildbcys )

Emma Moore: the Paris to her Nicole ( @miadolanwrites )

Proserpine & Styx + Mick Jaguar: pets (goats and liger, respectively).

*** AU version of Brighton.

#the trashpile #muses #ch: noreen innocent

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onestowatch · 6 years

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Enigmatic Dream-Pop Band Sports Talks Biggest High School Regret & Making Sure ‘Everyone’s Invited’ [Q&A]

Dream pop band Sports formed in their small town of Norman, Oklahoma and have been playing together since grade school, yet their novel take on the dream pop genre remains excitingly fresh. Consisting of brothers Jacob Theriot and Cale Chronister, the trio first made headway with their 2015 debut album Naked All the Time. In the years to come, the dream pop trio would deliver two more much-applauded releases, 2016’s People Can’t Stop Chillin and 2018’s Everyone’s Invited, each of which would see Sports venturing into newfound territory.

Everyone’s Invited, in particular, served as a noted departure for the band, as the trio explored a range of funk influences to deliver one of the most unique dream pop projects of the year. Despite their increasing notoriety in the world of indie pop and amongst music tastemakers, including an upcoming performance at Tropicalia Fest in Long Beach, CA, Sports has retained a somewhat enigmatic persona. This may have something to do with their fashion attire of choice--cowboy hats and sequined suits. Whether it’s their impeccable fashion choices or shimmering dream pop that drew you into their world, or you’re discovering them here for the first time, we’re happy to let you know a thing or two about Sports as we sit down with the trio behind the band.

OTW: So, all of you started playing together when you were still in grade school, but at what point did you decide to form an actual band?

Cale: I saved up 200 dollars to buy a Toys R Us drum set, so I could start a band and that’s how I met Christian. He was just another guy at my school that played guitar, and I met Jacob because he was his brother. It's like we were only friends cause we wanted to start a band.

OTW: Do you all still play the same instruments as you did when you first started?

Jacob: Yeah, I wanted to play guitar, but he played guitar and of course I didn't want to do the same thing as him. I don't know I felt like I just was naturally more of a bass player at the moment. It just felt right

Cale: You had to be bass.

OTW: Your sound has evolved quite a bit, especially on the latest album Everyone’s Invited. It’s very synth heavy, but was it always that vibe? Or did it take a while to get to that sound?

Jacob: Well we'd been playing for 10 years so, we didn’t even know that music existed.

Cale: We were playing pretty much guitar-heavy songs but we were like 13 listening to just whatever was on the radio. Jacob: Going back and listening to it though, it's still kind of impressive. The songwriting wasn’t that bad. Cale: We were good for our age. Christian: And I think once we all got laptops and recording software, that's when like the synth stuff started. Pirating software cause we couldn't afford it yet.

Cale: We actually made an EP where we mic'd the drum set with all our different rock band mics.

OTW: Will we ever see that album released?

Christian: it’s out under a different name. Cale: If you find it, you deserve to find it. Jacob: if you find it, let us know we want to hear it.

OTW: So when did the name Sports come about?

Christian: We switched cause we wanted a name that was like you said it once and knew exactly what it was.

Cale: We had like 12 names.

Jacob: Sports was the beginning of us taking it seriously. We had just written Naked All the Time and a few months before we released it, we changed names. It was like, “Ok we need to completely rebrand ourselves this will be the beginning of our career, taking it seriously and making this is our job.”

OTW: We’ve heard tale that the name Sports ironically comes from you three not being amazing at sports.l

Jacob: it is true, but that's not why we named our band Sports.

Christian: I played football up until ninth grade, but I think I just looked in the mirror and I was like, “I don't think I'm a football player. Cale: it's ironic cause my dad's been a basketball coach my whole life, and their dads are also huge sports fans. So, we’re making money with Sports. Christian: “My kids are in Sports.”

OTW: And were you parent supportive throughout the whole decision to pursue music?

Jacob: I’d consider myself pretty lucky that my parents didn’t push their agendas onto me, which is nice.

Christian: “Just get good grades and stay out of trouble.” Cale: They didn't pressure college either. I went to college for a semester, and it was my parents who were kinda like, “Hey if you don't like it, you can drop out.” And it actually empowered me to just do music.

Jacob: Luckily, none of us were crazy rebellious or anything. Looking back, I kind of wish I was a bit crazier.

OTW: is that your biggest high school regret?

Jacob: Yeah, I should have been pranking more. It wasn't that big of a deal to get in trouble. Christian: Senior year, I started doing slightly more crazy things. In the computer lab, I would turn everything over. That's as bad as it got.

OTW: Less of a question, but I once included your song “You Are the Right One,” off your first album, Naked all the Time, on a mixtape for a girl I was seeing.

Cale: It’s a love song. I love that.

Jacob: You’re not together anymore right? OTW: Admittedly no. Jacob: Dang, so it didn’t work. Christian: She wasn’t the right one. Jacob: Try again, keep trying. OTW: Will include it on every mixtape from here on out.

Jacob: That's actually funny that you say that because we get a lot of people saying things like that. It's a lot of couples’ song.

Jacob: In Chicago, this couple proposed right before that song.

Cale: The lyrics I were picturing, it was this nerdy kid thinking he could get the cheerleader.

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OTW: When it comes to songwriting, is a lot of the subject matter true to life or do you invent characters?

Jacob: I invented a character for the first time on one song, but it’s usually just stream-of-consciousness for me. Sometimes you don't realize the meaning of it until way later on, or like you go through something and you're like, “Oh wait that's what I was writing about subconsciously. It's kinda weird how that works. Cale’s married so most of his songs are either fictional or about his wife.

Cale: Or girls who didn’t want to date me in high school. There was a lot.

OTW: Your latest album, Everyone's Invited -- where did the title come from?

Cale: I came up with it pretty soon after we wrapped up People Can’t Stop Chillin, and I don't remember exactly how it came to me, but it’s just like a phrase that I thought sounded like a party, sounded fun. Jacob: This is after we went through a ton of stuff, like our manager passed away. And then slowly, that name started to make more sense. Like inviting people to be ok with going through what they're going through.

Cale: And the lyrics are a little more transparent this time, it’s a little more, “Alright, this is what I’m thinking, so you're invited to see how I’m feeling. Jacob: Be a part of the healing process. There's a lot of different things you can take from it. I feel like it fits with the times. Everyone's trying to be extra aware of everybody being comfortable and not feeling invalidated, and it's just a way to bring everyone together. Cale: Honestly, it's kind of like this mantra I have now when I’m hanging out with people, cause there are so many people that are close to me where it’s like I have to make sure to invite everyone. I actually say it on accident all the time.

OTW: Speaking further on the album, the synth-driven nature of it has earned a fair amount of comparisons to ‘80s music. Was this a particular timeframe that inspired Everyone’s Invited?

Cale: I think we’re more obsessed with the keyboards that were made in the ‘80s than we are actual ‘80s music.

Jacob: I get it. We’re using keyboards from the 80’s, and of course, they’re going to be similar to sounds that you’ve heard before. But we aren’t actively trying to be like, “How can we make this sound more ‘80s?”

OTW: Tell us a bit about Oklahoma, as I’m guessing a lot of people aren’t too familiar with the state.

Jacob: A lot of people are surprised by Tulsa actually. They’ll pass it and be like, “Oh it’s an actual city, there’s like actual buildings.”

Cale: Yeah, like It actually has a downtown.

Jacob: People think we live in teepees, like, no. Did you ride horses to school? No! It’s a normal suburban area where we grew up.

Jacob: I don’t know, there’s this certain kind of mystical, dark vibe to downtown. Whenever I imagine Tulsa, I imagine it at night.

Cale: Have you ever seen The Outsiders? That’s filmed in Tulsa. So, that’s the vibe. I think it does a really good job with that.

OTW: So what’s one thing about the future of Sports that you all are personally excited about?

Christian: Releasing more music.

Jacob: I love touring; I love every process of it all honestly. Whenever we’re finished touring, I’m ready to get back in the studio and start writing. There’s a nice balance I think. I like every aspect of it.

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch?

Jacob: Yeek is amazing. His new songs are so freaking good. He’s the best

Christian: Keith Charles. He’s going to be putting out a record

Christian: We’re actually going to be working with him when we get back from tour. He’s going to go to the studio that we record in, and we’ll just jam and see what we can come up with.

Jacob: This band, BRONCHO, from our hometown that’s about to release some stuff that’s stupid good; it's so good. Breakup, some friends of ours in Tulsa. There’s a lot of good stuff coming from Oklahoma right now actually. It’s cool.

OTW: Any final words or anything you want to say to your fans?

Christian: Thank you.

Cale: You’re invited. Thank you. See you soon.

Jacob: Thank you Ones to Watch for liking us. Your office is nice. These chairs are cozy.

Cale: They are. They’re ergonomic

Christian: They have good back support; I need to get me one of these.

#interview #sports #indie #indie pop #pop #electronic

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