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ghostmartyr · 5 years

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Avengers: Endgame Thoughts

SPOILERS, obviously.

So I figure I’ll babble enough to keep all the genuinely spoilery content under an appropriately timed cut. Even though everything after this statement is full of expectation spoilers. The few key things that I can think about to mention are that I really appreciated the movie and enjoyed the highs and teared up aplenty.

Also that I think this is going to be a primarily negative post. Whoops.

Not because I think it’s awful. I want to emphasize that I don’t think it is awful, because I am very worried that I’m going to forget to say that.

There’s a base level of quality you can sort of expect from MCU movies, so I don’t generally feel the need to move beyond the role of passive audience member for them. Then Infinity War really impressed me, and I couldn’t wait to see how everything was going to wrap up when they really left the movie there, so my investment level piqued.

As a result, there are more thoughts than usual. About a movie I really did find to be of high quality, and probably would see again happily if planning to sit still for another three hours didn’t make me twitchy.

I liked the movie.

There are just some character decisions and plot mechanics and overall writing decisions that... really?

First thing that I don’t have much to say about but can’t rationalize having a complaint post with no mention of: Thor and Hulk.

People in charge of the movie, you had no problem including Captain Marvel when you had no earthly clue what to actually do with her. Her smile warmed my heart in every scene she graced, and while I was criminally disappointed she was not more involved, none of the material she was given made me feel like the people writing her didn’t care about her.

...

Actually, now that I think about it, this should not have just a Thor and Hulk complaint section. Like that was the idea, because I didn’t have much, because I don’t care (slightly different than the writers’ level of don’t care), but the whole...

...

Oy.

Here, once for flavor, with the knowledge that I’ll get back to it and repeatedly whine about it this whole post.

I find the fucking time skip wanting in too many ways for me to really forgive the film for.

Anyway, Thor and Hulk.

In short, no.

In less short, what are you doing.

Hulk I don’t have a serious gripe with, except my main complaint about Infinity War was how Banner (I should probably change how I name him based on which character I’m talking about, but I really just mean the entity represented by a particular actor so I can’t care that much) got used up as comedy relief. You can have comedic moments and characters. If you have transformed your character into a comedic moment, you’ve fucked up.

(See Thor in too much of this movie.)

But one of the interesting parts of Hulk’s general arc in the MCU was how Banner and Hulk were starting to negotiate for their place in their body.

Cue Endgame, cue time skip, cue completely glossing over how they make their peace with each other.

Avengers franchise, why?

I am not attached to Hulk or Banner or any of that section of the plot, honestly, but the potential of that entire element is shot and left for dead in the water. Then the floating corpse gets up and starts walking around as part of a cog of the story.

Hulk’s most interesting plot point basically happened in another movie that doesn’t now, and probably won’t ever, exist, and considering what Infinity War put the guy through as a character, my writing senses are hurt and sad all over.

Then there’s Thor.

I think he might fit into the whole thing I will soon get into about character resolutions that hit the right emotional keys solidly enough that you forget they’re playing the wrong song.

Mostly he picks up the “hole” (wrongly perceived as something that needs to be filled) left by Hulk leaving the walking gag scene party. Drinking himself into oblivion and disregarding self-care in the aftermath of an immense trauma is one of the film’s chosen humor mainstays.

My impression is that I’m the only person in my tight corner of the internet who doesn’t really like Ragnarok because its silliness felt like it was trying too hard. It’s my favorite of the Thor movies, but a bunch of the humor didn’t feel natural to me. Better than Infinity War’s handling of Hulk, and better than Endgame’s handling of Thor, just not my favorite tone.

Endgame sort of takes that element, jacks it away from its surrounding strengths, and rolls out a keg for it to drown in.

When the movie remembers to empathize with Thor instead of mocking him, there are some great moments. But he draws one of the shortest straws of the movie.

And the character resolution is...

Good fuck this is why I had to say I liked the movie. Because when I actually sit down and think about my problems with it, the rest of my brain just lounges to the side in horror, wondering what could possibly have been entertaining if such elements were included.

The very beginnings of my problems with the movie is that they kill Thanos.

I think he’s dead ten minutes in.

Then they skip five years.

Five years.

Ooooh my everything.

Okay so like, you know how you start reading something, or watching something, and your head immediately takes note that oh, this must be a dream sequence. The couple in a romance is suddenly way too hot and steamy for where the story has them in their development, a random bomb goes off, the guy who destroyed half of all life in the universe because no one can stop him in the last movie is killed in the first ten minutes of the next--

There’s like.

A rhythm. There’s a rhythm to how stories work.

When that rhythm is disrupted, the audience is left with a tangible feeling of wtf. Either that feeling enhances the other quality stuff going on, or it enhances the other Quality stuff going on, if you catch my drift.

You step into a vacuum.

It’s great for recreating that sense of absence. The world is irrevocably changed. It’s emptier. The heroes are broken. Their revenge doesn’t fix anything. They just. continue to exist, with losses they aren’t equipped to handle.

FIVE YEARS OF IT.

I have probably a longer list of things I want stories involving time travel not to do than is perhaps healthy. But maybe stories involving time travel should keep their act together better or I don’t know.

Bad Future ends are not something I appreciate, because often, they go grimdark just because they can, because they know it’s not the final future, so anything goes. You don’t have to treat it like any reality that matters, because it isn’t permanent.

This story... I would say it toes the line there, but in ways that grate on me thoroughly enough that it presses all the same buttons.

Thanos can die in the first ten minutes, and it doesn’t matter. We know it doesn’t matter, because it happens in the first ten minutes. ...Maybe twenty, to be safe. It’s early. But you have this villain who’s built up to a ridiculous degree, bizarrely succeeds in living up to his own hype, then you kill him off so that a younger version of himself gets top billing in the final battle.

Why?

I get why as far as the story is designed, but at some point in the process, this story is designed by humans. Humans who could have stopped and asked themselves if they were really telling the best version of this story they possibly could.

Thanos is defeated while his blight remains. I love saying that. I love that I can describe a story with those words.

But the initial defeat is so unsatisfying and bereft of life. All the energy of him as an external force for our heroes to unite against is bled out early, and to get it back, they really do just ship in a younger model.

Which does make sense. Younger Thanos’ motives are fine and reasonable. Just, as far as the plot design, the whole presentation of the movie’s setting feels like a dream sequence. It feels, very early on, like this will never be allowed to be forever.

Then that feeling lasts for five years.

Getting into the time travel thing.

Time travel is really hard to get right in stories. You want to change something, but the people doing the changing are products of what they’ve lived through. How do you honor that while still fixing the unspeakable evil that happened? How do you change the world while keeping the threads that made us care alive and relevant?

One thing I very much like is that Tony fights to keep what he’s gained alive. Good. The volcanic soil grew him something irreplaceable, and it’s perfectly reasonable for him to want to hold on to that, and I’m glad he does.

But then you have the other half of the story, where no one is able to move on.

My preference for time travel correcting things is for characters to either be trying to change their own future that they have yet to live through, or for them to trying to fix something that is so recent the characters are still wrangling with it as a piece of their present. I have more than a touch of “humans should not mess with these things they don’t know what they’re doing,” past a certain point.

In case it weren’t obvious, five years is pretty far past that point for me. It hits this awful uncanny valley sweet spot of people wanting to change a reality that never should have been vs. people who are willing to fuck up the world because they can’t let go.

I like superheros. I like correcting injustices. Save all the people. I like people fighting tooth and nail to fix things set in stone because these are their people, dammit.

I also hate seeing people so stuck in the past they refuse to make a future.

This movie screams both of those elements so loudly that it’s hard for me to really piece out how I feel about the story in its entirety.

I like that they don’t simply hit an undo button, and do bring everyone back in a way that lets the future that has already happened continue.

But then there’s Steve and Nat and just... fuck, dude.

Gun to my head, I’m a happy person. If everyone could be alive at the end, that would be my preference, I don’t care if it’s cheesy. But you have the choice between Hawkeye and Black Widow. The man who’s lost his family, and the woman who’s lost purpose.

Or something. I don’t do MCU meta.

The sense I get from watching is that Natasha feels like her life works better as a sacrifice. If they succeed, she doesn’t have children and a wife waiting at home. So clearly it makes sense for her to be the one to die. Her road ends to bring back the happiness of others.

Which...

I don’t know how to articulate my problem with this without moving on to Steve first.

So let’s do that.

Steve.

Steve, whose story ends with him going back in time and staying there.

Forget about how the story criticizes every movie that does time travel better than it. Forget about all the levels of not caring went into designing the time travel elements. If possible.

I do not like how Steve’s story is essentially about how there’s only one time and place for him to experience a fulfilling life.

It is the nature of writing stories that we want to encapsulate things. The perfect moment. The perfect set of emotions. The perfect time. Everything falls into place, and that’s how we want it. We’ll never get it better than that. Keep retreading that dead horse, because it was so good.

Steve and Peggy are beautiful together.

What I hate about them ending up together is that... there’s this obvious, painful belief that the world of the future doesn’t have anything left for Steve. Bucky’s there. Sam’s there. Billions of people have just found there way back. Steve’s lived in this century for years.

Reclaiming the past is more important than building a future.

Even though the story’s driving plot is about keeping their past maintained so they can have this future. Or something.

Steve doesn’t have a future. Natasha doesn’t have a future. So the story removes them from it, and calls that a clean, happy (if bittersweet) ending. They’re pieces that don’t work in this world. Their chances are gone. They can live in the past or die.

I hate that. I’m a sap who will read a million stories about someone having a single true love they can’t be without and no one else could ever compare and blah and blah and blah, but that somehow feels different from watching a character’s life play out for years, and seeing them come to the conclusion that they can never belong in this place.

Building a new home never compared to the old one.

That’s depressing as fuck.

Thor gets a piece of this as well, becoming more of a knight errant than a king. After going to so much trouble to become his people’s king and just. Geez.

I don’t think that this is a thing the movie as a whole is really trying to encourage. I think the people working on it just had different visions for what would be cool as a sendoff and so on. Tony’s insistence that they don’t undo the five years they’ve had, and Nebula’s... everything--those aren’t elements of a story that says you can’t grow and find a new place. You don’t have to keep on repeating what you know and nothing else. You really don’t.

But that feels very twisted around for some of these characters’ personal journeys, and as happy as I am for Steve getting his dance with Peggy, the idea that this is a person whose true happiness could never be in the future...

That lingers in a way that I can’t like, and colors a lot of the other resolutions.

I really enjoyed the movie?

Yay?

Even though no one cared even a little at all even once except to attempt to drag other movies about time travel.

This movie’s time travel mechanics are terrible.

They’re just bad.

When you drop the titles of that many other things that have time travel.

And say this isn’t like that.

You should. you should hope. that your thing could at least make a convincing case for making more sense.

This does not succeed in that.

How could you watch enough of those movies to know they had time travel, yet fail to learn anything about how to write time travel. How. Why did you. why. Dragon Ball Z has more internally consistent time travel.

Three hours well spent. The hours on this, maybe less well.

#Avengers #Avengers Endgame #endgame spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr

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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

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14x06 watching notes

Bugs 2.0

this is more like a sleepy note to self from last night (hi future me in the morning, you better have coffee) but I can't believe Yockey is sending Jack, who is consumptive, caught in a crisis of personal identity, and sworn to kill his AUncle who is blurred dangerously with one of his fathers, WITH said father on a hunt, while Dean is so messed up about Michael and guilt and all he's coming at the angsty nonsense from the complete other side... And that's still like half the story because also Sam and AUCharlie and a giant fly monster or something...

Anyway last time a Yockey episode showed up I wrote 100k words of watching notes, broke down crying over the elevated Shakespearean drama, and astral projected into watching the final five-ten minutes in the Globe Theatre.

What we know so far about this episode has me legitimately terrified to the point I'm writing preemptive episode notes the night before so maybe I will fall asleep and dream in such a way I sort this all out and can come to it with Secret Dream Knowledge.

Mittens had the audacity to remind me that Speight directed as soon as I rolled out of bed as well

Oh no the recap is awful in moments. Please leave Jack alone. He is small and young and doesn't deserve anything bad that has ever happened to him.

The ticking and chiming of this all coming due is a great way to raise blood pressure, and as I was saying last night, we get both Dean blurring with Jack in his issues as well as Dean blurring with Michael

I remain eternally optimistic that seeing Christian Keyes in the recap means he might get smuggled back into the show.

I WILL say this every time it happens and refuse to back down on that :P

Anyway, tying the two main points of plot stress together - what is wrong with Jack, and what is wrong with Dean. We KNOW what is wrong with Dean - he said yes to Michael, and got taken for a ride and sorely used. Don’t know if there’s a ticking time bomb about Dean and something Michael did to him. We can guess a few avenues of where the awful comes from for Jack, but I suspect it's going to be at least another full episode of Rowena poking him next time to figure it out, if not an ongoing mystery so his consumptiveness can be dragged out as a point of tension.

His is so obvious that equating Dean's tick tock clock with it is considerably more alarming on Dean's behalf, since we have a much better visual of what's up with Jack, and just "djinn didn't like the inside of Dean's head despite dealing in nightmares" to wonder about Dean.

We get the recap that Jack's being given his hunter go ahead, but then Dean's dismal "it's all on me, it's my fault" over a dark screen and even the "Now" which is a very over dramatic way to press home the sense of ongoing trauma and how that line is going to be affecting him.

Not that we haven't seen him very visibly affected already, behaviourally, but this seems like a clock reaches the end of its countdown episode now >.>

ANYWAY HAVE SOME UPBEAT MUSIC AND THE KOOKY STATUE GUY

Ooh dear, here's bandanna girl from the promo pics, but wearing......... would you fukkin believe it............................................. a long tan coat with large dark buttons up the front. Hilariously, I nearly mentioned when chatting about ascots yesterday morning, that ties made of ribbons were a modern equivalent you see in the same professions so maybe she is just visually connected to these sort of neck ties. Her floofy shirt and that ribbon tie has both shades of people's fem!Cas cosplay and also the sort of faux puritan modern witch look from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, so. I'm gonna assume whether they know it or not she's a witch.

Aww she is the librarian :')

I love her already because she said good morning to the old person sitting by the statue, but also because she did that and therefore is emotionally completely at odds with the show and her personal theme music means she's in for it and I already feel protective that her jaunty tune is going to get interrupted.

Why do I feel like at least 4 of the library rules are going to be broken

Aww the floofy frills go all around her shoulders. She's so upbeat! Shelving books like it is the most thrilling and wonderful thing to be doing on this sunny morning after rain :')

She looks so much like Bela when she talks... good grief... I wonder if she's related. Anyway first jump scare is her library boyfriend because she was just so caught up in shelving.

Listen I get names wrong or ignore them constantly but for some reason I do not understand them at all so it sounded like Ambraubry to me and probably isn't Amber or Aubrey and also how comes I understand all the other dialogue but not this??? To the point that in multiple past episodes despite my slow and steady approach to understanding an episode, I've completely and utterly mangled understanding or missed entirely the name introductions D:

I really am going to try and do better this episode, because it's so awkward.

"Harper, are you okay?"

Adsjfhdkjsfhskjfds

She's an angel. Wings, trenchcoat, tie, harp -

Anyway she appears to have the affections of at least two dudes, one of whom will defend her with a stapler, and we're lucky the detective pikachu trailer came out like 2 days ago because the kid in that does it but it's too late to be an homage.

Obviously Harper's knight in dark plaid is brooding, gingery, and armed with a projectile weapon. *fires staples at sweater nice!guy*

"Put the stapler down"

*Dean Winchester's it back into the safety setting*

"That guy's always been creepy" See that was hilarious but now I like sweater guy better.

"He's just overreacting because nothing ever happens here" Is this Cas defending Dean to the bitter end, even when it might literally involve watching him murder the world for his own personal angst?

Harper is very clearly setting boundaries while being a total sweetie about being sad no one goes to libraries or reading time. She's almost too frighteningly well put together. No one is this well-adjusted :P

Aaand sweater!guy loses points for nice!guying his way into assuming he has a date

dear lord the music

RIP Sweater Guy.

We hardly knew ye.

Dear lord I love Yockey characters

And Speight directing

this is truly as unholy fun as I was fearing D:

Also re: something from 14x04... nice guy characters again being portrayed in this way where the old school "geek" coding (or at least, beta male who is small and wearing a sweater and such in this very old-school way which honestly I think is fashionable again or was recently... It's a coding which comes with not just the appearance but also the attitude, and if he'd been cool and charismatic, the same costume could have done something very different). It isn't so much the problem as the attitude... Nerds are beloved on this show, but people with gross toxic attitudes such as insisting dinner is a date and not taking no for an answer on that are going to be summarily murdered round back for hubris.

I mean the title is "optimism" and he was WILDLY over-optimistic about his chance of getting with Harper, so. I mean. If that's the magnetism that pulls the monster in...

On the other side of the title card, Jack is stayin alive, and curiously pouring way too much sugar in his coffee as the title comes up - there's an immediate irony that he may be optimistic that he is doing better and on his way to hunting with all his dads and being part of the team again and also optimistic that this much sugar will not ruin the coffee... It's also a little worrying though I doubt he thinks this far ahead, in the sense that too much sugar is bad for you and like Dean being thrilled at the thought of bacon killing him, Jack risking the health damage from drinking sugar-coffee-sludge is an endgame beyond his current consumptive state.

See also: tragic or byronic heroes who are gonna self-destruct because they have mayfly lives in the age of consumption. Jack again being at genre odds with himself as part of an internal conflict...

"What's with the sugar?"

"without my powers, everything tastes different, and I can't get this how I like it"

Maybe you aren't meant to be drinking coffee if it's too bitter for you. I mean in your current state what is chugging red bull gonna do to kill you faster.

It's very Cas in 9x11, commenting on being an angel again after being human. But we know Jack's still in that state. It's interesting because we know he has a sweet tooth because literally the first thing he ever eats is nougat and now we all call him nougat child, but I feel like with powers he was probably rather less discerning because nothing would kill him and everything was digestible... Coffee tastes bitter because it's technically a bitter poison warning, telling us not to consume because caffeine bad... Er, yeah, sorry, coffee plants. But bitterness to humans is supposed to repel us on a “is this food safe?” level, and kids have trouble with bitter foods, and prefer sweetness and uncomplicated flavours because they're instinctively safer.

Jack's struggling to consume the bitter adult juice that makes the hunters run, and is dealing with it by a Sisyphean task of just adding more and more sugar to taste. It reminds me of when I was smol and wanted to drink cranberry juice because I thought it would make me more sophisticated, but it was too bitter, so I kept adding more and more water until it went from even remotely resembling juice to sort of pinkish tart water that still tasted gross and made my mouth dry and didn't even taste like juice any more. At no point did I hit the sweet spot where it was drinkable, because I wasn't even putting the right stuff in to make it taste better. In that case, a spoonful of sugar. In Jack's case... dude. A splash of milk. You don't have to drink it angsty black-like-his-soul like Dean does.

Anyway, "I can't get it how I like it" is very telling of Jack's current overall mindset and sense of place and all. Now he's human but despite having chosen his family and even declared himself human before his powers were stolen, he now has no powers and is consumptive to boot, so the balance has swung way too far over from super powerful cosmic entity to sick kid who can't keep up with the adults. No amount of sugar can change that to something he WANTS to drink when there's still a fundamentally fatal problem with his situation. Sure the dangers of being cosmic lil nephilim on everyone's radar is over, but as this show always does, it swings over to an ironic flip of the first problem, and he's too weak to help.

I suppose the optimism is that he can change this scenario by pouring sugar into it - hunting with the dads - when he needs a different drink.

Whoops already with the dramatic irony - Jack's excited and admiring of heroes Sam and AUCharlie (ChAUrlie?) and just assumes they're having the time of their lives. He's yet to solo hunt with either Sam or Dean, but he'll tick Dean off the list today. For now, what No.1 Dad gets up to (no offence to other dads, this one just tackled Lucifer for him that one time) is mythically amazing, so probably why it's the last on the list... if we'll ever see it. After all, Sam and Jack had their whole season structured around their dynamic from open to close, while actual conflict and confusion remains between his dynamics with both Cas and Dean, as much more complicated, less ideal dads.

Meanwhile: Sam is discovering that it's SUPER AWKWARD to go on a stake out with an AU version hardened by war and with like at least 5-10 years less pop culture than the Charlie you knew, loved, and got murdered by accident that one time.

Which I am totally sure is not on Yockey's mind at all now he's caught the Charlie ball that Buckleming threw recklessly out there.

Anyway. Dean not sugarcoating (haha) "he just left you here" "yeeeep." Obviously Jack's spent a LOT of time in the Bunker recovering and training (he's back in his tracksuit top at least here) but Cas declared him fit for service and they even seem to have survived that hunt together. Somehow. (No slight on their competency, but it's Cas and Jack. Come on, that was a TRIP and I'm so bitter we didn't see it :P) So now Dean can say this in a way that makes it sound like Jack's being left out and get his bitterness immediately on the surface, as he doesn't really have filters.

More bitterness you can't pour sugar over.

The fact that Jack is sitting with his back to Kevin's coffee machine is the worst thing ever.

LOL, poor Dean. Sam deputised Jack to wait for Dean to get back from his supply run to the love cabin, because he was worried about him, which means that Dean now has his own kick from Sam which I am assuming is the spite motivator to take the boy out hunting with him, that he thinks that *Jack* now has to look after *Dean* at least emotionally.

Obviously, like. Yeah. They're good for each other especially if they can bond some more. But like. Try telling Dean that while insisting it's mandatory father son bonding time out of CONCERN.

*cat falling in a bathtub and freaking out and reaching supersonic speeds out the door gif*

Nougat Son attempts a pep talk anyway because he is good and pure of heart and adores his pop pop, even if by sheer lack of interaction or early interest he technically does rank at no.3 in the charts. Listen, Dean WOULD tackle Lucifer for you if he had to, but the story wasn't framed in such a way that he COULD over Sam's narrative need to tackle Lucifer for you.

Dean rebuffs it not out of harshness to Jack but to himself - Jack repeats the line that no one blames Dean, but Dean is like "i do"... Honestly I'm curious for the Dean n Cas version of this because Cas was there in the room and he so far hasn't given Dean the pep talk. Mostly out of them not spending any time together, and I'm sure Dean has a lot of shame that Cas saw him do it, but for as much as Cas blatantly loves Dean still and all on first sight, does he have a more complicated view on it, given he was in the room and tried to argue Dean down?

Anyway Dean and Jack share a very knowing silence of mutual self-loathing and wow this is hilaaaaarious that that's their mutual relationship bedrock but yeah. Last season the most bonding they did was in 13x23 when Dean was like yeah we all get horrifying nightmares kiddo.

*consumptive noises* *Dean's eyes immediately shoot over to the kid*

"Maybe I'm allergic to sitting around doing nothing"

THERE HE IS. THERE'S MY SARCASTIC LIL NOUGAT

We do not get enough of him. I mean, like, maybe since 13x04? He had a rough childhood but now he is a Teen, with all the door slamming and threatening to kill dad no.3 that entails.

"What do you want to do?" We really are getting Dean coming towards Jack from arms' length even now, so he sits down with him and NOW and only now he stops the pretence of being a somewhat disinterested grumpy adult talking to another angst ball adult - very 13x02 last scene kinda wary understanding but without the threat of murder - to sitting at the table with Jack (who of course is in Sam's place) and reaches out to him with a very clear opening up of father son bonding time. I think obviously Jack has grown on him and he cares but he's resisted overt responsibility and their connection has been tentative and weird, and as paternal as Dean can be and has been since the start of the show, with Jack only he's been very careful about opening himself up, specifically for reasons of not wanting to get lumped with another baby to care for right when he was truly setting Sam down at last, and also for like, the whole getting Cas killed thing, and even a year and a half later, he may actually HAVE tentative paternal feelings towards Jack, but he's very much intent on keeping himself Dad no.3, and to only open himself up when it's necessary or else he's emotionally ready for it.

(The description of next episode makes me pretty sure Dean is the worst person of them all to have to discover Consumptive Nougat Son issues which is why I’m assuming he’ll figure it out)

In this case, this appears to be a mutual distraction from their angst - "HUNT" Jack says, with the kind of horrifying enthusiasm of one who still doesn't see it as nightmarish as Dean does.

"Cas is an insurance policy on those hunts" Awww Dean loves his hubby and thinks he's still the biggest BAMF ever, even when Cas has, er, a patchy record lately. Though perhaps low-level monster nonsense is still within his scope...

Anyway, after the Sam n Cas nurturing Jack conspiracy (how dare they love and care for him!!!) Dean straight-talks the kid that he's still very much on hunter probation and has been tagging along with Cas specifically for his own protection. Again, Dean never sugarcoats for Jack, but that honesty has always been a core part of their relationship, even when things were really, really, really bad. Jack still cared what Dean thought and Dean, eternally bitter from his own childhood, gave it to Jack straight, even if it would hurt. No fairytales for Jack.

Even though he has fanciful notions of sleeping beauty from his more whimsical fathers and whatever Kelly left in there :P

Why does Sam have a fidget spinner except that Charlie may be about to declare HIM the monster of the week and kill him.

I mean, dramatic irony and making him look goofy. And Sam is very very very hard to make look goofy because he had all his funny bones replaced with serious bones.

It is very embarrassing to watch him be a goof for this exact reason.

I suppose it is a way to make us start to sympathise with AUCharlie and start to get into HER headspace. We're seeing Sam from an outside perspective - Jack and Dean saying admiring things about him, while looping over to Sam to show us what CHARLIE is experiencing of this. Especially as she's spent a lot of time on the road being an independent agent, rather than sticking with the AU Peeps all the time, she's very much a strong personality of her own as a former rebel leader, and yet knowing OUR Charlie it's less the leading and more the rebellion that would have drawn her. Though she makes a great Queen of Moondoor, that's her softer, nerdy side, and she very clearly had a hunter!Charlie persona of a rebel that struck out on her own, and even when she was a civilian whistleblower/hacker from within RRE, she was acting on her own initiative against the corporate enemy. With her trip to Oz she also had a similar role as AUCharlie of being perhaps a general to a higher leader such as AUBobby in Dorothy.

The adverts on the McCook Sentinel are for TRAVEL, retirement funds, eating healthy and a local student initiative cleaning up the park - the next generation doing their bit to make the world better.

Oh dear, Winston "sweater guy" Mathers - the same name as Dave Mathers in 13x06 - was bitten all over and it was probably bath salts. Case closed.

Now the negotiations and loopholes: Sam said we all need partners now "so we can be hunting buddies!!" Oh Jack. Alex really is good at sounding innocently purely enthusiastic with total childish glee.

"A: don't call it that."

Dean snarks at Jack that HE is going to back ME up? Nah kid. Mistake - this is the key to the angst floodgates. Honestly pausing just after the "I could have killed Michael when i was strong enough!!" declaration is enough info for me to accept a smash cut to Dean and Jack kitted out and on the case, guilt trip accomplished.

It's also very familiar to Dean to have the guilt of having not done enough, to find someone else also specifically feels responsible for what Michael is off doing. And Jack's claim to guilt lies like a whole FIVE MINUTES earlier than DEAN'S claim to guilt. If Jack had killed Michael, Dean wouldn't have had him there to say yes to.

Check and mate.

Sorry, Jack is saying he was distracted and stupid so now Dean is legally obligated to take him hunting to cheer him up.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"AND NEITHER DID YOU, BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY EASIER, DOES IT?"

Okay, what is the one that comes after check mate but even more vicious because Jack's running loops around his old man.

Dean is making.... left over noodle... taco.....

Jack, knock him out, drag him to the impala, and start driving before he can eat it

He also sharply identifies hunting as the coping mechanism and how they don't just sit around in the Bunker feeling sorry for themselves, and Dean not only can relate but he is being wildly called out by someone who has no filters and also will tell him the absolute truth about it. More than Cas, these days, who carries so much of his guilt and shame secretly so as not to burden Dean, that Jack is now the refreshing voice who cuts through all their crap and shows it for what it is.

Dean is like, man, I never wanted kids. Because they do this to you.

Thank god Jack won that argument with the final emotional appeal and we shifted over to Sam and AUCharlie's adventure.

They really are not getting along.

Charlie just has a jar of sloppy goo. What did she get it from? How did she get so much in the jar when it's so runny? Why does she still have it? Why did Sam put it on the dash? How comes they have Bobby's truck?

Or do the AU Peeps have a whole collection of identical beaten up blue trucks as part of their uniform shabby hunter look?

It's super weird having Charlie pull out an old book instead of a laptop. How do you do product placement????

Dick's Red Rooster diner!

There's a massive photo of a barn at sunset behind them. Putting them out to pasture??

"Yeah, when a young guy dies they never know what to put in those things." Ouch, Dean. Spent a lifetime reading obits, he has a deep insider knowledge of the writing style of them.

The line itself in a more meta way is really sad to think about contemplating anyone having that thought to write it in the first place :( It's deep enough that it doesn't seem an obvious thing to occur to you unless you're super morbid or have first hand experience with this.

Let's just go with these writers all have to write fake obits all the time for their show(s) so they know the struggle of trying to pass off the obit as legit sounding while also contemplating what to even say about their fake people who of course they have just imagined up so don't even know anything about them to start with.

Cocks, everywhere.

(Man, I really hope there aren't people who read these notes before/instead of the episode also hi if you do, you weird wonderful people) (the diner has a heavy red rooster theme and there's metal cockerels all over the place)

(I assume they're for Dick Speight)

Oh dear, Dean is indeed going to have to be the parent who gives Jack the birds and the bees talk, because they've left their kid to learn what he can from TV while creating a perfect circle of Cas assuming Sam will do it, Sam assuming Dean will do it, Dean assuming it's not his problem but it would be hilarious if Cas did it...

So of course Dean ends up being the one on the hunt with Jack where he goes down the sudden horrifying rabbit hole from explaining courting to hearing Jack say "the sex" like he's freakin swap-meated Sam...

Worst case scenario: Cas has ALREADY given Jack the talk but Dean's now going to have to fix that damage :P

Oh teenagers. You want them to stay disturbingly 1 day old naked manchildren forever.

Of course the waitress leans in like "sometimes you just have 'the sex'"

Dean shifts uncomfortably and rotates the cock that had been staring right at his midsection away, like he'd not only clocked it earlier, thought about what it innuendoed, but now in the moment where they're thinking about all this stuff surface text, he's too uncomfortable to deal with cocks right now.

Thank god Dean is as uncomfortable as I am dealing with the concept of Jack being adult bodied and now emotionally teenaged, because he puts the conversation back on track before I actually expire of horror.

Me and Dean are mutually uncomfortable at the realisation that Jack is catching up fast with his outward age. More than halfway there, probably. Only just started bonding with the kid and now we have to let him fly the nest :P

Awww we're getting the everyone loves Harper montage of townsfolk. I love one of these things.

We're spending a LOT of time on the Dean n Jack side of things, which is making me wonder if Sam and Charlie will play catch up later, or if they really are a comic cutaway case to the real angst. That Yockey really really wanted to get our two tragic main dorks into one room alone to work through their issues of guilt and murder and stuff and Sam is too emotionally well-balanced currently to be around that.

I'm pretty sure one set of the townsfolk are two married women

Oh Harper. She's so bubbly and she keeps losing people D: Is there a Nice Guy latched onto you?

(Is it stapler!guy? Nooo I was rooting for him. Maybe he's innocent but will be the next victim... Or maybe not. He DID just see Winston trying to pick her up moments before he died)

"She's bad luck" "real shame."

Yeah, something wants her for itself >.>

Maybe Harper is the one doing the murdering and eating

Probably not.

Sam sits there picking his teeth and AUCharlie finally snaps and tries reaching out to him if it will make him a less annoying stakeout partner. She also does not come under the bracket of Sam's hunter army in the sense of being inexperienced and over grateful of the rescue - that fierce Charlie spark clearly sets her aside not to treat him like the Chief in the same way of needing to be coached and looked after and she was immediately free last season to head off with main named characters like Rowena for side adventures.

It's interesting just because WE know better that she's interesting and Charlie-like so obviously worth a main side character promotion, but in-universe in a practical way, on the surface there might not initially be anything to set her aside from why she gets special treatment except that she had a former leadership role and clearly more experience and innate feeling towards hunting and rebellion than the rest, compared with Maggie who clearly comes across as a refugee wanting to make a new life and learn the ropes of this world with skills she didn't even develop growing to adulthood in the AU.

Anyway, AUCharlie's attempts to shore Sam up end up with Sam throwing the awkwardness back on her and finally opening up the emotional heart of their story - telling her that Charlie was Dean's old wingman and that she'd been a best friend of his (see also: they'd been going to Moondoor meets off-screen)

This is also hilarious that they're using the term wingman when Cas is blatantly the "wing man" in Dean's life and yet Sam is of course focused on Charlie when it comes to dealing with the awkwards of being in a car with AUCharlie but also this skips over Cas's place in the order of best friendyness, because Cas is so much beyond that with his family status.

Anyway Sam uses "you" to refer to Charlie to AUCharlie, which is a direct comment on how they find it weird to have her around and she recoils also from the weirdness that they'd been so close to her in their universe. Their mutual discomfort with each other probably also being why she's been happy to go off on extended adventures on her own getting to grips with this world.

"I'm just saying, I'm not surprised you survived the apocalypse" "Well, I am!"

Sam and AUCharlie going back and forth on his uncomfortable admiration of the other Charlie, while AUCharlie is of course having to fill the shoes of the dear departed first Charlie, a harsh copy of her to Sam's eyes and she can feel that because of course of the weird hug when they first met, it's clear that he, like Dean, struggles to separate her - even in a way where she's AU Charlie but Bobby is "new bobby" which is a distinction which shows more awareness of Bobby as a clean replacement while Charlie is a murky zone where should she be treated like just having another Charlie dropped in their laps, or should she be seen clearly as a completely different person from the one she's replacing for them?

Oh nooo this Charlie worked for RRE but she had a love of her life unlike our singleton Charlie. Just like AUBobby had managed to have Daniel with Karen so things were clearly easier between them than our version... It seems like Mary's sacrifice to not have John somehow boosted the relationships of all the AU people except maybe poor old Kevin :P

Oh noooo what if AUCharlie goes to find this universe Cara??

Oh goodness actual details of the "angel wars" - a massive EMP that put Charlie out of a job just for starters.

"We banded together, thought, someone will save us! No one ever did." Probably not a commentary on the effectiveness of the current government/world leadership at protecting us from disaster >.>

You made AUCharlie cry, you asshole. D:

It's mass grief vs personal grief - the AU peeps lost their world, Sam and Dean saved their world at great personal loss. They took on every one of these deaths into their own personal angst machine, so no wonder it's still rolling on :P

Because in the AU everyone has a Karen or a Cara - everyone who was left lost everything and everyone who was gone.

In Sam n Dean's world, paradise world, the heroes had their own grief, but it's a mythologised version, the great mytharc of losing Mary, Jess, etc that powered the intense personal angst of the apocalypse. But that angst which was so intensely forged in Sam and Dean for taking on the entire burden of everyone's angst that made them the heroes who stopped the apocalypse.

And literally one episode later I'm back to Dean's 2x20 speech about why does it have to be us who saves the world and sacrifices happy normal lives - throw "Carmen" into the Karen, Cara collection.

"One day the water gets shut off. The next day, people are on fire."

Anyway, AUCharlie is intensely hardened to the point of "it all falls apart" because of course she's seen their world crumble.

And again, the outside view point where she's not got the perspective that Sam is the hero that saved the world - it's for us to remember that Sam is the reason this world hasn't crumbled, that hunters are the secret glue holding this world together and we can correct Charlie about their world.

Going too deep is quite uncomfortable to end up comparing 2 worlds, one with a set of destined heroes who are just about holding this one together from at least supernatural threats, and one which immediately fell to pieces when the damage came. In 13x14 AUBobby said that their world just had him, again leaving that empty space that Sam and Dean fixed. But implies the everyday heroism of the AU peeps who managed to hold it together enough to rebuild communities and organise fighting back in their spaces, even heroic-minded people like Bobby and Charlie... AUBobby reckoned he didn't have it together as much as Sam, but in our world, Bobby was a pillar who held the boys and hunting community together much of the time. And Charlie helped save the world once, yet this one felt it crumble around her.

There's something vaguely divine right of kings going on with Sam and Dean at this point, that whole Chuck getting personally involved and calling Dean the firewall between light and dark, that puts their role in a much stranger and more cosmic position. The same thing that made Billie angrily stop pursuing the Winchesters and sit back to read Dean's books in bafflement about how he doesn't die every other day of the week, but is so important on the grand scheme.

To go another step beyond that into meta realms, they have a main character narrative purpose in their own world, so embedded that in the world building of a similar universe, there's no one remotely fit for purpose to step up because no one else was narratively placed to do what they did. And that's their tragedy that they were the people singled out by the narrative, that it's character fights god, directly and on a meta level at times, yelling "why me" and getting "because you're the main character, dumbass, now get back to work" as the answer.

Sam has CONSIDERABLY less interaction across the entire show with being the more meta character, as Dean has genre savvy and was the onlooker to Sam being the one in the crosshairs, that the choice was on Lucifer's vessel to say no or yes, or crack him out of the cage or put him back in. Michael's only purpose was to kill Lucifer, and the rest was free character development space for Dean to yell about how unfair it was that he was there and Sam was being forced this way and that to fulfill his destiny. Even in some meta episodes Sam stayed within the lines or played a role while Dean was the one critiquing and going to speak to the manager, as per the metaphor of Swan Song - 4x18 is the best example of that.

So I think Sam having to confront this here and now is really interesting that he seems considerably less challenged over time to think of himself as the centre of this narrative and what causes and effects this has caused, and to see himself from outside eyes rather than being the one trapped in the middle of it. Lucifer showed him a clip of Swan Song from outside eyes, but it's just not been enough for Sam to really conceptualise himself in this way. Perhaps it'll help him appreciate more what he's done for the universe. I think 6x15 might be the only time he showed more interest than Dean, and that also was about an alternate universe and working out their effect or lack of on it. Of course it was a branch AU from OUR world, while Apocalypse AU is a branch AU from THEIR world.

"not here"

"not yet"

More sugar for Jack. Dean rewards him for finding a case with PIE. Not cake though there was a lot in the displays.

There's still cocks in the background. In the old season 10 pie vs cake thing (10x12 and 10x13 and 10x15 working HARD on it) cake was the forbidden option and pie was the sexy thing that literally was used as a yonic symbol. I'm beginning to dread that Jack's going to get the talk, if for no other reason that Dabb's pre-episode tweets of Jack as Fabio on romance novel covers, but the previous conversation sure didn't help. We're visually and show-language primed for Some Nonsense.

Oh Christ Jack starts asking about courting, and he says he's never experienced it "unless what you said about Rowena and Gabriel counts"

This dumb lump of nougat has witnessed one of the most ridiculous chapters of Dean n Cas angst and hasn't got a clue.

"No, definitely doesn't count."

He never saw them together, but he would have been there when they broke the news to Rowena I guess. Maybe had some innocent questions then too.

Maybe was advised not to touch the books on that side of the library until someone hosed them down with holy oil.

I've been avoiding watching more for like. 2-3 hours. I mean I've been dipping in and out but the mere prospect of this conversation has had me noping out for extended chunks of time to knit and stare into the void and I just realised it's 9am and I started at 5 and only some of that was typing.

My second hand embarrassment squick is barely able to cope with this concept. Now I'm IN this scene I've watched all of Rachel Maddow and nearly checked my dash before I remembered I'm avoiding watching the new episode because Dean has to give Jack the talk so I still have an unwatched episode and spoilers to avoid.

I'm ranking this episode right up there with my conceptual horror at 11x04 just for the prospect of Jack and sex in the same sentence.

Oh thank GOD "when we get back I promise I'll give you the Talk" I should have pressed play so much sooner.

(No, you're fooling yourself Lizzy. This concept doesn't just come up in the first quarter of an episode and then go away)

Oh. Oh Dear. Yeah, trying to do a trust fall with the rest of the scene just meant I walked right in to Dean proposing, I think, using this strapping young lad he has with him as bait to investigate Harper, by sending him to meet cute with her. You know, Jack, dressed in his tan coat, Harper now dressed with her red bandanna ascoting around her throat and a black shirt so she's more Dean-like.

Bless, Jack's all grown up, he's in a Destiel parallel :')

A Ploy! Father Son roleplay! Dean plays the horrible looming FBI man who is threatening a smol lady with only a book for protection to interview her aggressively... And in steps the hero, in his red shirt and still tan coat of course, primed for young love and a hunger for local history books! :P

Well at least maybe stapler!guy might be protected by this if he's not the monster :P

Dean has watched enough rom coms/read enough romance novels to know how to set this up even if Jack doesn't. Canon.

Put that nasty FBI man in his place! Bam! Jack's getting another one in over Dean in the roleplay which mirrors their starting conversation of him emotionally triple-checkmating Dean over letting him come.

It is also a position of trust to let him do the work to chat up Harper.

Gosh I am curious about the endgame of where the Jack vs Dean conflict goes. Jack was literally yelling at Cas that they might have to murder Dean to get Michael a few weeks ago. There's shit going on here and the self-aware staged conflict really makes a curious sort of play within a play aspect, where it mirrors the dynamic. Set a play to catch the conscience of the king.

In this case, Dean being overbearing and threatening to a young woman mirrors Kaia and his treatment of both versions of her, but this time someone is here to step in and stop him, when Jack has been a bystander in the past. And in 13x09 of course, when they first met Kaia, Jack was being really grabby and possessive of her, and she had to beat him off and when Sam and Dean caught up with Jack, Dean immediately said "Good!" about Kaia hitting him, because Jack really was overstepping lines and was wavering one way and the other about being a Joffrey.

Jack is again playing the hero - he's been the prince to sleeping beauty and now he's the Fabio to this love-challenged cursed town darling. This is about perceptions and surface levels - playing the games of being the hero while still working out his own place in the world and discovering that heroism can sometimes mean a murderous revenge quest against the AUncle and the high collateral damage of achieving that. Despite Jack's full on tragic narrative he's battling it hard to dabble in other more light-hearted genres, and join his dads who have all survived by travelling between genre lines and becoming action heroes instead of tragic heroes.

And why is Dean now the possessive and grabby one when he was possessed and grabbed? Or is he still the one who did the grabbing? He CAN'T be Just Michael for all this time, but what's the secret Michael has set up? We can't know it yet but there must be clues, and more we'll work out when we know and can look back on these episodes with hindsight...

But Dean also was presumably the one to come up with the ploy so is it HIS play, and we're getting the boy king (v.2) conscience caught here?

"Why don't you back off kid?"

"You back off... Old man" Jack suddenly sounds threatening enough that Dean recoils, having never been on that end of Jack's terrifying switch Alex can make to being a truly frightening presence, at least not when Jack wasn't naked and lashing out dumbly because he was literally hours old. Jack's never threatened Dean with intent because why would he.

Dean's caught off guard and makes a genuinely "uh" noise in his throat while recovering from the threat, but it impresses Harper so I suppose that's what matters.

Dean vs Jack is very much the Dean and John version of this whole thing, except Dean tried to launch himself to Mars rather than parent Jack and give him the same experience... While accidentally doing stuff like handing Jack a shovel and dismissively telling him to dig which had the exact same effect of being raised as he was. Because like it or not, by 13x02, Jack was mimicking Dean and idolised him a little all along. And now of course, with Daniel laying into Bobby and probably a bunch of other stuff I can't recall mid sentence, we're deep into confronting father figure territory, with John's ghost looming over them all.

"This isn't over" after a moment of comical blustering, the squint Dean gives Jack is almost imperceptible but there's a bit of confusion/curiosity there about just where Jack's assertiveness came from, because DEAN didn't teach him to disrespect authority like that (he totally got it from you Dean). The warning is of course nice and meta in the sense that this staged conflict probably is over, but the Dean vs Jack stuff is only just kicking off.

Jack... Smith.

Aw hon.

Still no surname then? Not Kline or Winchester or... whatever Cas's surname is.

"Dean what do you mean you don't know Jack's surname? It's the same as mine!" Dean stares blankly at Cas. Cas squints at Dean. Dean slowly, slowly, sinks to the floor and crab-walks backwards out of the room.

Anyway awwwwwww romance hero Jack! You play those genres! Find the one where you don't have to be consumptive and murderous!

Aha, Stapler Guy is probably called Miles, since Dean is getting perfect audio on this conversation from the car.

Jack is the politest nougat ever, and wants to shake hands with everyone. SOMEONE raised him right. Probably Kelly. I can't even begin to imagine where else he gets it so it must be an instinct she hammered into him from the womb.

Anyway as soon as another guy leaves to get coffee with Harper, Miles comes shooting out of the library to ask what's up, so he's looking more and more like the monster. Grabbiness as the motw!

Oooh she's taking Jack to her apartment to get him a book. Oh dear, Jack, this is what Dean did in 9x08.

Be careful, sweetie. No one's given you the Talk yet D:

"You don't even know this guy!" "Miles, stop it!"

Yeah, staples guy is definitely my no.1 suspect.

Oh.

Is staples guy about to be eaten?

Whoops, me and Dean both made the wrong call there. And I was just about to tell Dean he should have been following him in case he was the monster, which would have at least saved him.

Apparently just crushing on Harper is dangerous enough. Though Staples Guy crushed hard enough to be a threat. Which means, I would guess, that the MotW feeds on toxic masculinity.

Oh my GOD Sam is still stuck in the truck with AUCharlie.

"Who wants to be a hunter? Just a lot of tears and death." Yeah, our Charlie got into it with only personal sacrifice of broken arms in exchange for a bunch of thrill-seeking adventure. Until she died, of course. AUCharlie is what you get when Charlie has a tragic backstory involving monsters. I think she must still be hunting for the same principle Charlie had on our first meeting, of what sort of douchebag doesn't help when monsters are eating people in your very building you work... But at the same time, AUCharlie has none of the sunshine, because it was already all taken from her, and she never started hunting to save people, only to fight angels and survive. I suppose the only difference in this world is that now there's no angels to fight, she's outcast from society by default and has ended up with the same asocial vigilante skills from guerrilla warfare as hunters use day by day for their less world ends stakes job.

Sam says "you" and then corrects to "our Charlie" - I can't remember exactly when this was but I think it was 10x18, after Charlie had been through enough that she was starting to lose the shine and Robbie knew he was writing a Charlie who was about to be chewed up and devoured by the story. By Sam's man pain in the story.

This is a baton that Yockey is having to take very seriously and carefully, because of course AUCharlie is so different but the meta perspective on bringing her back is very much about replacement and loss of a fave and facing what the story did to Charlie and for what stakes, vs what was she brought back for and can just shoving a new different Charlie into the story actually make up for doing what they did to her.

"So glad this is my last case" aw no she's retiring to the beach. Has she just been working with them while she gets enough resources to start over?

She's going "away" - from monsters and people. Go live on a mountaintop or something. Again, this is more about the trauma she's been through and how she copes, and what she needs to do to settle herself.

(PS: I will weep openly if the last shot of this is Charlie outside a cupcake shop)

I don't think this means she's necessarily out of the story or that through this van conversation bottle episode, Sam might not convince her to at least just take a break like Mobby are doing, but she's clearly there in the collection with them and Dean of people who have been so badly hurt that they need to retreat from the hunting frontlines. Dean NEEDED to watch 2 weeks worth of horror movies and take it easy. He's not exactly describing himself as really ready for action now either. Charlie may end up a mirror that's a fair bit darker, because while AUBobby is full of grief and self-destruction, it's open and explosive, while she's cold and retreating and surrounded by people who see the wrong person when they look at her - the bubbly fun Charlie we used to know. In the same way, if Dean has changed, people look at him and see the Dean THEY used to know and expect things of him he's sometimes not ready to offer. He made a big step in letting Sam take charge of the operation, in the sense of acknowledging himself under Sam's direction.

It's interesting now that both AUBobby and Charlie lost romantic loved ones, when we saw Dean change so dramatically in season 13 without Cas and that being the beginning of Sam's tentative need to take control and start to be right about his hunches like nurturing Jack. The swap in the roles and Sam struggling to understand Dean, and in 13x05 - the Yockey episode - failing so desperately to help Dean on his chosen cheer up hunt compared to acing it the same time next year.

LOL Harper's house has "AMOUR" and a huge love heart on the wall. This poor romantic sap. I'm so sorry a monster is eating all your prospective boyfriends.

She has stuffed toys on her bed and so many shelves of books. I love her. She's the best. Protect her, please, Jack.

His "??" over the "moves" also is a great way to make her way more the flustered one, because Jack could be way more awkward with inexperience except he's literally transcended it, as Cas often does, back out the other side of obliviousness :')

He leaps into action to prepare to test her for monstery things :') He's been trained well!!

On the other hand it does look like he now has REALLLLLLLY sweaty hands after covering them in holy water.

Oh christ, Jack, this is why we don't do Christo any more. Also. You shouldn't be aggravating your cough. You could really set yourself off.

"I'm just nervous"

Harper goes through the correct range of emotions for how adorable Jack is.

Charlie's "I got something" is layered over Jack being invited to sit with her - both of them just got a break on the case, though for Jack it is being prey for the boyfriend eater, and Charlie has read enough books.

Muscas look horrifying. I love the 17th century illustration of one.

Awww AUCharlie calling him a nerd. Those awful flashes of her being the Charlie they once knew.

LOLLLLL the Musca has a "bad egg" who FAILS TO FIND A MATE and goes bad, and starts killing people to nest. So we're really roasting beta males who fall into the woe is me victimisation trap of incels and would rather kill people (literally, unfortunately, in some cases) than address their own issues, get help, and find some peace and probably, honestly, a girlfriend as soon as they stop behaving like that and learn to see women as people, not mating-prey >.>

Why do I feel like whatever has latched onto Harper is going to have a suspiciously similar motivation where it's picking off men in order to leave her single...

Not that I have the best judgement on her case, but it's B L A T A N T L Y about courting.

And these guys are courting her - lots of innocent courtly gestures like dinner dates, protecting her nobly with a stapler, fighting off the nasty FBI man... She's their damsel.

"Our perp might just be a giant fly with low self-esteem" Don't sugar coat it Sam.

Is this episode "wow look at this hetero bullshit by Steve Yockey"

AHAHAH THE GIANT FLY IS MANSPREADING AT THE BUS SHELTER

It also has ribbons at the front of its cloak. The design is both modern with the suit and boots, but with enough of that old 17th century twist to give it a nice spooky old fashioned uncanniness. it's not of this time, place, world, etc...

Awww Harper has a halo with the lamp!

Oh Jack no, I told you not to aggravate the cough.

Vance... probable monster. (I say that a lot but we’re past the elimination round)

She didn't want to leave town... we could see the world in books!

You are also adorable and not quite of this town or modern world. Her "sappiness" does make her a weirdly good match for Jack, though, just because of the pure-heartedness they exude.

Jack can not IMAGINE someone leaving Harper behind.

"That was the beginning of my bad luck" Fancy that.

Also you still keep a photo of your ex in your apartment.

That’s weird, hon.

Oh dear, now Jack's opening up. "I try to stay optimistic." "Me too."

Awww sweetie. for all the bad that's happened he keeps on powering through, because sometimes that can be powered by optimism for a happy ending

Unfortunately, we're in irony town where the grimmer you are about your fate the more chance you have of surviving just to spite that. And, you know, vice versa, it gives you consumption just to make it harder... like, how much can we throw at this kid before he stops?

"Do you believe in love in first sight?" "Harper..... do you mind if I use your bathroom?"

Unlike 9x08, Jack is rather less distracted by being adorably hit on by the sweetest romantic. Time to flee.

Dean has been standing awkwardly at the corpse this entire time.

The bathroom has dragonflies all over it which I assume are interesting symbolically in a way which relates to her love struggles. Also the other side of the story's bug struggles.

"Harper is not a monster. And i'm 99% sure she's in love with me."

"She was looking at me with these googly eyes"

This is like, warning for next time Cas and Dean are in the same room because you SAW them last time

Next time, you will be prepared.

Dean is convinced she couldn't be in love with him so instantly. What do YOU know about love, Dean?

"But if she is I need to know everything about sex. Go:"

Kid, there isn't time in the world to tell you everything Dean knows about sex. Also, are you really going to pull a Dean and hook up despite all the deaths in town? ALSO dude, courting. Court her first. You know NOTHING about this or what you're feeling.

Teenagers are the worst.

Ooops Dean just stood around talking and now he's been eaten.

Guess it's time for Jack to SAVE HIM

"You're fine. I'm fine." No you aren't Jack, stop kidding yourself.

Oh good, she's scaling back to saying they should get coffee.

This is sensible and take notes, Jack, but also disregard this offer of a date entirely and go save your dad, you're not in a romance novel.

"I... don't know" this was Jack's stock response when he was younger to encountering new things about himself and deep philosophical questions which he just had not had time to ponder but in the world he had been thrust into, he was being asked to immediately have an opinion on.

I think we ought to file courting and sex under those headings for now :P He will figure it out but not at this breakneck speed, no matter how fast he grew up.

Bam, Dean bursts in on them - is there remotely time for him to have done this fast enough? Is this really Dean? Are we supposed to be doubting who Dean is?

Vance has literally come back from the dead to bother her about having new boyfriends. Great.

Oh, okay, this looks pretty cut and dry that it's a zombie now he's in the room :P

he looks like Archie Andrews. Is this the crossover we've been waiting for?

"Archie! Hey!"

oops.

*puts another penny in the "quoted Dean before he said the line" jar*

I can't believe Dean watches Riverdale.

I mean, yeah he grew up reading the comics, but you know it's on his netflix queue.

Stop smashing up Harper's bookshelves! Dean's all "let's dance," still looking waaay too excited to get to wrestle monsters to take his mind off of all his angst.

Why are Sam and Charlie still sitting in the truck instead of following their weirdo fly?

"You can't just quit and go live on a mountain somewhere"

Somehow when he sits in cars with female characters in Yockey episodes he ends up saying a lot of things like this. Bless your heart, you just described my whole life.

"People need people." "We're social animals" Sam is finally starting to realise that maaaybe that bit in 8x10 where he and Dean removed everyone they cared about from their lives and sat gloomily in silence anger-eating chilli in a dank cabin in the backwoods was PERHAPS not the best way to be people.

He's really starting to like having a squad around him... Maybe this is awakening a bit of Sam that he never had except in college when he got to have people around him without too much fear about having to leave them behind because he was so determined to stick to his new life there.

Sam pulls that not only he tried and failed to quit hunting, but our Charlie did too.

"She ain't me!" but you are still cut from the same cloth whether you like it or not.

"It's my life, Sam! not hers and not yours" basically no one else can tell me whether I should be here or not, and it's on my terms if i am or not. Which is very healthy but kind of sad about the commentary on having a Charlie on the show if she's so insistent to escape hunting. Because it killed our Charlie so we should want AUCharlie to be safe. But at the same time, bringing her back then sending her off to a mountain... it's a cold comfort that a version of her survived, that they saw her face again before she left in slightly better terms. But what does it bring to the show to have had her back but then to let her go again?

And, on a character level, can Boss Sam wrangle a great asset and potential amazing friend to stay and work with them and be a key part of his hunter squad, or will he have to let her go and fail to achieve some networking people skills.

They have a funny friend potential moment as sam says we don't want to tackle him in case it’s a guy into weird fashion and she's all, don't we?

This hesitation was enough for that poor guy to get grabbed under cover of the bus.

Though perhaps the hesitation was also timed to stop Sam and AUCharlie getting mowed down by a bus and very disappointingly ending both their careers.

Harper stops and demands to know what's happening. Jack throws aside the book that was the ruse, and holds out his hand for trust with open honesty now and she takes it, and he continues to pull her away to protect her. Awwwww.

Has Dean been wrestling in her apartment since it got dark?

How has no one called the cops.

Vance gets a spidey sense tingle that someone is holding Harper's hand, and marches out of the apartment, to Dean's disappointment that he didn't get to smash a chair over his head. Because that was a totally normal amount of enthusiasm for a fight.

Jack is clever, Harper is snarky... aw :P

I can't believe Sam and Charlie can walk after sitting all day.

"Brass nail dipped in sugar water" lol flies are drawn to sugar. More flies with honey than vinegar.

If you creatively mock that up using American beverages I will be horrified that corn syrup counts as sugar. Charlie literally just reminded us of Dick Roman taking advantage of your industry's corn fetish

BUGS

Those who don't learn from history etc

I don't think that's enough fly papers

Sam just sniffed a chloroform rag. Er.

Oh that is disgusting. Why weren't you wearing the orange jacket so we could ritually burn it.

Oooh gross. (pt.2 - Yockey was only warming us up with bug juice)

Harper let the zombie in and now she's kissing him? She better be mind controlled or this is a whole level of weird Jack should not have had to deal with because no one should start the Talk at necrophilia and work backwards from there D:

Oh NO this is going to be the Talk Dean has to give Jack, and to top it off they have a jealous boyfriend stalking roleplay kink, AND she threw in a bunch of other things for Jack to ask questions about >.>

Told you she was a witch. It was the Sabrina-like collar that gave it away.

Who knew my dorkiest joke about my suspicions was the most accurate.

She's even wearing a red jacket, just like Sabrina has her signature red coats.

This is a CW cross-promotion episode.

"It's first love, Jack. The best kind. Without baggage or compromise. I mean. I did have to kill him to keep him here after college..."

She's a Mary mirror. This is Mary and young!John. Oh god. Azazel's deal is her raising the dead, and sharing a gross kiss to boot... And Harper is from a long line of necromancers and Mary was from a long line of hunters, the last of them...

Of course, Mary has all that baggage from her first love but has moved on and is now having a happy vacation with Bobby but I don't think it's symbolically unimportant that that was literally last episode and now we're seeing first loves with an undead boyfriend, that Harper couldn't let slip out of her hands so she did the most toxic thing to bring him back. It's very much like the Plum sisters being the zombie-raising parallels to Sam and Dean and their need to bring Mary back come what may - which of course after Jack's vision in 13x09 made Dean threaten Kaia in the first place

Can't spell Necromancer without "Romance"

I love the hiding from the zombie chase going on here. Vance is dumb as a box of rocks and we’re getting lots of new gifs of Jack being “sneaky”

Ahaha she has a romance novel called "Lances and Laces" (i think?)

Awww Jack is doing a Ruse again, playing dumb for her. "I thought we fell in love at first sight!"

Awwwwww he's proposing to her. The allure of un-undead love.

"But I tried to kill you!" "Every relationship has its stuff, right?"

pffffffffffffffft

You aren't officially in love on this show UNTIL you try and kill each other

Ow, Jack. That's going to shake some bloody phlegm loose.

FATHER SON TEAMWORK SAVES THE DAY

Lol, Vance got ditched as soon as it was awkward to have a zombie boyfriend

Sam is seriously using the fly as a parallel to Charlie being a loner. I wonder what you could put in front of him that he WOULDN'T be able to twist into a moral. He really is the camp leader :P

Awww the gross bug thing's people came for it

Sam I can not hear a word of your motivating speech over these terrifying things and their nightmare aesthetic taking home one of their own who strayed from the swarm to swooping music.

AUCharlie relents enough to have a door open... Yeah, she did also get knocked out when trying to hunt on her own and though she wanted to retire, well...

I can't believe Yockey metaphorically compared the hunter community to the fly swarm. Like, Charlie was all blurr the metaphor has holes but they had no idea the bugs looked after their own like that D: Dramatic irony again - this time against Charlie to make her more right than she knew that she has people who would care for her.

Oh NO, Jack has left an impression on Harper... Oh dear oh dear oh dear. You can NOT have a necromancer long distance girlfriend.

Even though she's in a different diner there's still a cock in the window.

"I'm sorry I have to kill you!" heee she's so cute. In a very twisted way, I still like her even though the necromancy thing is gross, and Jack should steer WAY clear.

But awwwwwwwww.

"And that's love."

Dean saying it can get crazier than that... Dude, just give him the talk, I'll turn off the last 2 minutes of the episode. You clearly need to. Or at the very least start the ball rolling on suggesting Sam do it, Sam asks Cas if he’d want to, Cas comes and asks you for help to do it and you end up being the one to try after all.

I LOVE Jack hanging with Dean, with his too-sweet coffee, angling to make Dean let him come on hunts more because he was right.

I think Dean just pointed out neither of them are ready to be hunters if they can't cope with the mistakes they make without feeling super guilty, since they had the guilt Olympics at the beginning.

Oh Jack, no.

OH NO HIS NOSE IS BLEEDING

Down he goes!

This is what happens when you meddle in genres you don't belong.

Tragedy comes back and kicks you in the face.

Dean on his knees by Jack yelling his name: same. D:

#14x06 #season 14 spoilers #my stuff

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theycallmebeccawrites · 5 years

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Chris & Ellie Series: Episode 8

With Tumblr holding my original writing blog @beccaheartschrisevans captive (aka flagged as explicit), I have made a secondary writing blog and may end up closing the other all together. In the meantime, I am reposting all of my stories on my new blog.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Ellie Spencer (OFC)

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: language

Episode Summary: This episode takes place in August 2013 and features Ellie, Chris, Scott and one of Scott’s friends going to the Dodger’s game vs the Red Sox.

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

The Chris and Ellie series is primarily chronological. It begins with a flash forward to 2016 and has a few other scenes in the future. However, the majority of their story is told in chronological order starting in 2013 and going through 2017. Each episode starts with a date to help you place it within the story.

The Chris & Ellie Series Masterlist | Chris & Ellie Masterlist

Episode 7.5

Episode 8: A Day at the Ball Park

August 25, 2013

Chris and Ellie were in the kitchen eating lunch when they heard Scott thundering down the stairs at top speed. They both looked up as at the younger Evans brother came skidding into the kitchen.

"Chris, your role as Ellie's favorite Evans' brother is about to be overtaken!" Scott declared with a grin on his face.

"I'm her favorite?" Chris responded as the same time Ellie said, "I have a favorite Evans' brother?"

"Yes and it was Chris," Scott said, waving off their comments. "But today, I'm the favorite, because I got us three tickets to the Red Sox game today against the Dodgers!"

"You are my favorite," Ellie declared with a laugh.

"Told you," Scott smirked.

"How'd you get tickets?" Chris asked his brother.

"My friend James was supposed to go with some friends, but they backed out at the last minute," Scott explained. "He remembered I'm from Boston and asked if I wanted to go and if I knew anyone else who'd want to go. I told him about you two and now we're going to see the Red Sox, bitches!"

---

Two hours later, they took a cab to Dodger Stadium and waited for Scott's friend James to show up. Chris and Ellie found a quiet, shaded area in hopes of not attracting attention, while Scott went to the spot he and James had arranged to meet.

Ellie was the first to spot Scott returning with his polo and golf shorts wearing friend. The closer they got, the more she liked what she saw of his tall, golden-skinned friend. His hair was cut short and spiky, but there was a surfer edge to the otherwise preppy looking male. She found he was even cuter when he was standing right in front of her and he had a charming smile, too.

"James, I'd like you to meet my brother Chris," Scott said, making introductions. "And our friend Ellie."

"Nice to meet you," James said shaking both of their hands. "Obviously, I missed the Red Sox hat memo." He let out a melodic laugh. "But maybe I'll buy a Dodger hat inside, just to spice things up a bit."

"We should go into the park," Chris said in a monotone voice.

"Great idea," James nodded. "We'll want to get drinks and food before we take our seats." He handed them their tickets and they headed for the gates.

With James and Chris walking in front of them, Ellie nudged Scott. "He's a good looking guy," she whispered.

"He is," Scott agreed with a sigh. "Sadly, he likes your type and not mine."

"His loss," Ellie replied as she slipped her arm through Scott's. "You're the greatest."

They stood in line to get into the ballpark and then Chris headed down to their seats while the other three went to get food and drinks, Scott and Ellie promising to grab stuff for him.

Chris kept his head down as he waited for the others to arrive and he was slightly disgruntled to hear Ellie laughing as she, Scott and James got to their row. They took their seats according to the seat number on their tickets which meant that Ellie sat between him and James while Scott sat on Chris's other side.

"They've been laughing since we got in line," Scott whispered to Chris as he settled into his aisle seat. "It's adorable."

Chris grunted in response then took a long drag of his beer. Then he turned his attention to his hot dog while he tried to tune out Ellie and James' voices. There was something about the guy that he didn't like, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

The game started after the singing of the national anthem and the ceremonial first pitch.

"GO ELLSBURY!" Ellie yelled as her fellow Oregonian stepped up to the plate. It was followed a few moments later with a "Damnit!" when he struck out.

"You like baseball?" James asked Ellie.

"I love it," Ellie replied and then cheered loudly as Victorino hit a double.

"She loves football, too," Chris offered. "She's a big sports fan."

"I am," Ellie agreed. "COME ON PEDORIA!"

"That's cool," James said. "I -"

"YES! SAFE!" Ellie, Chris and Scott cheered as Pedoria was called safe at first.

"I don't follow many sports," James continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "I prefer to surf."

The other three cheered again as the Red Sox scored the first run of the game after a hit from Napoli.

It took James a couple more interrupted attempts to realize that he had to wait until between batters to talk to Ellie without her being distracted. As soon as the top of the inning ended, he had her laughing again.

"I can't believe how well they're hitting it off," Scott whispered to him. "I love hearing her laugh like that."

"She laughs with us that way," Chris muttered. He wouldn't admit that he'd much rather be back at the house sitting on the couch next to Ellie watching the game. He heard Ellie let out a snort of laughter and frowned. "I'm going to the bathroom."

The bathroom trip took longer than he'd planned after he stopped to buy a beer and then met a dozen or so fans. It was only thanks to a security guard that he got away from the fans and made his way back to their seats.

His spirits were lifted when he saw Ellie and Scott both standing up as if looking for him. He gave a slight wave and saw relief spread across their faces.

"We weren't sure what had happened to you," Ellie said as he sat down.

"I got spotted," Chris replied with a shrug. "What did I miss?"

"The entire third and fourth innings," Ellie replied. "We're up 3 to 1."

A shout went up around them and Ellie turned to see the guy in front of them jumping in the air with his beer in one hand as he tried to grab the foul ball that had come their way.

Ellie squealed as warm, sticky beer rained down on her. The brim of her hat kept the liquid from hitting her in the face but it created a waterfall effect that made the liquid cascade down onto her shirt.

"Oh my god," the guy said as he realized what had happened. "I am so -"

"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" James shouted interrupting the guy. He too had gotten hit by the beer, but nothing like the dousing that Ellie had gotten. "YOU FUCKING RUINED MY $500 LOAFERS, YOU COMPLETE CU-"

"JAMES!" Ellie exclaimed over his vulgar word choice.

"I HOPE YOU HAVE YOUR GOD DAMN CHECKBOOK," James continued his rant at the fan in front of them.

The rant continued until a security guard arrived to intervene. They took in the situation and then told James to grab his stuff so he could be escorted from the premises. The fans around them cheered as James continued to rant and rave as three security guards led him up the stairs to the main concourse.

"Scott, I'm sorry, but your friend is a complete douche bag," Ellie said as she tugged on her rapidly drying, sticky clothes. "God, what did I even see in him?" She shuddered. "No wonder I'm freaking single if I'm attracted to assholes like that."

"I had no idea," Scott said, still in shock himself.

"At least you know now," the fan said from in front of them. "I'd feel sorry for ruining your date, but given what just happened, I think I did you a favor."

"It wasn't a date, but I agree!" Ellie laughed. "And honestly, it's ok, it's baseball. I'm just surprised I'm not covered in crackerjacks, too."

"You should probably go try and clean up," Chris told her. He kept his face somber even though he felt like tap dancing inside. "Use the credit card I gave you to buy yourself a new shirt."

"Are you sure?" Ellie asked him.

"Absolutely," Chris nodded.

"Thanks Chris," Ellie smiled. She scrunched up her face as she stood up. "God, I feel disgusting." She inched past them and then headed up the stairs.

Chris fought back a smile as he brought his beer to his lips and took a sip.

"Are you smiling right now?" his brother asked.

Chris lowered his beer and shrugged.

Scott shook his head while smiling to himself in his head.

Ellie returned fifteen minutes later looking more comfortable in a hot pink Dodger's shirt.

"They didn't have anything Red Sox," she explained to the brothers at their shocked faces. She pulled out some Wet Ones and quickly wiped down her seat to get the beer off of it before she sat back down. "So what did I miss?"

"We scored twice," Chris told her.

"Excellent," Ellie smiled at him. "Ok, next time the beer guy comes, I so need one."

They had a couple more beers each as the late afternoon became evening.

When the top of the eighth ended, Ellie leaned back in her seat and sighed. "I want to go to Fenway someday," she said. "I loved 'Sweet Carolina' long before I was a Red Sox fan, but I want to be in the stands and single along with everyone."

"We'll get you out there someday," Chris promised her. "And you know Ma won't let you stay anywhere but with her."

"That would be awesome," Ellie said with a smile.

The game ended an inning and a half later with the Red Sox winning 8 to 1. They stayed in their seats for a while to let everyone else rush out of the ball park before they made their way out of the stadium.

Knowing that it would take them forever to get a cab after the game, Chris had arranged for a car to pick them up. It took them a few minutes to find it, but they were inside and on the way home in no time.

"You guys are the best," Ellie yawned as she leaned back in her seat. "Gah, it feels so much later than 8:30."

"It's the sun," Chris said. "It takes a lot out of you. You can rest your head on my shoulder, if you'd like."

"Thanks," Ellie smiled. She nestled up against his side and laid her head on his shoulder. "You smell way better than that jackass did. He smelled like he bathed in his cologne, but I like the way you put yours on. I can smell only smell it now that I'm super close to you."

"How many beers did you have today, Ellie?" Scott chuckled.

Ellie opened her eyes and stared at him in horror. "Oh my god, please tell me I did not just say all that out loud."

"You did," Chris told her. "But I've sniffed you before, so I guess we're even."

"Wait, you've what?" Scott asked.

"Nothing," Chris and Ellie said together.

"You had to be there," Chris told his brother. He yawned. "I think Ellie has the right idea though, I'm exhausted."

Scott watched as his brother closed his eyes and Ellie followed suit. He took his phone out of his pocket and sent Isabelle a text with a 'thumbs up' emoji.

Episode 9

Want to find me off tumblr? I’m @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3.

My tag list is always open, just let me know if you’d like to be added!

#chris evans #theycallmebecca #beccaheartschrisevans #theycallmebeccawrites #chris evans fanfic #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fan fiction #chris and ellie series #chris and ellie #chris evans x ofc #chris evans x original female character

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mikunology · 7 years

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Mikunology File #5: Hatsune Miku

So here I am again, finally. Time for some more info dumping, but this time for a single character instead of an aspect of the verse or story.

Since Miku’s birthday recently passed, and I haven’t really done much to expand on some characters, I thought I’d make a Mikunology file based solely on a character and decided to start with our wonderful blue-green-haired protagonist.

This is a VERY LONG ONE, so if you’re interested enough to read to the end let me just say that I am virtually sending you a hug. Info under the cut.

So, as mentioned, Hatsune Miku (codename CV01) is the humble protagonist of the story of Vocal Android, as well as the instigator of the entire plot from her coming into existence. First in the line of Crypton Laboratories’ Character Vocal Series and supposedly the first fully functional completely humanlike android in existence (spoiler alert: she isn’t, but that’s a story for another day), within the world she lives in she’s a pretty hecking big deal. Naturally, this ends up causing her equal parts harm and good, giving her friends, fame, and recognition all over the planet but also bringing her into the sight of some messed-up, incredibly corrupt people who are quite interested in either her destruction or her exploitation.

Personality/Portrayal

I’ve discussed how I see Miku’s personality before, but I feel now if the perfect time to go further into depth on it.

Here, Hatsune Miku is a cheerful, friendly and perpetually nice girl with a heart for music and a strong sense of justice. Miku is as sweet as she appears, and is often concerned with the wellbeing of everyone, whether it be friends, family, or fans. Miku loves nothing more than to make people happy with her singing, and considers it an act that fulfills her purpose best as a Vocaloid. She can get along with virtually anyone, and can spare a spot of sympathy for just about everyone (at least, most of the time). That said, Miku is also known for being a bit on the silly side--as nice as she is, she can be very clueless and slow on the uptake compared to everyone else. She always tries her best to understand, though.

Even with her friendliness however, Miku is sometimes rather stressed by the world around her. Having to juggle a career as a pop idol, a big sister to her fellow Vocaloids, a life as a high school student, and a responsibility as a superheroine, she tends to be overwhelmed by circumstances when things get rough (enough that you could call her neurotic sometimes). This stress can occasionally make her afraid to make mistakes, and thus cause her to run away or avoid problems to support her own mentality. She also can have a rather explosive temper because of her constantly bottling her feelings up. But, she still has a large drive to do well and be efficient to serve her purpose (making others happy) and will stop at nothing to achieve what needs to be done when she puts her mind to it. She just needs a little incentive, that's all.

And lastly, Miku is known for her loyalty to her friends and her world. Even with her own anxieties, she makes her best effort to put others before herself and dreads the idea of anyone coming to harm because of her. She loves to give encouragement to her fans and fellow Vocaloids, and strives to use her own abilities to keep the world at peace. In all reality, all Miku desires is to bring an even brighter future.

Abilities

Gotta talk about this, right? Now truthfully, this list may change in the future, because this plotline is constantly developing and new ideas are always coming to me. But as of current, this are her current list of basic abilities.

Her singing voice. Obviously, Miku’s greatest ability is the power of her own voice. Being created to sing, Miku was granted the ability to do more with her voice beyond what an average human can do. This includes amplifying or quieting it, manipulating her tone of voice, throwing her voice, or pitching it up or down. After acquiring her Append, V3, V4, English, and eventually Chinese voicebanks, she can also switch between voices or languages at any time. Her ability to sing loudly has been perfect for concerts, but can also constitute as a weapon. Later on, she can power herself up with the strength of her music.

Flight. Miku is also able to fly, and can do so at decently fast speeds. I like to think that she probably started out with your standard “rocket boots”, if you will, but upon her upgrades from V3 and V4 she switched to anti-gravity. Despite being rather clumsy with it at the start, Miku is pretty swift and acrobatic when it comes to flying--it probably helps that her twintails can provide wind resistance.

Durability. Miku is incredibly durable, much more so than your normal person. Since she is a robot, and isn’t made out of bones or flesh, she is more than capable of taking a hit and usually requires quite a lot to so much as truly render her out of commission. She is NOT bulletproof or completely invulnerable, however, but as long as she’s capable of moving around it’s quite hard to do her in. Also, if she DOES get considerably injured, it’s perfectly possible to fix her up again. (Note: Just to say, though, while Vocal Android can get cartoony at times, these characters do NOT follow “easily detachable robot parts”.)

Learning capability and musical knowledge. Her brain is computerized, so it doesn’t take long at all for Miku to learn something; this especially applies to her knowledge in music and dance. If someone shows her how to do something, it usually takes very minimal tries for her to get it down. This often comes in handy for learning songs, playing instruments, or dance routines, and has also helped her in copying abilities. However, while she is a fast learner, whether she actually UNDERSTANDS the material she’s learning is a different story.

Download. Miku is also capable of downloading her consciousness or data within her into a computer. While downloaded, she can also take form as a program or virtual entity on the computer and can act within cyberspace as she pleases. Additionally, as a precaution, she actually regularly backs her memories and personality into a separate computer in case her physical self were to come to harm.

Module usage. Thanks to a strange incident, Miku is also one of the few capable of using Modules, special “power-ups” of sorts that can change her appearance and give her special powers. Module powers vary greatly and can often be wild cards, and each one has a specific time limit based on how powerful they are, but they always help her in a cinch.

Equipment

Of course, Miku also has various equipment to help her on her various escapades. Once again, this list is open to change.

Her arm sleeves. Miku’s most common equipment. Not only are they a vital part of her trademark outfit, but Miku’s sleeves are embedded with computers that organize her data and allow her to access songs, information, video-call, and switch voices. Her system menu can also be accessed via her sleeves and she can be shut down or switched on with them.

Headphones. Then there’s Miku’s headphones. While of course they can function as regular headphones and often do, they also function as a another “off/on” button, and also can allow Miku to call or receive calls from her teammates or from the facility.

Leek and Leek Gun. Unsurprisingly, Miku always has a leek on her, either for snacking or for a good comical smacking (although she can do some real smacking, too). Also, courtesy of Gumi, she was given the Leek Gun, a dual-fire mini-launcher that looks like a leek. She doesn’t always use it but to say she’s fond of it is an understatement.

Megaphone. Insert “Love is War” reference here. Miku also commonly uses megaphones, as a way to amplify herself further and sometimes as way to direct her voice more properly. Before anyone asks, however, she has used a gun similar to Megaphone Gun from Ultra Despair Girls once.

Microphone. And of course, a singer like Miku always needs a microphone. Aesthetically, she prefers the ones that come with stands, never mind that they tend to make good staves.

Bonus Headcanons

Random extra stuff since I don’t know what else to put here!

Miku likes to cook, but tends not to be very good at it due to her innate ability to be easily distracted.

While she can play a multitude of instruments, she has a particular affinity for the guitar, synthesizer, and bass.

She loves video games, particularly the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

She doesn’t have a favorite song necessarily, but Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru has a place in her heart for being one of her earliest hits.

She likes sports, but is an utter klutz when she tries to play them. She's good at cheerleading, though!

Contrary to what some may think, she actually is pretty comfortable with her robotic existence. To say she doesn’t ever wonder what it would be like to be human would be a lie, but she doesn’t at all mind what she is. As long as she’s treated with respect, she’s cool.

She’s secretly the biggest freaking nerd ever

Inspiration Songs

Songs I used as a basis for my portrayal of Miku are: “39 Music!”, “Anger”, “Innocence”, “Miku”, “Mikunologie”, “SING&SMILE”, “Unfragment”, “Yellow”, “Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru”, “News 39″, “Koisuru Vocaloid”, “My Time”, and “The Bounce from Zero to Infinity”. For those curious, of course.

#mikunology files #my headcanons #hatsune miku #i probably left stuff out but yknow what i can always edit this #so screw it #i apologize for the length of this i put too much energy into this i swear

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holdenmgrudges · 7 years

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Chapter 3 - Helpsies

I know, I’m a couple of days late. I’ve been busy. And I had a bit of trouble writing this for a few reasons. The first was coming up with a reason for Crutchie’s messed up leg. I know he’s canonically supposed to have polio, but since it was pretty much eradicated in the US back in the 90s, I felt that it wouldn’t be a good enough reason. So the reason I came up with is a bit simpler than that, and it opens up a plot point I might use in the future. Second, was coming up with a math problem for the Sprace part of the chapter. I’ve never taken statistics and probability, but seeing as how the problem I used is a probability problem, I felt it worked. Anyway, here’s chapter 3! Enjoy!

Or read on AO3 if you prefer.

The next day, David couldn’t help but feel he was doing a great job of adjusting to his new school. In PE, the kid Crutchie had called Race, completed his usual lap, but just before overlapping him, slowed down next to David to say, “Hi Davey…” with a smile. And then, “Bye Davey…” as he sped off again. In his English class, Katherine gave him a quick smile before taking a seat and huddling with two other boys. Despite ignoring him for the rest of the class, David was satisfied. It was safe to say joining the LGBTQ+ Club was the best decision he could’ve made.

Lunch came around and after waiting in line for a calzone, he headed to the Little Theatre. Inside, he quickly spotted Jack and Crutchie, sitting at two desks that had been pushed together. He also saw a few other kids he didn’t know playing some trading card game he didn’t know, and a few others either reading or doodling. No one else he’d seen yesterday. Even Miss Medda wasn’t there.

“Hey Davey, grab a desk and sit with us,” Jack said, as David approached him and Crutchie. David did as he was told and Jack moved his desk so the three of them were in a sort of triangle. “We were just talking about what kind of trust exercises we could do for the club.”

“He’s been trying to convince me physical activities, like a trust fall, wouldn’t work,” Crutchie chimed in. He grabbed his crutch and tossed it to David. David held out an arm and was able to catch it right before it hit the floor. He looked a bit startled, but Crutchie laughed. “See, I’m good with the physical stuff. I don’t need the crutch to stand and catch someone.”

David let out a small chuckle as he handed the crutch back. “I’d think a trust fall would be too obvious. But I don’t think we should rule out anything physical.” Crutchie stuck his tongue out at Jack. “If Crutchie says he can handle it, I think we should trust him.”

Crutchie laughed again, saying, “I like you, Davey. You got some great ideas.”

Jack crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Alright then, Davey with the great ideas, what do you suggest?”

“Hmm...lemme think…” David took a bite out of his calzone and then put it back down on the paper plate it had come on. He scanned his brain for ideas as he chewed, thinking about anything he’d ever done at camp or his family reunions.

While David was thinking, Jack took a second to give David a discreet once-over. Crutchie, however, noticed and gave Jack a light kick in the shin with his good leg. David, in turn noticed this and looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out what was happening. Crutchie was giving Jack and accusatory look and Jack was staring at him as if he didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Uh...what’s going on?” David asked, feeling out of the loop. He thought that he could really benefit from a trust exercise right about now.

“I’m just punishing Jack,” Crutchie answered quickly, “for trying to use my disability against me. As if I don’t get that enough from everyone.”

“I’m just very overprotective of you, Crutch,” Jack replied. “Someone’s gotta be.”

“If I fall, I fall. It’s not a deadly stunt.”

“But it’ll hurt like shit…”

“You’re a shit…”

“You’d be the one eating shit…”

“We’ll see who eats shit when we’re doing the trust fall…”

“Not me, ‘cause I’m not doin-”

“What is your disability?” David interrupted. “Like, what happened to your leg?” The other two fell silent and David felt like he’d messed up. He needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.

But then Crutchie smiled. “People don’t usually ask,” he said. “They just see that I have a crutch and move out of my way.”

“Even I didn’t know until his foster mom mentioned it while I was sleeping over,” Jack contributed.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a shit.” Crutchie kicked Jack again before turning back to David. “But to answer your question, I was in an accident. Got hit by a car. I mostly recovered but my leg didn’t. But I’m still alive and other people have it worse. So I don’t let it define me.”

David nodded in understanding. “But you still call yourself Crutchie.”

“I didn’t start that shit,” he responded with a laugh.

Jack covered his face with his hand and mumbled, “Kick me again.” Crutchie did so, but not as hard. “I thought it’d be a cute nickname. Better than ‘Crutch Boy’ or ‘He-Who-Must-Have-The-Crutch.’”

“You could’ve called me by my actual name. But of course, Crutchie stuck. I wear it as a badge of honor. And it makes people wonder if it’s my real name.”

The three laughed and then David asked, “What is your real name?”

Crutchie smirked and shook his head, “That’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own, Davey..”

David nodded and then remembered he was supposed to be thinking of ideas for the club. He continued eating his calzone.

“What about you, Davey? What’s your story?” Jack asked.

David shrugged with a nervous smile. “I don’t know...I’m just Davey.”

“But what makes you special?” This came from Crutchie.

“Oh uh…” Whenever he was asked this question, he always went to his go-to list of interesting David facts. “I can play the piano...I’m a Ravenclaw...but House Lannister...I’m a twin, but not identical-”

“You’re a twin?” the other two boys asked in unison, curious to learn more.

“Yeah, figures that’s the most interesting thing about me,” David replied with a snort.

“That’s not true,” Jack said, as if he knew something about David that he didn’t. “You’re in our LGBTQ+ Club which is interesting on its own.” David nodded in agreement. “Which uh...letter do you belong to?”

David raised an eyebrow in confusion while Crutchie rolled his eyes. “He means, are you gay, bi, trans, queer...plus?”

“Oh,” David responded and then thought for a few seconds. “I guess queer. I know I’m not straight, that’s all I know.”

“Cool,” Jack said with a smile. “I’m a proud bisexual.”

“And I’m straight...up guh-guh-gayyyyy.”

The three laughed again and continued talking until the end of lunch, when David remembered, “Oh, shoot, I forgot we were supposed to be thinking of trust activities for the club.”

“We can brainstorm some more in art class, but…” Jack took out his notebook, wrote something, and ripped the page out, handing it to David. It was a phone number. “You can also text me with ideas.”

“Oh okay, cool,” David replied. The three got up and headed out of the Little Theatre. Before Crutchie could walk off to his class, David called out to him. “Hey, do you wanna...maybe...give me your number too? Wouldn’t wanna keep you out of the loop.”

Crutchie grinned widely and nodded. He wrote his number down on the piece of paper and then they went their separate ways. David smiled. Now he had two friends.

Spot wasn’t bad at math. In fact, he’d been the first kid in his third grade class to learn all his timetables. But he wasn’t in third grade anymore, and he wasn’t learning his timetables. Statistics and probability was much harder than he thought it was going to be. He thought it was all about percentages and fractions, but what he got was so much more confusing than that.

He was in class, scratching at his chin, trying to figure out the problem the class had been given. It didn’t seem hard but as he looked around the class, everyone seemed to have a different answer. But he couldn’t ask for help. He was Spot Conlon. He was never helpless. He looked over the problem again but still didn’t understand how some people were arriving at a different solution than the obvious one.

“You need help there, Spot?” came the friendly voice of Jojo. Jojo was pretty special to Spot because he was another one of the few people that wasn’t afraid of him. Not that Spot had ever threatened to hurt Jojo. The kid was too sweet to ever want to harm. He was funny too, which didn’t hurt. And he was a great teammate to have, cheering people on at not just every match, but every practice as well.

So when Jojo asked him if he needed help, he knew he was in good hands. He trusted Jojo. “Yeah, man. I don’t get it. I mean, the answer’s one-half, right?”

“Actually, it’s two-thirds.” Jojo took a second to double check his paper. “Yeah, two-thirds.”

“But how?” Now that he’d gotten confirmation that his answer was wrong, Spot needed to know how. He wasn’t satisfied with just the answer.

“Uh...I forgot. Hold up.” Jojo turned around to the desk behind him to ask his friend. Spot had seen him before, running around the school track like he was Usain Bolt. He’d been impressed, but didn’t think more about him. Now, he had to because the guy had turned his head to stare at Spot. Jojo turned back to Spot as well, and said, “Race here is gonna show you how you get the right answer.”

Spot waited while Race hesitated. He’d obviously heard about Spot’s reputation. But after a few seconds, he began to talk, trying to explain to Spot why the answer was two-thirds using mathematical terms. Suffice it to say that Spot still wasn’t understanding.

“Okay, so you have three boxes, right?” Race spoke. “And each box has two drawers, right? And each drawer has a coin.”

Maybe it was the way Race was talking to him, or maybe it was the fact that he was fed up with the problem, but Spot was not having it. “Yeah, I’m not stupid. You don’t have to talk down to me like I don’t know what the scenario is. I know what the scenario is.” He ran his fingers through his hair, getting a good grip.

Race went silent and looked down at his piece of paper. He hadn’t meant to offend Spot. In fact, he was aiming for the opposite. Sure, in class he was safe, but who knew what Spot could do to him after school. His only hope was running fast enough, but he didn’t know how fast Spot could run.

Jojo looked back and forth between Race and Spot and then giggled. “Go on, Race. Don’t mind Spot. He’s like this all the time.”

The other two boys made eye contact and Spot nodded. Race straightened up and continued. “Alright, so you pick a box and open up a drawer at random. It has a gold coin inside.”

Spot knew each box was different. One had two gold coins, another had two silver coins, and the last one had one gold and one silver. The question was, what was the probability of the second drawer also having a gold coin?

Race went on. “So you’d think, it could only be one of two options, right? The box you picked can’t be the one with two silver coins, so it must be one of the other two. Which means that the second drawer will either have a gold coin or a silver coin, making the probability of the second coin being gold one-half. Well that’s wrong.”

Spot took a deep breath, making a conscious decision not to bang his fist on his desk. This kid was telling him what he already knew.

“Okay, okay. So let’s start with the first coin instead of going directly to the second one. Out of the six coins, how many are gold?”

Spot glanced at Jojo, who looked like he was enjoying himself. “Three,” Jojo replied, and Spot rolled his eyes.

“Right. So the first coin you pick will be any of those three coins. Which means for the second coin there will be three possibilities.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Spot interrupted. “How?”

Race paused for a second as he thought. He took a pencil and placed it into his mouth, holding it as if it were a cigar. After a few seconds, he took a piece of paper and drew three boxes. In each box he drew two circles and then labeled each of them with either G for gold or S for silver. He then crossed out the box with the two S circles.

“So,” Race started again, pointing to the box with one gold coin and one silver. “If you picked this gold coin, then the second coin would be silver. That’s one possibility.” He then pointed at the first G in the other box. “If you pick this gold coin first, then the second one would be gold. That’s your second possibility.” He moved his finger to the second G in the box. “But let’s say you picked this gold coin first instead. Then your second coin would still be gold, but you’d have a third possibility.”

Spot’s eyebrows raised in understanding.

“Therefore, the probability of your second coin being gold would be two out of three possibilities.”

“Two-thirds,” Spot stated as his lip curled into a smile. He didn’t notice Race perk up at this, but Jojo did.

“That’s right!” Jojo pat Race on the back. “Now I remember. See, Spot, I told you it was two-thirds.”

Spot was too distracted writing down the explanation to say anything. Race gave Jojo a quick smile before going back to his own work.

“Isn’t Race a genius?”

“I wouldn’t call me a genius. You can google the answer and get a better explanation.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t need to ‘cause we have you.”

Spot finally finished and looked up. His smile was gone, but he gave Race a nod of gratitude. Race would’ve been satisfied with that, but then Spot followed through verbally. “Thanks, man.”

Race relaxed a little, realizing Spot wasn’t the bully he’d been led to believe he was. He’d been afraid to talk to him all year long because of the stories he’d heard about him. But now maybe Spot Conlon could be his friend. Or at least someone who wouldn’t beat him up. “Mhm,” he replied, giving Spot a nod right back, and then one to Jojo.

Jojo was all smiles. He lived not only for making friends, but for making his friends become friends with his other friends. He was like a friendship wingman. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he said, “We should start a study group.”

Immediately, Spot and Race looked at Jojo and then at each other. It was really up to Spot to decide. “Yeah, maybe,” he decided. It might as well have been a no. He already had a lot to worry about with wrestling, and he didn’t want to add a whole study group to his list of responsibilities.

The other two nodded and went back to their work. It wasn’t until near the end of class, when their teacher was passing back their latest test results, that they spoke again. Race had gotten an A, as he always did. Jojo got a B, which he was proud of. And Spot got a D, the last grade he wanted. He might as well have gotten an F.

“Alright,” he said, turning to face Jojo and Race. “Let’s start a study group.” Jojo did a little victory fist pump while Race looked up in surprise.

“We can meet at my place,” Jojo said. “I can have snacks ready and all that.”

“Sounds good,” Spot replied. “Text me your address.”

The three made arrangements to meet that weekend, and thus the Stats and Probs Study Group was born.

Sarah had collected as much as she could the night before. Old essays, class assignments, and even some diary entries that she felt were really good pieces of writing. She put them all in a folder, thinking Katherine would take it home and read each piece in her free time.

She was so nervous about what Katherine would think, that she was barely paying attention in her last class. Her usual thoughts about Jack were nowhere to be seen, though he didn’t seem to mind. He seemed giddily distracted.

When Sarah got to the computer lab after school and handed her folder to Katherine, she surprisingly began reading then and there. Skimming, more like. She’d move on to the next piece after a few seconds, giving a few nods of approval and even some quick chuckles at the diary entries. About halfway through the stack, she handed it back.

“You didn’t read everything.”

“I don’t need to. You’re qualified. Some of that stuff was actually pretty good.” Katherine went back to her computer where she was editing an article. “Also, I have more important things to do.”

"What can I do to help?" The day before she'd been shown around and explained most of what they do. Everyone wrote at least one article with at least one picture, though from one of the sample newspapers Sarah had seen, it was clear Katherine wrote most articles. She was also in charge of editing every article. Darcy and Bill helped print out the papers and distribute them every Friday morning, which happened to be the next day. And Mr. Denton looked over everything to make sure it was PG and PC. So far, Sarah didn't have any job in the club, so she was just there to help in any way she could.

"Nothing right now," Katherine responded, brushing her off. "Go see if Darcy and Bill need anything."

Sarah was a little disappointed but she knew the girl didn't need any distractions. Darcy and Bill were sitting together talking with Mr. Denton. As she approached, the teacher saw the folder in her hand and gave her an amused smile. "You know, you didn't actually need to bring in any writing samples. You're in the club no matter what Katherine has to say about it."

"She's just so in charge," Sarah said, putting the folder in her backpack. "She's inspiring. I wanted to impress her."

"And was she impressed?" Denton asked. Darcy and Bill looked at her in anticipation.

"She said some of my stuff was pretty good." The boys nodded as if they'd expected that.

Mr. Denton just smiled. "That's a good sign. Katherine likes to go on rants when she reads bad writing."

"I wonder what she'd say about great writing. If I was pretty good, my brother would probably be amazing."

"You should have him join then," Denton said. "We're always looking for writers."

"I'll ask him, but he's not really the joining type."

Denton soon went back to his desk to do some of his own work and Sarah stayed with the two boys. "So what are we up to right now?"

"Waiting for Katherine to finish editing, basically," answered one of the boys. Sarah didn't think she'd be able to remember which was which, but as she saw that each was wearing similar clothes to what they'd been wearing the day before, she deduced that the one who had just spoken was Darcy. He had on a dress shirt tucked into his khaki pants and his hair was neatly combed. The other boy had on a superhero shirt.

"When she's done," Bill said, "we arrange everything on the template, print out a bunch of copies, and tomorrow morning we release it."

"She lets you arrange the paper?" She would've figured Katherine would be in charge of everything.

Darcy replied, "Mr. Denton felt she had too many responsibilities and we not enough, so we do it now."

"But we still ask Katherine for help with it," Bill whispered. "When Denton's not around."

"Of course," Sarah said, nodding. "So you guys hang out with her outside of the club?"

Darcy shook his head, but Bill nodded. They looked at each other and then Darcy explained. "We have English class with her, but we only ever talk about the paper. If it's not about that, she's not really interested."

"We've never hung out with her outside of school," Bill added.

"Well, except that one time she asked me to walk her home because the Delancey brothers were being creeps. But that was only one time."

"Does she have any friends outside of the paper?" Sarah couldn't imagine anyone being so obsessed with one thing.

Bill responded, "Not sure. At school she spends her free time either writing or interviewing people for articles. I know she wants to be a journalist someday."

Katherine seemed almost as antisocial as David, but Darcy and Bill didn't seem to know anything about her outside of school. And just like that, Sarah's curiosity grew. She was gonna make it her own personal assignment to find out as much as she could about the girl. And if she couldn't find information from other people, she'd go directly to the source. After all, Denton had told her yesterday that she would grow on Katherine.

It didn't take long for Katherine to finish editing. She sent the articles and photos for each to Darcy and Bill and they started copying and pasting all over the news template they used. Sarah was bored out of her mind watching the two boys try to figure out where everything should go. She could see Katherine out of the corner of her eye, just fidgeting, probably wishing she could do it all herself. Mr. Denton seemed to notice it too because he sent her home soon after. Sarah was slightly disappointed with that, but then Mr. Denton came to the three of them and requested for her to take the reigns.

"What?" She knew she was new and didn't want to risk ruining all the hard work that was already put into the paper. She would hate for Katherine to come in the next day and absolutely abhor anything she did.

"Don't worry," Denton replied. "We’ll help you out. I just want to see what you can do. Besides, how else are you going to learn if not by doing?"

She supposed he was right, but she was still nervous about it. Luckily, she had no reason to be.

#newsies #newsies high #newsies fanfic #javid #newsbians #sprace #jackcrutchie #holdenmgrudges #fanfiction #au fanfiction #jack kelly #david jacobs #sarah jacobs #katherine plumber #crutchie morris #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #jojo de la guerra

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