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cosmicoceanfic · 3 years

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2.2k, available on AO3

Dean and Cas jog down the stairs of the Bunker, duffle bags in hand. Sam notices that they seem a little looser in the way they walk, which is a relief. Both Dean and Cas have been holed up in their respective rooms for the past few weeks. It’s good that their trip to bury God’s book for Jack worked out for them.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, guys.” Sam smiles, closing his book and standing. “How was your trip?”

“Went alright.” Dean dumps his duffle bag on a chair. “Cas and I got married. Taught him how to change a tire.”

Sam drops the book. It lands on the ground with a heavy thud. “You what?”

“Taught him how to change a tire,” Dean says, a little slower this time.

“No, not that one, the other- you got married?”

“Yeah.”

“The tire changing exercise was helpful.” Cas drops his duffle bag as well. “Especially since I will be continuing to use my truck.”

Sam can’t tell if they’re actually, legitimately fucking with him or not. “You weren’t even a couple when you left!”

“Then we were,” Cas says. “And then we were married.”

“How long was it between getting together and getting married?”

“Bout, hm.” Dean turns to Cas. “Three days?”

“It was on the third day, yes.”

Sam gapes at them.

“Why?” he manages.

Dean shrugs.

“Mostly we thought it’d be funny,” he says.

Sam doesn’t even have an answer to that.

“Aw, buck up, Sammy,” Dean tells him. “It’s almost like you’re not happy for us.”

There’s a slight apprehensive edge to his tone that snaps Sam out of his reverie. “Of course I’m-“ he moves around the table and hugs Dean, who allows it, and then Cas, who brightly returns it. “Congratulations, guys. Long time coming, I guess.”

“Thanks, man.” Dean claps his hands together, which Sam sees now has a faint glint of gold to it. “I’m hungry. Cas, you hungry?”

“I am almost always hungry.”

“Part and parcel of being human, buddy.” Dean gives him a clap on the shoulder. “C’mon. I’ll make us sandwiches.”

Sam watches, still feeling somewhat bewildered, happiness for them somewhere rolling around in that haze, as the two head out of the room, linking hands as they turn towards the hallway.

This isn’t the whole truth, naturally.

This is the reality:

For three weeks, Cas and Dean had hardly spoken, too uncomfortable, too awkward, until Jack had asked them for help, and if there was anything they could not ignore, it was their son coming to him when he needed them.

The trip to bury the book in a remote corner of the country had changed things, softened them, slowly but surely, until after five days, Dean plucked up his courage.

“Cas?” Dean had said as they walked into their motel room for the evening. Cas had looked at him, blinking sleepy eyes, patient.

“I love you,” he’d told him, steeling himself for whatever it was that came next.

“I know,” Cas had answered.

Dean had stared before he could get out “did you just Han Solo me?”

A soft, almost bashful expression crept across Cas’s face, shrugging his shoulders.

Dean gaped.

“Son of a bitch,” he’d said, and lunged in for a kiss.

Three days later, after slow and less slow kisses, linked hands as they drove on back roads, curling up in the same bed, exhausted from the road, Dean left to go get coffee for him and Cas when he stumbled across a pawnshop.

It was a gut decision. The sort you make without thinking through the implications, because it just feels right in the moment, and how could it be anything else later?

It caused more low level panic, however, after the two cheap gold rings had been purchased. He looked down at them in the little plastic baggy they’d given him at the pawnshop.

It’s a lot, he’d thought. It’s a lot, really fast. And he could already picture the look on Sam’s face when they came home, contorted in that specific expression he got when he’s pissy about being confused, the you left for one week and you came back-

Dean closed his fist around the bag before he shoved it in his pocket, stopping by the little donut shop and picking up two coffees and a couple crullers. When he got back to the motel, Cas was in one of his last clean tee shirts and toweling off his hair.

“Got these,” Dean said, putting them on the little piece of furniture the TV rested on. This was a bad idea. He was already acutely aware of what a bad fucking idea this was. His stomach wouldn’t stop clenching. “Little sign in the window says it’s one of the best restaurant in the area according to the newspaper. Course, it could be a really shit newspaper, so-“

“Why are you nervous?” Cas squinted at him as he sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Is there something supernatural in town that requires our attention?”

“No.” Dean had spent his whole goddamn life successfully bluffing his way out of situations and Cas could see he’s nervous at the drop of a pin. “How can you tell I’m nervous?”

He looked almost exasperated. “I know you. I know when you’re nervous.”

He did, didn’t he?

Hell, even if it wasn’t too late to back out now, he wouldn’t want to.

“Don’t freak out,” he said.

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Okay, well.” He sat down on the ground. Kneeling would be… too far. Too much. He was going to have to do this in a way that made sense or he was gonna panic. “Don’t… start freaking out.”

Cas leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he’d said clearly. “And I will not start freaking out.”

Dean got distracted just looking at his face for a few seconds, which had to be in the top ten dumbass Dean Winchester moments, but when Cas’s eyebrows went even further up his forehead he cleared his throat and started fumbling in his pockets.

“Do, uh.” He held out the bag to Cas, who took them with a vaguely baffled expression. “Do you want to wear these?”

Cas stared down at them, bewildered.

“Are these what I’m assuming they are?” he asked slowly.

“Um. I mean, I can’t read your mind, Cas, but-“ Cas gave him a very particular look. “Yes. Yes, those are… what you think they are.”

Cas turned them over in his hands. “Oh.”

“We don’t need to do the whole… shebang. We could just wear them. Unless you wanted to do the whole shebang.”

“I don’t know about ‘shebang’.” Cas did finger quotes while still holding onto the rings and Dean kind of wanted a do over where he did this better just looking at him make them. “It feels like it’s very fast and a long time coming, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, well.” Dean looked down at his hands. “Look, I’m not good at this. You had this whole speech and it was… really good and I’m not. I’m not good at making those speeches. But it’s just… been you, man, it’s been you for a really long time. And it’s the kind of thing where your gut is to say it was always gonna be you, but it wasn’t, right? It wasn’t always gonna be us, Chuck said as much, so that makes it… better, doesn’t it? It makes it better cause we did it ourselves. Even when we didn’t know we were working at it together, we were working at it together. And I’m so glad it was you. Of course I’m so glad it was you. And I want to be doing this with you for as much forever as we get, so. It just… made sense, even though it kinda makes… no sense. I want to do all this with you anyway. The rings, they’re just… they’re just giving it a clearer name than it had before. And if you don’t want that, then it’s fine, because I’ll be here with or without them.”

A heavy silence hung in the air. Dean stared with a little determination at his hands, waiting.

“It was a nice speech,” Cas said, sounding a little choked.

“S’okay.”

“No. It was nice.” Dean finally looked up to see Cas looking a little amused, eyes wet. “Take the compliment, Dean.”

Dean swallowed. “Okay.”

Cas gently turned the bag over in his hand, pulling it up and lightly tipping them out into his palm. He held it out to Dean, who slowly took one of them. They sat there, both holding onto their rings.

“Last chance to take it back,” Cas whispered.

Dean coughed out a bark of laughter. “You first.”

Cas made a similar noise. He quietly slid his ring on at the same time Dean slid on his. He stared at his hand, tilting it this way and that. The gold glinted a little.

“Hey,” he mumbled, unable to keep the slightly giddy grin off his face. “Look at that.”

“Yeah.” A hand slipped into his field of vision as Cas linked theirs together. Dean stares at them, gold against gold. “Look at that.” Cas squeezed it. “Did you ever think someday you’d…”

“No.” Dean swallowed, looking up at him, still grinning. “No, I figured I’d be dead by now.”

Even a joke about his death didn’t seem to be enough to tamp down Cas’s grin. “I’m very glad you’re not.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Not just for this. Dean had a lot of reasons to be grateful to be alive these days, more than he’d ever expected. But this? This was number one right now.

“We can do the shebang if you want.” Cas couldn’t seem to pry his eyes off their joined hands, either. “I don’t… know much of what’s required for such things. But we can do it, if you want.”

“Can we just… see how it goes?” He winced. “I mean, see how it goes like, see how we feel about that, not like, see how this goes, I’m, I’m really clear on how solid I am about-“

“Yes. I know.” Cas stood and pulled Dean up with him. He was about to groan about how fast he pulled him up when Cas lightly tugged him forwards and kissed him, which is about the only thing that would have made Dean let go of his hand. “It’s only wise to take at least some part of this slow.”

He wouldn’t always, he thought. He kinda liked the idea of a big party with all their friends and maybe Sam officiating, even though he’d never stop hearing about it. But everything that had happened had happened in the space of a few days and he just needed… more than that few days to process it.

“Did you want my last name?” Dean had asked.

“Of course I want your last name. I don’t have a last name.” Cas looked thoughtful. “I think we should tell Sam we did it because it was funny.”

Dean kissed him again. “I’m so glad I married you.” It did funny things to his stomach just to say it.

“You didn’t marry me.” Dean rarely got to see Cas’s face like this, split open with a grin so wide his nose scrunches up. “You threw a ring at me.”

“Handed you. I handed you a ring.”

“It felt like throwing.”

“Give it back, you son of a bitch, I’ll do it again-“

“No-“ Cas laughed. “No, don’t you dare. I liked it how it was.”

“What are you giving me shit for, then?”

“You have found,” he said, still smiling wide. “A way for me to say I will give you shit forever.”

Dean swallowed.

“Awesome,” he manages.

“Your coffee’s getting cold and it’s presumably good coffee. Let’s reheat it and get on the road.”

Dean had taken his hand, then, linking their fingers up.

This is back to the present:

Dean and Cas are sitting in the kitchen at the little table. Cas is reading the newspaper while Dean eats his sandwich. Nobody eats faster than Cas, he thinks, not a person in the world, and the thought makes him suddenly, irrationally fond.

“You’re looking at me,” Cas says without looking up from the newspaper.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Just am, I guess.” He gives him what he knows has to be a slightly dopey grin. Cas looks amused and returns his attention to the paper. Dean keeps watching him for another few moments.

“Husband,” he says finally.

“Hm?”

“Husband. That’s you. You’re my husband.”

Cas does look up then with a soft smile. “You’re my husband,” he replies, and kisses him gently. “Would you like to go find a movie to watch?”

“Sure.”

The two of them stand and walk out, hands linked, a quiet joy permeating the air between them, a high key contentment radiating off of them for all to see.

#spn #spn fic #destiel #destiel fic #deancas #deancas fic #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #ocean's fic #my fic #ocean speaks

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deanwasalwaysbi · 3 years

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Thinking About How This Wasn't Actually a Denial

But was it self preservation?

The year was 2013 and rather than a denial, Jensen said "Don't ruin it for everybody now."

What was the fan 'ruining' for everybody? The Con? or something else? So if I was a tinhatter - and sometimes I am - I might think about other tv shows from the past that were covertly queer and how they handled the question, were TV shows 'out'?

Mainstream shows like Bewitched, you know, shows that are so clearly straight, you can tell because... well. ... they never technically used the word 'gay'. ... witches honor

SPN Film Studies is Back in Session! Join Under the Cut for more on supernatural & the story about how Bewitched! came out of the Broom Closet

Bewitched aired from 1964-72, it's so old the first season was in B&W. The show starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, the strange housewife with a stranger secret. Her husband, Darrin, unwittingly married into the whole witchy family, from the now drag icon Agnes Moorehead's Endora with her open marriage, to the unmarried and batty Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne who played the mother in Hitchcock's heavily gay coded 'Strangers on a Train'), to the extremely coded Uncle Arthur (gay actor Paul Lynde). (We can't know for sure, but it seems at least 4 members of the cast were gay themselves.) The core premise of the show involves Samantha balancing who she really is with repressing that self for the safety and comfort of her family.

Samantha and her husband keep her [ahem] 'queer' nature a secret which gets harder on Samantha when she has to tell her daughter to live the same way, “I know what fun it is to be a part of the magical life ... to have so much at your fingertips. But we’re living in a world that’s just not ready for people like us, and I’m afraid they may never be. So you’re going to have to learn when you can use your witchcraft and when you can’t.”

There are plenty of generic 60s wacky hijinks but there are also whole episodes metaphorically about repression being harmful, episodes where characters asked if another was a 'thespian', episodes where Darrin was queercoded while under a spell, episodes about representation & bad stereotyping in media, and even two episodes where witches discussed whether it was time for witches to come out to the mortals, (whether mortals could accept that they were just nice normal people trying to live their lives like everybody else - or not - and would just freak out and kill them again).

When it came time to recast Dick York's Darrin with a new 2nd lead, Elizabeth and her husband, William Asher, knowingly cast the gay Dick Sergeant. (Although he wasn't out publicly at the time.) Then, when Sergeant came out in '91, Montgomery supported him and the two served together as the grand marshals of the Hollywood pride parade.

Dick Sargent expressed in the 90s what he would want in a Bewitched reunion episode: for Darrin to meet another like couple, a witch and a mortal who are married, and another, and another, and end up forming a whole community and support group, finding out that it was never so uncommon after all, that it was actually "about 10% of the population." The two would march in the first mortals and witches pride parade, saying they should have come out years ago.

In '94, Montgomery had this to say about the queer themes of the show, “Don't think that didn't enter our minds at the time. We talked about it on the set, that this was about people not being allowed to be what they really are. If you think about it, Bewitched is about repression in general and all the frustration and trouble it can cause. It was a neat message to get across to people at that time in a subtle way.” (x)

Interviewer: Are you concerned that your involvement in the gay-pride parade will lead people to believe you're a lesbian?

"[Laughing] I'm really not worried about that. There are bigger things to worry about. Like the presidential election and finding a cure for AIDS. I did the parade in support of Dick. I mean, in the end, didn't we all?" (x) (Montgomery was also one of the first celebrity allies to fight for LGBTQ rights and support HIV/AIDS-related fundraisers.)

So did they talk about it at the time? No. You can bet they didn't speak about it publicly. What would have happened if a fan, publicly, had asked Elizabeth, William, or Dick about the show's queer allegory content? This was a time when being gay was a literal felony. They would have had to have lied or risked losing the show, their careers, and possibly subjecting themselves to violence.

Now. back to Jensen and the Schrodinger's long con:

This was in 2013 - The same year that the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a federal ban on gay marriage. You certainly couldn't call homosexuality illegal in the US at that time. It's the same year that Dabb and Sgriccia spoke about the Aaron moment on the DVD and whether there's 'this potential for love in all places' for Dean. Of course Jensen said this about the very same scene: "But it was - you know - it was comedy. It was a comedic moment in the show and fortunately Dean gets a lot of the comedic moments in the show and it was just, you know, Ben was poking fun at the fact that - you know, how can we make this very kind of manly, heterosexual guy uncomfortable - uh -you know, or or have him back on his heels and throw him off his game a little bit.”

I'm reminded of 2012 when Ben Edlund stepped in about a Destiel question at comic con, pretending it was some freaky thing that fans had made up even though he'd already written and directed TMWWBK, which had already aired.

Jensen: “What’s Destiel?” Ben Edlund: That’s some weird shit. Jensen: Is this something that you created, Ben? Ben: You don’t want any part of that.

Or the next year for season 9 when Jensen said “I think the whole Cas and Dean thing has gotten out of hand” “I don’t think there’s anything secret to their relationship even though a lot of people wish there was” EVEN THOUGH- that season we got the nightstands acknowledgement and Misha (or both of them?) was told to “play him like a jilted lover”

Or Jensen's knowing bromance smile in 2015

I think recent events (cough spn gate) have made clear that the network and many viewers were still uncomfortable with CAS being gay in 2020, deleting even familial mentions of Cas from the finale episodes once he was revealed to be not only gay but also in love with Dean. (x) (x) (x) Can you imagine then what Warner Brothers would have said to an acknowledge bisexual Dean Winchester in 2013? Granted, there was no Trump election, but legitimate, could that have been the end of the show? Or the Russian and Conservative US viewership? Is it possible that Jensen would have feared so?

Is it possible that Jensen had a more personal reason for a knee jerk defensive response?

So was Jensen covering in 2013? Well. This happened 5 years later in 2018:

That hostile "? No." came even though Misha confirmed that he and Jensen had discussed Destiel by that point. Granted, discussing Destiel as a concept and accepting Dean being inherently bisexual are two very different things - Cas is GN after all - still, less than encouraging.

I may never get over the jumps back and forth that Jensen did. At this point I think there's no denying that a lot of SPN's queer content was on purpose, even as writers and actors were telling fans and network execs otherwise. Yet when each person involved was brought in? that question haunts me at night. I have gone off before about the timeline in my pursuit of whether Jensen was Ben Hur'd (x) and, if so, for how long. I'm sure many in this fandom have so much to add.

In the meantime we'll just have to cherish this moment from 2019:

Interviewer: 'So, tell us just a little bit about what you’re most excited to tackle with your character this final season.’ Jensen: “Cas. Just like a full football form tackle.”

Bewitched references in SPN:

2.05 - Dean: Well, it looks like he can't work his mojo just by twitching his nose, he's gotta use verbal commands.

2.20 - Dean says Barbara Eden was hotter than Elizabeth Montgomery - sigh - Dean.

7.05 - Dean thinks a husband has no idea his wife is a witch, and refers to him as Darrin. Dean also indicates he likes the first Darrin better. - (I guess I can't make a comment about how much TV Dean watched as a kid if I get all of his references and also haven't saved the world.)

14.03 - Jules refers to the witch as 'Brunhilde' - this is a minor character in bewitched but more so from mythology and likely referred to the cartoon witch from WB cartoons - the stereotypical witch that faced bugs bunny with the green skin and straw hair.

let me know if you have any to add. Stay Witchy ✌

#jensen ackles #jackles long con #dean was always bi #spn film studies #spn queercoding #Spn tinhatting #ben hur treatment #bewitched #queercoding #Caslighting #Spn gaslighting #elizabeth montgomery #dick sargent #paul lynde #original content #Marion Lorne #Marion Lorne was also in a show called the gay adventure in 1932 but i dont have any information on the plot #and to quote misha. it's probably gay like happy #Schrodinger's long con

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cacophony-of-notions · 3 years

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My feelings on a common misconception interpretation of Sam in “Slice Girls”:

TL;DR Sam did not kill Emma as “revenge” and Dean was not ethically inconsistent in his actions with Emma versus Amy.

I have seen many times people claim that Sam killed Emma as “revenge” for Amy. I have seen both his antis and his hardcore stans say this (the latter as a means of “justifying” a decision Sam made that they traditionally wouldn’t stand behind… regardless of the fact that killing a kid to get revenge on his brother would paint him in a far worse light than taking the situation at face-value).

In the same way that Dean killed Amy because he legitimately thought it was the right call, Sam killed Emma because he legitimately thought it was the right call. That’s it. Hate both of their decisions, agree with one but not the other, agree with neither… no matter what, I don’t think wanting “revenge” and taking that out on a child had anything to do with Sam’s actions. There are a few reasons why.

First, looking at the context of the season as a whole, Sam has been worried about Dean’s mental state for most of the season in much the same way that Dean has been worried about his, and accordingly, they didn't trust each other’s judgment fully.

Dean killing Amy was to some extent, about not trusting Sam’s judgement due to his attachment to Amy and the metal state Sam had been in that season. Sam had been hallucinating and had also lied about it. So on top of not being sure if Sam could accurately grasp reality at any given time, him hiding it also made it very difficult for Dean to trust Sam to be honest if he was hallucinating, needed help, or needed to take a step back.

Sam’s decision to kill Emma was, likewise, to some extent, about not trusting Dean’s judgement due to his natural attachment to Emma as a father and Dean’s mental state that season. We see, on several occasions in season 7, Sam noting that Dean is drinking more alcohol than usual (which is saying something). Several times in the season, Sam expresses concern over this, to Bobby as well as to Dean directly. Sam’s lack of confidence in Dean is actually enough that, when Dean begins to notice things moving from where he left them and starts to suspect that Bobby is haunting them, Sam repeatedly and flippantly dismisses his observations and chalks all of it up to Dean drinking too much and grieving too hard and being an unreliable witness.

Second, Sam and Dean came to an understanding about Amy in “The Mentalist”, and Sam ended up saying at the end of the episode that Dean’s actions made sense, and that he was right that Sam’s judgement couldn’t be trusted because he was too close to the situation emotionally.

Season 7’s “The Mentalist” covers the confrontation between Sam and Dean over Amy, and Sam’s decision to work side by side with Dean again. There are two scenes—the initial blow up from Sam and Dean’s rebuttal, and then the resolution at the end of the episode.

First the initial blow up and Dean’s rebuttal:

Dean: We agreed to work the case. We didn’t agree for you to be a dick the whole time.

Sam: What?

Dean: You’re pissed. Okay? And you’ve got a right.

Sam: Yeah, damn straight.

Dean: But enough’s enough.

Sam: Says who? Look, I’ll work this damn case, but you lied to me, and you killed my friend.

Dean: No, I put down a monster who killed four people, and if you didn’t know her, you’d have done the same thing.

Sam: I did know her, Dean.

Dean: Yeah, which is why you couldn’t do it. Look, I get it. There are certain people in this world, no matter how dangerous they are, you just can’t.

Sam: Don’t pull that card! That’s bull! Look, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that if something feels wrong, it probably is!

Dean: Usually, yeah. But killing Amy was not wrong. You couldn’t do it, so I did. That’s what family does—the dirty work. And I would have told you eventually, once I knew that this whole “waving a gun at Satan” thing was a one-time show. I think it’s reasonable to want to know that you’re off the friggin’ high dive, Sam. You almost got us both killed. So you can be pissed all you want, but quite being a bitch.

Then there was the resolution at the end of the episode:

Sam: Look, you know what... you were right—about Amy. If she was just any monster, I’m not sure I could have let her walk away. I dunno. I mean, I’ll never know.

Dean: What are you saying?

Sam: What I’m saying is… I get why you did it. You were just trying to make sure no one else got hurt. But here’s the thing: you can’t just look me in the face and tell me you’re fine. I mean, you’re not sleeping, you drink for the record-

Dean: Oh here we go…

Sam: Look, whatever. Last one to preach. I know. But… just be honest with me. How are those the actions of someone who knows they did the right thing?

Dean: You want me to be honest?

Sam: Yeah.

Dean: I went with my gut. And that felt right. I didn’t trust her, Sam. Of course, ever since Cas, I’m having trouble trusting anybody. And as far as how I’ve been acting… I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I don’t like lying to you. You know, it doesn’t feel right. So yeah, you got me there. I’ve been climbing the walls.

Third, in context, when Sam brings up Amy in the car, it is to say Dean choked with Emma in the same way that Sam choked with Amy and it could have gotten him killed—not that killing Emma was somehow vengeance for Amy. See the conversation at the end of “Slice Girls”:

Sam: What did you say to me... when I was the one who choked? What did you say about Amy? “You said you kill the monster”!

Dean: I was going to!

Sam: Oh, like hell you were! You think I’m an idiot?

Dean: What you think I am?!

Sam: Dean, you were gonna let her walk!

Dean: No I wasn’t. That’s ridiculous!

Sam: Look, man, she was not yours. Not really.

Dean: Actually, she, uh, she was, really. She just also happened to be a crazy man-killing monster. But uh, hey-

Sam: You know what? Bobby was right. Your head’s not in it, man. When Cas died, you were wobbly, but now...

Dean: Now what? Oh what, you’re dealing with it so perfect? Yeah, news flash, pal. You’re just as screwed up as I am! You’re just... bigger.

Sam: What?!

Dean: I don't know!

Sam: Look... Dean, the thing is, tonight... it almost got you killed. Now, I don’t care how you deal. I really, really don’t. But just don’t... don’t get killed.

In no way does Sam suggest here that Dean “deserved” to have his kid shot in front of him as some kind of “payback”. In fact, that doesn't really make sense

In the context of the conversation in “The Mentalist, where Sam said he understood why Dean felt the way he did about Amy.

It also doesn’t make sense in the context fo Sam’s comment that Emma “wasn’t really yours”. If he did it to hurt Dean, he would have pressed into that relationship, not dismissed it.

He lectured Dean because he was scared Dean wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger and would have gotten himself killed. It’s the same “are you off the high-dive?” lecture Dean gave him, it’s the same “I did the dirty work for you because you couldn’t”. The shot Sam took wasn’t hesitant, but it also wasn’t emotional. It was calculated and ruthless. It was a choice Sam made, that Emma could not be trusted. He made that call. And maybe he was right—maybe the brainwashing went too deep, and Emma would have come after Dean again if they let her go (which is probably what Sam was really worried about—that she would have gone after Dean again and gotten the drop on him or he wouldn’t have shot her), or maybe she would have come after someone else. Maybe Sam was wrong, and Emma could have been persuaded away from life in a cult. We can say the same about Dean killing Amy. All they had was her word that she wouldn't kill again. And yet, if her son got sick again, it seems reasonable to assume she’d go on another killing spree. Maybe Dean was right to kill her, maybe he was wrong.

Other notes:

[1] Sam misses a certain detail when he compares Dean’s actions with Emma to his own situation with Amy. Sam only compares the two situation by virtue of him or Dean choking due to an attachment to the “monster” in question. However, there’s a distinction between the two kills that is important within Dean’s personal ethical framework, while it’s not necessarily important within Sam’s... to the point that Sam doesn't really see this distinction at all (in fact, he may not know about it). Namely, Emma had never killed anyone before while Amy had killed four people. Dean’s actions in both situations are actually ethically consistent—which is another misconception in fandom. From Dean’s framework, Emma and Amy are not the same. Emma and Amy’s son are the same. We see the distinction Dean draws between Amy and her son in “The Girl Next Door”: Dean kills Amy but lets her son go because he’s never killed anyone. He doesn’t rescind that even after Amy’s son tells Dean he’s going to come after him eventually and kill him. Dean treats Emma in the exact same way. He tells her he would let her walk away because she’s never killed anyone, and he doesn’t rescind the offer even if it seems like she still might try to come after him again. This is also consistent with how Dean treated Bobby John in Season 6 “Two and a Half Men”, Jack in Season 4 “Metamorphosis”, and Madison in Season 2 “Heart”.

[2] When he kills Amy, Dean is notedly dealing with trust issues that he himself acknowledges, after what happened with Cas. He trusted Cas implicitly even when Bobby and Sam doubted him, and he got burned, and it shook his ability to trust in anyone (see Sam’s “wobbly” talk above”). Killing Amy is a part of that, according to Dean’s own perceptions.

[3] To a certain extent, it might even be said that Sam and Dean aren't just wary of trusting each other’s judgement, but also wary of trusting themselves. For example, “You kill the monster” is a hardline stance that’s unusual for Sam and that is rejected by both brothers as early as Season 2 “Bloodlust”. But because Sam doesn’t trust himself at that point in time, and also does not trust Dean’s judgement either, he does what he thinks is “safe” when his own mind is half shredded and he has a depressed and alcoholic brother who he’s afraid is going to let a monster kid murder him one day (be it Emma or Amy’s son). If he were to let Emma go and worse came to worse, Sam doesn’t feel he can rely on Dean to defend himself from her, and he doesn’t know what his own mind state is going to be like in the future. So he does what’s “safe” for them both. In the same way, Dean’s actions with Amy could be viewed as him choosing what’s “safe”.

#dean winchester #sam winchester #spn 7.03 #spn 7.07 #spn 7.13 #the slice girls #the mentalist #the girl next door #fandom misconceptions

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eisforeidolon · 3 years

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'stiel shippers are already making up conspiracy theories about how 15x19 ending is actually a fake, homophobic ending meant to fool people and 15x20 will have the true ending where Cass comes back and their ship becomes unequivocally, mutually canon and it's endgame. They've gone full TJLC with the fix-it episode theory and I can't say that I'm surprised at all.

Yeah, negative levels of surprise there.

When Misha was posting all those travel pictures from around the US while J2 were quarantining, it was all a ruse! TPTB made him post old pictures to hide where he was and his generic motel rooms could be in Vancouver! He lives in Washington, so that’s probably close enough he doesn’t have to quarantine anyway! They can’t leave the guy who saVeD tEH ShOw out of the last two episodes!! Doesn’t matter that they let the actors spoil Mark P. and Jake A. and Jim B.’s returns, nah, they had to try and keep whether Misha was there or not a surprise!

Now this. They managed to recognize when an episode was pandering to bibros with 15x19. Which honestly was a bit of an accomplishment for them, given the hilarious exercise in palpable denial their “meta” about Red Meat is. It certainly isn’t even all of them that managed it, given the usual blinkered nonsense floating around declaring Dean being drunk is desolation about Castiel (not, you know, hopelessness their whole world is still gonna end and everybody is gone but him, Sam, and Jack - just like their Mary who? nonsense in season 13). Not to mention the insisting to each other Dean was totally willing to kill Sam to get Cas back, lalalalaing right through how the brothers were offering to kill each other and both be gone for the revival of, again, everybody else. I digress ... and go on for a bit after this, so have a cut:

The point is, they recognize that having the Winchesters drive off into the sunset together is pandering to bibros, but they refuse to accept that whole scene destroying Castiel’s character was just pandering to them. Despite how out of nowhere with zero previous buildup to support it being twue lurve it was. Despite how this was supposedly planned for a year, yet the characters have been more at odds than ever. Despite how one-sided it was. Despite how, no matter how much they keep insisting to people in the comments under official CW posts that there is NO WAY to see it as anything but romantic, non-shippers and more casual fans keep daring to say they see it as familial (the NERVE!). Despite how, while you could fairly say it’s become The Jack Show in recent years, it has never been the Dean & Cas show outside of shippers’ fevered imaginations. So while pandering to them any harder than was already done is gonna get some WTF from the general audience? Pandering to bibros just means making Sam & Dean’s show about ... Sam & Dean. Which nobody in the general audience is gonna bat an eye at.

Doesn’t matter that the network president still talks about doing a revival with, specifically, J2. Doesn’t matter most of the legitimate press over the series ending focuses particularly on J2 and Sam & Dean’s ending. Doesn’t matter that the ones the actual co-showrunners consulted about tweaking the finale scripts post-COVID are, repeat it with me, J2. Jared is totally a cheerleader for their ship, we know this because reasons! Jensen must have changed his mind since last time he said his character was straight, because nobody’s asked him in the last five minutes and that’s the “right” answer they want him to say! Misha said Jensen was totally into it and Misha *cough* never lies!

As I’ve said before, I put nothing 100% past Dabb. I would not be even a little surprised if we get at least somebody mentioning somewhere next episode that Castiel got resurrected off-screen again. Or if there’s some implication the brothers see him again in a way shippers could pretend totally had to involve hooking up with Dean. However, while we know Misha will bend whichever way the minion $$$ wind blows, and Dabb comes off as desperate for ass-pats on twitter from the hellers & minions blowing smoke up his ass? He has played both sides for years in ways the general audience can dismiss (again, hard to do that and make reciprocated twue lurve “cannon”). Dabb is also a co-showrunner with Singer who isn’t all over fandom and seemed kind bemused by it and previously said the ship was never discussed as a thing in the writer’s room while the ‘hellers were insisting their secret storyline was totes in there, guise.

Likewise, I would be very surprised if after years of being harassed by a handful of disrespectful asshole “fans” to do so, Jensen agreed to just give in and change the character he’s been very invested in playing for fifteen years to please those jerks. For something that suddenly and arbitrarily changes the character’s sexuality away from how he has explicitly said he has been playing it for fifteen years for a 40+ year old character in the very last episode. For something Misha has implied he and Berens went behind his back to do in terms of Castiel’s end - that any idiot with two brain cells to rub together could figure out would lead to more harassment directed his way especially if he dared object (and would be objecting to another actor’s choices for their own character). For something that undermines what he has said repeatedly that he sees as the fundamental basis of the show.

None of that matters, though! They’ve convinced themselves that they’re the only real audience and only they know the true story - the rest of us are just some sad definitely tiny group of pathetic hangers on that don’t understand the show has Changed Now and is really about the grEatEST LurVe stORy nEVeR tolD! It’s what their whole echo chamber the whole audience wants ... because they say so!

#destiew #destihellers #anti misha #long post #Anonymous #askboxery

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drop-of-infinity · 3 years

Text

I have continued my weird destiel fic thing! This part is canon compliant with season 6.

Chapter one is here

Chapter two is here

<><><><><><><><><>

Chapter 3: season 6

The Third Man

{“I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here-“ and then suddenly Cas was there in all his trenchcoated glory. He hadn’t come when Sam had prayed all those times, but Dean had called once and here was Cas. Well, no time to think about that now.

{“Dean and I do share a more profound bond..” he’d been very careful with his wording, yet the that was too honest feeling had returned. Cas sighed inwardly. He was not built for emotions. He was not built for choosing his words.

{“You’re gonna torture a kid?”

“I can’t care about that Dean! I don’t have the luxury.” Cas’s voice cracked as he said it, and Dean knew he did care about it. After all, if there was one thing he knew about Cas, it was that he cared more then he should.

6-7

{“I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but I do want to help.” Couldn’t that be enough for Dean? Cas had a war to worry about, he didn’t have time for this. Yet he was helping Dean anyway, because- no. Shut it down. Yet he was helping Dean anyway. Wasn’t that enough? Aren’t I enough?

{“Of course. Your problems always come first.” Coming from anyone else, Dean would think that was sarcasm, but this was Cas. Plus, the look the angel gave him... well, he was pretty sure Cas was being honest. The guy had a war to fight, and he was still helping them. Dean felt a twinge of guilt, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it, because Cas was already gone. Fricking angels.

Caged Heat

{“I learned that from the pizza man.” Dean couldn’t help but stare at Cas and the demon he had just been making out with. Since when has he been interested in that stuff? He watches Cas smooth a hand over swollen lips. An odd burning sensation roots itself in Dean’s stomach. Suddenly, he wants to strangle Meg. Because she’s a demon, probably, he tells himself. It’s just instinct.

My Heart Will Go On

{“You have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trench coat who’s in love with you?” Dean’s brain wisely decided to shut down at that. When Balthazar left, the only thing he let himself think was Cas’s coat isn’t dirty. The other thoughts-well they weren’t so much thoughts as half formed screams and fast heartbeats-he pushed to the back of his mind to be taken out and examined never.

{“You need new friends Cas.”

“I’m trying to save the ones I have, Dean.” It’s always strange to call Dean his friend. The word friend encompasses so much to humans, everything from ‘this person makes me happy’ to ‘I don’t want to live without you.’ Humanity is still fascinating. Cas will keep Dean safe. It is his priority, always. This person makes me happy.

{“50000 new souls for your war machine.” As fate talks, Cas can only be grateful that the Winchesters can’t hear her. If they knew... well, it wouldn’t be pretty. Dean takes trust so seriously. Cas has the odd feeling that he is digging himself into a hole. This is the only way, he thinks. Lie, beat Raphael, keep them in your life. Simple enough. He stops Balthazar from stabbing fate, because her sisters would come after the Winchesters, and he can’t have that. As time unfreezes, and Cas watches Dean startle awake back into his own timeline, green eyes flying open, he realizes something terrifying. He is an entity, an eldritch being millions of years old. He has known Dean for less then a fraction of his immortal life and yet... I don’t want to live without you.

18-19

{“I think you call him when you need something.” Rachel’s words cut deeper then they should. Dean considers Cas the best friend he’s ever had, but their life means friendship is built in the middle of life threatening situations. There was another thought too, buried deep. At least needing something gives me an excuse. At least if he doesn’t show up I can pretend he doesn’t want to help, not he doesn’t want to see me. It’s strange to need an excuse to talk to someone, but Dean can’t help it. Instead of studying either of these revelations, he denies what this angel has said, and resumes arguing with her.

{“There are millions of lives at stake here not just two!” Even as Cas says it, he feels the weight of his words on his own actions. How many people had he sacrificed to save two recently? Cas doesn’t stop Dean from leaving with the children. He could have, but he knows how hypocritical it would be. The greater good doesn’t always mean everything, he reasons.

{When Cas gets his powers back, the first thing he does (well, after smiting all the monsters in the diner) is heal Dean. The bite on his neck vanishes as Cas places a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He tells himself it is for grounding purposes, but he knows he doesn’t need to touch someone to heal them. He also knows he doesn’t usually want to. He also knows that he’s had to use the word usually instead of always a lot more since he met Dean.

The Man Who Would Be King

{“But Cas, you’ll call right? If you get into real trouble?” There is more Dean wants to say, but he can’t. Usually they would be hunting Crowley together, but Sam and Bobby think Cas-their Cas, who has saved their lives more times then he can count-might be working with the king of Hell. It’s ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. And yet... his instincts are telling him they’re right. He always goes with his gut, but with Cas... there’s something in his heart straining against it. Innocent until proven guilty, he thinks stubbornly. As Cas teleports away, Dean wishes he could believe the angel will call if he has to, but he has a feeling those words will be ignored.

{“I still considered myself the Winchester’s guardian. After all, they taught me how to stand up, what to stand for.” As he goes over the story in his head, Cas thinks about what else he’s learned from them. From Dean. How to smile, how to cry. How to feel so much and then repress it like your life depends on it. How to love.

{“This is Cas guys!” Dean knows it’s a weak argument, but they don’t know the guy like he does. He thinks of Cas saying “profound bond” and realizes it’s true. Sam and Bobby weren’t there in Hell. They weren’t there sitting on that park bench, or in that bar. They didn’t sit in the Impala afterwards, actually laughing for the first time in years. Dean blinks a few times. There is an emotion hovering at the surface of his mind that he does not want to look at too closely right now.

{“Where were you when I needed to hear it?”

“I was there. Where were you?” There are tears in Dean’s eyes as he looks at Cas over the fire. I hurt him again, he thinks numbly. Sam and Dean don’t understand the stakes of the war in heaven is all. They don’t understand that this betrayal was necessary. But as Cas looks at Dean, his certainty wavers. It feels like the moment before he chose to stop Lucifer, except this time he is already in the wrong, and it is too late, and he hurt Dean.

{“I’m doing this for you Dean. I’m doing this because of you.” Dean stares at the angel in front of him. Cas is always saying shit like this, but this time it’s a lie and they both know it. Has it always been a lie? What were his real motives? Of course he wasn’t always doing this stuff for me. I was stupid to believe it. His father’s words ring in his head. Useless. Pathetic. Cas betrayed them. Cas betrayed him, and it hurts like hell.

{“Next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family.” It feels like a knife, sliding below Cas’s layers of self righteousness and belief and inserting itself into his chest. He stops breathing. Dean did legitimately care about him, and now he’s gone and burned it all down. What choice did I have? He thinks desperately. It is too late now.

Let It Bleed

{“I do everything that you ask, I always come when you call, and I am your friend.” Dean wishes he could accept that. All he wants is to hug Cas and tell him it’s okay, and have everything go back to normal. But Cas betrayed them, and now Lisa and Ben are in danger, and Dean feels like he’s falling through the floor.

{“I wish this changed anything.”

“I know. Me too.” He ruined it. Castiel, the broken angel, the fallen angel. Whatever he might have had with Dean he ruined it like he ruined everything else. It feels like a black hole opening up inside him. He feels something on his face, and lifts a shaky hand to touch his cheeks. They are wet. Just keep going. All you can do now is defeat Raphael. Now you have no reason not to. Now you will do what you must. Dean clearly doesn’t care anymore, so there is nothing holding Cas back.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

{“we were family once. I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times. I’ve lost Lisa, I’ve lost Ben, I’ve lost Sam. Don’t make me lose you too.” It was the closest Dean could come to saying what he meant, which was please, I need you here. He thought he saw Cas’s expression waver for a moment, but then the angel steeled himself and Dean felt a sinking sensation. He knew it-whatever it was or had been-was over before Cas opened his mouth.

{“You’re not my family Dean. I have no family.” He almost choked on the words as he said them. It was true, he told himself. Dean wasn’t family, he never would be. He was just a human. He is more than family, whispers the traitorous part of himself that had made him betray Heaven for this one human. But Cas sees his words hit Dean like a javelin, and he knows there is no going back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

{All the souls from purgatory are in Cas, and he remembers why he wasn’t supposed to fall. This is his destiny.

{As Castiel tells them to kneel or die, Dean remembers why he’s been scared to fly since forever. There’s always a crash.

Then all hell-well, all Purgatory breaks loose, and neither of them have time to get lost in memories.

#destiel #supernatural #spn #deancas #castiel #supernatural thoughts #spn thoughts #destiel fic #destiel fanfic #deancas fic #deancas fanfic #spn season 6 #supernatural season 6 #the man who would be king

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bettsfic · 4 years

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do you know anything about like, the development of the purity rhetoric that now seems to be ubiquitous in fandom and how it got there? i used to be on tumblr in like, 2014 and only recently came back to fandom and i remember everyone being generally kind of cool with things like incest ships and morally grey characters (speaking specifically re the frozen fandom and elsa/anna here lmao) whereas now it seems like the conversation about those things has drastically shifted and i am..puzzled by it

this is what i imagine that experience was like for you:

according to fanlore, purity culture started in the homestuck fandom which. based on what i know of homestuck, that tracks. however i’ve never been in homestuck so i’m not sure what that transformation was like. all i know is my personal experience with the disk horse. afaik there’s no cohesive timeline of events across fandom, and i lack the time and resources to be able to make one myself. if anyone knows of one, or wants to make one, please let me know.

i do know that purity culture is a movement started by very young teenagers, who were maybe 13-15 in 2014 and are now 18-20. they were 8-10 when ao3 was founded, and therefore seem to have a limited knowledge of fan history, censorship, and critical thinking. i’m hoping that since they’re now entering college, they’ll get some insight and broader social awareness, and this movement will finally die out in the next few years.

on any other platform, at any other time, their toxic rhetoric would not have gained traction. but here and now, on tunglr dot com where anyone can gain a platform, where mob mentality thrives and inciting an anonymous dogpile is as easy as hitting Post, where the brokenness of this place makes it difficult to control the content you’re exposed to -- it’s the perfect storm. we live in an age of hopelessness. young people grow up with social media as an extension of their identities, tethered to devices that hold all the information in the world. i think it’s fair for them to be afraid of their futures, and i can understand the desire to control the online spaces where they have the most agency, where their voices are the loudest.

that may explain why, but not how. as in, where did they pick up this mentality at all? @freedom-of-fanfic (whose work is a necessity in understanding the disk horse) connected anti-shipping to TERF rhetoric. i’ve linked the fanlore page because it has all of the links and some of the responses. i honestly do believe that the language surrounding purity culture has its ugly roots in TERFdom. at its core, purity culture -- the policing of female and queer sexuality -- is misogyny.

when i started writing destiel circa 2014, fandom was as you described. wincest was a juggernaut on par with destiel. teen wolf was full of underage and noncon. a/b/o was on the rise. it seemed like fandom was a genre without restraint -- anything you wrote, if it found the right audience, would be celebrated unabashedly. people who have been following me for a long time know that i was addicted to adderall at the time and pounding out all sorts of manic nonsense. i remember living on the validation of comments (and at the time, there were lots of comments. not so much anymore, but that’s another story). i got critical comments only rarely, and they were the type that i admired -- readers without judgment thinking through the story, reacting to it earnestly. i made some of my best friends because they left long, critical comments on my work. sometimes they didn’t like it, sometimes they did, but ultimately, they were engaged, and that’s what counted.

i remember my first policing-type comment, i think at the start of all the purity nonsense. it was a destiel fic, and someone very angrily told me i should tag my bottom!cas because it was triggering. i’ve thought about that comment a lot over the years. top/bottom discourse is nothing new, but to say that bottom castiel is triggering? that was ridiculous. but then i realized -- there was a writer in fandom at the time i won’t name, who was known for being extremely sensitive (for bottom!cas especially, which they found triggering), and their very dedicated following offered fic that was safe for their fave to read. i have nothing against this person at all. they were not part of the purity discourse, they were up front about their sensitive nature, and as far as i knew (i believe i met them at a con once?) they were very kind.

but that commenter had been clearly influenced by this person and believed that a specific fictional character receiving anal sex from another specific fictional character was actual, real triggering content, and it was my obligation as a writer to tag for it. which i did, because i felt bad, and i was baffled by that request. at the time, i wanted more than anything to be liked, and conformed wherever i could. if i got such a request now, i would ignore it because it was rudely written and honestly kind of bonkers. i’d happily add a tag for something i may have missed, or even something i’d never considered before, but there’s no reason a person can’t make that request politely.

this situation isn’t about purity discourse proper (the commenter didn’t tell me not to write the fic, and it had nothing to do with morality), but it’s the earliest example i can think of where the process of policing had occurred: a person of influence on tumblr affected their follower’s thinking, and that follower felt entitled to command another writer to conform to that ideology.

i could be completely wrong about making these connections. maybe that commenter truly believed bottom!cas was a legitimate widespread trauma. they did not say the fic was triggering to them, but that it might be to some other people, in the same way purity police say “think of the CHILDREN” when in fact they don’t give a fuck about children at all.

after destiel i moved to stucky, which was, at the time, a juggernaut ship where anyone could write anything. this was also the time when the term “cinnamon roll” became incredibly popular, circa 2015. it was a fun and seemingly innocuous meme, but it positioned the ideas of “purity” and “wholesomeness” in sharp relief, and cemented these ideas by beginning to give it a distinct vocabulary. “trash” was pitched as its opposite. stucky is where i first came into contact with “antis.” in destiel, there had been ship wars, sure, but it was of a different flavor than antis. destiel vs wincest wasn’t about morality in 2014. it was about everything but.

in stucky in 2015, however, the disk horse was running rampant. the MCU had a sub-section of fandom called HTP (hydra trash party) in which steve and/or bucky have dubious or nonconsensual relations with various or many members of hydra. this is the first time i remember being aware of morality becoming a cornerstone of shipping. HTP was loathed by purity police. by the time i wrote a stucky bdsm au, i’d accumulated multiple nasty anons, rude comments from entitled readers, and other nonsense that all said the same thing: your filth is not welcome here in our space of purity. go away.

but the release of the force awakens is what really turned the tide. TFA offered three major ships: stormpilot (as it was called at the time, now finnpoe), reylo, and kylux. the fandom that developed around the sequels was firmly divided. franzeska wrote an amazing meta about this phenomenon which gives some insight into the seeds of purity policing. in short, stormpilot should have been the primary pairing of the sequels, but instead many of the badwrong writers from other fandoms (and HTP specifically, which was how i entered the fandom) flocked to the blank slate of kylux.

it took a long time for the ship to gain traction. a friend told me that kylux had started with angry star wars racists who hated that there was diversity in the sequel trilogy. and i told them no, i was there, there were twelve of us and a cornchip, and all we cared about was the dirty/darkly comedic potential of these two ridiculous villain characters in one of the biggest franchises of all time. it wasn’t that complicated. i don’t mean to dismiss the discussion of race in fandom; i think it’s important to acknowledge that racism, as franzeska describes far better than i can, plays a huge part in fandom, particularly in star wars, and it’s an important and ongoing discussion to be having, especially given what kelly marie tran has gone through, and how it affected (presumably) rose tico’s extremely limited presence in TROS.

the early fics of kylux weren’t particularly taboo. they were post-TFA hurt/comfort mostly, then slowly the bdsm and power dynamics crept in. those of us who wanted to get away from purity discourse had finally found a new home. for a while. 2016 was the golden era of kylux. we were all very happy.

i remember talking to a friend about how there were certain things i couldn’t write in certain ships. being from ye olden days of fandom, she was appalled by this idea, and told me i could write anything for any ship i wanted, wasn’t that was the whole point of transformative works? and i agreed! but i tried to explain, if you post badwrong for a fandom of purity police, you’re going to, at best, get dogpiled in your comments/inbox. at worse they will find you, call your employer, and try to ruin your life. people will tell you to kill yourself. they’ll report your tumblr and try to get your blog shut down. there are real-life, harrowing consequences to writing taboo fic, and many who write fic as a hobby don’t have the emotional energy to field these risks.

around this time, discord became popular, which offered a private space for badwrong writers to congregate. i had started grad school and didn’t have much time to write fic. metoo was happening. tromp got elected. kylux was slowly turning mainstream so a lot of us turned our attention to gradence in fantastic beasts. some went on to hannibal and other fandoms that hadn’t yet caught the attention of purity police (but it was, as it is now, just a matter of time). kylux, i feel, was specifically decimated by a single fan creator, who was like a police chief. they would get wind of someone writing underage or noncon and write a call-out post about them, and that writer/artist would get pitchforked. a few times, my comments or posts got screencapped, and posts were written urging people to stop reading my works because of how heinously immoral i was. this happened to several of my friends too.

the great tumblr tittyban of 2017 happened, which only added fuel to the fire and further legitimized the purity movement. i shifted hesitantly to the 100 fandom, which seemed small in comparison to supernatural, marvel, and star wars. i thought it was a chill place. i was wrong; it was just as toxic as other fandoms. but i also didn’t care anymore, and i appreciated that i was mostly left alone. more importantly, i found a lot of support from other people who were as tired of the purity as i was, and @the100kinkmeme was reborn.

the state of things is pretty abysmal. there are some really amazing writers out there writing under multiple sock accounts, keeping their fandom identities shattered so as not to call attention to themselves. as much as i understand why writers do that, and i respect that decision, i also think it’s sad. it deprives readers the chance to read that author’s other works. it limits the sense of community and our ability to make friends. it fractures the future of the genre.

what’s most important to acknowledge is that none of this is happening solely in fandom. i went to a writers’ conference where 2 of 3 panels were about the history of moral policing and censorship in art. it is worth noting that of the 40-ish visiting writers on faculty, only one (1) was a woman of color (jaimaica kincaid). naturally, older rich white people who have spent their life in the arts are all about death of the author, separation of art and artist. they’re on the total opposite side of purity police, and they won’t acknowledge at all that racism and sexism are a problem in the creative world. they don’t have any nuance on the discussion, or modern perspectives in light of metoo or popular culture.

this went on longer than i anticipated. i neglected to mention YFIP (your fave is problematic) an old blog that started the idea of call-out culture by pulling receipts on celebrities, and how call-out culture led to cancel culture, which also aided in the purity disk horse. i think a lot can be said about how some of this stuff is genuinely good (metoo and holding men accountable for their bullshit) while also being profoundly toxic (punishing criminals via mob mentality, ruining their careers and livelihoods through social media, rather than giving them their due process in court. i understand it -- the judicial system is built by the hands of the very predators we seek to condemn, but still. the jury of the internet is never a fair trial).

if you want to read more, my tag is tsatp (the sacred and the profane). i’m sure i’ve left out a lot, but i can only speak to my experience. i think it would be good if people would share their experience dealing with purity policing, too, so we might get a cohesive timeline in place. feel free to reblog and add your story.

#tsatp #my fic #Anonymous

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thehunterwithanangel · 3 years

Text

Not Done Yet A Destiel One Shot for post 15x18 and what I want to happen (but probably wont)

Ship: Destiel (Dean Winchester/Castiel)

Word Count: 4,362

Written by: thehunterwithanangel

Notes/Warnings: Very angsty Dean but ends drowning in fluff, some language

The words played on a loop in Dean’s head for what felt like hours before he could process them, at least that’s how he felt; ‘I love you…’ ‘I love you…’ ‘I love you…’ over and over again.

For a brief moment Dean sat in total denial, there’s no way Cas, his Cas actually just said that, only he did and now he was gone. Dean started to cry, and not just a few tears, he started to sob; at first he told himself it was from the shock, but once that settled and he was still left feeling like somebody had just ripped his heart from his chest, he knew it was more. Dean shut down, as he always did when something highly emotional happened, and next thing he knew Sam and Jack were shaking him back to reality.

Dean wasn’t sure how long he’d been sat there but time was irrelevant to him the moment Cas disappeared into the empty; in fact, nothing at all mattered to him right then because all he could focus on was those three words, still on loop what must actually be hours later. Dean also wasn’t sure how he got back to the bunker, he guessed Sam drove Baby when he realised Dean was in no fit state to drive (he would have to argue with him about that some other time); but here he was, staring at his bedroom ceiling feeling so unfathomably empty, and not the fun ‘give zero fucks’ soulless way, in the way that makes you disconnect from your own body mentally because being in it is just too painful…

Three days went by with Dean staying much of the same way, only really talking to say ‘Cas is gone, the empty took him’ and multiple counts of ‘go away’ and ‘leave me alone’. Dean didn’t eat or drink, he barely even slept because every time he closed his eyes, there was Cas saying ‘I love you…’ all over again; the only time he ever got any sleep was after many hours of disassociating and silent sobbing...

The thing is, even though Dean was clearly devastated, he refused to admit to himself as to why. Why even though he’d lost Cas before, hell, had Cas die before, that this time was different; in the back of his mind he knew, of course he knew, but admitting to himself he knew only meant opening himself up to more pain right now and he just couldn’t do it, not now…

It had been a month since Cas had been gone, physically Dean was okay again, thanks to many, many, many, attempts to get him being a human again from Sam and Jack; Mentally though, he was still destroyed, still refusing to talk about Cas or anything that happened that day, and despite pushing him a couple times, the others knew it wasn’t going to work, he would talk when he was ready, if he was ever ready.

It had gotten to the point that the others wondered if Dean had completely repressed what had happened though, because his level of fine-ness was almost too much. Little did they know it was quite the opposite.

A normal day, normal routine, normal conversations, everything was normal to everyone, except Dean. Dean felt almost itchy as he could feel the pain clawing it’s way back to the surface, ready to ruin him again; and his time he didn’t know if he would survive it. So Dean made some excuse about needing pie and took off driving, maybe if he could distract himself with Baby long enough he could push away the hurt once more; at least that was his plan…

For a couple hours it worked. He kept his feelings at bay and enjoyed the road, but then it happened, an otherwise fun energetic song kicked up from his radio, a song he’d loved to annoy Sam with before, a song he played after they had a successful hunt for example; but now all it carried was pain because this wasn’t just his feel good song, it had become Cas’ too, and that hit way too close to home for Dean. In a split second he slammed on his breaks, shut off the radio, and froze, tears pouring down his face as his hands gripped tightly to the steering wheel, while he tried to hold on to his okay reality for just a little longer. It didn’t work.

Dean’s body was shaking so hard from the uncontrollable sobbing that every muscle hurt, he gasped for air as the sobs stole the air from his lungs, his vision so blurred from all the tears he wasn’t even sure if he was conscious anymore; and then he said it, the thing he’d been pushing away for weeks, even years if he was being totally honest with himself, out in fuck-knows-where USA, a complete and utter wreck, barely able to function let alone speak, but the words find their way out of his mouth regardless:

“I love you too Cas” Dean choked out, his voice ruined from all the crying. For a fleeting moment Dean hoped Cas could hear him, could know that even though he may be trapped in the empty, he is still so loved by Dean.

Dean cursed at himself once the words left his mouth, not because he regretted saying them, but because it had taken each of them so damn long to just say it! The truth was Dean always knew deep down but was so scared of losing what they had, he never said anything. ‘Chuck must be laughing at me right now’ he thought; I mean how ironic that he realised he didn’t say it as to not lose Cas after losing Cas…

Some time later Dean had recomposed himself and while he still felt shattered, that was accompanied with a new sense of determination.

“I love you Cas and somehow, some way, I’m gonna bring you home” Dean said assuredly to himself before shifting Baby into drive and speeding back to the bunker (probably much faster than was anywhere close to safe). He could do this.

Meanwhile at the bunker everyone was freaking out trying to find Dean; it had been about eight hours since he had ‘left to get pie’, he wasn’t answering his phone, which was going straight to voice-mail, no hints, no notes, nothing; and based on Dean’s current mental health everyone was on edge fearing he’d done something dumb and reckless.

Dean stopped off at a rest stop to get snacks when the thought crossed his mind he should probably turn his phone back on. He hadn’t meant to go MIA, he just had a lot on his mind and he needed one less thing to think about for a while, which accidentally turned into a long while. Once his phone was rebooted, a pang of guilt shot through him, he was greeted by missed calls from pretty much every single person he knew, and even a couple numbers he didn’t recognise; in total there were at least a couple hundred calls, though Dean didn’t bother to count after the first 50 or so, it was a lot regardless.

“Ah shit.” Dean muttered to himself as he walked back to his car “I should say something to Sam at least” Dean decided before sending a quick ‘I’m fine omw home now’ text to Sam. His chest tightened in fear, or joy, Dean wasn’t sure, at the thought of having to tell Sam what had happened with Cas and how Dean felt and how he had to get him back, yikes, definitely not something you say over text; Dean laughed at the thought of sending a text that was just ‘hey bro btw Cas said he loved me and I love him too so we’re getting him back’ and the chaotic side of him almost did it, but he knew it was going to be more complicated than that so thought better of it. Another thing that made him laugh was Sam’s text back

‘Good, when you’re back I’m going to kill you :)’

He wouldn’t actually kill him obviously but Dean could feel the passive aggressiveness though his phone and he knew Sam was pissed.

A few hours and Dean was pulling into the bunker and swinging open the door, very shortly followed by Sam slapping him across the back of the head.

“Do you have any idea--!” Sam began but to angry to finish “You couldn’t be bothered to turn your phone on sooner--!” He tried again “What the hell Dean!?” He yelled before pulling Dean into a tight hug.

“Sorry, lost track of time…” Dean said matter-of-factly

“Lost track of….Unbelievable” Sam muttered shaking his head in disbelief. The was a brief moment of pure silence and Dean held his breath, knowing Sam was about to lose it. “YOU DISAPPEAR FOR LIKE NINE HOURS AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS YOU LOST TRACK OF TIME!? ARE YOU SERIOUS!? DID IT NOT OCCUR TO YOU THAT THE FACT YOU WERE DEPRESSED AFTER CAS AND THEN JUST VANISHED COULD BE WORRYING!?!?” Sam yelled; it wasn’t very often he was legitimately mad at Dean, but right now, he definitely was.

“I’m sorry! Look I’ll explain, but not until you agree to stop yelling” Dean pleaded; Sam took a deep breath.

“Okay okay I’m calm now what is it?” Sam asked

“I…” Dean started, his voice shaking “Okay uh, first I need whiskey.” He decided, heading to their bar area; he was going to need some liquid courage to say it to other people, hell, it took him over a decade to admit it to himself. “Okay I…” nope that wasn’t it, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He could do this. He decided it was better to say it all at once because saying it was the hardest part. “When Cas got taken by the empty it wasn’t totally random apparently he made a deal to save Jack and this was his price only it wasn’t just about him being taken that I was freaking out” Dean explained pausing to breathe “Before it took him he had this big speech about how I’m the reason he cares about anyone, how saving me opened him up to being able to feel and how I’m a better person than I think I am” Dean continued, paraphrasing, because even though that whole speech was burned into his memory forever, that was a big deal for him and Cas and he wasn’t about to share every detail. There was one thing he had to tell them though, or they’d never understand why he acted the way he did. “…He also told me he loved me and it felt way more like an ‘I’m in love with you’ than not and so I was freaking out because holy shit what and then I froze” Dean paused as a lump formed in his throat and tears welled in his eyes as his heart filled with regret all over again. “I…I should’ve said something, done something, I shouldn’t have just stood there, especially because the next second he was pushing me out of the way of the empty…I should’ve saved him…” Dean rambled, choking back tears at the last phrase. A heavy silence hung in the air as neither Sam nor Jack knew if they should speak first or if Dean had more to share; eventually Sam spoke up.

“At least he’s gone knowing he saved Jack though right? And took out Billie” Sam pointed out trying to find the silver lining. Dean breathed out a laugh as few tears finally fell; his head falling into his hands.

“But I didn’t get to say it back” Dean said quietly, his head still pointed at the floor

“What?” Sam and Jack said in unison, Dean looked up at them, eyes still full of tears

“I didn’t get to say it back.” Dean repeated, louder this time, more sure of his words. “I wanted to say it back but he was gone before I could so I shut down” Dean added, his heart pounding because he actually did it, he told them; he watched them for a moment trying to gauge a reaction. For a while nothing happened and Dean wondered if he’d actually said it or not, but then Sam and Jack looked at each other, then began grinning and laughing lightly. Dean blinked a few times, confused.

“Well it’s about. damn. time.” Sam said shaking his head laughing

“W-What…?” Dean asked

“Dean we’ve known for years” Jack explained casually, Dean did a double take at that.

“And nobody thought to mention it!?”

“Well no…we figured you’d tell us you were together eventually…” Sam told him to which Dean’s mouth fell open.

“Well guess what I didn’t even realise how I felt until he was gone so thanks for that!” Dean informed them, his tone kind of harsh because he could’ve avoided a lot of pain if they had said something sooner.

“Oh…Oh no” Jack said, his hand moving swiftly to cover his mouth

“Oh we screwed up bad” Sam said, more to himself

“You can make up for it by helping me get him back” Dean told them bluntly

“Dean…how..? I mean every other time it was Chuck or Jack but Jack is powerless and Chuck definitely isn’t going to…” Sam pointed out

“I don’t know Sammy but after everything we’ve been though I have to try everything I can, he has to know I love him too” Dean replied frantically

“Dean…He knew. Even if he didn’t hear you say it, he knew” Jack assured him

“Even if he did I refuse to let the time I want him back the most to be the one time it doesn’t happen”

“Okay, where do we start?” Sam asked and with that they set about making a plan to bring Cas home.

They tried every lead, every contact, every spell, nothing worked. Dean was so defeated, this was so unfair. Jack also spiralled over how if it wasn’t for him Cas never would have made the deal to which Sam and Dean assured him that Cas would’ve made that choice for either of them too. Two months went by and it was time to focus on the bigger picture…

“If I can’t get Cas back I’m damn sure gonna rain hell upon Chuck at least!” Dean exclaimed confidently as he set another shotgun on the bunker tables.

“What is that now? Seventeen?” Sam questioned glancing over the arsenal Dean had gathered.

“Yup. And I got the flame thrower up and running again so I can watch him burn.” Dean confirmed. Sam would admit this side of Dean scared him a little but who can blame Dean after everything? So he let it go.

It was one hell of a fight but in the end they won! They may have had a few broken bones and definitely some new scars, but at least they made the son of a bitch pay.

Two days later and the boys were still riding the high of victory, drinking, laughing, generally having fun; and then Dean’s phone rang.

“Hello?” Dean picked up, puzzled, it was a number he didn’t recognise. The person on the other end spoke briefly and it made all the colour drain from Dean’s face.

“Dean?” Sam prompted with no response. Tears started pouring from Dean’s eyes and both Sam and Jack stood there bewildered

“Uh huh, yep, on our way” Dean told the person before hanging up, clearly not really registering what he was saying. After he hung up his phone dropped out of his hand and he fell to the floor sobbing.

“Dean!?” Sam repeated, more urgently this time; it took him a minute but Dean eventually replied.

“He’s back Sammy! He’s back!” Dean exclaimed between sobs

“Who…? Chuck!?” Sam asked suddenly panicked, relieved when Dean shook his head no

“Cas.” Dean told him simply

“WHAT!?” Sam and Jack both yelled

“How is that possible?!?!” Jack asked, still kind of yelling

“I don’t know but whatever the reason he said it makes his head hurt to think about so it was better in person” Dean informed them “So c’mon!” Dean added as he practically dragged them out of the bunker.

A few hours later and they were at the location Cas gave. Dean couldn’t believe they’d actually made it; the entire drive he was either hyperventilating or his heart was pounding or both; he had fully given up hope but there he was driving to Cas, his Cas. The three of them walked around the area Cas pointed them to, looking for him, and after a couple of minutes both Sam and Jack stopped walking and stood still which Dean looked perplexed at until he heard him and his heart stopped for a moment.

“Hello Dean.” A voice rang out over the cold winter wind. Dean whipped around sharply to see Cas looking warmly at him, without hesitation Dean ran to him, hugging him with so much force he nearly knocked them both over. “Dean I…” Cas began to say but Dean interrupted him.

“I love you” Dean told him, the words rolling off his tongue as if he’d said them a thousand times; which to be fair, he had in his head over the last few months. Cas stared at Dean dumbfounded and Dean laughed lightly because this must be how Cas felt after he told Dean he loved him. Dean decided that he needed to be stronger with his admission of love. He placed his hand on Cas’ cheek with his thumb under Cas’ chin, and tilted Cas’ head up slightly so that Cas was looking him in the eyes “I love you” Dean repeated, this time putting more emphasis on his words so that Cas knew he meant it.

“Really?” Cas asked as tears welled in his eyes, to which Dean nodded. “Are you sure you mean it the same way I do? Because I mean I get if you mean it in a family way I just…I don’t…” Cas rambled

“Cas” Dean prompted, startling Cas a little by how close he suddenly was, their foreheads touching, Dean’s hand still on Cas’ cheek. “I know…” Dean assured him, his voice barely a whisper, which made Cas’ breath hitch in his throat involuntarily. Dean smirked slightly which made Cas look down at Dean’s lips and Dean could almost hear Cas thinking ‘kiss me’ and so he did.

The first second or so Cas couldn’t move, completely shocked that Dean actually made the move, but after that he relaxed into it, savouring the moment he’d waited a lifetime (or in his case several lifetimes) for.

“I love you” Cas said softly after they pulled apart. Dean’s heart felt like it flipped at that moment, there was a time he thought he’d never hear those words, coming out of Cas’ mouth, again

“And I love you” Dean reiterated

They stood there hugging for a few minutes, oblivious to the world around them, before someone broke the silence

“Listen this is really sweet and everything but Dean you have the car keys and it is freezing out here can you at least toss them over so Jack and I don’t freeze to death!?” Sam called from back over by the car.

“Oh oops!” Dean said, mainly to Cas, before turning and throwing Sam the keys, feeling his back vibrate as Cas laughed against it.

“You know…we should probably get out of the cold too” Cas told Dean

“But I like our little warm bubble” Dean whined

“Don’t you wanna know how I’m back?” Cas asked, Dean inhaled sharply; in all the joy of Cas being back and getting to hold him and kiss him, Dean had completely forgotten about the how he ended up there “I’ll take that as a yes” Cas said, before he moved around Dean to head back to the car, only to be stopped a couple of steps after by Dean who took his hand. It was a small thing but Cas could swear if Dean hadn’t been holding onto him he would’ve melted. So many times Cas had wanted to do this, a simple touch, a brush of fingers; so small and yet so important. After so many years telling himself he can’t let himself crave connection like that, to finally to not only admit he wanted it, but to actually get it, felt incredible. He glanced at Dean who responded by holding his hand a little tighter as if to say ‘I know what I’m doing and I want to do it’ so Cas just smiled and they walked hand in hand back to the car where Sam and Jack were sat grinning at them from the back seat.

“Holy crap!” Dean exclaimed as the warm air from the Impala hit him, in that moment realising just how cold he’d become. After a few minutes regulating their body temperatures Dean was ready to know and Cas was ready to tell

“Okay so…The empty took me into oblivion as you know” Cas began, everyone else nodded “So I get there and I’m awake and so I think oh no not this again and sure enough the empty was pissed saying ‘why won’t you just die quietly!?’ and such and this went on for however long I was gone pretty much” Cas continued “and then one day I was being…dragged? Ejected? Out. It was very weird because it wasn’t like I was being carried out, it was like the empty was trying to push me out, kind of like last time only this time I remember it, as well as an overwhelming feeling of ‘you don’t belong here’ then I woke up and have been trying to find my way back to civilization since” Cas explained then looked at the boys expectantly.

“Cas, when did you come back?” Sam asked

“Two days ago, I remember hearing the radio of a car that drove past me and they said the date that was two days ago”

“What the…” Dean said, shocked

“...Cas, two days ago we took out Chuck.” Sam informed him

“Do you think it’s related?”

“You break out of angel/demon hell the same day we kill the most powerful being ever? Yes it’s related! I mean c’mon!” Dean insisted

“But how?” Jack added

They brainstormed for a while but every theory had some kind of fatal flaw and then it hit Jack like a lightning bolt

“Wait wait what if it’s not complicated at all? Cas went to the empty but the empty is for angels and demons who died”

“Right…” the others agreed

“Well Cas didn’t die he was just kind of consumed by it. So what if killing Chuck was some kind of reset that every being in there that didn’t actually die, was thrown out??”

“That actually…makes sense…good job kid!” Dean praised

��But if that’s true what else got let out!?” Sam asked panicked, suddenly Cas froze.

“Billie.” Cas stated coldly

“Shit!” They all collectively yelled in unison. And just like that they all knew they’re not done yet…

Fade to black/credits etc...

#Destiel #destiel fanfic #ooh boy this is long #i had a lot of feelings #mine #text

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writingthrones · 4 years

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the northern dragon- part 8.

PART 8: HOMECOMING.

TAGS: @psychosupernatural , @xleviiiix , @ashtronomyyyy , @starkbelova,@5aftermidnight , @makapaka11 , @mxxkscreate-write , @scorpiosmalfoy,@harrison-shot-first , @art-flirt , @jessyballet , @vaexvictis ,@callmeconceited , @cassiopeia-barrow , @the-three-eyed-ravenclaw , @iirelynn , @aspiring-fangirls-world , @emmaelizabeth2014 @dyanna-corona , @donttellany1iusetumbler , @whatwhyc-c , @moadvx , @simplyfandomish , @daenerysstuff , @coltonparayyko (feel free to shoot me a message if you’d also like to be tagged!)

DESCRIPTION: the world thought that just 2 dragons survived, that house targaryen was missing its third head. but there was another– the youngest, the final child of the mad king and queen rhaella. of course, she was almost part of the near extermination of her house. but the honorable ned stark, unable to watch a babe be murdered for crimes she did not commit, rescued her from an awful fate. instead, she grew up amongst wolves within the walls of winterfell.

NOTES: giving y’all what you’ve been asking for ;)

WARNINGS: angst, violence and brief threats of implied sexual assault as well as a brief description of a panic attack, also another kind of steamy scene.

“I’m not here for you, Robb Stark. I’m here for her.”

What was he talking about? Here for you? Why? Maybe he wished to drive a sword through your back like he had your father. He probably regretted not doing it when he figured out who you were. But just like Robb said, why would he come here on his own? Why didn’t he just spread the truth across the Seven Kingdoms and have his father advance on them? It just didn’t make any sense.

“I’m not letting you anywhere near her,” Robb said as he stepped forward and in front of you. It was a sweet gesture but you pushed him lightly aside. You would not cower behind him. “What do you think you’re doing here?” you questioned. “I see you’re not hiding anymore,” the dirtied knight said. “The confidence suits you much better,” he then added. Well, this was quite confusing and so you furrowed your brow. “At any rate, I think this conversation is better had in private,” he said casually. And to that, Robb chuckled humorlessly. “You’re mad,” he said through a huff, shaking his head.

But you stepped even further forward. “So be it,” you said. You could feel Robb’s shocked gaze on the back of your head but you didn’t care. Whatever he had planned, you wanted to know about. “Could you escort us to somewhere more private?” you questioned the guards who held him. “Y/N, you can’t--” Robb protested. “I can handle myself,” you said curtly, your gaze never leaving Jaime’s. “I need to know what’s going on.” The men nodded and began to move down the hallway. Ah, the perks of being a queen. Before you could follow, Robb tugged on your hand and so you finally broke your stare and turned to look back at him. “I know what I’m doing,” you said softly. “I know...” he sighed. “Just.. be careful.” So you nodded. Of course you would.. at least mostly. You planned to figure out just what was going on no matter what.

Finally, you caught up and entered a small, quiet room. The men released their grip on Jaime but, of course, left him in his chains. He could use them to strangle you if he really wanted to-- but you had a feeling that wasn’t the case. “What is it you’re doing here?” you asked sternly. “So he made you a queen,” he said-- completely disregarding your question-- and smirked. He stared at you for a long time without saying anything and it made you uncomfortable. “I’ll ask again-- what is it you’re doing here?” your tone conveyed your frustration. “Well..” his voice trailed off. “Now what can I call you, my lady?” he asked with a smirk. “--It should be Your Grace, if you must,” you shot back through gritted teeth. “And my name is Y/N.” He titled his head with curiosity and when he spoke again, his tone was suddenly very serious. “No. What is it your mother called you?” It took you off guard. Why had his tone shifted so suddenly? There was no reason for you to oblige him, but you did anyway. You felt compelled to do so. “...Visenya. But my name is Y/N,” you insisted.

“Visenya,” he repeated, nodding his head. “Call me Y/N,” you shot back. “I’d rather call you what Rhaella intended,” he replied, all traces of smugness having left his voice. This was quite odd. “Fine. Will you tell me what you’ve come here for now?” Another long pause-- it was driving you crazy. You began to clench your fists without even realizing. Clearly he noticed and it made him chuckle ever so slightly. “No reason to get yourself worked up. It’s not at all what you think.” Another pause. Why was he doing this? It was driving you mad. “I’ve come to pledge my fealty, Visenya. My sword is yours.” Immediately, you gasped.

MEANWHILE, IN KING’S LANDING.

An emergency small council meeting was being called-- one that King Joffrey was, shockingly, attending. Although, that was in large part because he was being forced by his grandfather. It was a very important matter, one even the boy needed to be informed about. The whispers about another, some say more legitimate, claim to the throne were growing louder and something needed to be done about it.

“I trust we all know what we’ve come to discuss,” Tywin began. Joffrey immediately went to open his mouth, like always, but was cut off before he could get even a single syllable out. “It has been practically confirmed that a Targaryen girl lives-- and she has become Robb Stark’s queen. We have reason to believe she may have played a large role in his escape at the Twins. Some say she may have been the one to kill Roose Bolton,” he said with an annoyed sigh. “So we send someone to kill her,” the golden-haired boy quickly responded before he could be cut off again. “We kick that damned wolf while he’s down. He’s lost half his army, take away another queen and he’ll give up his ridiculous crusade for revenge,” he then added. Tywin sighed, “Don’t think he’ll be so easily fooled, Your Grace. I shouldn’t have to remind you that he hadn’t lost a battle until then. They’ll be on high alert. There’s no way we’ll get within miles of her.” The king sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest with a huff.

“Anyways.. she may be a northern queen now but how long will it be before she sets her sights south? We’ve already heard whispers of those possibly supporting her claim.” His tone was growing more and more frustrated. Tywin did awful things in order to make sure something like this would never happen. He thought that the Targaryen reign was over, that they’d all been crushed. But now here was this girl, a daughter of the Mad King himself no less, and people were ready to support her. In a way, he understood. Tywin was no fool-- he knew how the people felt about his grandson but he would not give up his family’s position on that throne. As far as he was concerned, the Lannisters were always meant for that seat and they were finally here. So something must be done, but it certainly wouldn’t be as simple as Joffrey seemed to believe.

"If I may..” Lord Varys spoke up. “We know she is in the Riverlands now, correct? I know who to contact. It is possible that we could poison the girl and be done with it,” he stated so matter-of-factly.” Tywin nodded in his direction. “A good plan-- one we should keep in mind. However, I believe I have a better one,” his gaze then turned back to Joffrey. “Your uncle is still out there. We know that he has escaped and we have heard spottings of him. If we can make contact with him, I believe he will be the perfect man for the task. Lord Varys, we will use your contact to speak with him.” It was a good thing Cersei wasn’t there-- she would surely protest, say that Jaime needed to come home. And Tywin definitely did not want to risk his son but if anyone could slay a Targaryen, it was him.

BACK TO Y/N’S POV.

Indigo eyes were wide with shock. Jaime Lannister-- wishing to guard you, the daughter of the man he murdered when we has sworn to protect him too? This must be a joke. It even caused you to let out a humorless laugh, which got a frustrated expression from the blonde-haired knight. “I didn’t realize I was so funny,” he said, tone flat. “Well you can’t really expect me to believe that you wish to protect me, do you? You killed my father. And I am no fool, I know who he was. But I also know who you are and I know you’d drive a sword through my back as soon as you could.” You hadn’t realized, but you had your fists clenched tight throughout your whole little speech. “Now tell me, why would I march right back here if my intention was to just kill you? You know that I could’ve that night I escaped and yet I didn’t. I could’ve killed you and been done with it.. but I didn’t. And besides, I kill you now and those men rush in and slit my throat.” His gaze was turned towards the small window in the door. “And I rather enjoy living.” There was that familiar Lannister sarcasm.

Your thoughts were racing so fast you couldn’t keep up with any of them. But you put on a stoic face and let out a deep breath. “I... I need to think on this,” you replied. Were you actually considering this? It sounded ridiculous and yet.. something was compelling you to believe him. The way he became so serious when it came to your name, your mother.. he completely let down those walls and showed just a hint of vulnerability. “As you wish,” he nodded. And he was being patient with you? This was all so strange. Another deep breath and you left the room, instructing the men outside to hold him in a cell wherever they may be in the castle, with guards posted. After all that was said and the fact that he had come here after escaping before, you didn’t expect another escape but you could never be too careful.

You hurried back to your chambers with Robb, hearing as the men escorted Jaime from the room. “I look forward to your visit, Visenya,” he called out to you. It made you inhale sharply, totally caught off guard. Without turning around, you continued to walk towards your room.

When you entered, you found Robb sitting on the edge of the bed, anxiously waiting for your return. He quickly stood up, taking your face into both of his hands and seemingly inspecting you, presumably to see if Jaime had inflicted any harm on you. When he saw nothing, he took you into his arms in a tight embrace. It made you smile and you held him just as tight. When the two of you broke apart, his expression was questioning. “Why did he want to see you alone?” he quickly asked. Mouth hanging open, you struggled to find the words to say. “He said.. he wishes to pledge his fealty and act as my Queensguard.” Robb looked astonished, “He’s mad! After all he’s done to your family, he has absolutely no right saying such a thing.”

Nodding, you took a seat on the bed, bowing your head for a few moments before looking up at him. “I want to believe him,” you said softly. His brow furrowed. “Why?” He had begun to raise his voice, causing you to recoil slightly. It made him sigh, leaning down close to you and taking your hands into his own. “He’s a Lannister, Y/N. There’s no way you can trust him.. I can’t trust him. If I lost you, I...” His voice had begun to shake at that point which made you squeeze his hands. “Trust me then. Trust that I know what I’m doing. There’s just.. something about all this that makes me want to believe him. Why would he come back all this way if his intentions weren’t true? It doesn’t make sense.” Your thoughts were overwhelming you and you were beginning to panic, heart rate increasing and breaths becoming shorter and more frequent. Your husband quickly sat next to you, wrapping his arms around you to hold you in a tight embrace. It took a few minutes but the feeling finally subsided and he broke away to look at you. “Let’s get some rest, yeah? We’ll talk about everything in the morning when our minds are clear.” You nodded and the two of you drifted off into slumber.

When you awoke the morning, the spot where Robb had been was empty. You sat up with a great sigh, assuming that he must be with his advisors, planning their next move. It’d been more than enough time since the Red Wedding, as they were calling it, and they needed to continue onward. But you couldn’t help but to think that it wasn’t the ideal move and you planned to let him know. You didn’t want to see him make another grave mistake. The army had taken a huge hit, they couldn’t afford another. So you had to put aside this mess with Jaime for a bit.

After dressing yourself, you made your way through the castle before finally finding where Robb and his advisors had assembled. Without a second thought, you strolled into the room where suddenly all eyes were on you. “My lords,” you said politely, bowing your head to them. “Your Grace,” they all responded. Robb was immediately beaming, though his expression did seem slightly confused. You found your place next to him, looking down at the map with all its pieces on it. “So what are these plans you all have?” You questioned, looking back up to see nothing but puzzled expressions. “Your Grace, if I may--” Lord Karstark was looking at Robb now. “I don’t intend to sit aside, keep my mouth shut and look pretty at Robb’s side,” you say, indigo eyes piercing through him. “I meant it when I said I’d be fighting alongside you all. I have armor being made as we speak. And as your queen, I think I deserve to be a part of these meetings.” Your confidence never faltered and from the corner of your eye, you could see Robb’s smirking face. “Well you heard her,” he finally chimed in. Looking over at him, you shot him a warm smile. The bond between the two of you was truly beautiful.

Basically, their plan was to march to Riverrun where the rest of the forces had convened, merge together and continue their advance Southward. You understood their desire to continue on their mission but you weren’t so sure it was the best move. So you made another proposal and pushed hard on it. To you, it seemed like the more wise move and you wouldn’t let them speak over you. Your idea was to meet with the rest of their remaining forces but instead move back up North. You hadn’t heard any news out of Winterfell since it had been taken after Theon’s betrayal. Then there was the business of Roose Bolton’s bastard supposedly taking control of the North as declared by the crown. Without a tight grip on the North, what was Robb even king of? After some heated debating, they came to understand your argument. When all was said in done, you could see that same look of pride in Robb’s eyes. You truly were a queen of the people, a warrior who would give her last breath to fight for what was yours.

So it had become settled then. Rather than continue down to King’s Landing, the Northern army led by their King and Queen would march back to their homeland to regain control and their strength. Within a week, you would begin on the long journey. Before you could leave, though, you were gifted the armor that had been promised to you by the armorer in Seagard. Robb said he had another important meeting and regretted not being able to come, but that you should go on anyways. Of course you knew it was being made, but you had a feeling that he had done something that would take you by surprise. And that he had.

The young man had put the pieces on a display in order to show you each and every detail that had gone into it. He had spent countless hours on it, making sure that it was nothing short of perfect for his queen and letting you know that the king had made some special requests. You felt a lump in your throat as you looked at them. Pressed into each shoulder piece was a three-headed dragon, the sigil of your house. And on the chest piece, an entirely new symbol where the dragon meets the wolf. He didn’t want you to be ashamed of who you were and it had you in tears. After thanking the man, you had the armor hauled off into a trunk.

Finally, there was this business with Jaime Lannister. You had put it off for long enough, something needed to be done whether that was taking him as a prisoner once again or accepting his offer. Lately, your mind had been leaning towards the latter. Walking through the courtyard full of men preparing for the journey, you continued into the castle and descended downward where he was being held. The room was dark and you were handed a torch in order to see. When you entered the room, he looked even worse than he had when he arrived if that was even possible. He squinted as he looked up at you. After taking a deep breath, you spoke first.

“Tell me why I should believe you. You broke your oath before, how can I trust you not to do it again?” You did your best not to let your expression give anything away. “You said you knew who your father was then you should know why I did what I did. I don’t believe you would do anything of the sort,” he said, tone so different than the Jaime you’d known until now. Before you could find the words to say, he had spoken up again. “You look just like her, you know? You move the way she did, speak how she did. But then there’s this.. fire. You’re a dragon through and through,” he smiled his usual smirk, though his words did sound genuine. Taking a deep breath, you almost couldn’t believe what you were saying. “I accept your offer, Jaime Lannister. You will be Lord Commander of my Queensguard.” Well, the only member of your Queensguard but that wasn’t important right now. He looked truly shocked-- clearly he didn’t expect you to be able to believe him. It made you slightly nervous, as if he was shocked that his scheme worked. You would have to keep an eye on him, watching as he proves himself.

Jaime bowed his head, “I will protect you with my life.” He really just didn’t sound like the Jaime that everyone knew. His words sounded so genuine. Without another word, you exited the cell. “We plan to leave soon. Please see to it that Ser Jaime is bathed and dressed and prepared for the journey.” From the corner of your eye as you walked past, you could see the shock on their faces. “But Your Grace--” they protested. “Quickly, please,” you replied over your shoulder. You took one last trip to your quarters to put a custom-made breastplate that went over your heavy gown fashioned for the long ride. Much like the armor, Robb had a three headed dragon pressed into the leather of the piece that covered your sternum. Then, you pulled on your cloak made with wolf’s fur. The Northern Dragon.

You entered the courtyard where you began helping in the effort to prepare but the men insisted that it was handled and the queen did not need to concern herself with it. It made you roll your eyes but there was no point in trying to argue. As you turned, you spotted Robb, who you immediately jogged over to, grinning. Even in all the chaos, you couldn’t help but feel those butterflies every time you saw him. But Robb’s expression was not so happy.

“You had him freed,” he said. “I accepted his offer, yes,” you replied. Before he could say anything else you needed to add, “I told you to trust me.” He sighed, “Yes, but these men will never trust a Lannister-- least of all him. Especially as a Queensguard. I don’t know about this, Y/N.” You sighed. He was right, this move could make things worse-- but you were a queen and you should be able to do as you please. The people should trust that you know what you’re doing. “They should trust me too,” you replied. He simply nodded, though he was still visibly nervous.

Finally all ready, you pulled yourself up onto your house up at the front, next to Robb. You then watched as Jaime walked out, clean with his beard trimmed down, dressed in Northern armor. It was a far cry from the gaudy armor he had worn as part of King Robert’s Kingsguard. The men around you started to grumble and you turned to face them before they could begin yelling. “My lords, I understand your worries and frustrations but I ask that you all trust me in this. Ser Jaime will be serving as my Queensguard.” The mens’ faces were stern, but you could see the anger in their eyes. They simply turned away and kicked their horses into action.

It was a bit of an awkward ride, with you being between Robb and Jaime. Not much was said but then again these rides weren’t typically filled with small talk. It was just after sundown when you all finally came to a stop and set up camp for the night. Robb immediately went to meet with his advisors while you decided to let yourself into Jaime’s tent. There was plenty for the two of you to talk about.

It seemed as though he was preparing himself for sleep when you came in. “I didn’t mean to intrude..” you said quietly. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied, offering what you could’ve sworn was a smile. You walked over and perched yourself on the very edge of the bed, still not feeling comfortable around him-- understandably so. He continued to stand but turned to face you. “Did you need something?” he questioned. “I need to know why you did this. You took an oath and I want to know that it’s not all a trick,” you replied, a certain vulnerability in your voice that you just couldn’t hide. “If you couldn’t be sure of my intentions, why did you agree?” He was right. Why did you do that? Something compelled you to believe him, but you couldn’t say that. “You.. kept talking about my mother. About how I look like her or sound like her.. and you wanted to know the name she gave me. I don’t know, I suppose it made me believe that you care,” you said, your voice beginning to shake. You hated that. It was strength that you needed to project but you were.. scared. He leaned down in front of you, eyes looking deeply into yours. There was this look that you couldn’t quite decipher. “I don’t regret what I did to your father.” His words were harsh but you couldn’t blame him. “But I do regret not being able to protect your mother. From Aerys and all the rest. So I believe I owe it to her to keep you safe,” he then added, the seriousness of his tone never wavering. “Besides, I’m the best man for the job if I do say so myself,” he said as he stood back up, back to his regular sarcastic voice. “Even your husband couldn’t protect you as well as I-- don’t tell him I said that. Or do, I suppose.” This time you were positive that he flashed you a smirk. You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling in response.

You laid in bed that night feeling much better about the situation. Sure, you still felt uneasy about the way the men looked at you now but you were confident in your choice. If they trusted you as a queen, they would understand why you did what you did. Jaime would prove himself in due time, you were sure of it. But you hoped that they did not begin to resent you.. a Targaryen working with a Lannister, two enemies of the North, to them it must’ve been a recipe for disaster. But you knew that Robb trusted that you knew what you were doing and surely that’d be enough for them, right?

The next few weeks were hard. The looks you were given were unmistakably angry and skeptical but you managed to hold your head high. You still attended most of the meetings where you all discussed the plan of action. Finally, it had been decided that the army would round up all who could still fight and first attack the Dreadfort. From there, it would be on to Winterfell. The logic being that taking the Boltons’ house seat would significantly weaken not only the literal army itself but also the morale. It would insure that the retrieval of Winterfell would go as smoothly as possible. You all still weren’t quite sure how Theon factored into all this but rumors were that he had killed Bran and Rickon and both you and Robb would make sure that he suffered, though neither of you wanted to believe that it could be true. But that could then take care of the rebellion of the Iron Islands.

Your arrival upon the Bolton stronghold took just under a month of heavy riding. The army settled at a safe distance beyond the walls, making your intimidating appearance known but not putting yourselves in a spot to be stormed without warning. There were many lookouts posted and many men slept battle-ready. After an adequate night’s sleep, it was time. This was the siege of the Dreadfort, where the army of those loyal to house Bolton were lead by the twisted and cruel Ramsay Snow. Though not legitimized, he was the only male heir left of Roose’s.

You and Robb helped each other into your armor. It was the first time you had worn yours and he stepped back, looking at you in absolute awe. “I love you,” he said, sounding nearly breathless. “I love you too,” you replied, pulling him into a kiss with a smirk on your lips. When the two of you broke apart, he held your face in his hands and pressed his forehead to yours. “I know that you know what you’re doing just.. I need you to return to me. I’m lost without you, I--” His words made your heart ache, so you cut him off. “I will. We’re going to win this, okay?” He let out a deep breath before letting you go then nodded. “I’m going to stay close to you but if we get separated just..” His voice trailed off and all he could do was come up with a sad smile. You nodded back at him, understanding what he was trying to say.

The two of your left your tent and within no time, Jaime was at your side, looking shocked by your attire. You raised an eyebrow, a playful smirk on your lips. “So we’re doing this together then?” he questioned. “That we are,” you responded.

THIRD PERSON POV.

Jaime was left in awe of the Targaryen girl. The armor that had been adorned with her house sigil fit her like a glove. It reminded him of Rheagar and he hoped that she had the same skill that he did. But then there was those silvery locks pulled back into one long braid, like that of a Northern woman. But she was no wolf, he thought to himself. He finally turned his gaze away from the young woman and set his attention on the task at hand. Above all, he would keep her safe but he would make sure that they took the place for their own. Her goals were now his as well. But he also had plans of his own that he planned to reveal in due time.

Robb’s army marched forward and the eager Ramsay opened the gates for them. He was confident in his forces, sure that they were not only able to defeat the men in combat but that their brutal methods would make those remaining run in fear. He would finish what his father should have and flay the so called King in the North alive. His Targaryen would queen would be next. Or maybe, he’d make the Stark boy watch as he cut her up before moving on to him. The thought of it made him grin with sick pleasure.

Charging in, Robb’s army began to clash with Bolton forces. Men on each side were being struck down as casualties began to stack up, they seemed fairly even. It wouldn’t be an easy victory for either side.

BACK TO Y/N’S POV.

As what would be expected, at a certain point you did become separated from Robb. Both of you were being put into tough spots and the only logical move was to separate. Though it made you nervous to not know where he was and if he was okay, you knew that he was a more than capable warrior. What was even more shocking was that you had become separated from Jaime. He had taken an oath to protect you but now he was nowhere to be found. It made you wonder if it had just happened naturally or if he had deserted or even worse, he had been continuing to work with his family all along. But you couldn’t concern yourself with those thoughts right now, losing your focus for even a second could mean certain death. You just had to believe that Jaime was somewhere fighting to get back to you.

You were cutting down Bolton loyalists left and right, letting out a grunt now and again. Adrenaline was pumping through your veins and your anger had you seeing red. It was amazing the way you managed to dodge every swipe and stab. You had left an entire hallway of bodies in your wake when you turned a corner and got stormed by a man who used his forearm to slam you into the wall, knocking all the air out of your lungs. “The Targaryen bitch,” he said with a smirk. “I can’t wait to see the reward Ramsay is going to give me for you,” he kept going, face coming close to yours. You clenched your jaw, attempting to wriggle yourself away but his force on you was strong. “Though I’d love to take a little reward for myself right now..” Of course you knew what he was implying but before he could smash his disgusting lips onto yours, you spit directly into his face. It caught him off guard and caused him to stumble back. “You bitch!” He screamed and readied himself to slam you again, surely in a way that would leave you unconscious. But you moved more quickly than him and buried the sword deep into his chest, panting as you watched the life drain from his eyes and felt as the warm blood covered your hand. Forcefully, you pulled it out and watched as he dropped to the floor.

You took off down the halls, somehow never running into another soldier. You finally made your way out into the courtyard where a few infantrymen were fighting each other but in the center, you spotted Robb and Ramsay battling it out. Each of them was landing hits on the other, leaving both bloodied. One wrong move and Robb could be dead. But you could turn the tides by rushing Ramsay from behind, so that’s what you did. Unfortunately, the force with which you shoved him wasn’t enough to send him falling into the snow. Instead, he turned quickly on his head and clashed his sword with your own.

Before you knew it, there was strong arm around your waist, hot breath on your neck and the cold steel of a blade pressed against the delicate skin of your throat. You had made the wrong move and now you would die for it. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, readying yourself for death. When you opened them, you were met with the horrified stare of Robb and you did your best to smile at him but you were unable to hold back the tears. Your breath was shaky as you mouthed the words, “I love you.”

“It seems we are at an impasse, my king,” Ramsay finally spoke mockingly. He then spoke directly into your ear, “I hear you’re the one who killed my father.” His tone was angry.. at first, then it quickly turned into delight. “You have actually done me a great favor, you know?” He chuckled and in response, you tried to break free of his grip and he only chuckled some more. “Lets not make this more difficult than it needs to be.” You could see Robb clenching his jaw and certainly thinking up his words carefully. “You aren’t going to win this, Ramsay, hand her over and I shall grant you mercy,” he barked. “Oh I wouldn’t be so sure there. You’ve lost many men.. even your father’s ward has betrayed you. And now I hold your queen’s life in my hands.. I don’t think this is much of an even playing field.” His delightful tone never faltered and it sent a shiver down your spine. Robb opened his mouth to speak but before he could get anything out, the bastard cut him off.

“So here is what I propose.. you surrender, tell your men to stand down and I spare her life,” he began. “Don’t!” you cried out. You would much rather die than Robb give up all that he had built. The freedom of the North was much more important than your life. Ramsay pressed the blade closer to your neck and you could feel it begin to break the skin and just a drop dripped down. “The men are speaking, darling,” he said, still speaking in that carefree voice. “I was also thinking that I could.. take her off your hands.” His words made you gasp. “Absolutely n--” Robb started. “You want her to live, don’t you? Well those are my terms, young wolf. What do you say?” You may not have been able to see his face, but you could feel the smirk in his voice. He clasped his hand over your mouth and nose, instantly sending you into a panic. “I said, the men are speaking,” For the first time, he sounded annoyed. “Well?” he asked. Just as Robb opened his mouth, a crossbow bolt wizzed past your head, directly through Ramsay’s skull. In seconds, his body fell to the floor and you rushed into Robb’s arms, the two of you holding each other in a tight embrace. You looked up though, wondering who was the culprit.

Up on the walls you saw none other than Jaime Lannister staring down at you. Your features portrayed pure shock. Robb broke away and turned around and you watched as his eyes found Jaime. The two of you were at a loss for words. All Bolton men stood down and your army quickly took them as prisoners. Jaime made his way down to you two shortly, walking over with a confident smirk. “You know, I’ve never been very good at that,” he said. Your brow furrowed with confusion. “But I made an oath, didn’t I?” You were at a loss for words. Robb was the first to step up, though. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said, clearly still in disbelief. “I made an oath I intend to keep,” he said again.

The knight then moved closer to you, lifting your chin with his finger to examine the small wound that had been given to you. “I’m fine,” you said shakily, leaning back. “Still,” he said, then turning to Robb, “You need to get her a medic.” He nodded, calling out to the men to get someone immediately. Everything from then on out was a blur. The cut as well as other bruises and such were being tended to back in the camp. Afterwards there was a celebration. The Queen in the North had survived thanks to her Lannister Queensguard and the Dreadfort had been sacked, with the only remaining Bolton being slain. It was a great victory and made them feel more confident about their impending fight to take back Winterfell. And after Robb established his reign, they would fight for their official secession from the Realm and once again become a free Kingdom.

That night when you slept, you had a vivid dream. You stood on the shores of an island where you heard a loud screech. Turning around, you saw a large dragon take off from the wall of a large castle and head straight for you. For some reason, you felt no fear. The creature landed in front of you with a loud thud followed by a large breeze created by its wings. It looked directly into your eyes before letting out a mighty roar, making you recoil just a bit. Once it was over, it continued to stare at you, seemingly tilting its head with curiosity. Slowly, you walked forward and reached out to touch it. The scales felt burning hot to the touch but there was no pain. Suddenly, you woke up and sat straight up, panting.

Robb immediately woke up, sitting up and wrapping an arm around your waist while placing a hand on your cheek and leaning down to look you in the eyes. “What is it, love?” he asked, still slightly groggy. “I just.. I had a dream,” you replied, still a bit breathless. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real. You’re okay, you’re safe,” he said quickly, his grip on your waist becoming tighter in an effort to comfort you. “No I... I wasn’t afraid,” you said, staring off for a bit before looking back at him. “I think.. I need to go home, Robb. Not forever but.. I need to see where I was born. I don’t know what that all meant but there’s just this feeling,” you said softly, knowing that it would undoubtedly upset him. “Winterfell is your home, Y/N. Dragonstone is far, you can’t make that journey alone. So much could happen, I.. I can’t lose you.” With each word he spoke, you could hear his anxiety spiking. “I wouldn’t be alone. I would have Jaime.. nothing would happen to me. Trust me, I plan to return to you as soon as I can, my love, but something is calling me there and I can’t ignore it.” His expression was that of sadness and pain, it broke your heart but you stood by what you said. This feeling could not be ignored.

“I told you to trust me, didn’t I? Jaime saved my life today, I know he will be able to protect me. I just need you to understand that this is something I need to do,” you added, taking hold of the hand he had formerly held to your face and squeezing it. “I trust you,” was all he could manage to say. “We know that we have allies in White Harbor who would give us a small ship and a crew. If we ride fast enough, we could arrived there in a week’s time. I know I don’t know really anything about travel by ship but I don’t believe it should take very long. I.. don’t know how long I will be there but know that I will return to you. I’ll send a raven upon my arrival, alright?” you said with a nod. He sighed and nodded in response. “I know there’s no stopping you,” he said with a slight chuckle. Of course there wasn’t, all throughout your childhood he had never been able to keep you from doing what you wanted no matter how risky or ridiculous. You smiled before pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

You stood up from the bed, moving over to your trunk and finding your clothes for the day. “I’ll tell Jaime that we’ll be leaving as soon as possible,” you said as you said as you held different practical dresses up. You looked up from the clothing to see Robb still in bed, smirking. He got out and walked over slowly as you retuned to your search for something to wear. You felt him wrap his arms around you from behind, placing soft kisses along your neck. Shivers ran down your spine but you playfully tried to resist him. “I think we both deserve a.. proper goodbye,” he said in a low whisper, giving you goosebumps. Unable to resist, you finally turned around to face him, pressing your lips to his with passion as you placed a hand on the back of his neck. His own arms wrapped tighter around your waste, returning the passion and pulling the two of you back until you fell onto the bed. The two of you began to giggle and grin between kisses as thing became more heated. You still would not budge on consummating your marriage, refusing to become pregnant right now, but found other ways to please each other.

Lying beside one another, you looked into each other’s eyes. “What am I going to do without you?” he sighed. “You’re going to fight for our home and win. You will crush our enemies and when I return home.. we will get revenge for Lord Stark and Lady Catelyn,” you replied. Propping yourself up on your elbow, you ran your fingers through his curls with a smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.” After placing a soft kiss to his forehead, you began to ready yourself for the day. First, you certainly needed a bath after the morning you had. After that, you dressed and made your way to Jaime’s tent.

You sat at the edge of his bed beside him as he polished his blade. “To what do I owe the honor of your company?” he asked, not looking up from his work. “We’re leaving,” you simply replied. The had him looking up immediately as he put down the sword and polishing materials. “What?” he questioned. “We’re leaving. Gather your belongings, we leave for Dragonstone at once.” He gave you a questioning look. “I woke up with this feeling.. I just need to be there. There’s something I need to figure out about myself, about my family.. I don’t know. But we’re going, so please hurry and get your things. I would like to reach White Harbor in a week.” He stood and started to get everything together. “I’d say that’s a bit unrealistic but as you wish,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

Rolling your eyes, you exited the tent to be met with looks you didn’t quite understand from the men. Suddenly, each got onto one knee. “My queen,” they all proclaimed. You could spot Robb from a distance and shot him a questioning look, to which he responded with a smile. Lord Karstark was the first to stand, nodding his head to you. “We wish you safe conduct,” he said and then all the others chimed in as they also rose to their feet. It left you speechless. Not long ago, you swore these men were quietly doubting your authority and now here they were, clearly showing their devotion to you. You believed that they genuinely wished for your safe journey and return home and it surprised you. You were quite worried that your return to your house’s seat would leave them in doubt. Smiling, you projected your voice, “I thank you all!” They all moved aside as you made your way through them to get back to your tent, where Robb followed you inside.

Tears were pricking at your eyes as he pulled you into a tight embrace. “I told you they believe in you,” he said quietly. You had shared your concerns with him in late night whispers. You held on to him, saying nothing and instead burying yourself in the crook of his neck as tears you were unable to hold back slipped out. He rubbed your back quietly. After taking a deep breath, you broke apart. “This is it,” you said, feeling them begin to start back up. “It is,” he replied sadly, wiping away the tears with his thumbs as some welled up in his own. It broke your heart but you knew this was something you needed to do. The feeling would eat away at you if you put it off.

As soon as Jaime was finished, the two of you readied your horses with a wagon attached to his to hold your belongings. Robb insisted that you have just a few other men tag along, at least until you two reached White Harbor but you had to remind him that it would only draw more attention. After another tearful goodbye, you and your sworn knight were off. What awaited you in Dragonstone you weren’t sure but you were eager to find out.

Things were a little uncomfortable the first few days, neither of you saying much on the ride and being far too exhausted when you set up camp to have any coherent conversation. It was around the fifth day when Jaime decided to speak up on a slower portion of your ride. “So what is this.. calling you say you had?” he asked. You hadn’t even realized that you didn’t actually explain anything to anyone other than Robb. “It was.. this dream. I was there on the shore, staring out at the ocean when I heard the cry of a dragon. When I turned around, it was headed straight for me and roared when it landed. But I never felt scared. As soon as I touched it, I woke up with this feeling that I needed to go,” you said with a sigh. He looked over at you with a furrowed brow. “You don’t think we’re going to find a dragon just hidden away there, do you?” he replied with a chuckle. You rolled your eyes, looking away from him. “No! I just.. I think it meant something. A symbol or something, I don’t know. All I know is I need to go there now.”

There wasn’t much more to be said, you were too frustrated to continue the conversation though Jaime did try. It wasn’t until you two finally reached White Harbor that a real conversation sparked up again. “Stay close to me,” Jaime said in a low, serious voice. You shot him a questioning look. “Do you not see the way people are looking at you? Sure most people have heard rumors about your existence but not everyone believes it. We don’t exactly know who is okay with it,” he said, making sure to keep his voice down. You nodded, sticking close to him and lifting up your hood as to not draw any more attention from the common folk. Robb said that he had sent a raven to prepare his allies in the harbor for your arrival, so all you needed as to focus on finding them.

People stared as you kept your head down and walked quickly navigated your way through the harbor. When you finally arrived in the shipyard, you began scanning around. It was stressful, as you didn’t even know what you were searching for. That’s when you saw a tall, bearded man staring at you. Curious, you walked closer. “Queen Y/N?” he called out, causing you to let out a sigh of relief and a nod. “Robb told us you’d be coming.. and with him.” There was resentment in his voice as he turned his gaze towards Jaime. “Yes, he is the Lord Commander of my Queensguard,” you said, pulling his attention away from Jaime. “I truly can’t thank you enough for your help with this journey. It means so much to me,” you added, offering him a smile and trying to redirect the conversation. He nodded, returning the smile. “It is my pleasure, my queen.” He then ushered the both of you onto a small but sturdy ship where a crew was already preparing to set sail.

After discussing the details with all of them, you turned to the man who Robb had asked this great favor of. You smiled, “Thank you so much.” He returned it before replying, “I wish you a safe journey, Your Grace.” Then he left and you were pushed off from the harbor. You looked over at Jaime, whose expression you couldn’t quite decipher and then nodded. Strolling over to the side of the boat, you leaned on the railing and stared out at the sea, watching as White Harbor slowly disappeared. You stayed out on the deck for a while before retiring to your quarters, ready for sleep after a long day.

That night you had another dream. This time you were walking the steps up to Dragonstone, hearing footsteps behind you. It was Jaime. He nodded, as if to tell you to keep going and so you did. In no time, you were at the doors of the castle and you could feel your heart nearly beating out of your chest. Taking in a deep breath, you shoved the doors open. You weren’t sure what you were really expecting but there wasn’t much to find. As you ventured through the halls, running your fingertips along its walls, you heard a noise. You couldn’t quite figured out where it was but you followed until it became louder and louder. Finally you stood at the top of a stairs. Whatever it was, it was down in the bowels of the castle. Without a second thought, you hurried down them, eager to figure out just what the hell was going on here. When you finally reached the bottom, you could see a faint light in the distance that you began to ran towards-- and that’s when you woke up.

These dreams had to mean something. Whatever was at Dragonstone, it was beckoning you there and you would answer its call. You just had to hope that it wouldn’t be something you’d regret. You weren’t quite sure what time it was but there was no way you could fall back asleep, so instead you readied yourself for the day and went up on deck. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon and you smiled, hugging your arms close to your body as a brisk wind blew past. Losing yourself in thought, you were only drawn back to reality when you felt a presence beside you. Looking up, you were greeted by the sight of a smirking Jaime Lannister. “Good morning,” he said. You nodded in response.

The two of you stood in silence, enjoying the view before he spoke again. “What do you expect to find, really?” he asked, sounding sincere now. You sighed. “I’m not sure. I had another dream last night and I just know that something is waiting for me,” you let out a huff. “Well then I suppose we’ll just have to find out, yeah?” he replied, offering you what appeared to be a real smile. Slowly, you were beginning to believe that Jaime truly did care for you and really wanted to see to it that you were protected. In fact, you were really starting to enjoy his company. “So do you have any idea how close we are then?” you questioned. “I have been on a ship very few times in my life, Visenya. I haven’t a clue,” he said with a slight shrug. Visenya. It still felt odd to be called that but.. in a good way. It was what your mother intended and the closer you got to your house seat, the more it felt right. You may be an official Stark now but you were still a Targaryen, and one of two that remained at that.

As the day began to wind down, the both of you returned to the lower deck. There was a common area where you two sat and go into the ship’s storage of ale. You laughed and joked for hours, Jaime telling you about the ridiculous things he’d gone through with his family and how he was honestly a lot happier this way. You knew for sure that it was something he’d never admit sober and even then, he seemed shocked that he had admitted it. It made you grin. “A Lannister happy to be in the service of a Stark queen?” you laughed. “Who would’ve thought.” His eyes narrowed, “You may be his queen but you are no Stark, Visenya.” You opened your mouth for just a second before rolling your eyes and huffing as a response, knowing there was no use. He was right, in a way. But still, you were a part of Robb’s family.

Each day felt longer than the one before and you began to wonder if you’d gotten lost. And that’s when you finally saw it, the castle that was shrouded in fog becoming more and more visible the closer you got. Finally, you had made landfall and you anxiously awaited for the men to anchor the boat and set up a bridge to let you off. Once they did, you started off towards the steps that lead you up, shouting a “Thank you!” as you went. You heard Jaime hurrying behind you. “Slow down!” he called. “I can’t!” you responded.

It took you longer than you expected to climb them all but when you did, you stood in awe of the large doors. They looked just as they had in your dream. Jaime finally stood at your side, panting. After some deep breaths, he spoke up. “Are you ready?” he asked, concerned but also somewhat impatient. Finally out of your daze, you nodded. Taking a deep breath, you walked forward and pushed the doors open. As you walked in, everything looked just as you had dreamed-- except for the unfamiliar banners that hung on the walls. Seemingly sensing your confusion, Jaime spoke up. “Stannis Baratheon’s. After.. what happened, his brother gave Dragonstone to him,” he said. You nodded, clenching your jaw at the thought of some usurper just giving away the land your family held for so many years. You yanked hard on the fabric and it came tumbling down. Never again would this place belong to anyone else. Queen in the North or not, you would not let your family’s seat go to anyone else ever again.

Just like in the dream, you ran your fingertips along the stone walls, breathing the air in deeply as if it were somehow different than that up North. This is where you were born.. but also where your mother had died. The beach you arrived on was the same one your siblings had been sent away from. There was plenty of bad memories here but there was also something you needed. Something that would help you better understand yourself and where you came from, you were sure of it. Then, just like that vision, you found the same stairs that lead down into the dungeons. Taking a few deep breaths, you began to walk down.

When you heard Jaime right behind you, you turned to look up at him. “I need to go alone,” you insisted. “Visenya, you don’t know what’s down there. You can’t--” You knew that he meant well, but you cut him off. “I can handle myself. I need to do this alone, Jaime,” you said, trying to stress just how important to you this was. He seemed taken aback, simply nodding and going back up to the top of the steps.

Taking a deep breath, you continued down into the darkness. Part of you wished that you had brought a torch, though you just felt like this was right. Finally reaching the bottom, you looked all around before spotting a light in the distance, just like that from your dream. Everything from your dream was coming true.. it was giving you the chills. Walking slowly towards the light, you squinted your eyes trying to figure out what you were looking at. Finally, you reached the source of the light, though you struggled to understand just what it was you were seeing.

Bending down on your knees, you finally made sense of what you were looking at. The sight left you breathless. Before you, there was three candles. And in front of each one, a dragon egg.

FINAL NOTES: well y’all wanted her to have a knight who protects her.. bet you weren’t expecting it to be jaime ;) and dragons!!!!! ahhh i’m really happy with this chapter and what it has established and i hope you guys are too!

#robb stark imagine #robb stark x reader #game of thrones imagine #game of thrones x reader #jaime lannister imagine

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tibbinswrites · 4 years

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Prompt #170: Part 3

So @day-fire asked (fist slammed a table) for a part three and made grabby hands... how could I leave those grabby hands empty? I’ve now done prompts for: #1, #2, #4 and #16, #9, #10, #20, #33, #77, #78, #170 (part 1), (part 2), (part 3), #327 and #502 and I’ve finally completed my backlog so I’m not accepting any more prompts at this time.

Also, just in case you weren’t aware, I’m part of an incredible destiel fanfic, art and podfic anthology. Our indegogo page is live here and there are tiers ranging from simply gorgeous PDF copies and all the podfics to beautiful print books with a bunch of other merch like bookmarks and art prints. We are now FULLY FUNDED so this project is a go! Everyone who buys a printed copy of the book now shall definitely be receiving one (and hey, maybe even a hardback one if we make it to 143% funded).

So here it is. The third (and final) part to the original prompt: “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

I hope you like it ^_^ Read the first part here

Read the second part here

Before Chuck’s body even had time to cool (metaphorically of course, there hadn’t been an actual corpse left behind once Jack was through with him), Billie showed up.

“Well done,” she said in that perpetually-sarcastic-yet-somehow-still-serious tone of hers. “You actually did it. I have to admit I’m surprised, it was touch and go there for a while.”

“Okay,” Dean immediately shifted from one fight to the next as he turned to confront Death. “We followed your plan, did your thing and we won. So now, you owe us.”

Watching Billie’s face transform into shocked indignation was worth the demand all by itself.

“My thing?” She said, drawing herself up to her full height, a crackle of dark energy seemed to buzz around her for a moment. “My thing was saving the world, the world that you all live on. I believe that what you mean to say is ‘Thank you’. I owe you nothing and our alliance is done.”

“That’s not how I see it,” Dean insisted stubbornly. “You going after Chuck was more personal than doing us a solid. He was messing with your books and your big picture plan so your beef with him wasn’t exactly altruistic.”

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam murmured in his ear, stepping forward to grab his shoulder but Dean shook him off, his eyes only on Billie.

“Well you’ve got balls, Winchester, I’ll give you that,” she allowed, looking more amused now than anything, which Dean counted as a win because, you know, even by his standards, he knew that pissing off Death was a monumentally stupid idea. Even Sam’s presence retreated from his side, back towards Jack. “Go on then, tell me. What is it you want? Aside from… oh, I don’t know, your lives, the lives of seven billion people, your entire universe, and of course the fact that your future is your own again. Because none of that counts if my perceived motivation isn’t up to your very hypocritical standards.”

Okay, so maybe she was a little pissed. Nonetheless, Dean ploughed through, his hands balled at his sides, ignoring the warning looks from his family.

“The point is—”

“Just ask me for the favour, Dean,” Billie interrupted smoothly. “It does you no credit to be making demands with faulty logic to try and save yourself a debt. Either I’ll help you or I won’t, but I’ll be more likely to be on your side if you stop insulting me.”

Dean hesitated at that and swallowed hard. She was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. Sure, he made skeevy deals all the time that almost always backfired but at least he usually expected them to. Quid pro quo was something that he understood well. In this life you had to be willing to give a lot to get a little back. Straight up asking for help from a cosmic entity though? That was new, humiliating territory. He had nothing that she wanted from him anymore. He could ask, hell, he could beg, but he knew as well as she did that he had no leverage to stop her from just walking away.

“I want Cas freed of his deal.”

“Dean!” That was Cas, stepping forward, his face filled with compassion and gratitude as he moved into Dean’s line of sight and Dean’s face flooded with heat that Cas could look at him that way, that Cas could still look at him that way. “You don’t have to do this for me.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Dean said, dragging his eyes back to Billie, who was watching them carefully. “I got nothin’ to bargain with, you know that. You don’t want our lives or souls or whatever. Chuck’s already dead and you don’t care if we’re happy or not. I’m just asking, please. Break the deal.”

Billie considered him for a long time, her dark eyes taking him in, taking in Cas and then she was looking past them to where Sam and Jack probably stood before falling back on him. He briefly wondered what she saw… she didn’t like him all that much he was sure and if he had learned anything about her it was that she didn’t do anything that contradicted with whatever her big picture was. What Dean was asking was a pretty heavy shift of the way the stage had been set. But he couldn’t let her just leave without taking what might be his only shot to save the man he loved.

Finally, Billie sighed and took a step back, her grip shifting on her scythe.

“I can’t.”

Dean tried not to wilt, resolutely did not look at Cas. He didn’t want Cas to see the apology in his eyes, the failure.

The entire room was still, not even the dust motes seemed to move. Which was ironic really considering the fact that the world Dean had just helped save was starting to fracture around him.

Dean felt a warm hand on his arm then and a soft voice in his ear.

“Dean, it’s alright.”

“No!” He turned on Cas with all the fury he wanted to direct at Billie, at the Empty. “It’s not alright! How can you just stand there and tell me that you’re fine with being miserable for the rest of your life? How can you justify that? How can you?” he jabbed an accusing finger at Billie, who stared back, impassive in the face of his rage. “After what he’s done for this world, and his part in your plan—which was freaking huge by the way, he did way more than any of us—how can you just stand there and tell me that he doesn’t deserve to be happy?!”

“Deserve has nothing to do with it,” Billie told him calmly. “I told you, I can’t break the deal, because I wasn’t the one to make it. I can, however, make a call.”

And with that, her eyes rolled up into her skull, leaving the blank whites staring out at them all. Disconcerted, Dean glanced around at the others. Cas was still next to him, his presence solid, his eyes almost hopeful. Sam had herded Jack nearer the door in case they needed to bolt, though Dean knew that was more for appearance and instinct’s sake, neither of them were going anywhere, no matter how hairy things got. Jack was staring at Billie, looking pleased if not relaxed. Sam’s eyes met his and Dean wasn’t surprised by the conflict he saw there. He felt it too. He knew as well as Sam did that if he put all his hopes in this and it didn’t pan out, it would destroy him. Sam would back his play, of course he would, he wanted Cas to be happy and safe as much as Dean did, but Dean could see the deep concern there that he knew wasn’t for Cas. He looked away, back to Billie, whose irises were slowly sliding back into place, and the growing puddle of darkness that was beginning to materialise on the concrete floor.

Dean watched, feeling increasingly sick as the black, liquid-looking substance bubbled and rose and solidified into a vaguely humanoid form. There was no face, which was disconcerting as all hell, and the thing’s limbs were just a little too long and… wobbly to be truly human. It was making his brain fuzz over just looking at it. He felt Cas’ grip tighten on his arm.

“What do you want now?” The thing whined, it’s non-face turned in Billie’s direction. It’s voice was perhaps the most surprising thing about it, it was high pitched and nasal (which was impressive considering the thing’s lack of nose) with a slant to the words that Dean couldn’t place. He supposed ‘afterlife dimension’ came with its own accent.

“The angel wants out of his deal,” Billie said. “The humans wish to make what I’m sure will either be a heartfelt plea or some kind of threat.”

“You called me for that? Isn’t this over? Hmmm... I have God and His sister all nicely tucked away and sleeping. Why am I still awake?”

“Look...” Dean said to the goo-creature, and the head swivelled around on a too-loose neck. He stared at where he thought the eyes should be, trying not to be creeped out by the fact he had no idea if his gaze was being returned or not. He also wasn’t sure what tack to try here. He had no more leverage over this thing than he did the Grim Reaper, would it respect a strong stance or was grovelling the way to go? He would do it, if that’s what it took to let Cas live the rest of his life chasing joy. Hell, he would get down on his knees if it meant that he could finally return the words Cas had voiced not three weeks ago. His mind was spinning, but coming up a blank.

So Sam stepped up, taking slow, measured steps to stand at Dean’s other shoulder. “You’ve helped us out before, done Jack a solid when you let him come back and we appreciate that. We also know that you’ve got some issues with Cas and we’d really like to resolve those so that… so you don’t take him.”

“Yeah,” Jack piped up, moving to Cas’ other side. “We’d really rather he stay with us. Without giving up his happiness.”

“Cas is the main reason you still have a place to go back to,” Dean added. “Can’t you just give him a pass? More than anyone he’s earned that.”

“The little shit woke me up!” The creature screeched at them out of its non-mouth. “I haven’t been woken up in the history of ever until that feathered moron came along. All he had to do was sleep, yes, and he couldn’t even do that! So I’m taking him when I damn well please. I gave up my legitimate claim to you, nephilim, just to squeeze out every drop of revenge. You think I’ll go back on that now? Oh, no, no, no, not when the due date is so close, am I right?”

Dean blinked, suddenly getting the feeling that the Empty had stopped talking to them at some point and had started addressing Cas, who he felt perfectly still beside him.

“Am I right, angel?” The thing cooed, “You almost have your happy, don’t you? You’re holding it back by a mere membrane. And now it stands right next to you and tries to get me to change my mind. That has to be nice… seeing how he cares. How they all care.”

Cas said nothing, but in a quick glance Dean saw his lips press together, his eyes lower. The submission hurt Dean more than any outburst of rage at this creature who had stolen all the things that people lived for, everything that Cas had fallen for and given so much of himself to protect. It wasn’t fair that he was now just as cut off from it as when he was a mindless automaton. He should be angry.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me,” he said, still looking down at the floor. “But if this deal breaks, Jack’s soul is forfeit, and I can’t—”

“No it’s not.”

Every head turned to look at Billie, who was the picture of nonchalance, except for the gleam in her eye. “Jack’s soul will go to heaven.”

The Empty spluttered. “I think you’ll find nephilim are my jurisdiction.”

“They are,” Billie agreed, “but Jack’s not a nephilim anymore. Is he?”

Dean gaped in Jack’s direction. The kid frowned, then looked like he was concentrating really hard on something, and then surprise lit his features. “I’m human?”

“Your power was what was needed to defeat God,” Billie explained. “The exact amount of your power. No more, no less. It was never really yours anyway, it was inherited from your father. But you disowned him and chose a father of your own.” She nodded towards Castiel. “That severed the power from you, made your human soul separate from the archangel grace. In reality, Chuck was fighting two of you, Jack, and He was only able to destroy one. Of course, He thought the one worth destroying was the one with the power, leaving you as the other. Pure human. Which,” she smiled at the Empty, “is my jurisdiction.”

If the Empty had a face, Dean was pretty sure it would be glaring fire at Billie. “You’re on their side?” It screeched. Dean winced at the piercing volume. “You want me to break the deal. What? Are you going to keep me awake until I obey, yes? You can’t pull that lever twice, Reaper. I helped you with the old man and the dark one all on the promise that once this was over you’d let me sleep and I know you to be a being of your word.”

“You’re right,” Billie said evenly. “I will keep my promise, regardless of whether or not you help the angel. But I would prefer it if you did. As a favour.” Her eyes flicked briefly to Dean’s at that and a newfound well of respect for Billie threatened to spill out of his dumb mouth. He swallowed it back. He was pretty sure she could see his gratitude. She had already helped them by calling the Empty here, and it would have been more than fair for her to leave them to do the convincing, which he was pretty sure wouldn’t have worked on its own.

The Empty seemed to consider that; clearly weighing the benefit of having Death owe it one against whatever pleasure it would gain from torturing Cas. The decision took far longer than Dean was comfortable with and something snapped in him at the tense silence. His hand found Cas’ and he held it tight, ignoring the surprised look that melted into fondness on his left. He felt a hand land on his opposite shoulder and looked up into Sam’s face. There was a soft smile there, and pride, but there was a twitch in his eyebrow that begged him not to entwine himself so deep that he couldn’t disentangle himself if this all went to shit. Dean couldn’t bring himself to tell him that it was far, far too late for that.

“Hmmm...” The Empty said. “Well… There it is. Looks like Castiel just cashed in his happy.”

Dean’s head snapped around. Cas was looking at him, beaming really. His eyes glittering in the low light, radiant in a way that was different from his grace and far more beautiful. The hand in his gave a gentle squeeze, though there was fear in those eyes now, his moment of pure joy eclipsed by the fact that this could all be gone with his next blink. Dean brought his other hand around to clasp their already joined ones, as if he could just hold tight enough, then nothing could make him let go.

Seeing Cas afraid was like an icy fingertip sliding down his spine. He turned back to the Empty, readying himself to throw a punch or to prostrate himself on the ground and beg, or start another goddamn apocalypse just to draw the fear from those blue, bottomless eyes. It couldn’t end like this, not when they were on the precipice of whatever this promised to be, not when they could finally, finally start living for themselves.

“Please,” Dean said, his voice thick and unwieldy in his mouth. “Please let him stay with me.”

The creature hummed again, an irritating sound that buried into his skull. “Alright.”

It flicked one of its (too bendy) arms in Cas’ direction and the angel cried out in pain, dropping to the floor like a sack of bricks and dragging Dean down too where their hands were still clasped.

“Cas!” Dean yelled as Cas began a low moan that rose in volume and pitch and agony until it was a scream, and then his back arched so dramatically Dean heard it crack, and Cas’ eyes widened to the point of popping. In the next painful convulsion, Cas ripped his hand away from Dean’s.

“Cas!” Dean cried again, scrambling to get it back, to offer what little comfort he could. If these were going to be Cas’ last moments, Dean couldn’t bear the thought that he would have to endure them alone.

Cas’ lips were moving, but all that was escaping was a wordless scream. Dean shook his head, not understanding as Cas’ agitation only grew. He looked around at each member of his family crouched next to him, and terror dominated his expression.

“Eyes!” The word was strangled. “Help—”

Suddenly, the sound of Cas’ screams cut out at the same moment the world turned black. Dean’s vocal chords strained around Cas’ name, around Sam’s name, but he couldn’t hear either. He felt Cas in front of him, writhing and solid and silent, felt the hard concrete under his knees, felt the fabric of a jacket as he reached out blindly with his other hand. But all he saw was blackness. Fear roared inside him. He couldn’t see his family, he didn’t know what was happening to Cas. Had he gone blind? Deaf? Was Cas looking to him for a final comfort?

Worst of all was when Cas’ hand went limp.

Dean was pretty sure he was losing his mind. He was sure he was screaming, sure he was yelling himself hoarse, cursing the Empty, Billie, God. He dropped his hand from what he was pretty sure was Sam’s shoulder and moving it to his own face. He felt wetness there, sweat or tears he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Cas wasn’t moving and he had no idea what to do except clutch that hand in between both his own and hope.

Just as suddenly as it had vanished, sound returned. He heard his own name in Sam’s voice and a moment later, his brother’s scared face materialised in front of him, and Jack was there too, his own face pale and scrunched in confusion and discomfort as he shook himself. There was also a horrible, burbling sound that it took him far too long to realise was coming from him. He took a deep breath to stop it and looked over at where the Empty and Billie had been stood.

They were gone.

“What the hell was that?” Dean asked, his voice raspy and worn out.

“No idea,” Sam said, looking a little ill. “But it really sucked.”

“Yeah.” As the adrenaline leaked away from his brain, leaving his extremities tingling, he flexed his hand and found he was still holding onto something.

Cas!

With a jolt, Dean looked at the still figure lying on the ground. His eyes were closed and there were black shapes on the floor extending from his shoulders.

“No,” He moaned, squeezing his eyes shut again, flashbacks of a cabin, of another joyous moment turned to ash, of a grief so heavy he’d buckled under it the first time, how could anyone ask him to even lift it now?

He heard Sam swallow next to him, clearly floundering for whatever words he thought Dean needed to hear.

He heard Jack’s breath hitch, then. “Wait. Look!”

Dean blinked heavily. Jack was staring at the black marks, then he reached forward and picked up a feather. Four inches long and inky black, the thing gleamed in the poor light. Despite the urgent pleas of his heart, Dean looked more closely at what he had assumed to be just scorch marks. There were more feathers. Loads of them, filling in gaps in the patchy outlines of Cas’ wings. They were how Cas’ wings had looked the last time Dean had seen their shadows; there weren’t enough feathers to make the wings complete, Cas had shed plenty over the years after all, but there were still dozens of them. All the feathers Cas had had left, if Dean were to guess. He didn’t know what to make of it and although he could hear Sam’s brain whirring as it tried to put the pieces together, Dean couldn’t quite bring himself to care what it meant. He leaned over Cas and smoothed the hair back from his forehead, numbness crawling its way along Dean’s limbs and tightening around his nerves. He arranged the body how he would if the pyre was already built, pretty sure someone was talking around him but unable to take any of it in. He adjusted the coat, laid Cas’ hands carefully by his sides, fixed the tie.

While he did that last one, his hand passed over Cas’ chest and he felt a flutter beneath his fingertips. He paused for a second and felt it again. Hope surged through him so fast it was painful. He pressed his palm to Cas’ chest and waited. Please, please, please, please, please.

Thump.

“He’s alive!”

Dean began to gently tap his fingers against Cas’ cheek, calling for him over and over again, his other hand feeling the steady, human beat of Cas’ heart.

“Come on, sweetheart, wake up.”

Cas groaned, the most wonderful sound that had ever graced Dean’s ears. All the air escaped him as Cas began to twitch, his eyelids fluttered and he blinked them open.

“I love you too,” Dean blurted out, physically unable to keep the words in any more. “I love you so freaking much Cas, and I’m real glad you’re not dead.”

“Me too,” Cas said blearily, pushing himself to a sitting position, only to be bowled over again by Dean launching himself into his arms. Corny or not he couldn’t help it. He needed to hold him, surround himself in Cas’ warmth and Cas’ smell and Cas’ love. He needed to feel the life around them. “You make me very happy, Dean.”

Dean said nothing, but he shoved his face in closer to Cas’ neck.

After a few moments he deemed himself recovered enough to pull back and help Cas to his unsteady feet. Jack moved in for the next hug and Cas’ eyes went soft with wonder as he embraced his son, finally allowed to feel the joy that such a gesture brought. Sam was next, pulling him into a sasquatch-worthy bone-crushing hug and whispering something that Dean couldn’t catch, though their grins were bright and a little teary as they separated.

Cas then looked down at the feathers scattered on the ground and bent to gather a few. “Angel feathers can be useful spell ingredients,” he said by way of an explanation as he stuffed them into his coat pocket. “And it’s not as though I have a use for them anymore.”

“You know, we could try and find a way… if you wanted...” Dean started to offer, and even though Dean wasn’t sure if the Empty had completely destroyed Cas’ grace or what and had no idea how to even start that quest, he knew with certainty that he would find a way if that was what Cas chose.

Cas was already shaking his head, a small smile on his lips.

“No. I think… I think I’m tired of being an angel. I don’t want to watch humanity anymore, I want to be a part of it. I want to enjoy this, every moment that I get to love and be loved in return is a treasure I never could have imagined before I met you.”

“So… home?” Dean asked, more than ready to start building the rest of his life with his brother, his son and this newly-human man who had never looked like more of an angel to him.

Cas nodded and reached for him, slotting their fingers together.

“Home.”

#supernatural #spn fanfic #prompt #part 3 of 3 #fanfiction #writing #angst #happy ending #Destiel fanfic #TibbinsWrites

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cutie1365 · 5 years

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A Kid from Queens Part 11

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Info: CA: Civil War Era. Tony Stark enlists his daughter to find the web slinging spider in Queens.

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: language, lmk if I should add anything

A/N: I’ve removed a lot of people from my taglists for being inactive, to be on it and stay on it you must like my posts, and comment or reblog. There’s a google form in my bio to request to be added.

Masterlist linked in my bio. Taglist in the reblog.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

A bright stage light blinded you as you shifted back behind the curtain. A production assistant was clipping a microphone onto your dress that was so tight they’d actually made you wear spanx. Fucking spanx. You were a healthy 18 year old girl, wearing Spanx. You felt like you couldn’t breathe.

Your gaze shifted to the other side of the stage where you saw your publicist-turned-manager, Linda, give you a thumbs up and a cheery smile. You flashed her a toothy smile right back to reassure her. She had been preparing you for this all week, and you were ready. You were used to meetings with important people, investors, and shareholders; Pepper taught you well, you knew what you were doing.

“Ok people! Live in five... four...” A jaunty producer bellowed from behind the cameras.

You took a deep breath in, closing your eyes and reminding yourself why you were here. When you opened them, you put on your mask: a bright smile, wide eyes, and shoulders back. You were no longer the girl who just last week was crying in a conference room over a boy. No, for the next hour you were Y/N Stark: a girl who definitely had her shit together, sporting a nearly $5,000 Oscar de la Renta dress with some Jimmy Choos to match.

The audience roared as the large red “Applause” sign above the stage lit up.

“Thank you! Thank you for joining us and welcome to all of you at home tuning into our live broadcast of The Tonight Show!” The spirited host greeted the audience, he spoke again once their cheers died down.

“Tonight we have a very special guest. She’s a partner of Stark Industries. She’s the daughter of Iron Man! Give it up for Y/N Stark!” His voice grew more and more excited with each description.

Was that really all you boiled down to? ‘The daughter of Iron Man’? Would you ever be able to be your own person? All your accomplishments, and still, the most interesting thing about you was your paternity.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

Unbeknownst to you, thirty minutes away in Queens, May Parker was flipping channels as her nephew ate dinner. Landing on channel 6, she recognized a familiar face.

“Peter, isn’t that your little friend?” She asked excitedly, pointing to the TV. He lazily draws his attention to the screen before he did a double take. Oh God, she looked amazing. He thought.

“We’re not really friends May, she’s just my boss’ daughter.” Peter spoke, hoping she’d change the subject, or the channel.

“Wow, look at that dress! She looks like a million bucks!” May smiled, in awe.

“Try a billion.” Peter muttered, thankful that May didn’t have super-hearing like him. Normally at this time, he’d be getting ready to go out for patrols, but he was curious. Why were you on live TV? You didn’t do interviews. So tonight, he decided to take his place next to May and watch, because honestly - he missed you. If this was his chance so see your smile and hear your laugh, then patrols could wait an hour.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“Thank you for having me.” You nodded politely as you adjusted in your chair.

“Well it’s not everyday I have superhero DNA seated across from me.” The host joked, and you laughed politely, mentally regretting this already.

“What can I say? It’s in my blood.” You shrugged, the audience roared as the neon sign flashed. Your interviewer joining in, though you could tell it was fake.

“Yikes that was bad wasn’t it, guess I’ll leave the jokes to you.” You declared with a smile.

“I guess out of all those PhDs you have, none of them translate to being able to come up with a decent punchline.” He retorted, playfully.

“Oh certainly not, probably the opposite considering they’re in Electrical Engineering and Ethical Philosophy.” You laughed.

“Which is incredible by the way! You’re 18 and you have two PhDs. How’d you do it?” What an original question. You thought and mentally rolled your eyes.

“A lot of hard work and dedication. And, sure, I’m not oblivious to the tremendous amount of privilege that I have. Sometimes it’s about the right opportunities, and those aren’t always fair. I’m hoping one day to change that.” You spoke honestly, gaining a round of applause from the audience.

“And how do you plan on doing that?” He asked, baiting you. He knew why you were here and what he was supposed to steer the conversation towards.

“Well, systematic change doesn’t happen overnight. But as a start, we want to be able to give young people interested in science, technology and engineering a foot in the door. We’re opening up a Stark Internship program, for kids across the country to come work with us and learn from us. Anyone is welcome to apply. There are more details on our website.” You looked directly into Camera One. You felt as if you were reading from a script, you’ve practiced this so much.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“Peter, isn’t that what you do?” May asked, turning to her nephew.

“Kinda, Mr. Stark said they were expanding nationwide, wanna help out more people ya know.” He lied, in reality he had no clue what you were doing. A heads up would have been nice, but it was helpful that his alibi was now legitimized.

“I like her.” May said with a soft smile, focusing back on the screen.

“What?” Peter asked, taken aback.

“I like her,” May repeated, “She recognizes her privilege and she’s giving back. Plus her shoes are to die for.”

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“That’s amazing. Does that include scholarship opportunities?” Your host inquired, just as planned.

“Of course! We already offer a few scholarships, there’s even one named after Dad and I at MIT, but we will be expanding greatly. One hundred of the applicants will receive a $50,000 scholarship, so there’s certainly no reason not to apply.” You laughed.

“You’re going to be a busy girl, doing all those interviews.” He remarked. You hated the way he called you girl. You faked a laugh before responding.

“Oh, I know, but I think it’s important for me to really have an intimate role in the selection, you want to build those personal connections. Ya know?” You nodded.

“Those are important, sure. Now, Y/N, it’s no secret that you’ve also been running Stark Industries’ Philanthropy, so what’s next on the agenda for you personally?” He asked, turning the conversation... this wasn’t planned.

“Um, sure we have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies here at Stark Industries, so we’re constantly making pretty large donations to a number of deserving causes. If you’re referring to large scale philanthropic galas then the NYC Hope Gala is coming up, which targets childhood cancer research and awareness. And of course, The Met Gala is coming up next month.” You nodded. What was he playing at here?

“And can we expect you to attend?” Something about his demeanor was changing, and you cursed yourself for agreeing to do this on live TV.

“Haven’t missed it in four years so there’s a good chance.” You assured him with a smile.

“Are you nervous to attend a public event considering what that took place at the last one?” You felt like you had just been punched in the gut, and you hoped that didn’t translate onto your face. He really was going there, and you had a feeling you knew where this was heading.

“I believe that when you live in fear, the people that orchestrated these terrible things win. So I’m not going to let that happen.” Your mind was reeling trying to figure out his next move, and what your response would be. Should you keep talking to fill the time until commercial break, in an attempt to limit whatever might be coming next? You looked at the monitor, 5 minutes until commercial, shit. A lot can happen in 5 minutes.

“When footage of the attack came out, I think it’s fair to say that the world was shocked.” There were random voices of agreement coming from the audience.

“About?” You asked, surely he wasn’t bringing this up. Your heart began to beat faster.

“I don’t think anyone expected you to stand up and fight the way you did, what prompted you to do that.” Ok this is your chance, stall. You thought.

“I- I suppose it was a spur of the moment, fight or flight sort of thing. In times of panic everyone reacts differently. I have basic self defense and martial arts training and some Stark tech, that’s about it. No crazy powers or anything. Someone once told me that if you have the ability to stop the bad things from happening, and you don’t, then they happen because of you. I knew that I could do something, so I did.” You spoke slowly, hoping to come off as sincere and thoughtful, though you were really just killing time.

“And paid the price.”

“I didn’t say it was easy. But some broken ribs are a small price to pay for saving some lives.” You tried to convince him.

“And how has it affected your relationship with the Mayor’s son, the reason you were at the gala that night?” Shit.

“I think it’s normal that trauma and stress can put a strain on a relationship, but if you’re both willing to communicate and work through it then there’s no reason it should have a negative affect.” You were immediately reminded of your interaction with Thomas last week.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“Let's be honest, you were using me the entire time.” You said calmly, shouldn’t you be angry?

“Well not the entire time.” He answered with a smirk, dropping it when he noticed you were not amused.

“Thomas.” You spoke seriously, with a brow raised.

“Ok fine, like 95% of the time,” He admitted, dropping his playful tone once more, “Why are you here Y/N?”

“Because it's my turn to use you.” You stated simply, mimicking his smirk.

“What?” His eyes grew wide.

“The public needs to keep thinking were the perfect happy couple.” You explained.

“Why?” He asked, shaking his head.

“I have my reasons and you have yours.” You answered cryptically.

You weren’t surprised when he agreed, his father’s poll numbers had been dropping significantly. He wanted to get back in his father’s good graces. You were going to use this opportunity to look into the family, and the possible weapons dealings Danny Rand had warned you about. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, they say.

Plus, it gave you a good alibi to move the attention off of Peter, well, Spider-Man.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“So you’re still together, despite the rumors that you’ve split?” Your interviewer pried.

“We are still together, and doing quite well, though I appreciate your concern.” Your reply was confident, and just cocky enough to get a laugh from the audience.

“How did he react to the rumors about a midnight tryst between you and Spider-Man?” He was enjoying this, and to top it all off, blasted that damn photograph on the screen, just in case the world had forgotten.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

Peter choked on his water, causing May to worryingly ask him if he’s alright. He attempts to reassure her, and silence her to hear your response.

You laughed before answering.

“Well I’d hardly consider it a midnight tryst, considering this picture was taken at 7:30. Plus Thomas was over at the time so it would be pretty hard for him to believe there was any ‘trysting’ going on.” You lied. Peter listened more intently as the interview was slowly devolving into an interrogation.

“So are you denying that you know Spider-Man?” The interviewer pressed, his tone near threatening.

“I’ve met the guy once,” Peter saw you shrug, “He saved my life, I thanked him. I’d hardly consider that knowing someone.”

It was in that moment Peter realized why you were doing all of this. You were trying to protect him, to shift the story. You wanted to get the attention off of him, and by doing that, shifted it all onto you. You were taking the fall, and once this blows over you can’t turn back. You were going to have to keep this up, this media persona. That meant more TV appearances, more interviews, more parties and galas. Becoming the exact person you didn’t want to be. Putting aside your work and research, for him.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

“When we come back Y/N Stark is going to answer your questions you sent in on Twitter!” He pointed his note cards to the camera with a smile.

The curtain closed as you cut to commercial break. Your smile dropped and your mask melted away.

Your publicist Linda ran on stage yelling at the host.

“What the hell was that? We told you the attack was off limits!” She scolded him, you almost thought she’d threaten to sue. You’d never seen her this worked up before.

“It’s what people care about, it’s what they want to know! No one cares about how much money you donate to some kids.” He argued, you shook your head at how heartless he was.

You stormed over to the side of the stage, you could hear Linda’s heels behind you.

“Y/N-“ She spoke once she caught up to you, you whipped around to face her.

“This is why I didn’t want to do this bullshit! I’m out here getting interrogated! What’s he gonna ask about next, huh? The incident? The fucking Accords? Jesus!” You ranted, flailing your arms about.

”Back in 10.” A stagehand informed the two of you.

“Listen, I didn’t know he was going to do that ok. But now, you’re going to get your butt back in the chair and answer their silly questions from Twitter and you’re done, ok?” She pushed you back onto the stage, you quickly took your seat as the curtain separating you and the audience was pulled open and you were back live.

- - - - - 🕷 - - - - -

After a painful 15 minutes of mind numbing questions like “Who’s your favorite Avenger?” and “F Marry Kill- Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man” (which you had declined to answer, that was your dad for Christ sake), you were finally making your way back to the car. Linda was giving you instructions in preparations for your day tomorrow.

“Ok, we’ve got the Vogue interview tomorrow morning, then Elle in the afternoon so I’ll send hair and makeup over around 5:45AM, you’ll have to be up and ready. Oh, but don’t eat anything you’ll want to look nice in your dress tomorrow.” You gave Linda a side eye and eye roll when her last words came out of her mouth. You were certainly not starving yourself. If you wanted to eat, you were going to eat, and God have mercy on anyone who got in your way.

Once you returned to the quiet emptiness of your apartment, you immediately slipped out of your dress and into yoga pants and a sports bra.

You began wrapping your knuckles, and attacking the punching bag - a little coping mechanism Cap had taught you. You were furious about how the interview went.

You had doubts that people would ever stop asking about Peter, and if any of this was worth it.

Little did you know, the friendly neighborhood Spiderling was sitting on your roof, after peering in through the window and seeing your assault on the bag.

He was curious about how you were doing. You had looked so happy and put together- but was that just a brave face and a dress? He realized now it was just a mask.

When he glanced once more, he found you in the kitchen, unwrapping your bleeding knuckles and downing a shot... and then another. You looked miserable, and exhausted.

He wanted to talk to you, but he didn’t want to make things worse. He was about to leave when he noticed you pulled out your phone and open the call app.

Your finger hovered over his name and he raised an eyebrow. You had an internal struggle over whether or not to call him, instead you set the phone down and groaned, sliding it across the counter.

“F.R.I. can you set an alarm for 5AM?” You asked, though you wished you didn’t have to.

“Sure can boss.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied.

You slipped a robe over your athletic wear and headed onto your balcony. You leaned on the edge, and looked out onto the moonlit park with a sigh. Dropping your head to your hands once more, and gently rubbing your temples.

Leaning back up onto your elbows, you took in a deep breath.

“I know you’re there Peter.” You spoke softly, turning your head slightly but keeping your body facing out over the ledge.

And your next action surprised both of you: you invited him in.

- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - --

Taglist in the reblog.

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sharkfish · 4 years

Text

ps i loved this one

(rereading bookmarks edition)

i’ve been rereading stories from my bookmarks as a comfort thing. i’m getting real deep in there to stuff i haven’t (re)read for years, and damn do i have good taste. the ones i’ve read recently that you should, too:

(under the cut so i’m not that asshole that makes you scroll past an endless post)

A Change of Scene by SurlyCat

When Dean goes over to see his Dom on Christmas Eve, he isn't expecting Cas to play naughty Santa, and neither of them is expecting how it turns out for them.

ooooomg fuck me up with that sex to lovers thing featuring bdsm. yessssss

A Room of His Own (or not) by Valinde (Valyria)

Dean took a deep breath and reassessed the situation. He was in bed with a guy, sure, and technically they were snuggling, but it was Cas. The guy had absolutely no reference on what was appropriate physical contact between two dudes sharing a bed in the... normal, completely unsexy, no-funny-business, way.

cas is fallen, dean is confused (what else is new), A+ cuddling. that’s the fic.

Boys On Film by LoversAntiquities @tragidean

But maybe that’s what it is—maybe Castiel’s finally realized something Dean is too chicken to admit, despite the fact he’s been jerking off to the idea of Castiel fucking him for the past few weeks. The idea warms him as much as it pains him to think about, his friend not being able to talk to him about something like that. That has to be it—it’s the only explanation. Castiel likes him.

“Or maybe he knows you do cam shows.”

Dean chokes on his burger.

idk what to say, i love a good sex worker fic and here you go. @tragidean is always here with that first-class content.

Castiel's Angel by Valinde (Valyria) @valinde

The angel took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. He was fidgeting Cas noticed. Usually he was so bizarrely at ease in his human form, lounging around and tossing winks and smirks at anyone with a pulse. That more than anything had Cas straightening on his stool and wishing he was a little less tipsy.

“Ineedyoutogroommywings,” Dean muttered in one long, almost unintelligible, string. He was blushing.

all my fellow wing hos should flock* to this fic. i also love me a good switcharoo with angel dean (and hunter cas, as this is an alternate canon universe). and dean gets all claim-y, which is also my jam.

*this was unintentional but a pretty funny joke

For Science! by pm_lo

Selected transcripts and supporting materials from Dr. Castiel Williams and Dean Winchester’s seminal study on physiological and psychological sexual response by gender designation.

i believe this was the first abo fic i added to my bookmarks. story time: many, many moons ago, i kept track of my reading list. i was doing that “50 books a year” thing so it was mostly for tracking that, but i had another tab for fics, because i read few enough that i could track them. i rated things and sometimes left notes, and by all the abo ones i was like “don’t tell anyone i read this.” yes, i shamed myself for liking abo. it was a dark time in my life.

anyway, then i read this, and was like, all right i can see what’s going on here.

this is a great fic for multiple reasons, and the format is one. it’s written as dialogue-only transcripts from their experiment. it’s hard to make that kind of format work, but pm_lo ain’t fucking around.

Just a Stranger On the Bus by Amelia_Clark

December 31 9:32 PM When Castiel boards the bus in KC, they think it’s empty at first—but when they toss their backpack onto an aisle seat and climb in after it, there’s a muffled yelp from the dimness at the back of the bus. They turn in time to see a man in a faded Carharrt jacket, sitting up and yawning as he rubs sleep out of his eyes. The man’s hair is greasy and matted down on one side, and there’s drool on the side of his face; nonetheless, he’s ridiculously good-looking.

“Hey man,” he says. Castiel does not correct him. “This can’t be Chicago.”

the non-binary tag, just like the trans tags in general, are a house half-built and left to rot in the rain. even if that wasn’t true, this series is goddamn amazing. also there’s rimming. also there’s a line in there that said something like “they don’t dislike their body, it just never felt like theirs” and i had a lightbulb moment irt my own experience. did dean ever wear carharrt in the actual series? if not, mistakes have been made.

Just Turn Around and Go by PorcupineGirl @porcupine-girl

Dean should be happy. His best friend and housemate of five years, Castiel, is moving out to live with his boyfriend, Balthazar. Dean's career is going great, so he can easily afford the house on his own now. This is just growing up, moving forward to the next phase of their lives.

It would be awesome, if he weren't in love with Cas.

Well, here we go, he thinks as he opens the refrigerator and digs around for sandwich supplies. First day of the rest of your life. Time to move the fuck on. As he slams his meat and mayo and pickles down on the counter, he considers adding the bottle of whiskey he knows is hiding in the cabinet, but decides that he has enough self-respect to wait 'til five. Then he'll get fucking blackout drunk. Yep. Awesome.

y’all, do i even have to say anything about this? roommates to friends to a pathetic amount of pining without saying shit to disgustingly in love. also i think i cried, but i’ve been in tears so many times in the last week, who’s to say.

Plus One by ceeainthereforthat @ceeainthereforthat

Castiel Novak might have to attend three weddings in two months, but he’s not about to let his brother play matchmaker. His family’s Internet streaming company is too important to let a relationship steal his time, but he knows exactly what to do–hire someone to pretend to be his boyfriend.

Dean Winchester has worked five-star hospitality long enough to know how to fit in with Castiel’s crowd, and this job could score him the connections to make his acting career take off. It’s a business deal, no matter how they’re drawn to each other. When the lines of their contract start to blur into real feelings, can they withstand Castiel’s family and jealous fans working to split them up?

there are a lot of great fake dating stories out there, but this one takes the cake (or, at least, a slice of it). also, i cried a lot rereading this, both “ohhh god i love their love” tears and also “ohhhh god this hurts so bad” tears.

Should've Just Asked by Annie D (scaramouche)

Despite their age gap and differing social circles, Castiel has struck up a warm friendship with Mary Winchester, a wealthy widowed socialite. When Castiel needs a place to stay, Mary invites him into her house, where there’s loads of spare room. Castiel’s aware that they make an odd pair, but he doesn’t fully realize how things look to outsiders, especially to Mary’s eldest son. All Dean Winchester sees is that his mom has apparently hooked up with a hot young guy (who is totally Dean’s type) and that makes things… weird.

they’re both oblivious idiots in love, cas is grey-ace, dean’s a total dork, it’s all just very lovely (and frustrating in the way oblivious idiots can be!!!).

PS - annie d is writing marvel fic lately and i’m sure it’s fantastic if you’re into that kind of thing.

Support Your Local Gay Beekeeper by Powerfulweak

It’s not like Dean goes on Grindr very often, just when he’s bored and alone. The blue-eyed guy's profile reads "Beekeeper, 29, 5'10, Single, I watch the bees." Dean is intrigued. He has to send a message.

this is a series that starts with some great phone sex and then goes on to very, very awkward sex injuries. a goddamn cringefest that had me in complete horror imagining it. but it’s fun! they persevere! people so rarely write about Sex Going Wrong and i love @powerfulweak for taking the bullet for us on that one.

Take Me Home Tonight by Persephoneshadow @persephoneshadow

“Come on, we’re finding you someone to…engage with sexually or whatever,” Dean explains, chancing another swig of beer before going on. “Anyone in this bar, no limits, who would you would be your top choice to bang?” “Well, you, ideally.” Dean spits out some beer before collapsing in on himself, legitimately choking this time. “Excuse me?!” ---- Or the one where Cas wants to have sex and Dean is there to help.

your classic denialist “i’ll be your wingman” turning to “actually imagining someone else touching you makes me want to punch someone.” which is dumb, because cas actually wanted dean all along.

Words with Friends by betts

"Dean Winchester is as straight as an arrow. He’s a lady’s man of epic proportions: the king of the one night stand, the messiah of the friends with benefits paradigm, the emperor of perpetual bachelorhood.

Except, apparently, when it comes to his best friend, Castiel Novak."

***

Wherein a longstanding acquaintanceship leads to friendship, then best friendship, then sexting, then dirty talk, then mutual masturbation, then, inevitably, fucking.

look i think you’re always in good hands with @bettsfic. but this one has some good sexting and phone sex right at the start, which i’m totally into, and then it gets even better. cas is a lil bossy, by which i meant to say he’s the kind of bdsm geek who has equipment installed in his bedroom for sex purposes.

You're The Only Stranger I Need by lyndsie_l

When Castiel receives a text from a stranger, he finds himself engaging in conversations daily. He's drawn to the outgoing college student and longs to interact with the other man as often as he can. Slowly, he finds himself falling in love with the other and can't imagine ever meeting a more beautiful person.

The only problem?

He's never actually met this other man.

be still my heart! a long distance/texting/phone sex thing! i want to read it again right this second. cas is such a cool nerd, dean is a brat, it’s a good time all around.

if you enjoy these fics (and you should), please give the writer some love via kudos and/or comments. <3

ps - as always, if i didn’t tag the writer and you know their tumblr, please tag in the comments. i don’t think there’s a writer alive who wouldn’t be happy to be on a rec list. :)

#sharkrecs #sharklist

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wildlyminiaturesandwich · 5 years

Photo

The Sims 4 Island Living - Early Access CAS Review

Huge thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play Island Living early!

I’ve been hemming and hawing all day about whether or not to post this because obviously everyone has access to the game now but I figured I put a lot of work into it, so why not! I know it’s like way late but I had a lot going on during the very short time frame we were given for early access (less than 24 hours) and these reviews won’t be too in depth because I still haven’t really had a chance to explore the new pack fully, but here’s what I have anyway 😊

It’s all under the cut because I apparently had more to say that I first thought lol Seriously, next time a new pack comes out I might just stream. It’d be a lot less hassle for everyone involved and I could just waffle to my heart’s content!

See a preview of all the new CAS items here

From what I’ve seen so far of this pack, the Sims Team put so much time and effort into making everything look amazing, especially the CAS items, which might have meant less time went into making sure everything actually worked properly, but I’ll get into what that means for CAS items in a bit. For now, let’s just start from the top!

🌴 The Hairs

I think my absolute favourite thing about this pack by far has to be the hairs. It’s obvious the team have been working super hard since Seasons to give us better quality hair types and styles, and with all the new hairs in Island Living I think it’s pretty clear that they’re absolutely nailing it so far. They still have a long ways to go when it comes to inclusivity, but I think they’re on the right track and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the future!

I mean all you have to do is look back at Base Game hairs to see how far they’ve come. Back then they had yet to figure out how to make not only simple wavy hair and textured up-dos look good, but more importantly they really struggled with natural hairs (I think we all know I’m referring to the infamous cauliflower hair fiasco).

But look at a few of these GORGEOUS Island Living hairs! I honestly would have paid full price for this expansion, even if I hated everything else in the pack, just to get my hands on those hairs!

I only have a couple minor issues with the hairs. The first being the curly side ponytail that was featured on the female sim in all the trailers. It looks amazing but it clips through literally everything the sim wears. I know there’s probably nothing they could have done about it though and it’s a beautiful hair, so I’m glad they included it.

The second issue I have is that yet again, there is a hair who’s texture overlaps an area it shouldn’t. We seem to get one of them in every single pack these days and this time it’s the big curly bun. The texture overlaps the back right section of the top and bottom teeth:

🌴 The Clothes

The clothes looks amazing as well, in general, but I do have a few issues with the clothes. Not major issues, just generally things could have been done a little differently I guess.

First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Once again teen-elder males, children, and toddlers got very little in this pack. This has become a trend with all new packs now and honestly, it’s never really worried me before because I have pretty much always played female sims, but now that I plan on playing Island Living with Luca I’ve realised just how annoying anyone who plays exclusively male sims must find it! I’m also just realising now as I type this that none of the clothes would suit elder sims either which is kind of sad.

I wish I could say I was exaggerating when I tell you I spent the better part of five hours in CAS trying to give Luca an Island Living make over the other day, but I can’t. I legitimately spent almost five hours in there. The new CAS items for males fall into roughly three categories; traditional islander, cheesy Hawaiian tourist, and swimwear. With an added smaller category of what I like to call “Was I in a shipwreck or did I drop my clothes in wood chipper?”; a handful of clothes that are all torn and ripped for some reason. So, though all the new clothes do look really nice, none of them really suit the style that I wanted Luca to have, and because there is such a limited amount of adult male CAS items in general, it took me forever to find stuff I liked on him and I’m still not entirely sure I like most of what he’s wearing, but I just couldn’t spend any more time in CAS lol

I was also quite disappointed that there were only two hairs for children and none at all for toddlers. Toddlers only got eight things in this pack. Adult females got 67! And as far as I’ve seen toddlers can’t really use any of the new gameplay items either. So pretty much all they can do with this pack is play in the sand and splash in the shallows. What we need is just a whole pack full of stuff for every age and gender EXCEPT young adult females.

This is also one of the areas I think suffered from too much focus being on making them look pretty instead of making sure they actually work properly. If you look at the image below you can see by the top three that some of the clothes have very visible seams and quite bad clipping, especially with muscular/heavier sims.

As for the three images on the bottom... Listen, I love the concept of the bikini bottom with the transparent wrap, and the one piece with the tied top but the textures on all three of these pieces are just... not great. It looks like whoever made the green swimsuit and the pink shorts went absolutely bonkers with the normal maps and highlighting; they look like they’re made of rubber.

The swimsuit is also supposed to be tied at the top but the knot is just a flat texture, there’s no dimension to it at all. The same goes for the bikini bottom and wrap, it’s not only a very low quality looking texture but the bikini bottom is just painted straight onto the outside of the wrap, which bothers me probably more than it should lol I think most people probably wouldn’t even notice or be bothered by these things but this is supposed to be my honest opinion of the pack and I honestly feel like a few of the CAS pieces (like the three above) don’t fit with the rest of the art style of the game.

Side note that has nothing to do with Island Living: I also wanted to add that I’m not happy at all that the pride content we got with the patch did not include a Simlish version of the “It Gets Better” tee. Like MANY other people, I don’t like having English in my game, so I won’t be using that particular swatch I guess.

Overall, I really do like the Island Living clothes a lot. I just feel like I probably won’t use many of them outside of Sulani, and also that more effort could and probably should have been put into making sure they didn’t just look good but also that they worked properly on sims of all sizes and didn’t clip or have holes in them, and that they all fit in with the art style of the game.

🌴 The Mermaids

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve never really cared much about having mermaids in my game. I played with them for a few weeks when The Sims 3 Island Paradise came out and then didn’t touch them again. I haven’t had much of a chance to play with them in Island Living yet, but I can already tell you that I do like them more than TS3 mermaids. However, I’m probably going to stop playing with them in TS4 after a short time as well just because they don’t really have a lot of replay value for me.

They look amazing though! It’s clear a lot of effort was put into making their animations look very natural and organic while they’re in the water. The added animations like their tales hanging over the edge of the tub when they have a bath and the funny little dolphin squeak thing they do randomly were really fun to see happen in game and made me giggle, and I really like the addition of them having a hydration bar instead of hygiene. I’m very happy that they can swim in pools as well! Ooooh and that mermaid kiss 😏

I do wish some things about them were different though. For starters, I wish there was more customisation options for them. Four tales and two “scaled” tops for females, only one top for males that doesn’t have scales on it, and with the exception of different colour options, none of them can be customised any further than they are already are. I really wanted options to add little fin pieces and spikes off the sides of the tales or some barnacles for the elderly mermaids. Maybe some tail scars and missing pieces, and definitely some more facial features like gills, fin-shaped ears, even more scars. You know, basically just anything other than typical Disney style mermaid appearances. I think I might have been far more interested in them if I could have made a mysterious, dangerous-looking siren.

But mostly I just wish they had been made more... I guess MORE of an occult life state? As they are now they’re very similar to the way aliens were made and I’ve always thought EA did aliens hella dirty with the way they were kind of just added as an afterthought in Get to Work and make no real contribution to gameplay. The only occult state that I feel hasn’t been done poorly was vampires and I was REALLY hoping mermaids would be more like that. Instead mermaids have powers that don’t really do a lot, a hydration bar that doesn’t kill them if it drops too low, they can drown human sims but not other mermaids, and when a human sim eats mermadic kelp and becomes a mermaid... nothing happens. They just have a tail when they next go into water; it’s very underwhelming.

I wanted them to be able to earn points to spend on leveling up their powers like vampires but with maybe an added bonus of... something like reputation. So depending on how they use their powers and what traits they have, they could earn a reputation as either a good, wholesome mermaid who just wants to live among the humans and be happy. Or, they could turn to the dark side and become an evil, scheming siren who spends their time plotting how to torture any poor humans unlucky enough to be lured in by their songs.

But that’s obviously not how they ended up being made, and I’m probably just gonna end up playing with them for just long enough to see everything they have to offer and then moving on to more interesting things. I knew that would probably be the case going in to this knew pack though, so I don’t really consider that a deal breaker when it comes to the pack as a whole.

🌴 The Verdict

Overall I really like the CAS items in this pack. I have some issues with them, but as I said, none of those issues were deal breakers. In fact, every single piece of clothing could have been broken in some way and mermaids could have been absolutely awful to play with, but as long as those hairs were exactly as they are; I’d buy the pack just for them 😍

All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. I am not paid by EA to “hype” their games; I am given the opportunity to review their games early in exchange for an honest review.

#The Sims 4 #Sims 4 #TS4 #Island Living #EA Game Changers

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diminuel · 5 years

Text

Re-watching 14x20 now!

It’s a long post behind the cut.

Disclaimer: I liked the episode. It was very enjoyable and it’s easily one of my favourite finales (maybe even tied with the S11 finale, though, no... it didn’t feature a Dean and Cas hug so S11 wins). But this is my reaction - venting post. It’s mostly me being my Cas!girl self and being offended when he’s hurt by loved ones (even though he seems to be able to take it much better than I do).

Read if you dare! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the finale too!

And here we are, right back in the scene, Dean, Sam and Cas facing the consequences of Jack breaking out of the box.

Dean, would it hurt you to be less aggressive to Cas? He’s still putting blame on Cas. ”He’s dangerous Cas and you knew it. You've known it for a long time.” So did Dean, but apparently that’s beside the point. What is the point, Dean? Are you trying to weasel your way out of Cas’ legitimate accusation that they manipulated Jack and decided that locking him away forever was acceptabe? And then that man has the audacity to say “but that’s okay. Me and Sam will find a way.” As if Cas hadn’t been looking for solutions to all problems surrounding Jack all of the time. As if he hadn’t fought and sacrificed for Jack. As if he were not capable just because he doesn’t agree with Dean. Just because he kept it from Dean that Jack killed the snake? (Again with the snake?!) Even though Dean himself kept from Cas and Sam what he had learnt from Donatello?

And then! (oh boy, I’m fired up) And then he says that Jack’s “just another monster”. To Cas’ face. This is Cas’ son, this is a person Cas loves, this is a person Cas trusted Dean and Sam to love too and to parent. They were family, they were in this together and that meant the world to Cas. And that dude has the nerve to say that to Cas’ face.

There’s no guilt or remorse on Dean’s face. I thought maybe the reason he was cruel was to get Cas out of the way. Maybe it was, but he clearly felt no remorse for it.

Dean’s idea for a soul bomb... Dean’s so focused on finding a way to kill Jack that he doesn’t care about consequences. Blowing himself up in the process? Pff, who cares, at least Jack is dead. His “he meant a lot to me too, he was family” speech is just empty words. Dean doesn’t even try to fix him. He’s so angry and focused on revenge for Mary that he can’t see past it. Never giving up on family is always hit and miss with Dean because he does give up. When they disappoint him he turns his back (or actively tries to kill them...). There’s always a turning point when he gives them a chance (even though he holds grudges like a champion), yes, but still. It’s rough.

Next scene, the Mirror Universe office.

In the car, it looks like Dean is waiting for Sam to validate the course of action Dean has chosen. After he made sure that Rowena was on “Team Kill Jack”, he said “she knows what he is capable of” (i.e. why he is dangerous and deserves to be killed) and looks to Sam. When Sam wordlessly gets out of the car, Dean’s reaction reads to me like he’s displeased to not have gotten an affirmation from Sam.

The scene inside the building perplexed me on my first viewing. I mean it’s fun overall, but the light-heartedness kinda threw me off. That’s not to say that there can’t be moments of comedy in an angsty episode. I guess I simply didn’t anticipate it.

What I don’t exactly understand with the people can’t lie rule also compells them to tell the truth. “Stop lying” doesn’t mean “blurt out the truth where it’s not relevant”. Like the guy at the news station who tells the woman that he’s in love with her? Why does he need to say that in an inappropriate moment?

Next scene, Cas failing to get past the Hell bouncer.

I mean. What...? I get that Cas doesn’t have wings at the moment, so flying into hell and into the cage probably doesn’t work like it did when he went after S5. But I guess he would have found a way to get past her and into hell if Chuck hadn’t showed up.

The fake German in the radio makes me cringe. Just get a German person to say one sentence... Also, what do they mean purge? What purge? What’s going on in SPN universe Germany...? (Well, it’s very possible that Chuck made most of that shit up to impress the Winchesters or to enjoy the scene some more. Chuck’s writing is trashy after all. Lizard Queen is possible because this IS Superatural, but it’s still kinda too trashy, even for Chuck.)

Why doesn’t Cas understand Chuck’s explanation of how the gun works? He’s an angel, he should understand it. I like Cas being humanized, but not in that regard. If you had just given the “whatever happens to the person you’re aiming at also happens to you” line to Cas it would have made sense to me.

I think that Chuck is lying when he says that he cannot restore Jack’s soul. He created souls after all. He can alter timelines after all. He just wants to see the drama unfold...

And we’re back to Dean being an asshole! Cas is trying to do the thing Dean always preached: find the other way, trust family, save family no matter the cost. And he’s trying so hard and Dean? Dean just blocks it off, because he got the validation I mentioned earlier. He got someone to support his anger, hurt and need for revenge. And it comes from god himself.

But that he says that he doesn’t care about Cas’ feelings on the matter when it’s about Cas’ son? How heartless is that? Dean doesn’t have to be that cruel. And yes, I noticed that Chuck is manipulating Dean by shifting the discussion of restoring Jack’s soul to focus on the reason why Jack deserves to die/ is a monster (killing Mary). And Chuck is having a good time when Cas walks away when Dean gave him that choice between being on his Team. Sure, Dean didn’t like it when Cas walked away, but what the hell did he expect? I mean come on! What did Dean expect!! Sure, Cas always chooses Dean over everything, but this is not a choice between Dean and Jack, this is a choice between killing Jack and finding a way to keep Jack alive.

I love that scene between Sam and Dean though. I love that Sam gets to spell this out. I just wish that he would have supported Cas instead of being silent. But the most important thing is that he makes it clear that he does not support Dean’s plan and he also shares his emotions about it. Sam has been on a road of blind revenge before. Where all that mattered was killing the monster and he didn’t care about who died on the way there. But instead of making that same mistake again, he talks about what losing Mary and the situation with Jack does to him. And he reaffirms what Cas said: that them having a choice is the point.

But this whole scene makes me wish that Dean would be able to do that too. To talk about his feelings productively and work through them, expressing them and having his family validate them. He is looking for validation and support for the feeling he expresses even if they are negative, but the issue for Dean is that he only allows himsef to share anger, not all that sadness. We saw that, we saw him cry alone in the woods even though there were other people who were also hurt who would have supported his sadness too.

(And I just rewatched the scene. Love Sam, love SPN, love all those emotions I’m feeling watching this. ;w; And now back on track!!!)

I wonder what Dean was thinking or wanted to hear when he challenged Sam with a “whose fault is [Jack not having a soul]”. Who does he think is to blame? He certainly didn’t think that Sam was the answer. Does he think it was Jack’s fault? Or Cas’? What did he want to hear?

So, Chuck got Sam wrapped up in a conversation but sent Dean on his way to meet up with Jack. Maybe he wanted to be sure that Cas was present, maybe he didn’t think it was of any consequence (he doesn’t seem to think pretty much anything of Cas, he rather seems to see him as a tool/ extension of the Winchesters)...

Graveyard scene.

Cas has been very patient and supportive this season, especially with Jack, even though Jack continued to defy him. He still wants to protect Jack because he thinks it’s his job, because that’s the promise he made Kelly. It’s not like I think Cas’ priorities have shifted, I think the Winchesters are still the most important people in his life, but Cas is constantly looking for a purpose, and guarding Jack was a clear cut one. But it’s a thankless task...

Especially when Cas is willing to put himself between Dean and Jack to protect Jack and Jack decides to just swat Cas out of the way. What kind of.........!!!!!!!!!!!!! I lack words.

Also, why doesn’t Cas get up and get inbetween them? Why lie on the floor and watch. Ugh.

Some more interesting talk about Chuck as a careless writer, who does just like what Michael said; trash failed drafts. Chuck previously liked that the Winchesters chose family over the story. And yes, I know it was probably his chosen ending (the only thing kinda surprising him seemed to be Cas being part of the story. Maybe, maybe that way faked too, who knows). So why is he bothered by his characters defying him? Just because they don’t replay his classic epic tale? I don’t quite get Chuck but I probably also don’t have too.

And why doesn’t Cas get to cry? I wished he would have cried. I would have gladly exchanged the uncomfortable zoom into Jack’s burned out eyes for some Cas tears. :/ Or any sign of grief from the Winchesters.

Aaaand zombies.

#Supernatural #spoilers #14x20 spoilers

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elizabethrobertajones · 5 years

Text

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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