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ksfd89 · 2 years

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Character Choices

Regarding the discourse surrounding various choices made by Lorelai, Rory and other characters (but mostly Lorelai and Rory), I think there is an issue in not recognising that the characters do various things not because they are thoughtless or for some ambiguous reason, but to move the character or storyline forward.

People often criticise Rory for being thoughtless or OOC, in contrast to how she was portrayed in the early seasons. An example of this is her sleeping with Dean in S4, stealing the yacht and dropping out of Yale in S5 and 6 or, to a lesser degree, boldly kissing Logan at her grandparents’ wedding. These choices aren’t intended to make the viewer think that Rory dismissing who she is, they are intended to show that she is struggling with adapting to adulthood and no longer is comfortable in her Chilton and Stars Hollow world. While these are not necessarily wise choices for Rory to make, they are consistent with her character as, in S2, Rory impulsively skips school and unintentionally misses Lorelai’s graduation to see Jess and later kisses him when he surprises her by returning at the wedding. Rory has always acted on impulse. In these instances, Rory is not written as being unthinking towards her responsibilities and relationships, but as beginning to break away from her childhood and a new role she isn’t sure how to navigate. In AYITL Rory makes a series of poor choices, but the writing isn’t to make the viewer loathe her. The writing is aiming to show that Rory’s world isn’t as sure anymore, so she falls into bad habits, such as secretly seeing Logan as a means of escapism. At the end of the series Rory wakes up to this and calls it off. Ending things with Logan and writing her book are intended to show that Rory has found her way again (with the pregnancy for complication). Although Rory is still in a state of indecision she has more clarity than when AYITL began.

Similarly, Lorelai’s decisions reflect her character and overall plot. For example, when leaving her parents at sixteen, the point is not to make Lorelai seem cruel or uncaring towards Richard or Emily, but to show her strong need for independence and to raise Rory in a world free from judgement. When breaking up with Max and going back to Christopher, the aim is not to make Lorelai seem heartless or naive, but to emphasise that she acknowledges that the marriage with Max would be for the wrong reasons and a years-long wish that Christopher could get it together and be a father (which Lorelai is eventually realistic about). Lorelai puts up walls as she is afraid of being vulnerable and when she fights with Luke or Rory it is often to show that she is hurt or scared, not that she is trying to be selfish or unkind. When Lorelai tries to be honest with Emily or Richard, or is vulnerable with Christopher, she is often hurt in response. In defence, Lorelai frequently shuts people out and puts on a brave face.

Other characters, such as Jess, are often perceived in black or white terms, with the angry young boy who arrives in Stars Hollow cast as Jess’s whole personality and fate for life. When Jess arrives he is rude and sarcastic to Luke and Lorelai, causing viewers, like most of the townsfolk, taking it as proof that he is ‘no good’ and a bad kid. In the writing, though, Jess’s actions are largely explained by his background: his mother was heavily into pot, moved around a lot and had a series of boyfriends who stole from her and possibly worse. Amongst this instability, Jess is forced to move away and live with an uncle he has never met. He is angry and defensive, distrusting the adults in his life and lashing out. Later, when in a relationship with Rory, Jess misses a lot of school to work in Walmart, eventually dropping out and, after being kicked out by Luke, finally leaves without saying goodbye to Rory in order to see his father who suddenly returned to his life. Although few would argue that these are good decisions, they aren’t intended to show that Jess is bad news. They are intended to show that he is a young guy who doesn’t know how to deal with communication and relationships as he has never had an example. His outburst asking Rory to run away with him isn’t Jess trying to be demanding but a misguided attempt to show love. Between this time and S6, Jess becomes a happy, adjusted adult, yet this is not always accepted. There is an argument that as the viewer doesn’t see what occurs in ‘missing time’ offscreen, the ‘full story’ isn’t being shown. In fiction, however, there is no ‘missing time’ unless it is explicitly stated. It isn’t relevant that the viewer doesn’t see exactly how Jess grows up; the point is that he does so. The fact that viewers aren’t shown it doesn’t negate Jess’s character development. It is no coincidence that, as when Rory helped Jess at his low point in S2, he inspires Rory during hers in S6 and AYITL.

In general, of course, writing choices and bad decisions are not mutually exclusive. Lorelai, Rory, Jess and characters such as Emily and Richard all make choices which can be stupid or thoughtless. The point, though, is that these decisions are not made to make the viewer hate said character. The point to consider why this writing choice has been made, how it progresses the character and plot. As a side note, viewers generally tend to be a lot harder on female characters. The understanding that Jess and occasionally Luke are sometimes unfair or closed off due to things they’re dealing with is rarely extended to Lorelai and especially not to Rory. She cannot remain who she was at the beginning of the series, and often stumbles as she figures out adulthood. Gilmore Girls is a show about people and about life. Everyone makes choices which are complicated and sometimes stupid, particularly those made in youth or times of transition. The question is not if the characters are good or bad, the question is why they have been written to make the choices they have. The answer is often nuanced, as is a lot of life.

#Gilmore Girls #lorelai gilmore #rory gilmore #jess mariano #analysis #I have been wanting to write this for WEEKS but had papers to finish #there was a lot more I could have said about other characters #and sometimes life getting in the way affecting storylines like Dave going to California #and a lot of literati stuff #but this is long enough

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dialovers-translations · 3 years

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DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, BLOOD OFFICIAL VISUAL FANBOOK ー Interview Vol. 2 feat. Nao Nakamura

Source: DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, BLOOD Official Visual Fanbook

Release date: 2013

Huge thank you to @keithvalentinex for providing the raw scans!

SECTION 1: Q&A

Q1. When was the series’ sequel decided on?

A: Around the time the first game ‘DIABOLIK LOVERS’ was released in stores. We were fortunate enough to have already received news of an anime adaption at the time, so at some point we played with the idea of creating a fan disc to go along with it. However, if possible we wanted to hype up the series even more in anticipation of the anime’s release, which is how the production of a ‘DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, BLOOD’ series came to realisation.

Q2. Did you plan on introducing a set of 4 new characters during the early phases of development?

A: The initial draft we received from Rejet-sama mentioned four characters. We figured that with that amount, we could pack it into one game and create an equal amount of content as we did for the Sakamaki’s, so we proceeded with said idea. At one of the first brainstorm sessions, we casually dropped the idea of creating a game with 6 Do-M characters... (lol) However, that would stray too far away from the core concept behind ‘DIABOLIK LOVERS’, so it obviously got rejected. (lol)

Q3. How did you go about writing the characters’ dialogue and actions?

A: I believe that the previous installment can be regarded rather groundbreaking within the genre of otome games. However, the boys coming across as too strong to the point where it would prevent someone from delving deeper into their character is something we reflected upon. We wanted to make up for that this time and created this game with the intend of exploring them even further.

Q4. What did you struggle the most with while writing the script?

A: This doesn’t apply solely to the script, but the fact there are so many romanceable characters in this game is what made it so difficult. However, we did not want there to be a difference in quality between the different characters’ routes. Despite our strong wish to please the playerbase, it made the distribution of time very difficult. The writers would first pen down the script, then Rejet-san would do the proofreading and make adjustments and then pass it on to us. However, reading a script while playing a game or simply reading it on paper is still different, so we were making minute changes down to the very last minute of development. We ran through the same process for the last game, but this time around, the total amount of content was just very large. We once again felt the struggle of putting in so many characters to choose from. However, we did this to create an even better game, so it was worth the struggle.

Q5. Which character caused you the most problems while writing the script?

A: All of the Sakamaki’s. The four Mukami brothers who make their appearance in this installment may be Vampires, but they were once human just like the heroine, so in terms of emotions, they tend to sympathize with her more. As a result, it only makes the Sakamaki’s seem even more like they are the villains of the story. While this may seem obvious given their original setting of being both ‘Vampires’ and ‘extreme sadists’, it makes it very easy for the otome game element as well as the feelings they end up developing for the heroine to be lost, in which case they would no longer be the six brothers we wanted to deliver. Therefore, it was very difficult to convey to the player that the love they harbor for the heroine eventually makes them change, while still preserving the sadistic tendencies which stem from their nature as Vampires at the same time. The player base has spent quite a bit of time interacting with these brothers, and I am sure it was not always easy, but I hope said message was delivered to those who played our game.

Q6. Is there a character who underwent drastic changes compared to the last game?

A: All of them are still the same at the core, so my impression of them did not change depending on the scenario. I believe minor changes were done to the way some of the characters are drawn, but personally I perceive each character as a mix of both their previous and current representation.

Q7. In this game, each section is divided into a ‘Situation Part’ and ‘Story Part’. Could you explain your intentions behind this?

A: When collecting feedback on the previous game, we received many complaints about the different chapters feeling inconsistent and all over the place. However, we always intended ‘DIABOLIK LOVERS’ to be a game in which the player gets to enjoy these different kind of ‘situations’, so without losing this part of the enjoyment, we figured we had to make the plot progression easier to grasp, which is how the current structure was implementend. To make it even more clear to the player, we divided it into two sections and gave each of them a title, changing the names as well.

Q8. What are parts which have greatly improved or parts you want us to focus on in comparison to the first game?

A: To ensure the player gets to enjoy the development in the heroine and characters’ thoughts and feelings, we applied small adjustments till the very last second. We hope that the people playing the game will take notice of this as well.

Q9. Why do you think the series has received such a great amount of support?

A: I believe the impact of the ‘Do-S Vampire’ concept, Satoi-san’s eye-catching illustrations and the charm of the cast who voices the characters all play a big part in this. Furthermore, I also believe that the simultaenous announcement of both drama CDs and a game which took place during the early stages of development had a large influence as well. We were able to make a smooth transition from the release of the CDs to the release of the games, which made it easier for the fans to follow along with the franchise. We truly are grateful for that!

Q10. Were there any ideas you wanted to incorporate in this game, but were unable to do in the end?

A: This game features the same selection segment as the previous one in which scenario’s 1 ~ 6 raise your love meter, while scenarios 7 ~ 10 raise the SM meter. However, we implemented the distinction between the ‘situation part’ and ‘story part’ this time, so it might have actually been even more enjoyable if the situation part raises the SM meter instead...I think. Those kind of features may vary depending on the vision of the director and staff members, so I would like to use this experience to think of various possible routes for future installments, as well as to settle on an end product which is fitting for the franchise. Furthermore, this may seem like a task without an end but I believe that the voicing plays a big factor in delivering the story. It is a vital element of conveying the message you want to tell, in a way that whether or not the player understands the plot is often highly dependent on the voice work. Every time I find myself wanting to perfect this, but it is difficult to supervise all of it just by myself...However, there’s always next time, so I’d love to squeeze in the time to thoroughly check this!

Q11. Do you have any more games planned for the series at present? Would you personally like to create more sequels?

A: We do not as of now, but if there is a strong demand for it, we might just be able to develop another game. Personally I would like to make a stereotypical ‘fandisc’ but the very first thing that comes to mind with those is a 'sweet, romantic story’ so I do struggle a little envisioning how that would play out with a cast made out of nothing but intense characters.

Q12. Please leave a message for the fans.

A: Thanks to the support we have received from all of you, we were able to create so much content for this franchise. I put my heart and soul into this game, so I sincerely hope that many people will enjoy it. Your impressions and encouraging messages are a great motivator as well, so I am eagerly awaiting those! The series may deliver new installments in the future, and to ensure that you all can continue to enjoy ‘DIABOLIK LOVERS’, we will continue to try our hardest together with Rejet-san, so we’d be happy if you could send us your heartfelt support.

SECTION 2: THEIR FAVORITE EPISODES

Sakamaki brothers: The final few chapters of Ayato’s route left a strong impression on me. I couldn’t help but wonder if somebody could truly be that stubborn and in denial about their own feelings, insistent on calling the girl they love ‘a prey’ till the very end. I felt so frustrated when the heroine’s feelings just wouldn’t get through to him, tears welled up in my eyes.

Mukami brothers: The part which gave me the most goosebumps during the development stages has to be Ruki’s Manservant Ending. Takagi Sakurai-san did a magnificant job portraying his silent madness, it was truly wonderful. Second place would be Azusa’s brute ending, even though I knew how the story would go, I still ended up feeling a little depressed by it, so please be careful when you play this scenario...

SECTION 3: NAO NAKAMURA CHOOSES ー SITUATION-DEPENDENT CHARACTER SELECT

Who would you choose in these situations? What’s the developer’s opinion?

S1. To sleep together with?

Best: Subaru, I feel like he has a good sleeping posture.

Worst: Subaru, he might not move around much in his sleep, but it’d still be uncomfortable and narrow in that coffin, huh?

S2. To go on a trip together with?

Best: Shuu, I’m sure he’d just loaf around the lodge all day, so I get to enjoy the trip in whichever way I want!

Worst: Laito, I’d rather keep my distance from him.

S3. To eat together with?

Best: Kou because I’m sure he’d happily gobble it up.

Worst: Kanato, I feel like the food would be lacking in nutrients.

S4. To study with?

Best: Ruki, I think he’d do a good job explaining everything accurately.

Worst: ???, honestly all of them...

S5. To go on a date with?

Best: Yuma, I actually think he would make for a great boyfriend.

Worst: Shuu, because everything would be a chore to him...

S6. To play a video game with?

Best: Ayato, he just seems like the type of guy you can always have fun and make some ruckus with.

Worst: Reiji, he seems super fussy.

S7. To play sports with?

Best: Shuu, I don’t really like exercising so...I’ll go with the person who seems unlikely to exercise in the first place.

Worst: Ayato, I don’t like exercise after all...

S8. To go on a drive with?

Best: Ruki, I’m positive he would look handsome behind the wheel.

Worst: Azusa, it’d be bad if his bandages were to get stuck around the steering wheel or the gear stick...

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #diabolik lovers more blood official visual fanbook #diabolik lovers translation #diabolik lovers fanbook #diabolik lovers interview #nao nakamura

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addictedtostorytelling · 3 years

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I adore your metas and I read them all! Please can I ask how you think Grissom made the move in asking Sara out and then dating her? Did he take her out for breakfast or were they always behind closed doors and asked to bring takeout breakfast to hers? I'm curious how he lifted his head out that microscope and gathered the courage to go for it.

hey, @coffeewithsugarplease!

my short answer is that i don’t think grissom actually formally asks sara out at all, or at least not in the sense of asking her with words like “will you go out with me?” or “let’s take this chance” or anything to those effects.

instead, i think he much more likely goes the physical route—i.e., just up and finally kisses the girl, letting his actions do the talking.

as for when and how he works up the courage to do so, i’ve got my answer after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

______

to me, the whole slow process of grissom and sara getting together starts in s4.

throughout most of that season, grissom's m.o. is to keep his distance from sara, as he is aware that he is still too afraid to be with her (despite wanting to do so) and reasons that since such is now and may always yet be the case, then he must, in fairness to both himself and sara, try to "let her go."

consequently, throughout the year, he goes out of his way to generate some artificial distance between himself and sara, limiting their one-on-one interactions as much as possible, at times being purposefully curt with her, often pulling rank on her and/or siding with other members of the team over her in circumstances of dispute or competition, etc.

of course, for as much as grissom tries to convince both himself and sara that theirs is only a professional relationship with no deeper feelings involved, he largely fails to do so, and especially as throughout the year he is frequently and unignorably reminded of just how deeply he loves sara and how bonded he is to her (see episodes 04x03 "homebodies," 04x07 "invisible evidence," 04x12 "butterflied," etc.).

this push-and-pull of grissom trying to keep his distance from sara but at the same time still being as drawn to her as ever comes to a head during the events of the season finale (see episode 04x23 “bloodlines”), when sara is pulled over for driving drunk, and grissom realizes that the sadness he had sensed in her earlier in the season (see episode 04x16 "getting off") is actually something much deeper and more concerning—and, moreover, that the way that he has treated sara throughout the year has actually done harm to her.

in the wake of sara's near-dui, grissom realizes that he needs to be more attentive to and transparent with sara about the fact that he cares for her, so come s5, that's what he does.

in the early episodes of the season, he shows interest in her progress with her peap sessions, admits to being concerned about her when she behaves recklessly on the job (see episode 05x02 "down the drain"), and is complimentary of her intelligence and abilities, acting very warmly toward her in a way that he hasn't done in a very long time.

his goal with this behavior is not necessarily to “win sara over,” as, given that he is now fully aware of how much his behavior has hurt her in the past, he doesn’t believe that she could or should ever forgive him enough to want to be with him. instead, what he is looking to do is to simply be there for her in any way she needs him to be, putting her needs before his own.

of course, even though grissom doesn’t necessarily intend to woo sara by his actions, that’s what he ends up doing anyway; though she had been burned by his aloof behavior toward her throughout s4, he delights her with how careful he is of her come s5, quickly proving to her that he will be there for her no matter what.

between episodes 05x01 "viva las vegas" and 05x11 "who shot sherlock?", grissom and sara repair the friendship that has always been the foundation of their dynamic with each other.

they then experience two watershed moments, one after the other.

the first occurs in episode 05x12 “snakes,” when, in an instance of open candor, sara reveals to grissom that not only did she originally move to vegas in the hopes that they would eventually have some kind of romantic relationship with each other, but she still harbors feelings for him, even after so many years and all of the runaround between them (“you’ve always been a little more than a boss to me. why do you think i moved to vegas?”).

considering that after the events of s4, grissom had legitimately believed that he had lost all chance of being with sara forever, the importance of this confession from her cannot be overstated.

as i talk about in this post,

to me, the big deal about this scene is that it gets grissom thinking about how neither he nor sara is happy with the way things have turned out over the last few years. it’s sara bringing up their past again that gets him to consider the difference between what he thinks he needs and what he actually needs.

ever since sara joined his team, he has had multiple opportunities to be with her, but he has always allowed his fear and doubt and aversion to change to win out over his love for her. the last time he turned her down—in episode 03x22 “play with fire”—it felt like such a decisive thing, a decision he made that he couldn’t take back, which is precisely how he frames things in his monologue at the end of episode 04x12 “butterflied.” he thinks that sara gave him this last-chance offer for them to be together, and he turned her down, and so he blew it forever.

but after what sara says here, it gets him thinking that maybe that doesn’t have to be the case—that maybe it’s not too late for them to take a chance on being together.

this revelation then leads directly to the next big gsr watershed moment, which takes place in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” when after sara earns herself a suspension from work due to her insubordination toward catherine and ecklie, grissom, throwing political caution to the wind, shows up at her apartment to figure out once and for all what lies at the root of the sadness and anger he has for so long sensed in her, refusing to let her turn him away or dodge the question.

his doggedness results in sara finally telling him the truth about her past, which is that she grew up in a violent home with mentally ill and substance-addicted parents and that her mother eventually killed her father, resulting in her being placed in foster care at a young age.

considering that sara has never told anyone this story before, the significance of her confiding in grissom is monumental.

that she trusts him enough to tell him her deepest, darkest secret is huge.

but what’s huger still is how he responds to what she says.

the reason why sara had always kept this information to herself previously was because she feared that if she told it to anyone, it would cause that person to reject her—that what happened in her home was so horrifying that they wouldn’t be able to look her in the eyes anymore once they knew the truth; that after they realized the brutality programmed into her dna, they would think her unsalvageable and frightening.

that grissom listens to her story, understands the implications, and then is able to look her straight on and say with no hint of doubt in his voice that he doesn’t think that either her history or her genetics make her a bad person means more to her than she can possibly express.

grissom offering her this unconditional acceptance is essentially what clears the final hurdle toward them having a relationship with each other, as it proves to him that despite his doubts in his own courage, he is capable of stepping up and caring for her even with the world howling at him for doing so AND proves to her that he’s not going to split at the first sign of trouble.

as i talk about in this post,

to me, gsr’s whole vegas relationship can be divided into the “b.n.d.” and “a.n.d.” eras—i.e., “before ‘nesting dolls’” and “after ‘nesting dolls.’” the shift that occurs in their interactions once grissom learns sara’s secret is just absolutely everything...

as i’ve written about here, after realizing in s4 that he still loves sara and always will and that he regrets his decision to live without her, this episode marks the place where grissom starts to understand that he cannot continue to compartmentalize his feelings for and relationship with sara without hurting her; he has to be emotionally transparent with her or risk losing her forever.

—and that’s what episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” is all about.

everyone is saying that sara is trouble, but grissom realizes that she’s troubled, which is different. he’s never been able to stand seeing her sad, and he’s felt helpless for a long time to do anything on her behalf. he can’t afford to “play it safe” anymore; he has got figure out what’s going on in her head and in her heart, but in order to do that, he’ll have to show her what’s in his head and in his heart first.

so he goes to her apartment in this attitude of total openness. he makes it clear to her that he’s there not because he’s her supervisor and it’s his job to reprimand her after her outburst but because he cares about her deeply and personally and wants to help her however he can. his show of interest is what gets her to open up, as she finally realizes that what happens to her matters to him. the fact that he would come looking for her when everyone else told him to let her go helps her to trust him.

so she tells him her story, fearing the whole time she’s talking that once he knows what kind of home she came from and what kind of violence is “in her blood,” he’ll reject her.

but then he doesn’t reject her.

he holds her hand.

he looks at her in a way that says there is nothing about her he doesn’t love.

—and to me, that’s what opens the door for grissom and sara to eventually become intimate.

so here’s where we get to my headcanon:

while there is a window of “unaccounted for time” in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” between the point when grissom visits sara’s apartment in the early evening and when he returns to the lab later that night that is of sufficient length that it would allow for grissom and sara to “get together” during that timeframe, i don’t actually think that they do so, either in the sense of grissom asking sara out or in the sense of them hooking up.

to my mind, grissom would not feel comfortable asking sara to take that type of leap at a point when she was so emotionally vulnerable, and sara would be unlikely to try to initiate anything herself.

instead, what i think happens is that they engage in some kind of nonsexual intimacy, like maybe grissom ends up holding sara in his arms until she falls asleep and/or kisses her hands or head and/or says something somewhat emotionally revealing to her (not necessarily “i love you”—because, again, i don’t think he’d want to take that kind of step given the situation—but maybe something along the lines of telling sara how much it means that she would confide in him or promising her that he’ll save her job or expressing how highly he thinks of her, perhaps even more so now that he knows how much she’s overcome in her life to get to where she is).

whatever it is, they both walk away from the experience feeling closer than ever and like their relationship has somehow changed in nature (for the better).

in the wake of the events of episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” i think that grissom and sara then go through a period of kind of feeling each other out, each one desperately wanting to take their relationship to another level but both of them being too shy to do so.

there are probably a lot of near misses during this era—occasions when if one or the other of them were just a bit bolder, someone would say something; a few almost-kisses; a handful of “hey, um—” “what?” “uh, never mind” type conversations.

but there’s also probably actual progress, too—them being more open and emotionally intimate with each other, spending more time together (perhaps even off of the clock), feeling connected and like they’re more and more on the same page.

then i think there’s some kind of catalyst, some event that brings grissom back to sara’s apartment, and this visit culminates with an actual consummation. it’s not a situation where he formally asks her out but one where they just end up connecting, and from then on they both know that they’re together now, just like they’ve always wanted to be.

as i talk about in this post,

to my mind, they probably end up having sex sometime mid-s5 in a “heat of the moment” situation, with all of their years of longing and loving and lusting catching up to them in an instant, and from there things basically take off running.

it’s like a redo of the “pin me down” scene in episode 04x07 “invisible evidence,” only this time they listen to their bodies and hearts and do what comes naturally to them, consequences be damned.

since they’re already deeply in love with each other and have been so for seven+ years AND since they already know each other exceedingly well—not necessarily in the sense that they are apprised of every detail of each other’s biographies but in terms of the important stuff, like being familiar with each other’s life philosophies, having a sense of how the other person reacts under pressure, understanding each other’s hopes and fears, being experts in how to comfort each other, etc.—i don’t suppose either one of them sees a reason to second-guess things.

the only factor that at all “slows them down” is that they each separately and secretly worry that perhaps the other person isn’t “in as deep” as they are (and especially not so soon), and so in order to avoid scaring each other off, they do somewhat temper their own eagerness—for instance, with sara holding back from saying “i love you” to grissom until grissom says it to her first, grissom refraining from asking sara to move in with him until at least a few months have passed, grissom not asking sara to marry him immediately after that first night (even though he’s already been dying to ask her for years), etc., etc.

anyway, that’s my headcanon:

after years of being too afraid to follow his heart and be with sara, grissom finally realizes that for both of their sakes, he needs to step up and show her that he cares. while he doesn’t initially suppose that his doing so will necessarily result in them commencing a romantic relationship (because by this late stage in the game, he’s under the impression that he has both well and truly ruined any chance he might have ever had to be with her), he does hope that in being more supportive of and transparent in his feelings for her, he can finally do right by her after having given her the runaround for far too long.

as he drops his guard with her and becomes increasingly bold in championing her, even in public and under pressure not to, she learns that she can trust him, to the point where she eventually feels safe enough to tell him the secrets of her past.

once she does so, it opens the doors for them to be together, each one feeling more grounded in the other’s bond with them than they ever have before.

in typical gsr fashion, this shift in their relationship status not something they really talk through; it comes on the tail of kisses rather than a conversation.

but once it happens, they just both kind of know “we’re together now.”

as for what their dating life actually looks like once they’re together, i’ve written my headcanon out here, if you’re interested.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #coffeewithsugarplease #asks: csi #**#my headcanons #csi #gsr #let's talk shop #season four #season five #csiverse

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copperpieceharlot · 3 years

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Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

#mine #ask #corvidcorgi #order of the stick #oots #leverage #leverage au #oots au #au #outline #haha this thing clocks in at 1.9k words because i am LITERALLY incapable of shutting up #hope u enjoy it bc i spent Way Too Much Mental Effort mapping out how the OotS plotlines might play out in a leverage setting #and then promptly ignored Most of that in favor of making it funnier & dumber & more villain-of-the-week #(bc lbr the comic is Good but it's got an overarching plot form that the Leverage story style does Not jive with)#i'm not tagging all these characters lol

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 3 years

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Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with: LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER. Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There. I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life. I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable. It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv. So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.” That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.” But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot. That snuck up on me! And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but. God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo? Like, she's just unearthly beautiful. But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman. And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay! But – no he's not? He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks? Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr. But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh. It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place. I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4! It's season 4! I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4! I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus. I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong. The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be. I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like. I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere. God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time. Just. Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project. I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me. I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia! In my way, I love and support Julia! But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster. I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb. I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy. He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion. But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending. For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

#the magicians

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purrincess-chat · 5 years

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I'm curious about your rewriting of the MLB canon, could you talk a little more about it please?

Of course!

What would you like to know? The basic premise that started it was less salt at canon cause I've had this idea for a long time like over a year and a half ish? I think it started back in the BB days (miraculous big bang), and we were all chatting about stuff, and I was like ya know it's awfully convenient for Hawkmoth that Master Fu sent out the exact two Miraculouses that he needed, and also rather risky on Fu's part considering if they failed then someone has all of the power in the universe on his side, so I was like what if Fu just decided to give Hawkmoth the finger and send out a whole ass different Miraculous. So he still gives Marinette the Ladybug, but what if he gave Adrien a different one besides the cat just to mess with him? Now there's probably some bullshit balance yin yang reason for sending them both out together but fuck that this is my AU I do what I want, so thus this idea was born where instead of giving Adrien the Cat, he gives him the Dog who is a less experienced kwami, so she and Adrien get to grow and learn together.

So the point of this AU was to see how different situations would be if he had a different Miraculous, but as s2 went on, we started getting more salty so I was like ya know what, if I'm gonna do this bitch, I'm gonna do it how I want and fix some shit, so I went through the episodes and picked out which ones I wanted to do and considered what I wanted to do with certain characters and relationships and plot lines, and I just recently constructed the timeline of sorts and arrangement of the episodes that I want to do, and I have two "seasons" planned, but they are a mix of canon seasons 1-3 cause I took some liberties in organizing them in a way that makes the story make sense for the rewrite not for canon order.

Somethings I wanted to do with this AU were have Adrien get to grow, so he starts out very naive and sheltered as I feel he should be because a big point of his character is that he *is*. So he makes a lot of mistakes and social blunders early on until he learns to be more well adjusted. His view of the world is very idealistic and taken mostly from movies and anime, and people have to constantly remind him that the real world is much different.

Another thing I want to tackle is an actual Chloe redemption. Because my God, canon. So Chloe will actually get a fair shot to change and become better and a worthy hero.

I also wanted to figure out a way to include Marinette in the plot more, so in this story Nathalie is actually her aunt who works for Gabriel, and it was Nathalie sending her one of Gabriel's design books for her birthday one year that sparked Marinette's interest in fashion and Gabriel's brand. Nathalie in this story is still helping Gabriel for love, but it's for the love of her dead husband whom Gabriel has promised to bring back if he succeeds in exchange for her help. She is also still the first to meet Fu, and the one to pass out the Miraculouses, though she will share with Chien (dog!chat) who she picks instead of keeping it secret.

I intend to introduce the love rivals better, and there will also be less jealousy plots. And the ones that do make it in will fizzle out over time or resolve themselves eventually, the main one being Kagami and Marinette.

I'm still debating what to do with Lila whether I want to expose her after Chameleon (which takes place in early s2 now after the collector) and have her fade into the background, or if I want to only expose her to Alya who then has Marinette's back while Lila slips around everyone else, and if in either of those combinations I want to have her help Hawkmoth eventually or not.

Which brings me to another point, I moved Lila's plot up earlier before a lot of the big classmate moments so that it's a bit more believable why the class wouldn't be super on Marinette's side yet because they've yet to experience some of their more poignant moments together (zombizou, befana, Mayura). So you should theoretically be less pissed at them and then they get a chance to redeem themselves later.

I don't want to say too much, but yeah that's some stuff that has been cooking in my brain. If you guys want, I can share the order I came up with for the episodes to maybe give you an idea for the direction of the story and some characters but it might also confuse you for why I put some episodes where, but just know that I have a plan. ;)

Currently I have two seasons planned, and I have plans for how to continue afterward, but I'm thinking I might make my own canon after that and only pull in actual canon episodes occasionally if I like them and can fit them into the mold of the story cause with what I have planned at the end of s2, canon doesn't exactly fit anymore, but we will see what s3 brings the rest of this year. This story is gonna be a long one. Each "season" is gonna have 22 episodes (at least s1 and s2 do). I don't know how long I will drag it on. Might make s3 the final season, but that will depend on what future seasons bring cause I feel like by the time I get to s3 in writing we will be well into s4 maybe even s5 in canon depending on how slowly they air the episodes. Let me know if you have anything else you're curious about with it. I don't want to spoil big plot details since I am deviating from canon quite a bit, but if you have some generic questions I'm happy to chat about it! It helps me brain storm.

#cat replies #asks #dogrien au #rewrite au #miraculous ladybug #my writing

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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Hello,! How are you? I was wondering if you have addressed appearing weak and his grace issue. Everyone keeps making the assumption that the writers are just making him weak, but I think they are trying to show us that Cas’s is purposely not recharging his grace, so he can feel those human emotions.

Hey hi! I’m lovely! I hope you are too!

I’ve... talked a lot about this. Everything I’d written on the subject through December 17, 2018 I’ve put on AO3 (heyo tumblr nippocalypse panic!):

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019936

That’s over 212k words, but not all of it is about Cas specifically...

I file a lot of what I’ve written about his slow journey into humanity under this tag:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you+learned+it+from+the+goats

So there’s definitely a lot there to read. But for the purposes of giving you a more direct answer, I haven’t seen anyone making the assumption that the writers were just nerfing him for plot convenience purposes.

Yeah, this was definitely an issue when he was first introduced. The fact they only ever intended (before his episodes began airing) to make him a temporary (three episode!) character before killing him off or sending him permanently back to Heaven like most of the other angels who were effectively side characters meant they’d kinda... overpowered him as far as what a regular character can reasonably do and still be an active participant in the weekly drama, you know?

At the beginning, he wasn’t really their friend... He gradually became a powerful ally, and then by the end of s4 he overcame eons of brainwashing to abandon Heaven and help the Winchesters... I mean... that’s a powerful beginning to a story.

But it also makes it hard to let him keep all those powers he’d shown up in that barn with, when theoretically he could just smite or heal away most of the problems they face on an average hunt, you know? They started nerfing him in s5 (which is what you’ve described above, that you’ve seen people believe the writers are doing now... and no, just watch s5 to see what nerfing Cas looks like). He was “cut off from heaven,” couldn’t heal Bobby’s injuries but could still boop himself around the planet and smite demons and stuff. By the end of s5, after his self-inflicted banishing in 5.18, and when we see him again in 5.21, he’s practically human. There’s an awful lot in s5 that demonstrates just how human he’s becoming, and he has a really hard time adjusting to being forced to crave food (5.14, and yeah when he said he was feeling his vessel’s hunger for meat, that was a big ol’ lie... even Ben Edlund said so in an interview about it if you’re an “authorial intent matters” type of person). He actually needs sleep, or at least DOES sleep in 5.21. And then only after he’s resurrected for the second time are all his powers restored. And then whoopsie he goes off to Heaven to... handle angel business and mostly isolate himself from the Winchesters for Narrative Reasons that we don’t learn until 6.20.

After he returns in 7.17, he immediately nerfs himself again by taking on Sam’s hell trauma and not engaging with reality. Then he tries to nerf himself again by staying behind in Purgatory until he’s dragged out by Naomi and then... brainwashed to be her agent against the Winchesters. Again, a way to minimize his power to be helpful.

By the end of s8, he is literally human. Metatron removed his grace, and he fell completely. Taking on stolen grace in 9.09 gave him certain limited power, but it was a finite thing and was also slowly killing him. Ever since that point, the grace that was returned to him in 10.18 was only a tiny, tiny fraction of what he was originally, and he’s never recovered beyond a certain point. He’s been permanently nerfed, to a certain extent.

Which... they’ve literally crafted his entire personal character arc around. Who is he, who does he want to be, and what is his purpose and place in the universe?

He’s believed for most of his existence that he was an Angel of the Lord, a warrior of Heaven, created to carry out God’s Will. And he’s always done his best with that, even after God had disappointed him over and over again-- going back to his failed search for God back in s5. But he was created to follow orders, to be useful, to have a mission. And he’s been trying to figure out how to be useful and have a mission (i.e. something to have faith in, since he definitely no longer has faith in Chuck...).

With all the talk in s14 about the loneliness of being a Cosmic Being, destined to long outlive every human they love, I really think there’s only one obvious answer screaming at us from every corner of the narrative here...

This has all been Cas’s long journey to choosing his human family, to understanding that he’s loved and wanted just for himself, and not for how useful he can be to them. He needs to understand that he’s valued and needed because-- as he told Jack in 14.02:

Castiel: Jack, um... mourning what you've lost... it's wasteful. Might be smarter to focus on what you still have.Jack: You don't understand what I'm going through.Castiel: Yes, I do, a little. At the time of the Great Fall, when the angels were banished from Heaven, I lost what I thought was everything. I had no grace, I had no... wings. I felt hopeless and useless.Jack: What did you have left?Castiel: Well, uh... Well, I had Sam and Dean. But I had something else that was extremely helpful. I had myself. Just the basic me, as Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles. You know... Sam and Dean, they weren't born with their expertise. They've been at it since they were children. Failing, winning, developing over the years. Patience... persistence -- those are skills, too. The past, where you came from, that's important, but it is not as important as the future and where you're going.

Because we all know he didn’t really have Sam and Dean back in early s9. I mean, he hadn’t lost them completely, but they were having some pretty terrible things to deal with too (that whole Gadreel thing, forcing Dean to banish Cas from the bunker and the refuge he’d thought he’d find with them). But now? Yeah, it’s taken a VERY long time of Cas beginning to really feel like he truly belongs there, that he really is family in every sense of the word, and that he will always have a home with them now. But I think he’s in his last little go-around of this journey to truly understanding that.

And through all of this, he’s been using his powers less and less, and more and more frequently just... doing stuff the human way from the start.

#castiel winchester #spn 14.20 #you learned it from the goats #angels and souls #Anonymous

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canonicallysoulmates · 5 years

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Supernatural 14.20 (Season Finale)

After watching this episode, and if I’m being honest for the last couple of episodes, I can fully understand why j2 decided to end this show and while it’s still painful and I’m still not ready to let Sam and Dean go, sometimes letting go of the things we love is for the best and I think this is one of those cases. The love and thought and quality is not there anymore from the EPs/writers, so I’m thankful j2 decided to end Supernatural. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision because I have no doubt in my my mind that they love this show but it was the right thing to do. It’s time to say goodbye to this show, I’m just sorry we have to say goodbye to it with Dabb at the helm.

I don’t know where to begin and I have a lot to say so this isn’t going to be very linear, in fact, it’s going to be the opposite and I apologize in advance for that but hopefully, I will be able to express what I feel and my points in a way that is understandable.

I’m going to start this opinion post off talking about Chuck being turned into a villain and what I feel is a very unpopular opinion cause I didn’t like that, I know for a lot of y’all Chuck has always been the villain of this story that’s fine and dandy, I’ve never subscribed to that, and I can understand why some would be excited or find it interesting that God is the last big bad, go big or go home and all that, but I take issue with it cause to me this character has never been a villain and making him one is changing who he is, now I’ve never hidden that I like this character just as I’ve never hidden the fact that my views of this character are slightly influenced by my own personal beliefs nonetheless I am going to try my best to explain why I’d never seen him as a villain without getting into those beliefs.

There are two ways I see this character: as a character and as a representation of Kripke/the showrunner. In neither of these views have I ever seen Chuck as anything other than flawed but loving his creation.

Looking at him as a character only, I completely understand the argument some might make that Chuck has played Sam and Dean like puppets, but I’ve never seen it that way, to me he’s never been this master puppeteer who has controlled every aspect of Sam and Dean. I’ve always viewed him as a flawed but complex character that regardless of whether or not he put things in the boys path or how many those things were, which is not an argument I’m going to get into in this post, he’s rooted for them, he wants them to make the right choices and win - cause he’s always given them free will, even in this episode when they don’t play along and do what he wants he still didn’t take away their free will even though he easily could have, and in Swan Song the whole point of it the beautiful aspect about it is that the boys chose each other, that Sam and Dean’s life was theirs, that they playing or not playing along with heaven and hell’s plan was up to them and they chose not to play along-, and in a way he loves them like to put it in the most basic of terms before this episode where he’s turned into a villain I would have said Sam and Dean were his favorite creation.

So, I’m not just not ok with the implication that this whole time Chuck has been controlling everything, that everything that has happened has been because Chuck wanted it that way, or that Sam and Dean never actually had free will, I’m just not ok with any of those things. I don’t like it.

If I look at him as the representation of Kripke and stop looking at him as a character, I can understand even more why he is the way he is and be more...forgiving I guess; he was an accurate representation cause Kripke did write Sam and Dean to be in those situations but at the same time he loved his creation.

I feel like I made no sense so to put in hopefully more understandable terms:

As a character: I have put you in or let you to some of these situations but I have given you the free will to choose how you handle them and I’m rooting for you to make the right ones and win.

As the representation of a writer talking to their creation: I have put you in these situations but I did it because I love you and I needed you to grow and take a life of your own.

Not sure that’s any more understandable, my thoughts on this character are very difficult to explain but the gist of it is, I’ve never seen Chuck as the bad guy.

[And, as to the argument of why hasn’t he stepped up more to help the boys, if he did there’d be no show. He’s an all knowing all powerful character if he appeared to help every time the boys had a problem there would be no show cause he could solve the problem with a snap of his fingers so I can understand and forgive the writers for not...using him?]

Anyways, to me, his personality in this episode doesn’t make any sense and Dabb changed him to make him into a villain [Note: I do not believe for even one second that he was always intended to be a villain, Chuck was introduced by Kripke back in s4, Kripke had no plans for this show to go past s5 and nobody expected it to reach s14 so saying him being a villain was always the plan makes no goddamm sense to me so save your breath]. I will say however it’s fitting that Dabb would turn Chuck, a representation of the show creator/showrunner, from flawed but loving, into a villain who throws a temper tantrum and undoes all of Sam and Dean’s hard work, I didn’t know Dabb was so self-aware!

I don’t know, maybe if this character had never been introduced, or if he had been written differently or if I didn’t see him as a representation of the show creator/showrunner, maybe then I could get behind the idea of him being a villain but as it is I got issues with it.

From a story POV I’m also not the biggest fan of God being the last big bad, I actually don’t find it that creative. I think it would have been a lot more interesting and creative if they had actually killed him and they either had to deal with the repercussions of that or even more fun if Sam had been the one to kill him and turned into God. Which I actually thought was going to happen for like 3mins after Sam shot Chuck (I watched this epi live and there was a commercial break in between I can be given some leeway for this), well to be honest, I thought he was either going to become God or King of Hell or return of his powers, either way, any one of those three would have been 100% more fun than what we actually got, but I guess I should have known better than to expect Dabb to ever give Sam a storyline, it was probably torture for him to write Sam doing something as badass as shooting God in the first place.

Now, to be fair, we might still get Sam with powers or King of Hell!Sam, the shows not over yet but I’m not going to hold my breath for it. And maybe something cool will be done and I’ll warm up to the idea of Chuck being the villain but as of right now that’s not the case and I don’t see my view changing anytime soon.

That being said, it was great to see Rob Benedict again! He’s looking good!

Moving on from all that, this episode could have been so much more. It should have been so much more, this is the last season finale ffs! But this didn’t even feel like a season finale, the only time it did was at the very end during the last, I’d say, 5mins. the rest felt more fitting for a pre-season finale; take the last couple of minutes away and this would have been more fitting as 14.19. Or even as a standalone episode it would have been better, cause there’s a concept used at the beginning of this episode, that imo would have been good for a standalone, and it’s that Jack made it so people can’t lie, I think that could’ve made for a fun standalone and it’s a pity that instead it was thrown in here cause it didn’t contribute to the plot if anything it actually played a large part in making this feel like less of a season finale.

I’m not gonna lie to you guys the ending with all the monsters and the zombies appearing did make my jaw-drop and for a minute I felt something akin to excitement for s15, but as the scene continued that excitement started dying down and something about it started bugging me. It wasn’t until the episode finished and I started thinking about it and what that ending could possibly mean that I realized why that was and it’s because that little spark of excitement I felt when the woman in white appeared was because of nostalgia.

It’s because I saw her and the creepy af clown and bloody Mary and I didn’t imagine current Sam and Dean fighting them, my mind saw them and immediately went to s1 and s2, that little spark was because I was reminded of the show I love so much, the show that is now coming to an official end and never coming back, and again I won’t lie, for that minute my mind considered the possibility that s15 would be a throwback an homage to the beginning but as the scene continued on I realized that while s15 does have that potential to be something beautiful that pays tribute to the early seasons there’s a way bigger opportunity for it to be a destruction of the legacy j2 have built. And now that the opportunity is there, there’s a big chance that s15 will be a revolving door of secondary characters instead of being about Sam and Dean.

I’m worried that instead of Dabb doing something beautiful that pays tribute to the early seasons it’s just going to be a lazy retelling full of retconning. And it frustrates me that he undid everything Sam and Dean have done, that instead of original new stories we’re bound to get a retelling of the ones that we know and love and are already perfect.

Also, I fucking hate that feathers is gonna be around for the last season especially if the last season is meant to be an homage to s1-s2 cause that useless prick wasn’t introduced till s4...maybe they can start with s4, work their way backward and kill him off.

I won’t deny that there were good moments cause there were! When Dean was about to shoot Jack that was legitimately tense, Sam shooting Chuck was badass, I loved Sam standing up to Dean and telling him that he couldn’t lose him and Jack, I liked the conversation between Sam and Chuck in the Bunker, I loved Dean making weapons for him and Sam at the end, so there were legitimate good moments scattered throughout but for me in the overall scheme of things those moments, as much as I enjoyed/loved them, are not enough for me to consider this a good episode and sure as hell, not enough for me to consider this a good season finale. Especially considering this is the last season finale and even more, if I compare it some past season finales like my beloved AHBL.

If you liked this episode, that’s wonderful I’m happy for you, but...I don’t like the way it left me feeling. It left me feeling hollow, and frustrated, and angry and conflicted and worried about s15.

I wish j2 the best of luck in making s15 a good one, they have an uphill battle ahead of them.

As for me, I’m happy this season is finally fucking over and I’m looking forward to the break before the last season begins.

#spn negative #anti andrew dabb #anti castiel #anti dabb #anti dabbernatural #Opinion on Supernatural #spn 14.20 #spns14 finale #mine

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chirpsythismorning · 2 years

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This whole “OOPS we forgot Will’s birthday” fiasco has led casual fans to conveniently refusing to read the subtext for Byler.

Like they can just write off all of it because I guess nothing means anything anymore now that the Duffer’s have admitted to forgetting something so easy to remember.

But what if that was the intention? Like we know the Duffer’s have this tendency to make Byler scenes readable from many different lens’. We see this in the way, that when we have a solid argument supporting endgame Byler, anti’s manage to come up with a long list of other possibilities, and I think the Duffer’s intend it that way.

They want the doubt of the ‘will they won’t they’, to last for as long as they can.

But then this also got me thinking about how I was convinced that them forgetting Will’s birthday was a lie. And how them jumping in right away to come up with this big elaborate story about how they’re going to retcon it, could have been a way for them to steer fans away from easily figuring where the story is going in s5.

Because plenty of us have seen evidence that there is footage that wasn’t used for s4, that is likely going to be used for s5. With Noah at the Rink-O-Mania location with his outfit he wore all of Vol 1-2, or that shot of him in his room looking out the window, or the actor for Lonnie attending the s4 table reading, or Noah wearing a harness???

These are things that could very well involve this concept of Will or maybe even Mike and El, being forced to readdress that day, which was in fact Will’s birthday, through some sort of vision from Vecna.

I know no one believes it’s possible that everyone forgot Will’s birthday within the story, or like why wouldn’t Will himself come out and admit it to remind people instead of suffering in silence?. But if Vol. 2 taught us anything, it’s that Will is the most selfless son of a bitch on the planet, and he would no doubt refrain from telling anyone if they all forgot.

This leads me to believe s5 will explore this conflict in the first two episodes, which are supposed to be set directly after the events of Vol. 2.

They’ve set up this situation, where Will is feeling as low as he can possibly feel, to the point where them forgetting his birthday is nothing compared to everything else going on, but it definitely adds to the pain he’s feeling. And they’ve also set up for everyone, Mike specifically to slowly become aware of all of these things that they forgot or glossed over.

Like we’ve been discussing how it’s inevitable that Mike is going to find out about Will’s feelings, but what about that in combination with him finding out he forgot Will’s birthday?

There’s going to be so many things piling up as amo to not only make Will’s suffering so blatant and heartbreaking, but for Mike to realize and be on the verge of a mental breakdown…

This is going to wreck Mike. And I’m convinced that they probably did have the intention to put this stuff in s4, but either ran out of time, or decided last minute they wanted Byler to be more subtle before going all in, either from Netflix themselves advising them to save it so they don’t lose viewers, or because they themselves knew this was the best decision. (Remember when 4x09 was said to be 2 and a half hours, but got cut to like 2 hours and 19 minutes a week before it premiered…?)

Why else does the s5 plot give us like 2 episodes worth of the s4 conflict continuing, only to have a time jump early mid season?? Like it’s clear that Mike’s realization is going to happen during this time and they’re saving it for when the audience only has one more round of tuning in.

Also, what I’m sort of scared of is what causes the time jump around 5x03 in the first place.

I’ve seen so many theories that Will’s costume in s1 was similar to Marty Mcfly’s, and how this season we see a similar costume with the plaid and long sleeve under, but without the vest.

Along with Will’s FUNKO POP touching his watch, we were talking about how there was this possibility that he could somehow travel back in time back to that day he went missing or he might sacrifice himself and change the course of the future by changing the past somehow, maybe by never being found?

We know the day he went missing is the same day that the upside down is stuck in. So time is important and it also has to do with Will most likely.

I know time travel is something a lot of fans don’t want for valid reasons, but I can’t think of anything else that would cause such a random time jump after they just had us stick with the Vol. 2 plot line for two episodes?

Unless maybe Will’s powers are addressed (if he even has them) and he somehow sacrifices himself to the past aka the upside down to save everyone.

This could also cause some conflict and tension if Mike just discovers Will’s feelings and the audience becomes abundantly clear that Mike returns those feelings, only to separate them and force us to end up right where we started with S1.

Although I hate the concept of Mike and Will being separated all season, it doesn’t necessarily have to be all season even, but I think this approach would create an undeniable appeal for everyone watching.

Did you miss Mike Wheeler from s1?? Well he’s back and he’s more himself than ever trying to get his best friend and now LOVE back.

Personally I love angst as long as it leads to a happy ending, and with how a lot of the cast have been talking about the ending of ST being beautiful and wonderful for YEARS and with the Duffer’s just admitting recently that they already have the last 30 minutes of the series finale well planned out… makes me think that all this pain and uncertainty is going to be worth it..

#byler #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things spoilers #stranger things theory #stranger things spoiler #stranger things theories #byler st #byler evidence #byler theory #byler proof #stranger things meta

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roominthecastle · 5 years

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For someone who hasn't seen TBL since... early season 4? (and even then only watched a couple episodes) could you give me a quick rundown of what I have to know in order to watch the beginning of season 6? If that's too much hassle I understand but I thought if anyone can put that car crash of a show into a sorta sensible summary it's you.

“car crash of a show” well, that is… too real. like you can’t help but stare and wonder what might emerge from the wreckage. :)

Thank you for the vote of confidence, I tried my best to recall the main events from each season. If something important is missing or I misremembered, hopefully somebody corrects that in a reply or a comment, and you will be able to see those, too.

(putting the rest behind a cut bc length)

Alexander Kirk is the latest contestant of the increasingly crowded “who’s your daddy” competition. He was in love w/ Liz’s mom, has a life-threatening blood disorder, and a pathological fondness for kidnapping. He takes Liz and Agnes to her childhood home that triggers some vague memories of Katarina. Kirk is sure he is her father and has a DNA test to prove it. Liz also finds Katarina’s journal in which Katarina mentions how she was assigned to honeytrap Reddington.

Meanwhile, Red uses Mr. Kaplan’s connections to learn where Kirk keeps Liz and Agnes, then tips off the task force. Despite feeling betrayed by the fake death stunt, they roll out to rescue her but Kirk gets away and they take Agnes, too (they play hot potato with that poor kid). Red takes Mr. Kaplan to the woods and shoots her for her betrayal. But she survives the headshot (not unprecedented as we learn later that she survived a head injury before and has a metal plate in her head) and is nursed back to relative physical health (but apparent psychological unwellness) by a hermit in the woods. For now, nobody else knows she is alive.

Kirk is trying to find a cure. Tom and Liz keep failing in their side-mission to get Agnes back, but Red uses Kirk’s doctor to track him. This leads him to a trap but Liz tips him off just in time. This is the first time (IIRC) that Red hesitates to trust her (kinda understandable since he’s still reeling from the fake death thing) and he almost dies as a result. Then Liz lures Kirk, gets Agnes back, but Kirk collapses and is hospitalized. He needs a donor to survive. Liz volunteers bc getting answers trumps everything. Red tells her that the DNA test proving that she is Kirk’s daughter was faked and it gets confirmed bc Liz is not a match, she can’t save him. Kirk’s goons rescue him from the hospital and Liz is taken again. Red volunteers to trade places w/ her and even manages to secure the cure for Kirk to sweeten the pot. Liz is released but Kirk, now aware that he is not the father, tortures Red. He demands Red confess that he (Red) is Liz’s father, which he finally does under insane duress, then whispers sth to Kirk that convinces him to let Red go. We still don’t know what he whispered or where Kirk is now, but this is the end of the first big arc of S4.

Liz gets her FBI badge back thanks to Red applying pressure and securing a presidential pardon. She and Tom try playing house and keep failing bc Tom will never be what she wants him to be: his meek teacher cover role from S1. Red looks for and finds a new cleaning crew but what he did to Mr. Kaplan is eating at him. Dembe gets worried about his mental state and tells Liz what happened to Kaplan, which drives Liz further down the “blame Red for everything” path but they continue working together. After Kaplan recovers, her revenge mission kicks into gear and the various ways in which she tries to dismantle Red’s criminal empire is the second big arc that lasts until the end of the season.

Kaplan tries to strip Red of his resources and connections. Her methods range from clearing out his back accounts to trying to sabotage the Task Force. She goes as far as poisoning Red, for which she tries to frame Dembe to destroy their relationship but Dembe (w/ Aram’s help) proves he didn’t betray Red and their bond becomes tighter than ever. Then Mr. Kaplan unearths 86 bodies (including Diane Fowler’s, so Cooper & Co. now know Red killed her), which launches an official investigation that threatens to expose the Task Force and its ties to Red. Mr. Kaplan also meets with Liz, tells her about their past connection (in a flashback episode, we learn that she worked for Katarina as Liz’s nanny and she handed her off to Sam after the fire, then started working for Red at his request), and tries to convince her to turn on Red but Liz refuses.

Meanwhile, Ressler is trying to get justice for the murder of Fowler’s replacement, Reven. He knows Hitchen (the National Security Advisor) killed her but he has no solid proof. Mr. Kaplan reaches out to the doctor who tampered w/ Liz’s memory when she was a child, and hires him to mess w/ Ressler’s head, planting fake memories and almost driving him to kill Hitchen. He is stopped in time, the doc is captured and he tells Liz he was also hired 2 years ago to take away some of her memories again (concerning Red) at the request of a man they both know, but we still don’t know who this person is. Red denied it was him and I, for one, believe him.

Red decides to set a trap for Mr. Kaplan, playing on her blind fixation on Liz. He hires a blacklister to kidnap Liz, feeds clues to Kaplan that lead her to where Liz is kept. Red tells Liz he is willing to refrain from killing her (Kaplan) but if Kaplan doesn’t stand down, she has to die. When she walks into the trap, Red offers truce. Mr. Kaplan refuses, the FBI also shows up, there’s a shootout and Mr. Kaplan escapes. Red visits Dom bc he needs a key he hid on his property and tells him his granddaughter, Liz, is alive. Then he meets with Kaplan, offers her that key to a remote and secure paradise in exchange for ending this war but she once again refuses. The agent investigating those 86 bodies shows up but Red escapes and Kaplan agrees to testify in exchange for immunity.

Red and Ressler reach out to the blacklister who cleaned up after Hitchen and use the evidence he kept to blackmail her into scrapping the inquiry concerning the task force, Red, and those bodies. Vague national security excuse works every time. Liz reaches out to Kaplan and they go on a drive. Kaplan promises answers but Red and his men show up and she commits suicide by jumping off a bridge. Her death triggers a protocol to release Red’s secret, aka the suitcase w/ the skeleton in it, that lands in Tom’s hands but for now nobody knows he has it. Ressler visits Hitchen and accidentally kills her when they get into an argument, so he calls the blacklister that previously cleaned up after her to clean up after him now. Cooper runs a DNA test on a sample from an old bloody shirt in evidence that belonged to Reddington, compares it to Liz’s sample and tells her it’s a match. Liz tells him she ran a test too, soon after Red showed up in her life, but never checked the result bc she was afraid to know. She now confronts Red w/ the news and he neither confirms nor denies, just lets her hug him - which is their basic dynamic in the first half of the next season.

Most of the first block of this season is about Red trying to rebuild his organization from scratch in various ways - first as a bounty hunter and then once again working w/ the task force. He seems to enjoy the freedom that comes w/ hitting rock bottom. Liz helps out, too, acting jarringly happy. Meanwhile, Tom decides to keep the suitcase a secret from her and asks Nik to help him identify the human remains inside. He also steals Liz’s ID to be able to access official databases and they reach out to another guy to have the bones DNA tested. Then Nik is killed when he goes to get the results and the skeleton gets taken.

Still not knowing about Tom’s involvement or the suitcase, Liz asks Red to help find Nik’s killer and Red soon discovers that Nik was working with Tom and that he had the skeleton. Tom tracks down the girlfriend of the guy who ran the DNA test to ask for help finding him. She helps, they find him, but then all of them get captured by a US Marshall named Garvey who is v much interested in the skeleton, too, bc he has a very personal ax to grind w/ Red. Tom escapes and he takes the skeleton. He calls Liz and tells her to meet at home but reveals nothing concrete, so you know he is not long for this world. That’s where Garvey and his men find them. He stabs Tom and Liz gets badly injured, too. Red and Dembe come to the rescue and take both to the hospital.

Tom dies, Liz is in a coma for 10 months and struggles a lot after she regains consciousness. She asks Tom’s mother, Scottie, to look after Agnes, makes Red promise to keep working cases with the task force and to not follow her, then moves to a remote cabin in Alaska where she saves a witness from the bad guys who want to silence him by killing them all in a Home Alone meets The Shining manner. After this, she decides to return to find out why Tom was killed and get revenge. She works this case separate from the task force.

The blacklister, Prescott, who cleaned up after Ressler last season starts blackmailing Ressler, threatening to reveal that he killed Hitchen if Ressler doesn’t derail an investigation. Ressler refuses but with Red’s help they manage to arrest Prescott who then intends to deliver on his threat. Red kills him and removes any implicating evidence. So Ressler goes to Cooper to deliver his written confession but Cooper says he will hold onto the letter as long as the task force is up and running bc none of them are who they were before, each of them has a letter like that, so to speak, but the work they do here is too important. They will hold each other accountable after it’s done.

Liz is investigating on her own. She tracks down one of Garvey’s goons and ends up killing him when they get into a fight but she also learns that Nik was helping Tom. She then dissolves the body Stewmaker-style but leaves a piece of evidence behind by accident, so she also breaks into the evidence room and steals it to cover her tracks. She draws the attention of a detective in whom she later confides about looking for Tom’s killer and even shows him the Post Office. Red helps out w/ her investigation, too, they both want the suitcase back after all. Liz confronts him about his motives (saying he only wants to keep his secret, nothing else matters) and responsibility in Tom’s death. Red tells her Tom died bc he didn’t heed his warning and that this secret is something he has to keep, so he isn’t telling.

Liz finds some notes among Tom’s belongings that eventually lead her to Dom. She doesn’t know he is her grandfather, he doesn’t tell her, but they talk. Dom denies being a spy code named Oleander (from Tom’s notes) but tells her he used to work as an analyst and came to the US after the Cold War (he really is Oleander, tho). He also tells her he knew Katarina well but doesn’t reveal their connection other than “we worked in the same building”, and he refuses to say anything about Red.

Red learns that whoever killed Tom and took the skeleton has law enforcement ties and Liz decides to rejoin the Task Force but only to up her chances at capturing Tom’s killer. This reinstatement requires a psychological evaluation and Liz goes a few rounds with Dr. Fulton who later turns out to be a serial killer killer/vigilante. Liz corners her at a crime scene but then lets her go bc she might need her help one day, and Fulton green lights her official reinstatement.

With the help of the detective she confided in, Liz finally identifies Garvey as Tom’s killer but Garvey kills the detective. They wanna take Garvey down by proving he is not only a murderer but also has ties to drug trafficking. Liz also approaches a woman Garvey keeps visiting in a diner and tells her everything, hoping she will flip on him. This is when the woman reveals she is Jennifer Reddington whom Garvey has been protecting from her father for decades. Red wants to kill Garvey but he cannot do that as long as he has the skeleton, so he kidnaps him. Then Garvey escapes and goes to the diner. Red and Dembe follow him there. Garvey shoots Red. Liz and Dembe shoot Garvey. Garvey later dies in the hospital w/o revealing anything.

While recovering, Red uses one of Garvey’s goons to track the skeleton to Costa Rica and learns that it’s in the possession of another enemy of his, Sutton Ross. Liz follows Red and wants to find the remains first. Ross is captured by the Task Force. Liz offers a secret deal and he agrees bc he was tasked by Garvey to reveal the skeleton’s secret bc Jennifer deserves to know the truth. Together they put on a show for Red: Ross escapes, takes Liz hostage and then pretends to torture her to force Red to give up his secret. Just when Red is about to break and reveal it, the Task Force storms the place and captures Ross again. Red doesn’t seem to know he has been played but he takes the skeleton, shoots Ross, then walks away. He takes the remains back to Dom’s place where he burns them. Dom warns him that Liz is not gonna give up. He is not wrong bc it is revealed that Liz was not only working w/ Ross, she now also knows the remains belong to the real Reddington, so Red is an imposter and not her father. She vows to find out his real identity and then destroy him w/ the help of her half-sister, Jennifer.

Oh and Samar and Aram’s relationship takes a few turns over the season as well. They start dating and then Aram prepares to propose, which ends in a fight and an almost break-up. Then Samar gets abducted by a blacklister and the last thing she says to Aram is that she would have said yes. She also ends up in a coma but regains consciousness at the end of the finale, so their engagement is now official.

#apicturewithasmile #the blacklist #long post

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one-girly-geek · 5 years

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My ultimate 14x20 thoughts post

Well, it’s finally time for me to type out my mess of feelings regarding the episode- and by extension, Dabb era as a whole. As a whole, feelings will not be positive. You have been warned...

If anything, this finale made me more certain that it’s time for the show to end (before Dabb runs it into the ground completely).

I realized once and for all how dissatisfying later seasons have been for me just before this episode aired. I was looking back at previous season finales and thought ‘when was the last time we had a season finale that was actually about our main characters?’ And I realized that there hadn’t really been one since, S11. An argument could be made that it hasn’t been since S10. 90% of the S12-14 finales have been about Jack...

Some small positives-

-The first half was fun. It is nice to see that truth-spells don’t have the same effect that they used to- early seasons, the boys would have been yelling nasty, ugly things at each other, but now it’s just affectionate teasing+ the revelation that Dean reads mommy lifestyle blogs. Everyone else was going nuts, but they’re so in sync with each other now, nothing really phased them. One thing the newer seasons have done well is to show that maturity between them.

-I was bracing myself for a big brofight, and was really grateful that that didn’t happen. I was glad that what really pushed Sam to not be okay with killing Jack was the knowledge that Dean would have to die too. It hurts, but he can go on without Jack. But not without Dean.

-Chuck was right, I liked the old Death better too.

-The last few seconds were an epic cliffhanger. I would have no qualms with if it wasn’t for what happened in the previous 20 minutes.

The rest- this is gonna be long. And probably incoherent.

Disclaimer- I personally am religious, but I firmly believe I would have hated the ‘twist’ regardless. I don’t and never have watched this show for theological accuracy. Fiction=/reality. Now in no particular order-

-Why is everyone acting like it’s some revelation that Chuck knew what was going on and didn’t do anything? They’ve known that since they knew Chuck existed. They had a whole conversation in S11 about it, they knew he was aware of everything that went on on Earth and usually didn’t interfere. So why is it some shocking reveal now that he...knew everything that was going on and didn’t do anything?

-Free will. Are they trying to tell me that Chuck was, in fact, interfering all along and nobody had any free will? If so, way to just kill the biggest overarching theme in the show. We’ve already had the big storyline of the main characters saying screw destiny, and how making their own choices is the most important thing. It’s arguably the most consistent theme over all these seasons. And now Dabb &Co is basically spitting on it and saying it never mattered anyway? I know a lot of the current writers don’ care about previous seasons, but how do you screw that up?

-Scream at me all you like about how I’m just ‘buying into Chuck’s manipulation’ and ‘all the foreshadowing was there.’ because this was a retcon, plain and simple. Coincidence is not foreshadowing. The Chuck originally created by Kripke was not like this, nor was he intended to be. Carver had his issues, but the Chuck he worked with wasn’t like this either. This a complete 180.

The Chuck at the end of Swan Song, who said that free will and choice were the most important things in the world, wasn’t originally written to be a lying manipulator who would start an apocalypse because people...used their free will and choose family. Changing the entire original intent of that scene is a retcon. The beautiful scene at the end of Don’t Call Me Shurly was not written to be ‘only putting on a cute guitar routine and playing us because manipulation.’ Forcing the viewer to look back at it now and assume that is a retcon. Chuck telling the angels to love and protect humanity (and he himself locking up the leviathans to protect the angels) but now saying he never really cared, is a retcon.

-This whole thing just retroactively taints so much that I loved, particularly S5 and S11. This about sums it up for me.

Not to mention, this definitely ruins the Sam/Dean/John Lucifer/Micheal/God parallels that were you know, kind of important in S4-5. Now I am definitely not a fan of John by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s clear he was supposed to parallel Chuck/God as a largely absent father who made many mistakes, but ultimately did love and care for his children. That’s out the window now.

A good foreshadowing is when you look back and say ‘Oh! That made sense before, but now I have a deeper understanding then I did then’ The example I’m most fond of is the E10 reveal in Yuri!! on Ice. It’s not that everything didn’t make sense before the revelation that Viktor knew Yuri first and had been in love with him all along, but it deepened our understanding of him. It fixed a few little things we wondered about, like why Viktor acted as forward as he did when first coming to Japan, but it didn’t fundamentally change who any of these characters were as people. You looked back at everything and were like ‘wow, that makes total sense‘ It was a well-planned, well executed bit of writing. It deepened our understanding of the characters, it didn’t change them completely and expect us to believe they were really that way all along.

-The amount of Lucifer/Micheal/Amara were right! posts I’m seeing around are frankly sickening. Lucifer made his own decisions. Even if Chuck was bad all along- Lucifer loved him. He hated humanity, not Chuck. He wanted to destroy humanity out of spite and jealousy. Are we now saying he was right to do that?? That torturing human souls to turn them into demons, killing entire towns of people to raise Death, everything he did to Sam, everything he did to Kelly, how much he admitted he enjoys crushing teenagers skulls (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg)- all of that is okay because Chuck was bad? Lucifer loved Chuck. He hated humanity. Whether or not he was right about Chuck’s motivations (and honestly, did he really care? so long as Chuck apologized to HIM, nothing else really mattered) doesn’t mean he was right about anything else. Ditto for Micheal.

Amara- she is a bit more complicated. It could be argued that due to her nature, and how she’s been locked up for eons, she doesn’t have much of a sense of right and wrong the way other beings do. But just because you don’t know something is wrong, doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong. I’ve seriously seen people saying that ‘Amara did nothing wrong and Chuck only locked her up because SEXISM’ *headdesk* Amara destroyed entire worlds before the current one.She wasn’t a totally innocent being, just locked up for the hell of it. She herself admits that she did what she did out of jealousy, and that in the end she was wrong, because creation needed to exist. She didn’t actually hate Chuck, and they reconciled. (Now, I suppose they expect us to believe that the whole beautiful end of Alpha and Omega was a lie/manipulation as well? Retcon.

- Basically, this is lazy. And that’s a mark of Dabb era as a whole. (He’s okay as a writer, but not as a showrunner). Anything that was weird in previous seasons? We can just handwave it say ‘Chuck did it because manipulation.’ SPN has had a problem with constantly trying to escalate its villains-from demons to Lucifer to Metatron to Amara-and now to God? It’s just the laziest thing to do. Dabb was just like ‘we need the BIGGEST, WORSE villain of all for the last season! Who’s the most powerful being around? GOD!’ It’s utter LAZINESS.

-It didn’t have to be this way. You could have done a final season as a love letter to the early show that started it all, not started another apocalypse. A lower stakes, character focused final season would have been great. A tribute to what came before, while showing how far the characters have come since. But no, Dabb had to be lazy and escalate everything once again, because the subtly and character driven plots seem to be beyond him.

-I don’t know how they’re going to write themselves out of this one without massive retcons. You can’t kill Chuck or Amara and not have all of creation perish. But Dabb retcons everything whenever he wants to (see: every inconsistency regarding Jack’s soul magic/powers/morality this season), so I’m sure he’ll find some way to do that. (Which reminds me, does everyone going like ‘oh, Sam is such a badass for shooting Chuck!!’ remember the whole ‘Sun will go out and creation will die’ thing? It was tremendously stupid).

-I am so, so, so sick of Jack. I’m tired of everything and everyone revolving around him, anyone who goes against him being wrong, and everything he does being so easily forgiven. I’ve realized that most of my issues with the later seasons go right back to him. I didn’t want him dead (because of how it would affect others I do care about, not really because of him), but I wanted him gone. Now, he is dead, but not gone at all. He’s hanging out with the Empty and Billie, which means a huge part of the plot of S15 is gonna revolve around him again. I stg if we end with Jack basically becoming God, Dabb is gonna catch these hands. Talk about being the ultimate Sue, who took over the whole show from the main characters...

-All I wanted was a lower-stakes season focused on the actual main characters and no one else...I guess that was too much to ask for.

-There’s some interesting theories going around that might make some sense of all of this, but I don’t know if I trust the currents showrunners to be smart enough to use them.

https://missjackil.tumblr.com/post/184463865432/theory-chuck-isnt-throwing-a-tantrum-at-all-he

-So that’s it. I’ll still be watching S15 because I’ve invested too much time into this show not too, and because I still care about the boys and J2,and of course I’m going to cons for the same reasons. It’s not their fault the writing is shit...

P.S You’ll not convince me that part of J2′s choice to end the show wasn’t due to the writing. They’ve said before that they would keep going as long as the writing was good- then S13-14 happened and they’ve decided to stop. They’re far too nice/professional to ever come right out and see it, but it makes sense. I also think they realized that they couldn’t get the time off they wanted and still make a show they were happy with. We’ll see what the upcoming con circuit says, since they’ve got less reason than ever to hold back their opinions.

#spn #I've spent my entire afternoon typing this shit that no one will read #but I just had to organize my thoughts

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kingofthewilderwest · 6 years

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Now that you've seen all episodes of race to the edge, what are your thoughts on Snotlout in the 6th season? Thanks!

For me, what’s big about Snotlout in S6 is the manifestation of subtle growth. Once we look back to how Snotlout acted in the start of the series, we realize how far he’s come. Snotlout has grown hoards by the end of RTTE, and S6 is where we get that treated to us in full.

Snotlout starts the series putting too much stock in his father’s advice. During “Race to Fireworm Island,” Snotlout believes Spitelout over the rest of the dragon riders. The rest of the riders believe that Hookfang needs rest, but Snotlout thinks so highly of his father’s opinion that he doesn’t listen.

Snotlout: Hookfang doesn’t need rest. He’s a warrior. And we warriors live for the thrill of battle. It’s like my Dad always says…

Snotlout wants to be a warrior, obviously holds his father’s statement in good regard, and thus thinks that Hookfang doesn’t need rest. The way that Snotlout talks about his father is with the belief that Spitelout’s words are good to listen to, and that his father’s words are always something to respect.

Snotlout also starts the series constantly trying to impress his father. In ROB, DOB, and the start of RTTE, we constantly see Snotlout attempting to garner his father’s approval. Oftentimes, this is met with disappointment, and Snotlout continues to receive less respect than deserved from his parent.

Snotlout ends the series knowing when his father is in the wrong and thinking about his own achievements regardless of his father’s approval. Snotlout isn’t trying to mold himself to his father’s image of a stout, manly Viking. Snotlout’s more willing to emotionally express himself, more capable of thinking for himself, and smart enough to realize that not everything Spitelout demands is healthy.

While he does gain some respect from Spitelout by “King of Dragons Part 2,” there’s something to be said that this isn’t why Snotlout finds peace. Snotlout says some powerful things before Spitelout gives him respect in S6… showing he’s grown beyond the shadow of his father’s approval. By S4… and certainly by S6 beyond that… Snotlout is able to enjoy his father’s company when it’s wholesome, but also intelligently understand when it’s better and healthier to forge a separate path.

Snotlout starts the series with poor understanding and respect of Astrid. He makes misogynistic remarks. He constantly flirts with her despite the obvious annoyance it gives her. There’s a reason Astrid is always irritated with him.

By the end of RTTE, Snotlout has grown to demonstrate obvious respect to Astrid. He’s learned more how to treat her as he should. Astrid, on her own end, has noticed, and gained her own share of respect for him.

This positive exchange from S6 E9 never would have happened in ROB times:

He still annoys her time-to-time. It’s not like he’s completely outgrown his old habits. He has, however, improved. And that’s cool to see.

Snotlout starts the series constantly butting heads with his dragon. There’s a lot of dysfunction between Snotlout and his dragon - it’s difficult to even ride the dragon sometimes without messing up. Snotlout’s inability to ride Hookfang stems from his inability to treat his dragon and himself as a fully interdependent team. It’s not that Snotlout dislikes Hookfang - he loves his dragon - but he does always demand things from his dragon. Hookfang, meanwhile, turns away from Snotlout whenever he receives those unthoughtful demands. That issue, combined with other things like Snotlout trying to overwork Hookfang, shows how much Snotlout needs to learn about working with a team. He needs to learn to think more about Hookfang’s perspective.

Snotlout ends the series with great respect for Hookfang. Instead of overworking the dragon or demanding Hookfang follow his commands, Snotlout is a lot more lovingly attentive to his dragon. Their bond has hugely grown and become more mutually productive and understanding. Just consider Snotlout’s lines at the end of S6 E11 “Guardians of Vanaheim.” This shows both his grown spoken trust and support of Hiccup and his attention to his dragon.

Snotlout’s no longer forcing his dragon to overwork. He’s not demanding his dragon come and do what he wants. Instead, he’s looking after what his dragon needs and wants and is perfectly happy doing so. That’s what’s become his heart and instinct and natural response: caring after Hookfang.

Snotlout starts the series defiant of Hiccup and openly rude to Hiccup’s ideas. While we know from “Defiant One” that Snotlout holds jealousy for Hiccup’s heroics and abilities, this doesn’t stop Snotlout from constantly butting heads with the other rider rudely. His lack of respect for Hiccup’s leadership is a main source of tension throughout especially ROB and DOB. Snotlout even in early RTTE times speaks of his doubt in what Hiccup can do. His comments are divisive to the team. His actions can be rebellious or lack thoughtfulness of teamwork.

Snotlout ends the series stoutly supporting Hiccup.

Sure, Snotlout doesn’t lack his moments of bite or analytical questioning, even in S6. To give just one example, in “Guardians of Vanaheim” he complains, “You know, I’m sure you’ll make a great chief one day, Hiccup. Just know that I will not be living on your island!” But these sorts of complaints or criticisms (usually) are no longer intended venom or ways of dismantling Hiccup’s leadership - they’ve become banter, smart questionings of strategy, and other actions that aren’t debilitating. They’re a part of the friendship.

We can see that Snotlout has instead firmly taken to Hiccup’s side. Instead of telling Hiccup that his ideas are ridiculous, Snotlout says in S5 “Sandbusted” that Hiccup’s ideas are always right. Not to mention, if someone even so much as suggests Hiccup gets abandoned, Snotlout has something strong to say about it.

He’s such a strong supporter of Hiccup that I could imagine him - years down the road - becoming our chief’s number two.

Snotlout ends the series as someone who can act as a rolemodel for other growing youths. Snotlout shows Gustav Larson what true courage is on Berserker Island. And in S6, Snotlout also has grown enough to be able to give people advice. He’s able to take his past experiences, which we’ve seen him struggle through, and now apply it to life lessons - for himself in his own growth, and for others and their needed growths, too.

Snotlout didn’t always say the right thing with Minden, but when he did, he said it good. REALLY good.

Would ROB or DOB or even RTTE S1 Snotlout been able to say THIS?

Snotlout takes all his past experiences, all his mistakes, all his flaws, all his moments of not-quite-glory... and uses them to speak heart-to-heart with Minden. He’s able to advise her and encourage her at the same time. It’s a very mature way of handling his emotions, admitting them, and handling someone else’s struggles. He’s manifesting hoards of growth here. He’s not just admitting he’s struggled. He’s talking about how his vulnerabilities have been mistakes. He’s talking about how to overcome those vulnerabilities. He’s showing how to maturely handle them and become someone great.

Does Snotlout still have a lot of character flaws to handle? Helheim yeah. I’m not highlighting those areas of imperfection in my commentary here, but it’s obvious he still has to grow.

But has he improved a lot by RTTE S6?

ALSO Helheim yeah.

We’ve seen Snotlout growing throughout RTTE and there are some cool moments in S4 and S5. But S6 was also a real treat for showing the growth of who Snotlout has become.

#Anonymous #Chain of Command #Guardians of Vanaheim #long post #Snotlout #rtte #Race to the Edge #DOB #Defenders of Berk #ROB #Riders of Berk #DreamWorks Dragons #analysis #my analysis #Sandbusted #Not Lout #ask #ask me #awesome anonymous friend

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ladylynse · 6 years

Text

Glitches - a Doctor Who/Psych crossover: Shawn Spencer isn’t really psychic. At least, he wasn’t last time he checked. But he doesn’t usually have a real vision, either. (set S5 Psych, post S4 with Ten for the Doctor)

1984

Seven year old Shawn Spencer and his best friend Gus were the pioneers of a new age. They had achieved what no one had before: they’d built their very own time machine. Now, seated in Shawn’s living room, they were about to embark on their very first trip. They would go back just one week, back to when Shawn had gotten them in trouble with his dad for digging for buried treasure where X marked the spot—on the map they’d drawn up and in the flowerbed. The plan was to tell their younger selves to dig elsewhere, maybe by the garage, which is where X would be if they held the map upside down. Well, that was Shawn’s plan. Gus thought they were going to go back to tell their previous selves not to dig for the treasure at all, but Shawn was going to suggest a different location after Gus had said that and headed back to the time machine.

Shawn began turning back the hands on the control clock when he decided, on a whim, that they could do so much better than just going back one measly week. Yes, he’d still be grounded, which was why Gus wasn’t even supposed to be over here in the first place, but he had already been through the worst of his punishment, the actual clean-up of the flowerbed and surrounding yard. It would be better to go back a lot further, or, no, into the future! They could see what they’d be like when they were older. He could see what he’d get for Christmas.

“What are you doing?” Gus asked as Shawn turned the hands on the clock face forward.

“I’ve got a better idea of where to go,” Shawn replied. “It’ll be great. Trust me.”

“Are you sure you aren’t going too far?” Gus asked, looking worried.

Shawn just looked at him. “The second hand’s a day, and the minute hand’s a week, and the hour hand is a year, remember? That’s what we agreed on. Don’t worry. I know exactly what I’m doing.” Shawn carefully replaced the control clock on the front of their time machine. The cardboard box flap, supported only by the chopsticks they’d dug out of one of the kitchen drawers and a bit of tape, started to sag under the weight.

It was extremely unfortunate that Shawn’s dad chose to come home the moment the control clock crashed to the floor, causing their mission to abort.

“Shawn? What do you think you’re doing?” Footsteps, and then Shawn’s dad made his appearance. He took in the scene of the broken kitchen clock—the same one whose glass covering had shattered the first time Shawn had decided to play catch in the house—and the dirty cardboard box from the garage that he’d kept since they’d gotten the television, the one he had been using to store all the odds and ends from various projects in the past that might come in useful in the future. Those contents would undoubtedly be scattered all over the garage….

“Building a time machine,” Shawn muttered.

Henry Spencer crossed his arms and looked at his son, disappointed. “A time machine, huh? And where were you planning to go with your little time machine?”

“Back to last week, sir,” Gus answered nervously. Shawn elbowed him but knew from the look on his father’s face that Gus had already said too much.

Henry frowned. “Shawn, don’t do that.” He glared at them for a moment longer, then said, “There’s no quick fix once you make a mistake, boys. You can’t take something back once you’ve done it, so you’re better off to fess up. You can’t cover your tracks and pretend it never happened because someone will find out, and it will come back to haunt you. I’ve told you time and again not to listen to your uncle’s ridiculous tales, Shawn, and I’ve told you not to dig in my flowerbed, but you did it anyway, so now you’re facing the consequences. That’s what you get for breaking the law.”

“It’s not against the law to dig a hole,” Shawn protested.

“It is in my yard,” Henry countered. “And if you want to try to get me to lift your sentence early, Shawn, you do more chores around the house. You don’t invite Gus over here and pretend to build a time machine because Gus read about one in one of his comic books. There’s no such thing as time travel, Shawn. Don’t delude yourself. Gus, I’m going to take you home. Shawn, by the time I get back, I want this cleaned up, understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Shawn and Gus mumbled.

XXX Present day

Jack Cunningham wasn’t respected anymore. This wasn’t like the old days. No one respected anyone anymore, especially their elders. No one would listen to him these days. No one would hear him out.

A lot of people these days thought he’d lost his marbles. Crazy old man Cunningham, they called him. They thought he didn’t know what they called him behind his back, but he did. He was smarter than the lot of them put together. No one around here really remembered him. That stood to reason; things around here had changed. He’d experienced change. He didn’t like it. That’s why he’d resolved to go back to simpler times.

It had taken a lot of work. He wouldn’t deny that. It had taken years of trial and error. He wasn’t even sure it would work, but he knew he was close. He’d learned these things when he was younger, all the logistics and the theories and how to apply everything. He’d designed the machine himself. It may not look like much. It may not look like anything, but he knew it was, or at the very least, he knew it could be. Just because he’d built it from scraps didn’t mean it was scrap.

It wasn’t safe in the basement of his house anymore. He had to move it, before they found him. He knew they were on to him; it was foolish to stay where he was any longer. It wasn’t safe to try his invention out before he moved it.

“’Scuse me,” a man said, invading his thoughts and his personal space. “You couldn’t happen to tell me where the nearest fruit stand is, could you? I only just realized I was out of bananas, since my last one turned on me, and I try to make a point of keeping one with me. You never know when it might come in handy.”

Jack tried to sidestep the man but was unsuccessful. This one was sharper than the other youngins. He might even be one of them, one of the ones who were after him. “Go away,” Jack grunted, pushing the man aside.

“Oi! You don’t need to be rude,” the man said, quick to recover his footing. “Especially when I was doing my very best to be polite.”

“I don’t know where there’s a fruit stand,” Jack snapped. “Now leave me alone.”

“Well, see, the thing is,” the man continued, “I got a little lost, and I’m not entirely sure where I am, so I was hoping—”

“It’s six in the morning, mister,” Jack snarled. “I think you have plenty of time to find your way out of here if you just head back the way you came.” He, on the other hand, did not have time. He’d wasted enough of it as it was.

Jack pushed on, ignoring the rest of the man’s protests. The idiot wasn’t following him, thankfully. It meant he could take the shorter roundabout route back home. Couldn’t trust anyone these days, though. Not like in the old days. Couldn’t trust half the people then, either, but there were people who wouldn’t stab you in the back then. Not like now, where everyone protected themselves.

It was past six thirty by the time he unlocked his door. He was late, behind schedule. That babbling idiot had stalled him for too long. Scowling, Jack headed to his basement workshop. He stopped abruptly halfway down the stairs. He could hear a steady, mechanical humming.

His machine had been turned on.

Someone else had been here.

Slowly, Jack made his way to the bottom of the stairs. He couldn’t see anyone else, couldn’t hear anyone, but that didn’t mean they were gone. He looked back at his machine, his machine that clearly wasn’t functioning as he’d hoped it would function, and tried to figure out a way to fix it. Maybe if he wired something into the mainframe—

No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t make it work. He couldn’t afford to, not if they’d found him. Oh, he’d been running from them for years, trying to keep his secrets, but they’d found him. He’d known it would only be a matter of time. He should be thankful that his creation didn’t work now that they finally had found him. They’d never be able to fix it. He’d spent his life trying to invent this, and he’d failed. They wouldn’t have anyone who knew more about this than him. Especially if whoever they did have look at it had to first figure out what he’d done and why before they could figure out what he’d done wrong.

Well, they’d wanted his invention, his life’s work. They could have it, glitches and all.

When Jack turned his back, he knew what he was walking away from. He knew how much of his life he was throwing away in that moment. But he also knew he’d rather throw it away than try to piece it together or live with whatever constraints they imposed on him. They wouldn’t be expecting him to leave. They’d be expecting him to fix it, to finish his project, to see it work. Well, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to jump just because they said jump. No one was going to take play him for the fool.

Unfortunately for Jack, however, no one had ever intended to try playing him for the fool.

They didn’t need to.

And no one ever would again.

XXXXX Shawn Spencer had been the one to take Detective Juliet O’Hara’s call. The chief, Jules had said, wanted them on this case. That was good news; Gus had been complaining that they’d seemed to be approaching another dry spell. He’d been threatening to spend more time at what he affectionately called his real job. As far as Shawn was concerned, a pharmaceuticals salesman wasn’t nearly as interesting as being a partner in a psychic detective business. Clearly being a private psychic detective, even if you weren’t the one who was claiming to be psychic, was far more interesting than pharmaceutical sales, and if boring jobs were ‘real’ ones, Shawn was happy with his fake job.

Besides, he’d had ‘real’ jobs, each for however long it had held his interest or until he’d been fired for one misunderstanding or another, and he much preferred being a fake psychic. Not that very many people knew he wasn’t really psychic. That would, after all, be very bad for business. Gus knew the truth, of course, and his father, but he’d fooled everyone at the police station. Well, Detective Carlton Lassiter didn’t believe him on principle, but every time Lassie had tried to prove he was a fraud, Shawn had managed to turn things around so that Lassie began doubting his doubts, even if he didn’t admit it to anyone else.

“Shawn, did you take my keys?” Gus called, rifling through his desk.

“No,” Shawn replied. He had, of course. He’d had mail to open, one of those thick envelopes that had held a DVD he’d ordered without Gus’s permission, and scissors hadn’t been at hand. Unfortunately, nothing else in the mail had proved to be particularly interesting, except for the magazine subscription offer—half price for the year, plus a free world map, one of those giant ones—so he’d filled it out using Gus’s credit card details and had that in his pocket to send off. He’d always wanted one of those giant maps. As for the keys, well, they were back in Gus’s jacket. “Check your pockets.”

Shawn, who was ready to walk out the door the moment Gus recovered the ‘lost’ keys, sat back and closed his eyes for a spell. A body behind an alley dumpster. Whoever had done that crime hadn’t been too imaginative. Just as well; they were probably sloppy, too, so there would be plenty of clues for him to pick up on, piece together, and pretend to divine.

“Shawn, did you take my keys?” Gus repeated.

Shawn opened his eyes. Gus was still looking through his desk. “Check your pockets,” he said again. Gus heard him this time and did so, finding them in his discarded jacket pocket. He might have the supersmeller for a nose, but he definitely didn’t have superhearing.

“Thanks,” Gus said, though he sounded rather suspicious, as if he rightfully suspected his best friend’s involvement in the placement of the keys. “You ready?” he asked, jerking his head towards the door.

“I’m always ready,” Shawn said, getting to his feet. “You’re the one trying to get out of going on cases with me.”

“That’s because I have a real job, Shawn.” Gus started out the door, Shawn following behind. In no time, they were on their way.

Perhaps six minutes had passed before Shawn noticed that something was off. “Dude, you’re driving in circles. Do we need to call Lassie for directions?” It wasn’t like Gus to be late for a case, let alone needlessly rack up miles on his company car.

“It’s on my route, Shawn. I supply a clinic that’s nearby, so I know where I’m going.”

“I know it’s on your route. I know your route. But this is the second time we’ve been at this corner,” Shawn pointed out.

“Not today,” Gus said.

“Yes, today,” Shawn insisted. “It was, like, two minutes ago.”

“Then you’re thinking of a different corner.”

“I’m not thinking of a different corner,” Shawn protested. “How many corners have a funny statue of twisting metal bars on them? I mean, what’s the point of that?”

“It’s called artistic expression, and you just haven’t been paying attention.”

“Paying attention is what I do, Gus.”

“Yeah? And what was I saying before you interrupted me with your wild accusation about me needing directions?”

Shawn rolled his eyes. “Something about me and the mail, and really, Gus, you don’t need to go on about it, I always make sure I seal the letter up again so you can get all the surprise of opening it yourself.”

“Wait, you’ve been reading my mail? Shawn, that’s a federal offense!”

“It’s just between friends,” Shawn said. “And, anyway, your mail isn’t much more interesting than mine. Oh, but I did make sure to send your aunt a birthday card. Don’t worry, I signed both our names.”

“Shawn!”

“What? Couldn’t you tell from her letter that she needed some cheering up?”

“That’s not the point, Shawn. You can’t read my mail!”

“Well, you keep it in your desk, so I’d be reading it anyway. I need something to entertain me on the slow days. You’re turning here.”

“I know where I’m going,” Gus said. “But we’re not done here. You know that, right? This conversation isn’t over.”

“Sure it is. I can see everyone up there.” Shawn made a vague gesture in the direction of the police cars and the people on either side of the police tape.

Gus tried protesting, of course, but Shawn ignored him, and in no time they’d been waved on by Officer Buzz McNabb and were standing with their favourite detectives, Jules looking as beautiful as ever and Lassie being Lassie and playing detective. A quick survey of the scene made it clear that the crime had been committed here; there was too much blood for anything else to be true. The knife wasn’t at the scene and would, in all likelihood, be found when the areas nearby were swept, providing the killer was an incompetent one. Shawn, for his part, rather suspected this was the case.

There was only one knife wound, right into the belly and up into the heart, which would indicate the opposite. That was the conclusion Lassiter was loudly favouring. True, that theory wasn’t exactly refuted by the scrapes on the victim, which indicated a previous struggle, but Shawn still doubted this was a targeted killing by someone who knew what they were doing. After all, if someone knew what they were doing, they would’ve been more careful.

All right, so he couldn’t actually spot any clues at the crime scene now, so he didn’t really have anything to base his opinion on, but that’s what he figured. Whoever’d killed this guy didn’t have the finesse of, say, Mr. Yin or anyone of his calibre. That was just as well; Shawn didn’t feel like jumping through hoops for anyone who wanted to play games with him.

Still. Someone was dead, and it was his job to find out who’d killed him. The victim didn’t look like much. Chipped, dirty fingernails, calloused hands, various nicks and bruises that didn’t seem to have come from a previous fight but looked more like the sort acquired by various series of accidents—that told of the sort of life he’d lived. Alone, probably, judging by the state of his scruffy beard and ragged clothes, since he didn’t look like the type who had a wedding ring and just never wore it. But he didn’t smell of drink—at least, he couldn’t smell it; he’d have to check with Gus to be sure—or weed or anything else, and he certainly didn’t look like the type who was worth robbing, being on the burly and somewhat unclean side. How he’d gotten on the wrong side of a knife was beyond Shawn.

Shawn looked around for Gus, but Gus had hightailed it back to Buzz until he got his gag reflex under control. Shawn should’ve figured; Gus never did do well with blood. Unfortunately, that happened to be a key component of roughly ninety-five percent of the crime scenes. To his credit, he’d stomached a lot of it. Shawn could count the number of times he hadn’t on both his hands and Gus’s, which wasn’t bad, for Gus.

Gus returned a moment later, looking everywhere but the bloodied body, and Shawn decided to cut into Lassiter’s pitiful imaginings of the situation and find out the actual facts. “Do you know who we’re dealing with?”

Lassiter shot Shawn a withering look for the interruption, and thankfully he went to talk to someone who actually had to listen to him, a man from forensics, so Juliet was the one who answered the question. “He doesn’t have any ID on him,” she explained, “but the store owner says his name is Jack Cunningham. He came around here regularly, rooting through the dumpster for bits and pieces of things. Apparently, he was an inventor, and he was looking for parts.”

Well, that explained the victim’s appearance. “What was he building?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. No one we’ve talked to seems to know, though people in the area have confirmed the victim’s identity. He was secretive. He kept to himself.”

“So is that why the chief wanted us on the case? To figure out his secrets?”

“I think,” Juliet said, “it might also have to do with this.” She pulled an evidence bag out of her pocket and handed it to him.

It contained a piece of string, perhaps ten inches long. It was knotted twice, about half an inch and an inch from one end.

“String?” Gus asked, raising an eyebrow and clearly thinking exactly what Shawn was thinking, which was something along the lines of wondering how the heck string could be at all important.

“String,” Juliet confirmed. “Are you getting anything, Shawn?”

“It’s not clear,” Shawn said, holding one hand to his temple as he usually did when he pretended to have a psychic episode. In reality, he had absolutely no idea what the string meant, at least not at the moment. Cunningham had been an inventor. Perhaps he’d just happened to have a bit of string in his pockets. But Shawn didn’t buy that, himself. The knots were evenly spaced. The chances of that being coincidental were rather small, so he’d bet that they meant something. He just didn’t know what. “I might be able to get a better reading if I saw Cunningham’s place.”

“At this point, we’re still trying to figure out where that is,” Juliet admitted.

“I can’t say I have that particular trouble,” another man said in a distinct British accent. “Mind you, at this rate, I’d really like to know if anyone else has found what he left behind.”

Shawn spun around, coming face-to-face with a grinning man clad in a brown pinstriped suit. Shawn spared a fleeting thought that the man must surely be baking in this weather, but he spent his time memorizing details of the man, from his spiky brown hair to his cream Converse sneakers. “Who are you?” Shawn asked.

“Who am I?” the man repeated. He caught sight of the string in the evidence bag and his eyebrows shot upwards. “That’s not the question you ought to be asking, Shawn Spencer.” Nodding at the victim and ignoring Shawn’s questions about how the heck he knew who he was, the man continued, “What you should be asking is, ‘what was he up to’?” His gaze returned to the string, and he’d nicked the bag before Shawn could stop him.

When he opened it and took the string out, Shawn gaped at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“We need a third knot in this string,” the man replied as he tied one in, a half inch from the last knot. “Might as well be consistent.” He shoved the string back into the bag and gave it back to Shawn. “You might want to hold onto this. It’ll help you keep track.” One of his hands delved into his own pocket and pulled out another piece of string. It, too, had three knots in it, though they weren’t evenly spaced by any means. “See? I’ve got one already.”

“What?”

“We’re working on it, Shawn,” Juliet said.

Shawn reflexively looked back at Jules before returning his gaze to the newcomer.

The man was gone.

He glanced at the string. It had three knots in it. He looked up at Juliet again. “Who was that?” he asked.

Juliet frowned. “Who was who?”

“The man who was just here. The one who tied the third knot in the string.” He held the evidence bag up to her.

“Are you feeling all right?” Gus asked.

“I’m fine,” Shawn said. “I’m just…. He tampered with evidence and you didn’t a word. You didn’t try to stop him.”

Both Juliet and Gus looked concerned now, but it was Juliet who told him why. “There were always three knots in the string, Shawn,” she said softly.

Part II (or at least the Part II I currently have posted, given that I have two different versions of this)

#psych #doctor who #fanfiction #dw fanfiction #psych fanfiction #crossover #ladylynse #my writing #lynse's random WIPs #DW WIP #psych wip #crossover wip #crossover snippet #dw snippet #psych snippet #snippets

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