#i really loved in an earlier wheel of time episode - the discussion about being cut off from the one power

[asshlyyyy]

Just The Nurse Bonus

Series Warnings: Language, Drug abuse, mentions of abuse, mentions of drugs. Colonel not liking the reader, probably some medical terms are incorrect, mentions of Elvis' potential death, health terms, health issues, yelling, fighting. Spelling and grammatical errors are likely. Individual chapter warnings will appear as needed.

Individual Warnings: This isn't actually a complete finished part. Which is why it's a bonus. This would have been part 2 if things were different. So, if you see something like [][][], I would've added filler.

Masterlist | Previous Part

Chapter 6: Bonus Episode

You stumbled to follow Elvis as he walked through the empty halls towards the stage. You had your medical bag in hand. You didn't care too much of what was being discussed, but you had to try your best to keep up with the group. It had only been a few weeks since You've started the job, and well... your relationship with Elvis hasn't changed much... and when first introduced to the Colonel... things got worse.

You heard a loud thud and looked in front of you. You could no longer see the back of Elvis's hair. You let out a breath and pushed forward through the people and found him on the ground.

"Oh, god," you muttered out and got down to the ground. Dr. Nic, if you should even call him a doctor, stood close by also. 

"Someone call an ambulance," you said calmly. You lifted his wrist to find his spot. You closed your eyes and started to count.

"The only thing that matters is that man gets up on that stage tonight!" You heard the colonel's voice. You let out a breath and looked over at him. He couldn't be serious right now? You watched the looks that people were giving out. 

You turned Elvis over and placed his head in his lap. You felt his forehead and felt that he was overheating. You knew he hadn't taken any pills since you've been here, so it couldn't have been that... 

"It's up to you," the colonel spoke to Vernon. You looked over and shook your head.

"What you're going to do, is cancel the show. He can't go out." You spoke up.

"Who even are you?" The colonel asked. 

"His lifeline." You answered and moved Elvis' messy hair out of his face. You really had to try and convince him to get it cut. The colonel let out a chuckle and shook his head. He didn't believe you for one second. A little lady like you... yeah sure.

"The ambulance is here," someone called out to you. You nodded in response and looked around at everyone still around.

"Don't you have a show to cancel," You spat out harshly towards the colonel and Vernon. It wasn't your intention to be rude to Vernon... you were just doing your job.

You heard the doors being thrown open and soon the sounds of wheels rushed over to you. You let out a breath and tried to ease your breathing. It wasn't going to help much if you were freaking out. Once the paramedics moved Elvis up onto the gurney you followed suit after them.

You had no idea if Elvis was going to be mad. You knew how much he loved to perform, and yet... you didn't know what to expect of him when he woke up. Canceling a show for him? You had no right to do that. All you were... was just the nurse.

As you sat in the ambulance you looked over at Elvis. It was happening again and it was all your fault. You felt like you could cry at the sight. You thought you were doing everything well. The healthy food, the healthy sleep schedule... just about everything. You thought you were doing good.

"When was the last time he eaten?" The paramedic asked from next to you.

"He ate a few hours ago. Then afterwards he had a nap." You answered their question. They nodded and continued to look at Elvis. You thought about what could've caused this. Maybe he was just sick... maybe... there had to be something else... you just couldn't put your finger on it. That's when it hit you. He had a show earlier today as well. He wasn't feeling good after you so you suggested food and rest.

"He had a show earlier, told me he wasn't feeling the best. It might be exhaustion... over heating... his forehead was hot to touch. Not to mention his body was also."

"Does he take drugs? Medications? Prescriptions?"

"He hasn't in I would say... a month or two."

"So he did before?"

"Yeah." You nodded and it hit you even more. It was possible that his body wasn't completely used to him not taking the medications anymore. God, there were so many possibilities and you couldn't pin point it exactly.

The trip was long and painful. Your hand must've been shaking the whole time. So, when they arrived and took him in... he didn't need emergency care. 

"I'm sorry miss, you can't go in."

"I- why not?"

"Only close relations to Mr. Presley can be let in.

"I- I'm- I'm his girlfriend." You lied. The nurse gave your a look and noticed your worried look. She let out a sigh and let you in. You looked around and saw that they were already hooking him up to machines. You watched as they had a washcloth and were dabbing it around him... trying to cool him down probably.

You stood by the door and just watched. You didn't know what to do... you were lost in a state of mind that made you wonder things. Were you feeling something for him? No... no you couldn't... you two hardly got along.

"Miss, you have a phone call." Someone broke you out of your thoughts. You blinked a couple of times and found that there was no one in the room anymore. Elvis laid in the bed, you stood still by the door. You nodded slightly and followed the women out towards the phone. You picked it up and held it up to your ear.

"Hello?"

"Y/n," you heard your mothers voice and your froze. You noticed the tone in her voice. This couldn't be happening. Not now... no.

"No," you spoke gently, "tell me it ain't so."

"It is," your heart was struck with a ton of bricks. You now felt like you couldn't breath. You were barely able to hang up the phone. You stare at the blank wall and tried to figure out what to do. Well... you only had one option. There was no way you could get back to Memphis without Elvis.

You pushed yourself off the wall and walked back towards the room Elvis was in. The moment you closed the door you got to the floor and cried your heart out. You knew this day would come, but you thought maybe... just maybe that he would wake up and- and you weren't even there.

What kind of sister were you? Clearly not a good one if you weren't even there. You were far from home... and you didn't know when you would be back. So, you sat on the dirty flood and felt your whole heart just break into thousands of pieces. Sobs every so often left your lips.

[][][][][]

"Wh- where am I?" You heard Elvis' voice. You looked up and pushed yourself off the ground. You wiped away the few tears and walked towards him.

"You're in the hospital." You said as your voice cracked.

"Why am I- aren't ya supposed to be-" he turned and looked at you. You looked like mess. Red puffy eyes, tear stained cheeks that were red. Your hair was also a mess from your pulling at it. Now, he knew you weren't crying about him. You two are got along as it was.

"I know... but you passed out... if you didn't come here... the colonel probably would've had Nic inject you with something." You tried your best to envision what would've happened. Elvis thought about every possible case that would've made you cry. He then thought back to the first day he met you. When he read your journal. It had to be your brother.

"Is it your brother?" Your eyes widened at that statement, or question, your mind couldn't sit straight.

"What- how-"

"If you need to go you can go." Elvis spoke. Truth be told, he would hurt if you left him. He had grown quite fond of you over the past weeks you've been around him. Being forced to spend so much time with someone will do that.

"I-" you didn't know what to say. You didn't know what to do. You could easily leave and let Elvis be... but you had to be with him. You didn't want to loose your job but- 

"We can go after I'm out of 'ere." He then brought up. You nodded and started to walk back towards the chair. That's when you felt your hand being tugged back. You looked at Elvis confused.

"Listen I- er... I'm sorry 'bout being a dick. I know ya just tryin' to help meh." He started to speak. His hand was tight yet gentle against your own. You sniffled lightly and nodded. You didn't want to talk... you didn't want to hear... you wanted to be left to your thoughts. 

"It's okay," you managed to get out. You tried to pull your hand away, but he kept a grip on you. "Can you please let me go?"

Elvis let out a breath and release his hand and watched as you back towards the chair. He knew he had to cancel some of the shows that were coming up. The colonel was going to be mad about that, but you were more important. Even when he first laid eyes on you...

You looked over at the click of the door and spotted a nurse walking in with a cup. You sucked in a breath and stood up. You knew that the medications were probably to help him... but you didn't need him relapsing. Elvis watched as the nurse walked over to him, a smile on her face.

"I'm glad you're awake. You gave us all a fright." She said gently. You noticed her body movements and felt disgusted. "I have some medications here to help-"

"I'm okay," Elvis spoke. He turned and looked at you. "That only medications I'm takin' comes from 'er." he pointed towards you. You froze in your spot as the girl turned to look at you.

"With all due respect, Mr. Presley... these are supposed to help you."

"I'm okay, I actually want to leave. I have to get on a plane." He stated. The nurse started to shake her head violently.

"I- I-"

"He should be okay to leave. He's not overheating and his heart rate is normal. He can rest on the plan ride." You spoke up, a small smile on your face.

"I-"

"Well, ya heard her." Elvis looked back at the nurse. She didn't know what to say. She came in expecting for a little something and didn't receive any of that.

"Well I'm going to have to-"

"Just unhook me and we'll be on our way."

"I-" The nurse spoke. You walked over and stood in front of the nurse.

"I can get him unhooked. We'll be out of here in a couple of minutes or so."

"Oh I can't let you do that-"

"I'm a certified nurse." you stopped her. She closed her mouth and just nodded. She placed the pills down and started to walk away. You picked up the small cup.

"You forgot something." You spoke up. She looked back at you and noticed the small cup in your hands. She let out a breath and rushed over to grab it.

"Sorry," she rushed out. She closed the door and you looked over at Elvis. Somehow... somewhere... you found your heart flutter.

Without wasting anymore time you started to carefully remove the things from his body. Including an IV to the heart monitor. You were nervous the whole time doing so. You felt so wrong removing these things, but you knew that it would be okay. It took awhile before you were able to get everything detached, and once you did Elvis stood up and let out a stretch.

"Thanks," he said. You nodded and fixed up your hair. He grabbed a few of his belongings and looked at you. He took a step closer to you and reached his hands up. Your chests were merely inches apart. Your breathing picked up as you looked up at him. His was soft as he fixed your hair. You let out a light breath and leaned into his touch a bit.

Mutual Taglist: @darlinboypresley @emmymaehereeeeee @venus-haze @austinstyles

#austin butler elvis #elvis x reader #elvis imagine #elvis #elvis 2022 #elvis film #elvis fic #elvis fanfiction #elvis movie #austin butler #austin butler x reader #austin!elvis x reader #austin butler fanfiction #austin!elvis

[memzhay]

The Rehearsal

The long teased on camera kiss was happening. There had been a lot of discussion on the whens and the hows of it. Should they do it on the camping series with Stevie? Should they do a bunch of fake out kisses while camping and then do it on a regular behind the desk episode right after the camping series dropped? Should they do the kiss first and then do the camping series? Should they do it on Good Mythical More so the hard core fans would be the first ones to see it? There were lots of variables, and it was important to get it right.

In the end, they had decided to do it during Pride month, in a main GMM episode, right around the time that the crew would be running the big 5K for the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center. The concept for the episode was a trivia game where there were no winners or losers, highlighting the contributions of LGBTQ individuals throughout history. Not just in things like music, and fashion, but in fields of science and technology, philosophy, all kinds of things. It was a solidly good concept. They would finish the game, say something about the Center and the upcoming 5K, they kiss, they spin the Wheel of Mythicality.

It was a few days before the shoot, and Link seemed nervous and on edge. He and Rhett had talked about it a bit, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to do the kiss, or that he was worried about their friendship, or their families, or anything like that. He said he was worried about technical things, but had trouble articulating exactly what. They decided to have a rehearsal one evening at the studio after the crew had gone home. After a lot of discussion earlier in the day they had for sure decided they wanted the kiss to be standing up over by where they used to do LTAT rather than behind the desk. Since the premise of the game was really more of a behind the desk sort of thing, the writers weren’t exactly sure what the motivation would be for them to suddenly be standing up, but said not to worry about it. If it was important, they would figure out a way to make it happen.

They were standing in the spot where they planned to do the kiss. They had put chairs out where the cameras would be. They put the wheel where the wheel would be. Once they were satisfied that the scene was set, Rhett turned to Link.

“Ok. So we have camera 1 here, 2 here for close ups, far away cam if we need it will be up there. All good?” Rhett asked.

“Yeah,” Link said pacing around and adjusting the chairs minutely one way then another. “If this is the main camera, then that means we should be standing here and angled like this.” He adjusted his body so that he was in profile to the camera with his feet at a right angle so that his body faced the camera slightly more.

Rhett angled himself to match across from Link, eying the positions and imagining the camera angles. “That should be fine. Do we want to put tape marks down?”

“Not right now,” Link said awkwardly. It seemed like he couldn’t meet Rhett’s eyes and kept sweeping his gaze across the floor and their feet like something still wasn’t quite right. Rhett put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey now. Everything is cool. It’s just me. Ain’t nothing dramatic happening tonight. Tell me what’s bothering you. Was it the camera positions you were mostly concerned about? Do we need to get a real one out instead of these chairs?”

“No,” Link replied. “It’s not that. I’m just overthinking every detail, and it’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Out with it, Neal! Rhett McLaughlin is here to help.”

“What am I supposed to do with my hands?” Link blurted out. “I mean we hug, and it shouldn’t really be that different, right? But do my hands need to be more on your shoulders than they normally would be, am I supposed to touch your hair? Are you supposed to touch my face? Speaking of your hair, is it going to be up or down? How long a kiss are we talking here? We don’t want it to be like a quick peck, so do we count slowly to 5? I know we already talked about that before, I just���” He was spinning out of control fast.

“Man! You really are in your head about this,” Rhett said with sympathy. “That’s too many things to think about at once, right? It’s like shooting a music video. If you think of all the things that need to happen at once, it’s overwhelming. Let’s take it in steps.”

“Right,” Link said taking a deep breath. “Steps. Find the process. One thing at a time.”

“Good,” Rhett said. “Now come here and hug me.”

“I…You..” Link stammered, his hands making tiny helpless windmills in the air.

“Come on! Like you said, it’s not like we don’t hug. Hug your buddy! Let’s start from there,” Rhett prompted spreading his arms in invitation.

Link chuckled about how silly he was being and stepped into the hug. His hands went automatically to the middle of Rhett’s back. It felt fine. Not alien, or awkward, or different than any time they might hug.

“Come on and hug me like you mean it!” Rhett said, giving Link a squeeze and jostling him back and forth a bit. Link laughed in spite of himself and returned the hug with a bit more gusto.

“Alright! Now we just lean back a bit and we are in a perfectly good kissing stance. Are your feet still angled right?” Rhett asked, turning his face to the side and looking down. Both of them had their feet properly angled. “See! We’re pros. We can do this!”

Link chuckled a bit. “Ok. So the hands just sort of go where they would anyway. I’m fine with that.”

“Alright then, let’s talk hair stuff,” Rhett suggested. “Do you want to touch my hair?”

“I don’t know!” Link pleaded. He didn’t try to pull away from the hug though.

“You touch my hair a lot. Remember when you used to cut it back in the day? You’ve cut it, curled it, straightened it, covered it in peanut butter. It’s still just my hair.” Rhett reached up and pulled the ponytail holder out of his hair and shook it out a bit. Link automatically shook his own head in dramatic, somewhat mocking fashion. Rhett chuckled.

“Ok. Just your hair. Not like it’s made of snakes,” Link said, bringing his hands up and sliding them into the hair at the base of Rhett’s neck. His hair is so long these days! He looked at his fingers flexing them a bit. There was more of it than there ever has been, but it was still just Rhett’s hair.

Seeing that Link was fairly comfortable, Rhett slid a hand into Link’s hair as well. Link closed his eyes and leaned into Rhett’s hand ever so slightly. Link brought his hands back down to where they had been on Rhett’s back and focused on the feeling of Rhett’s fingers curling and uncurling gently in his hair.

“Next agenda item, the length and voracity of the kiss,” Rhett stated. “What do you think would be best?”

Link’s eyes flew open and he considered. “I think it does need to be more than just a quick smooch, I think we referred to the tone before as sort of friendly and respectful, but what if when it happens we are all adrenalized? What if it goes wrong? What if I end up kissing you, I don’t know, too much? Not enough?” Link was starting to sound panicky again.

“Let’s establish right now,” Rhett said quietly, “If you don’t want to do this, if it’s too much, it stops here. No guilt or blame, nobody’s going to give you a hard time. Furthermore, if you want to kiss me more than just quick and ‘respectful like’, I hereby consent.” He smiled warm and comforting down at Link, his fingers still lightly working their way through his hair.

“Good. Ok. I’m fine, really,” Link assured. “I’m not backing out, it’s just, it’s the first time, and I want it to be perfect.”

“And what is perfection?” Rhett prompted, giving Link the set up for something he said all the time.

“An illusion,” Link said with a sigh. He was feeling better. This was going to be ok. The girls were fine with it. The kids were fine with it. However it turned out, him and Rhett would be fine. Another shadow flitted across his eyes.

“Anything else?” Rhett asked.

“I guess there is one more thing,” Link began. This was real embarrassing. “I..I’ve never.. I’ve never kissed anybody with a beard before. Do you think the texture will freak me out?”

“I’ll have you know the texture of my beard is perfectly lovely!” Rhett exclaimed in mock outrage. He considered the problem. “But you better go ahead and put your face on it, just to be sure.”

“What?” Link began to pull back.

“Here. I’m going to lean down, you can kiss my cheek, rub your nose in it, whatever you have to do to be comfy with your dear old friend, my beard,” He said with a calm smile.

Rhett leaned down and Link brushed his cheek on the auburn beard he knew so well. Scratchy wasn’t the word. Not soft either exactly, but definitely not painful or unpleasant. He turned his lips into the side of Rhett’s face and lingered a moment, noticing again that Rhett’s hand was still lightly moving around the back of his head, petting his hair.

“It smells nice,” Link said as though in a dream.

“Mythical.com/store,” Rhett chimed in. They both laughed. Link pulled his face back a bit and smiled an untroubled smile up at his friend. He then tucked his head down and snuggled into Rhett’s chest, feeling his heartbeat. That constant, steady beat that had been with him so much of his life. They stood there a long time like that. There was no rush. This was a good idea. They should have done it years ago.

#rhink fanfiction #rhink fic #rhink #now smooch already

[steves-strapcollection]

my mag172 #thots i will not be swayed from

The tl;dr version:

Fuck the web

Fuck Web!Martin theories (like i cannot even properly articulate why i hate this theory so much now, and I used to subscribe to it)

And fuck Annabelle Cane, I literally hate her with my entire being.

As a recovering addict, I would say... this is the best episode of the show, and I will also never, ever listen to it again.

Now the long version below the cut.

So I hate the Web, and I hate Annabelle Cane. To me, the other fears make sense on a primal human level. The Web is just...pure evil. It was born from the choices of evil people, and is only used for evil. Plain and simple. It is, at it’s core the worst fear and I hate it. There is nothing anyone can say that will make me not hate it.

Because of point number one, I refuse to believe in or subscribe to literally any Web!Martin theory. At all. Listen, MAG170 killed Web!Martin theories completely, imho, and any amount of theorizing in favour of Web!Martin is grasping at straws. But I refuse to believe that my perfect boy, who spent the entire time in the Lonely defending his abuser, who busted his own ass out of the Lonely bc he was in love would be part of something as evil as the Web. Like I just....I feel like there was no way to have had an episode, completely from the POV of Martin, and not gotten any spoken hint at him being even remotely connected to the Web. Just. No.

The argument at the beginning, if you could call that an argument: I have noticed, especially in recent episodes, that Jon seems influenced by the domain and especially the “statement giver” before he even begins his monologue. Like...kinda showing how the forced Knowing creeps up on him? This theory of mine has been in the back of my mind since MAG168 but I don’t know how to fully explain it because it just fully formed in my head after this episode. Something changed after Oliver’s statement, just like it did in Season 1, and again at the beginning of Season 4. In MAG170, Jon got separated from Martin, and I feel like...Jon wouldn’t have just....left Martin behind, even by accident, even during a monologue and I just...I feel like, to some degree, Jon had been at least a little bit influenced by the Lonely and got separated that way. And then in the Flesh, approaching Jared, Jon was confused that Martin didn’t find the flesh flowers beautiful, and the way he said it...it struck me as a very Jared thing to say. And then the way Jon talked in this episode, the way Jon got defensive and sniped at Martin just....it was very similar in feeling to Francis’ own words being mirrored back to them by the spider. Just....i’m not sure where I’m going with this, or even if it has sound basis in canon. It’s just been a pattern I’ve noticed but it was made clearer to me now.

I refuse to see that final interaction with Martin and Jon as anything other than two frustrated and exhausted men trudging through the apocalypse, and whatnot. Like I can just hear the absolutely lukewarm takes ppl will have and just. Nah, leave me out of it.

Loved the explanation about Knowing vs. Understanding.

Also loving Jon and Martin still discussing boundaries, and Martin has a right to said boundaries, and I’m getting where he’s coming from in now wanting to know, or for Jon to Know. I think I would be the same, not wanting to know if my feelings for someone or choices were my own or made for me, especially if I had gone through as much as Martin has. I rly did not see this as an omen of any kind, especially with them having that conversation in the middle of the Web’s domain.

This episode was hard. I’m recovering from alcoholism, I’ve recovered from cigarette addiction repeatedly, and also struggle with binge eating disorder which is often treated the same way as an addiction would in therapy. I relate to Francis as a recovering addict, and I thought this episode did an amazing job in illustrating addiction, and relapse, and the little ways addicts get undermined and undermine themselves in the recovery process. I don’t think this episode compared addiction to being a monster, nor do I think it downplayed the mental illness aspect of addiction. I made a post earlier about how these statements are mad with heavy bias, especially during the apocalypse, and they’re about fear. Recognizing that addiction is a mental illness and showing it as such does not translate fear, and if it did, I feel like that would be more the Corruption’s domain than any others. The Web is about not being in control, it’s about not having a choice or free will, it’s about feeling trapped by the choices you once made and are unable to make choices that contradict those. With addiction, that is a very real feeling. You can tell me all day that it’s mental illness, it’s rooted in depression or anxiety or whatever, and all you have to do is treat that cause and address it blah blah blah. I know. We know. But when you’re struggling with a relapse, or a near-relapse, it does not feel like you’re in control, it does not feel like you are driving your own body. It feels like someone else is behind the wheel, and you hate that person, and you are terrified of that person. That person is ruining your life and you feel like you cannot fucking stop them. But then you do! You can do it. And a lot of us succeed, and I feel like if the world hadn’t ended, Francis would be doing okay. Just like I’m doing okay. And the countless other recovering addicts I know. But in a fictional world, where our fears are actual entities, with physical avatars doing their bidding everywhere, in an apocalyptic hellscape where the fears EXIST ON OUR PLANE of reality, where people are forced to live through their greatest fears forever.

Idk, i just thought this was a really good episode and I’m debating blacklisting TMA until next week lmao.

I just wanted to add this bc I rly don't want ppl to eventually come at me about their personal experiences w addiction and just... Jonny confirmed that he wrote this episode from his own experiences as an addict and his fears regarding addiction, plus that season 5 is about fear not truth so.

Read the following tweets before trying to push your experiences as the "truer" experience or whatevs I've already been seeing.

#the magnus archives #mag172 #mag172 spoilers #tma spoilers #addiction tw #my mag thots #400 notes

[beca-mitchell]

if you wanted to, girl, we could cross that line (1/1)

Summary: Aren't you supposed to book the wedding venue after proposing? Word count: 3,316 words Author’s Notes: I’ve been thinking about recent discussion re: Chloe and Beca's relationship. Specifically how Chloe hates it when people think Beca is some uncaring/apathetic person. Or that Beca is aloof and distant in their romantic relationship. I had some ideas about that, but then it kind of spiralled into this which I don't even know if it addresses any of that discourse at all. But. Anyway. I've been binging Friends, so yes, this is totally inspired by Season 6, episode 22 (and a little of episode 23) of Friends. Fic title from Lauv's "Feelings".

Read below or on AO3.

* * * * *

“Aubrey this place is beautiful,” Chloe gasps, looking around the high ceilings and well-decorated walls of the country club lounge. “You’re really thinking about moving The Lodge to California?”

Aubrey flips through the brochure, nodding along to Chloe’s words. “It seems like a natural choice. Would be nice to expand out here. Lots of companies need their morale boosted.”

Chloe nudges Aubrey. “I’m happy for you, you know? You’ve done so much in the past few years.”

“Chloe,” Aubrey sighs. “Thank you.”

“And I’m so glad you didn’t move to Mykonos and become a doula.”

Aubrey frowns. “I don’t remember saying that.” She flips to the next page of her brochure. “Oh! Chloe, look! They host weddings here!”

Chloe shifts to lean over Aubrey’s shoulder to examine the glossy pages. “Oh wow, I’m sure they must be beautiful here. Expensive too. Oh!” Chloe points to the next page. “They can even host guests overnight.”

“Perfect for corporate retreats,” Aubrey muses.

“Or weddings,” Chloe says, tugging Aubrey’s arm along. “Just think about it. A beautiful day...a little bit of a breeze." Chloe sighs, somewhat wistfully, lost in her own world for a moment. "You’d look beautiful in the dress I have picked out for you.”

“Oh is this your wedding we’re talking about?”

To Aubrey’s immense surprise, Chloe glances away, clearly embarrassed. “I mean. It could be anybody’s wedding. I was just. Throwing it out there. You know.”

“Were you picturing yourself in the wedding dress?”

Again, hesitation from Chloe. “...Maybe.”

Aubrey moves so she’s standing in front of Chloe. “Hey, what’s this all about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You,” Aubrey gestures with a stern tone. “Getting all weird and shy about weddings of all things.”

It wasn’t that Chloe was fanatic about weddings, it was more that Aubrey knew Chloe was a complete romantic. And passionate about literally everything, on top of that. Plus, Aubrey, in her capacity as Chloe’s de facto best friend, knew just how much Chloe wanted a fairytale wedding. It was something that some people grew out of—Aubrey would know, being all about practicality—but it was also something that followed people and nestled within their hopes and dreams like a permanent reminder of what optimism and sunshine could bring.

Chloe is the embodiment of both of those things and Aubrey is fortunate enough to have experienced such a person in her lifetime.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Chloe begins, going for nonchalance which Aubrey disregards completely. “I just. I—I’ve been dating Beca for a year and a half. And then soon it’s going to be two years. And then...more.”

“That’s how time works, usually.”

Chloe glares at her. “It’s just. Beca isn’t...I don’t think she wants to get married.”

“Has she said that to you?” Aubrey demands, surprised that even Beca of all people would have so little tact to say that to Chloe specifically. Chloe who has had her wedding planned since she was in second grade. Chloe, who would go to the ends of the earth for Beca Mitchell’s smug, talented ass.

“No! No, God, Beca is amazing. And she—” Chloe sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I know what you’re thinking and it’s what everybody thinks. Beca isn’t like that, okay? She loves me and she’s in love with me. There’s no doubt about it.” Aubrey shoots her a skeptical look. “You’re so unfair,” Chloe complains, upon seeing Aubrey’s expression. “She’s an amazing girlfriend. Honestly. Everybody thinks that she’s this distant, emotionless little...” Chloe makes a noise of frustration. “Well, she’s not. She’s passionate and beautiful and so so good at that thing she—”

“Chloe!”

Chloe blushes. “Sorry. But it’s not that. I promise.”

“Then where did...all this come from?”

“Well, I just don’t want to...freak her out.”

“Freak her out,” Aubrey echoes, contemplating the word choice and wondering whether she really does need to talk to Beca about her lack of decorum. “Has she said that to you?” she demands again.

“No!”

“Then—?”

“I just. I know I can be a lot, okay? I know that I want things too much sometimes. And that I can get loud and crazy about things. But I want to…” Chloe glances around. “I want to spend the rest of my life with Beca and I don’t want anything to mess that up.”

“Why would you two getting married mess that up?”

“Um? Hello? Has she not complained about her parents before?”

Aubrey can concede to that. “Once or twice. But I mean...we’re not all defined by our parents’ mistakes.” Chloe shoots her a look. “Okay, you know what? This isn’t about me.”

Chloe giggles, relenting. She kicks her toe against the ground, following the movement with her eyes. “I just know that Beca isn’t thinking about getting married. We just moved in together.”

“Like two months ago,” Aubrey mutters.

“More like four months ago!”

“Oh, but who’s counting?”

Chloe flashes a quick smile. “Yeah, it’s been four months hasn’t it?” She softens. “I love living with Beca. And I love L.A.! Oh—and of course I love that you’re going to be moving here.” She pulls Aubrey in for a quick hug, right in the middle of the hall. “It’s just...everything is coming together. I love my life just the way it is.”

“Chloe—”

It is that moment that a couple decides to make their way through the hall, led by a man holding a clipboard. He appears to be listing off amenities and accommodations.

“—host many weddings a year, especially during June. You are very lucky to get on the waiting list.”

Chloe, never one to really acknowledge social customs, somehow manages to insert herself into the conversation midway. “Is there a long list?” she asks conversationally, a hint of amusement in her tone. She tugs Aubrey along despite Aubrey’s attempts to mind her own business.

The wedding planner scrutinizes their intertwined hands. “Are you two ladies looking to have a wedding?”

Chloe tilts her head before turning to look at Aubrey with a glint in her eyes. “And if we are?”

“Chloe!” Aubrey hisses.

“Well, the wait list is about two years long, so you’ll have to get in line.”

* * * * *

“What was that about loving your life the way it was?”

“It wasn’t serious. I just won’t ever contact them again.”

“Yes, putting yours and Beca’s names down for a wedding venue wasn’t serious.”

“Think of it as a way to drum up some press for when you host corporate retreats there.”

“How does this help me? This absolutely in no way helps me at all.”

* * * * *

Chloe forgets about her little relapse until two weeks later. She and Beca decide to go for a nice dinner at the country club—a place where Beca can maintain some anonymity while they engage in things that Beca would prefer prying eyes to keep away from.

Namely kissing.

“You haven’t touched your dinner,” Chloe murmurs. She smiles as she catches Beca’s next kiss head-on, tilting her head ever so slightly to elicit the quietest of whimpers from Beca’s throat.

“You haven’t touched yours.”

Chloe tenses her fingers, splayed on Beca’s thigh. “Maybe I’m more interested in my dessert.”

Beca blushes immediately and clears her throat, drawing back to take in Chloe’s swollen lips and playful smile. “I’m so happy that you’re mine,” Beca drawls, reaching up to cup Chloe’s cheeks. “But you have to stop saying shit like that in public.”

“Why do I have to stop saying shit like that in public?” Chloe asks innocently, letting her lips and tongue emphasize the word shit while her hand glides further up Beca’s thigh.

Beca’s eyes darken further. She hums, leaning in to capture Chloe’s lips in another kiss. “You don’t play fair,” she complains when Chloe finally draws back and refocuses on her plate of untouched food.

“But you just get so cute and flustered,” Chloe points out. “How can I resist?”

Later, as they are leaving, Chloe barely has time to recall just why she recognizes the man walking towards them before he is greeting them both.

“Hi, Chloe, right? I just left a message on your phone earlier this evening. I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

Chloe opens her mouth, recognition dawning. “Oh it’s—”

“Hi,” Beca cuts in. “What message?” she asks curiously.

“It’s nothing,” Chloe says quickly, an unpleasant heat spreading quickly through her body. “I’ll check later,” she says politely.

“Of course! It wasn’t anything serious. Just letting you know that your position on the wedding venue waitlist got bumped up because we had a few cancellations in the past two weeks. We’re looking at much sooner than two years. Probably within the next year if you want to remain on the list.”

“The what?” Beca demands. “Chloe, the—” Beca looks like her eyes might pop right out of her head. “Chloe,” she hisses, following as Chloe quickly mutters a thank-you and tugs Beca’s wrist along until they reach Chloe’s car. “What the fu—”

“Don’t curse,” Chloe whispers.

Beca presses her lips into a thin line. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Are you mad?”

“I’m just confused,” Beca murmurs, sliding into the passenger seat. “Are we getting married?”

“No!” Chloe exclaims quickly. “No, of course not—”

“Of course not?” Beca echoes. “What—”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just—it was just a dumb thing. Can we…” Chloe rests her hand on the steering wheel. “Can we talk about it when we get home?”

Beca stares out the window for a few long moments while Chloe pulls out on the main road. “Okay,” she finally agrees. “Okay, we’ll talk when we get home.”

The drive home itself is the longest and shortest of Chloe’s life. She shifts uncomfortably more than once, resisting the urge to look over at her girlfriend every two minutes. Scratch that. Every two seconds. She can’t believe that she forgot. That she wasn’t more careful. That a brief, silly moment with her best friend resulted in this. Whatever this is between herself and Beca right now.

It’s the last thing she wants, to have potentially messed something up in their life together.

When Chloe pulls into the private parking lot for their apartment complex, Chloe finds that she doesn’t want to leave the quiet of the car.

“Chlo,” Beca urges softly. “Let’s go inside.”

“I just wanted to see what it was like,” Chloe blurts, too stricken to restrain herself any longer. “I’m sorry.”

Beca reaches out to hold her hand across the console like Chloe wishes she had done during the drive home. The comforting feeling of Beca’s hand in her own makes Chloe look up, finally meeting Beca’s eyes for the first time since leaving the country club.

“Let’s just go inside,” Beca repeats, squeezing her hand.

Chloe hates that she feels too frazzled to correctly read Beca’s expression. She can’t figure out just what Beca is feeling or thinking and she hates that. She hates not knowing the one person she feels like she knows better than any other person on Earth.

“So...like.” Beca exhales, taking the keys from Chloe’s hands and placing them in their little shared bowl. “What did you mean? You just wanted to see what it was like? How do you just see what it’s like to reserve a wedding venue?”

Chloe bites her lip, still afraid to meet Beca’s eyes. She focuses instead on the flowery B&C engraving on their key bowl. It warms her. Comforts her. “I mean...it’s not really a wedding venue. It’s just a country club,” she points out evasively.

Beca snorts. “Where weddings are sometimes hosted.”

“Well. Yeah.”

“And you specifically put your name down—our names down—for a wedding. Sometime in the future.”

Chloe groans at that, covering her face with her hands. “Aubrey pressured me into it,” she lies, wondering if Beca will believe that.

Beca stifles a smile, instead choosing to step closer to Chloe in order to pry her hands from her face. “I bet she did.”

“You’re freaking out,” Chloe mumbles from behind her hands, though she does part two fingers in order to peer at Beca. “You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”

“I mean...I was,” Beca admits. “That was kind of…” Beca ponders her word choice. “Sudden,” she finally says with a delicate tone.

Chloe sighs. “I know it freaks you out when I do...stuff like that.”

At that, Beca frowns. “Do stuff like what?”

“I don’t know. Think about the future. Talk about this kind of stuff.”

Beca’s heart seizes for the briefest of moments. “I don’t want you to think that I’m not…” she swallows. “That I’m not, like, into that. Because I am.” She reaches for Chloe’s hands, pulling gently. “With you.” She bites her lower lip. “I hadn’t thought about it much before you, but it—” Beca laughs, a little breathlessly. “It drives me crazy that we haven’t talked about it, you know?”

“I just thought you weren’t…” Chloe shrugs, though her heart pounds at all of the words Beca has just thrown at her. “That it wasn’t something you wanted.”

“That was before you,” Beca reiterates.

Chloe feels a flush rising up her neck and spreading into her cheeks rapidly. “Beca…”

Beca, to her credit, does not flinch nor shy away. Chloe has been privileged enough to get to know this side of Beca over the past year and a half and especially over the past four months of living together. She is smitten and completely head-over-heels for Beca Mitchell and she doesn’t care if anybody knows that. That being said, she completely understands that Beca might not necessarily be the same, at least in terms of expressing herself outwardly (“Love languages are a thing, Beca!”) but she has never doubted that Beca cares for her. Loves her, even.

Beca is in love with her.

The thought only makes her blush again and offer a shy, demure smile at Beca who merely looks perplexed at the sudden change in mood. “What?” Beca asks quickly. “What is it? What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Chloe chimes in, shifting so that she can wrap an arm around Beca’s shoulders. “Well, not nothing. For you, that was basically a public and cheesy romantic gesture. Like declaration-on-a-billboard level.”

Beca scrunches her nose. “What was?”

Chloe pecks her quickly, enjoying how squirmy Beca is becoming in her arms. “You saying that you think about the future with me.”

“I don’t know if I said it exactly like that.”

“A little like that,” Chloe pushes. She leans in to kiss Beca slowly, letting her breath linger against Beca’s mouth. “A little bit,” she murmurs when she feels Beca take a breath, likely to protest again.

“Okay, maybe I did.”

Chloe relaxes completely, wondering how she got so lucky to fall in love with her perfect match; how she got so lucky to find her soulmate in a world full of people who refused to believe in love like she did. That was a relatively painless conversation, resulting in some unexpected results. Namely that Chloe had been the only one standing in the way of this much-needed conversation, but also that Beca Mitchell wanted to marry her.

The thought only makes Chloe deepen her kiss, eliciting a noise of surprise from Beca. They kiss for a few more moments, hands beginning to wander more boldly and surely as their kisses deepen with each passing second. Beca groans when Chloe’s hands slip under the front of her shirt, fingers scraping up her stomach with purpose.

“Are we still talking about this?” Beca asks, snagging Chloe’s lower lip between her teeth.

Chloe hums, tilting her head to capture Beca’s lips in another kiss. “That can wait.”

“I mean,” Beca begins breathlessly, allowing Chloe to steer her towards the bedroom. “You are next on the waitlist.”

Chloe is already unbuttoning her jeans. “You talk way too much. Shut up, now. I want you.”

* * * * *

Another two weeks later and Chloe has all but forgotten about that wedding venue mishap, too caught up in the motions of her own hectic life and just how good her relationship with Beca has become. She hadn’t thought it possible, but she falls more for Beca every day.

“I can’t believe my girlfriend is ditching me to hang out with my best friend,” Chloe pouts. “This is so unfair. My two favorite people.”

“You could come,” Beca laughs.

“No, you know I have a long shift today.” Chloe sighs. “I’ll miss you. Say hi to Aubrey for me. I know she’s been busy setting up work stuff. Ask her if she needs our help.”

“I will ask her if she needs your help,” Beca says obediently.

“Our help,” Chloe corrects, leaning down to kiss Beca on the lips. “See you!”

Chloe heads out the door, without much thought as to the rest of her day.

Beca waits until she hears complete silence, then she waits for another few minutes estimating how long it would take Chloe to get into her car and drive.

Beca she’s gone, hurry up and get over here

Aubrey Rude. On my way.

Beca rushes to get ready in preparation for her day with Aubrey.

“What did you think of the place?” Aubrey asks when Beca climbs into the car. “Did you like the photos?”

“Yeah, but I kind of want to see it for myself. In person.”

Aubrey scoffs. “Chloe has amazing taste and so do I. We would never lead you astray.”

Beca rolls her eyes. “Forgive me for wanting to see the place where I want to get married myself.”

“Beca, you don’t exactly strike me as the kind of person—”

Beca resists the urge to completely snap at Aubrey or say something snarky to cut off the other woman. She fiddles with the small box inside her jacket pocket before she pulls it out, running her fingers along the velvet surface. She smiles at the thought of Chloe’s expression—what her imagination provides at least—and suddenly she can’t quite wait another moment. She wants to marry Chloe immediately. She wants everything that she always thought she’d hate because of her parents’ own failed marriage. She wants that life and that future with Chloe and she wants it because she knows it’ll work.

It will work because they love each other.

Aubrey gasps loudly, pulling the car off to the side of the road and throwing her hazard lights on. “Beca! You didn’t!” She all but snatches the box from Beca’s grasp, both of them tussling over it for a brief moment before Aubrey finally shoves her shoulder and displaces Beca back into her seat. “Oh my God, you actually bought a ring. Without talking to me. Beca! How could you!”

“I didn’t know I needed your permission to buy a ring.”

Aubrey ignores her, opening the box. Her eyes widen comically and if Beca’s heart weren’t completely in her throat because it is now dawning on Beca that she absolutely craves Aubrey’s approval, Beca would laugh. But she doesn’t. She waits with bated breath as Aubrey lifts the ring closer to her face, eyes practically glittering.

“Are you...okay?” Beca asks. Is it okay? she wants to ask, but refrains.

“This is...beautiful, Beca. This is so beautiful.”

Beca exhales, feeling an entire year’s worth of tension leave her body. “For real? Like you’re not just...saying that, right?”

“No, Beca, I’m not just saying that. This is beautiful. And...and I’m so happy for you.” Aubrey presses the ring back into Beca’s hands before moving to grip the steering wheel with determination.

Beca waits, watching Aubrey for a long moment before she speaks up again. “Are we gonna go, or—?”

“I just need a moment to collect myself.”

“Oh, okay.” Beca flips the box open again, smiling at the ring. “Take all the time you need.”

She has never been more ready.

fin.

#bechloe #pitch perfect #chloe beale #beca mitchell #mine #my fanfic #bechloe fic #fanfiction

[krsnlove]

Halloween Phases

A/N: An idea came to me one night about the different phases we go through in life and how holidays/important events and their associated activities can change. Also, I know we’re in November ...Don’t. Just don’t Lol. 

Pairing: Bryce x Casey

Rating: PG

SINGLE MAN

“Did you see Lahela’s costume?”

Casey scrolled through her patient’s chart, reading the results of the lab work drawn earlier, unbothered by Sienna’s question.

“Surprised he’s dressed as someone else other than his meathead self,” Jackie arched a single brow at the news.

“What’s he dressed as?,” Elijah asked as he straightened the plush E.T. doll of his Halloween costume.

“Oh, you’ll see. By the way,” Sienna adjusted the strings to her Red Riding Hood outfit, “the contest for Best Costume ends in an hour. I hope you all voted. The winner gets a $50 Visa gift card.”

“$50. Wow. The hospital sure is pulling out all the stops.”

“I’d be negative too if I lost,” Elijah gave Jackie a pitiful stare in her usual work attire. “Where’s your Halloween spirit?!”

“Right here,” she flashed her middle finger in his direction with a wide smile before walking away. “Byeeee!”

“She’ll be sorry when she sees what I’m going to buy with my winnings,” Elijah proudly smiled before wheeling himself away. “I’ll see you guys at home!”

Sienna watched him turn the corner down the hallway before turning her attention back to Casey.

“So, have you seen Bryce’s costume?”

Sienna made sure her question didn’t go unanswered as she tapped her pen on the computer screen, forcing Casey to look up from the screen.

“I haven’t,” she blinked a few times, surprised to see her still there.

“It’s pretty good,” Sienna’s cheeks color slightly. “I mean, it’s not too bad to look at. You should check it out.”

Casey studied her usual calm friend, nervously surveying the nurses station they were at.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine it’s just...it’s hot in here, isn’t it?” She closes her eyes for a brief moment as she begins to dab her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Weren’t you just complaining about it being cold earlier?”

“No. No. It’s hot now!,” Sienna begins to fan herself with one hand. “I wonder what...what do you think the temperature is in here?”

“Sien, it’s only--,” Casey’s sentence is cut off as a familiar voice comes from behind her.

“It’s one Lahela degrees!”

Casey turns to face the familiar voice. Bryce stood there, fully dressed in his Halloween costume: a firefighter. Or, Casey’s eyes slowly take in him being shirtless with suspenders holding up the yellow latex shorts, almost sort of fully dressed as a firefighter.

She can’t help the smile that comes to her as Bryce stands there beaming with pride.

“How long were you two working on that?,” she looked to Sienna who playfully shrugged her shoulders before walking away leaving you alone with Bryce.

“I owe you, Double Oh Tiny!”

Casey stands from her seat and sits on the edge of the desk, watching Bryce begin to greet each passerby.

“Quit shopping at the toy store for your clothes Lahela,” Zaid groaned before turning around and walking the opposite direction.

Ines is barely able to form a sentence when she looked up from her notes and saw Bryce in his costume. It was a wonder she didn’t walk into a wall when he escorted her to the safety of the elevators.

“Is it too much to ask to go a week without seeing you shirtless?,” Ethan shook his head as he walked past him with Rafael following close behind.

“Seriously Lahela. Do you even own shirts?”

“Okay Jealous #1 and Jealous #2. I’ll see you guys at tomorrow’s game,” Bryce called out after them before turning to face Casey once again.

“So…,” her head tilt slightly to the side, “big fan of Halloween I take it?”

“Not really,” he shrugged. “Why would I want to pretend to be someone else when my life is already great? Besides,” he took off his helmet and wiped at the smudge on the shield, “$50 is $50. I love a good contest.”

“Bryce Lahela, did you just share something personal with me? Be careful. We might become friends if you keep it up.”

A smug smile came to him as he put his helmet back on and looked at her determinedly.

“I’m counting on it, Valentine.”

MARRIED MAN

“Babe, please?!”

“Absolutely not Lahela!”

Bryce kept the laugh threatening to surface at watching his pregnant wife waddle away from him, signaling the end of their discussion. It had been weeks of scouring the internet for an idea and even longer for Amazon to deliver the costumes.

And after an extremely convincing argument, or so he thought, to his wife, Bryce was all too set to don the blue body paint and glossy pants like the Genie from Disney’s Aladdin.

“You’re not putting that thing on me!”

Casey’s adamant voice echoes from their bedroom down the hall.

“Have you talked to Sienna lately?,” he casually asked while picking up the genie lamp costume.

“No. Why?”

“They’re having another Best Dressed Costume Contest.”

The sound of Casey’s mocking laugh overpowered the sound of an episode of the Golden Girls; Her latest series binge.

“$50 will only cover my cravings for one night Lahela. You know that better than anyone.”

Bryce laughed out loud at that, thinking back on the last few nights of his 3AM food runs whenever a new inspiration struck for a strange food combination.

“It’s not $50.”

“$51?,” she scoffed.

“Not exactly,” he sat down at the kitchen table still holding onto her costume. “Winner this year doesn’t get any money.”

“Wasting my time Lahela.”

“You’re right. I mean who would be interested in a month's supply of chocolate?”

The familiar voices of Blanche Devereaux and Dorothy Zbornak lowered, just slightly, from the TV in the bedroom.

“Chocolate?”

Casey’s curious yet cautious tone brought a smirk to Bryce’s lips.

“Yeah,” he said regretfully, “And pickles. Can you believe that? What is anyone going to do with a bunch of chocolate and jars of pickles?!”

Bryce can hear her footsteps growing closer as he holds up the undesirable costume.

“Not a word Lahela,” Casey tells him just before snatching it from his hands.

FAMILY MAN

Jackie straightened the gold cuffs covering both her wrists. Never mind the sleeves of her doctor’s lab coat hid them once she put her arms back down. Or the fact that the majority of her Cleopatra costume is hidden if she didn’t purposely pull her doctor’s coat back.

“This is the year guys,” she announced to anyone within earshot.

Elijah, fully dressed as a Roman soldier with his wheelchair made up to look like a chariot, glanced up at her for a moment then back down at his phone.

“You said that last year.”

“Wasn’t Casey’s baby bump last year dressed as the genie’s lamp adorable?!,” Sienna chimed in.

“That was a cheap shot,” Jackie pointed out. “Anyone who uses their child, unborn or not, to win a contest isn’t afraid to hit below the belt.”

“And,” Rafael unenthusiastically added, “Big surprise. Lahela upped it last year by not only being shirtless but had blue body paint on too.”  

Sienna chuckled at the memory of Bryce smearing blue paint on her lab coat last year after announcing him and Casey as the winners. 

In an attempt to boost morale at the hospital, the costume contest was born. Watching her colleagues slowly participate each year was thrilling especially knowing they weren’t in it for the prize. Bryce’s winning streak was enough to bring the competitive spirit out of everyone.

“I’m going to knock him right into a v-neck shirt. He seems the type to wear one if....you know, he actually were to wear one,” a smug smile spread across Jackie’s lips.

“Hopefully with a sweater on too,” Ethan casually mentioned while walking by, perusing a file he had in his hand. Even the infamous diagnostician participated in this year’s contest with a Halloween-themed tie.

“Sienna, will you please announce the winner already?,” Aurora bit out. “If Elijah’s chariot run over my toes one more time…”.

He grimaces at the reminder and avoids her glare.  

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Bryce and Casey?”

Ines’s voice cut through the icy tension between Aurora and Elijah. A delightful expression crosses her motherly features as she took in the variety of costumes surrounding her. The boost of morale at the hospital around this time of year never fails to bring a smile to her face.

“They both know how to tell time. It’s not our fault they’re late,” Jackie stood with folded arms.

Just then the familiar sound of the elevator doors being opened caused everyone to face the same direction and out step Bryce and Casey in their Halloween costumes with their newest family member in Bryce’s arms.

“I know the both of you must be cold,” Aurora shook her head, eyeing Casey’s one-piece bathing suit and Bryce’s red lifeguard shorts.

“The winners,” Bryce’s voice is almost above a whisper as he motioned to his daughter fast asleep in his arms, “are here!”

Jackie points to their daughter, fully covered in a shark costume.

“Below. The. Belt!”

Casey gently folded back the material of the costume obstructing her daughter’s face. 

“Our little baby shark has had a long day. Scouring the ocean waters for her next victim and all,” she shot a playful wink at Jackie.  

Elijah begins to clap in total awe of the commitment the couple had in the contest.

“I vote for you guys. Mostly because of the cute baby shark in your arms but since you came with her…”.

“Weren’t you saying something about knocking a certain someone into a v-neck shirt?,” Rafael nudged a begrudging Jackie.

“Bite me.”

“Look out for your lab coat Sienna,” Jackie’s glare at Bryce and Casey softened once her eyes settled on her goddaughter.

“Looks like Lahela is going to get spray tan on it when he comes to hug you.”

Tagging: @alj4890 @vickypoochoices @anotherbeingsworld need more Bryce shippers LoL

#open heart #open heart choices #Bryce lahela #Bryce x casey #Bryce x mc #halloween 2020

[twilightofthe]

@nerdgatehobbit Hey! Thanks for the question! Ik you asked this to my main but imma respond on my SW blog if that’s okay?

So whew that’s a big question. Do I honestly think that Dave kept Obi Wan and Padmé and then Anakin and Satine from interacting in the TCW show because they didn’t want shipping wars?

(Remember, these are all just my personal opinions. I do me and you do you!)

Short version? Yes and no. Long version? Under the cut because I can never shut up.

Firstly, I don’t wanna say this was all Dave’s decision. He was one of the top guys in charge of TCW, yes, but he was far from the only one, there was an entire creative team working on the project, and during the time of TCW’s original six seasons Lucasfilms was not owned by Disney yet and George Lucas himself had a very large amount of creative control over the entire show. So I don’t really think it’s fair at all to point fingers at any choices the show made and go “yep that’s completely 100% Dave’s fault alone”.

I also don’t quite think they were concerned about shipping wars in the way ATLA had them. Avatar’s shipping wars were so absolutely toxically rancid that they legit drove me right out of that fandom. I’m still hesitant to come back during the current renaissance because of them. Star Wars, prior to the Sequel Trilogy, never had shipping wars close to that calibre of pure nastiness. The fandom was a godawful cesspool that fought to the death on most aspects of the franchise, this has always been true, but shipping, if I’ve read right, was somehow never really one of those hot button issues within fandom. I don’t think Lucasfilms kept the Clone Wars four apart because they were afraid of fans fighting over ships.

That being said, Lucasfilms HAS always been Very Strict on how they want their characters to be seen, romantic-wise, way back to when they would terrorize Original Trilogy slash shippers back in the 80’s and 90’s with threats of legal action. It’s part of why they were Very Firm in their insistence that they had absolutely nothing to do with all the Luke/Mara Jade EU stuff. You either abided by LF’s canonical romances or not at all in their world. So yes, in the case of Obi Wan and Padmé, I absolutely think the writing team’s decision to keep the pair of them apart was almost entirely so fans didn’t ship them together.

Why do I think this? Because there is no other rational reason why Obi Wan and Padmé haven’t had a single second of screentime in TCW that hasn’t had either Anakin or Satine also in the room as a buffer. Not when Revenge of the Sith EXPLICITLY portrays their relationship as relatively close friends who care about each other. So nope, I genuinely think the show just doesn’t want the fans to consider any other relationship for Padmé besides Anakin.

But why would they do this just to her and Obes? Obi Wan and Padmé both have other friends of different genders, why don’t they worry about us shipping THEM? Well for Obi Wan’s case, it can be excused that he flirts with everyone, so we’re conditioned to think that it’s never anything serious, and none of the other characters are married to the main character of the series. This is entirely because of Padmé’s position. Yes, she has other male friends, but either they’re nonhuman and not conventionally attractive so the series doesn’t see them as a threat, they’re Clovis, who they actively show Anakin going into a jealous fit over, or they’re Bail, who can be excused by the fact that he’s already married and also because he’s never actively shown as in competition with Anakin for anything, so he’s not threatening either.

Obi Wan, on the other hand, is a major threat to Anidala in the show’s eyes. They already constantly make a point to compare him and Anakin in almost every opportunity. Which is strange, the show’s decision to force them into the role of narrative foils to each other when in the movies that isn’t the case at all— Obi Wan is much more of a foil to Sidious and Anakin’s foil is Luke —but yeah, the show very often has Obes and Ani going through similar situations with competing viewpoints— ESPECIALLY their canon romances, and I won’t rant about how the show’s attempted Anidala and Obitine parallels fall apart under scrutiny right now but if yinz want the rant sometime let me know.

Obi Wan also has the canonical ability to charm the pants off of literally everyone he meets. Nearly everyone in canon is in love with him, 80% of the fandom at least is in love with him, and I KNOW most of the crew was in love with him too. Anakin, on the other hand, has a very abrasive personality and is much easier to dislike. The show was ALREADY terrified of the fans not liking or wanting to root for Anakin to the point that they reworked his entire personality to make him more palatable to his critics from the movies. Plus, Obidala fans already existed! Since the first and second PT movies, a big group of people already shipped these two because they already thought Obi Wan was a preferable match to Padmé than Anakin. The studio did not want to encourage this.

So yes, I think it was a combination of the show’s tendency to already try and get the fans to compare Obi Wan to Anakin for everything else plus their insecurity in Anakin’s image and likeability as it was, that they did Not want the handsome charming not-future-evil guy around the leading lady and threatening her canon romance by existing as a possibly better option. So Obi Wan and Padmé got no stories together, just kinda throwing the opening ROTS left them in the garbage ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The worst part is, there is so many potential places in TCW where Obi Wan and Padmé could talk to each other, like during her investigation into her friend’s murder, during the Clovis arc, bits during the Malevolence arc, the earlier Naboo crisis arcs, even the one time where she’s just hosting a damn party and wants to invite her friends gahhhhhhhh

Anakin and Satine, I also think yes, but this is also a case of half and half because Satine isn’t nearly as major a character as the other three are, and out of the nine episodes she appears in, she only has more than a singular line in seven of them, and out of those seven, only two of them aren’t revolves entirely around building her relationship with Obi Wan. So really, there is a defence for the writers here in noting that there’s not as much room to explore Satine’s character as it is, let alone trying to shoehorn in a scene with Anakin.

Except no, I’m not gonna give them that defence because in the two episodes where she only has a speaking line or less— Obi Wan’s funeral and the Ahsoka and Lux meet Death Watch ep —I can already easily think of ways she and Anakin could have really meaningful interactions in them both. Y’all have already heard my bit on how they could have a real important conversation at the funeral, but y’all HAVEN’T seen my idea for a rewrite of the Carlac ep where it’s a two-parter, Anakin comes with Ahsoka and Padmé to the negotiations on Mandalore, and it ends up with a subplot of Anidala chasing after Ahsoka and Lux with Satine as the put-upon third wheel and we get foreshadowing to Satine being Bo Katan’s sister, so when the reveal happens the next season it actually means something.

So yeah, it was partially because of timing constraints, but it was also DEFINITELY in part because they didn’t want Satine being shipped with Anakin— which ppffffft, if they were brave enough to actually try writing these two in a conversation in-character, they’d understand how much of a not-worry this would be xD —because the show is set on the fact that despite maybe there being other flings at some point, Obi Wan and Satine are each other’s one true tragic love (Or, at least Obi Wan is Satine’s. He’s always had more freedom and decision than she has in this narrative, and that’s always kinda bugged me). So, that means Satine can’t interact with any men unless they’re gonna betray her trust and try to kill her by the end of the episode, because the show needs Obi Wan to have a loyal, steady, good girlfriend because he is a good man.

(And yes, before anyone says it, I have heard the more unpleasant rumors behind why exactly Obi Wan was given a girlfriend in the show, but as I’ve yet to see any official proof of them besides fandom salt, I’m not gonna spread them because those are hefty accusations to throw around).

So yeah, Satine can’t talk to Anakin partially because time constraints, but also because she isn’t allowed to talk to any other nice men besides Obi Wan and her son (no I don’t particularly like the Korkie Kenobi thing, but it is blatantly obvious that that is what the show was implying and I’m not gonna pretend otherwise), and Obi Wan and Padmé can’t talk to each other entirely because the show saw Obidala as a threat to Anidala.

Again, just my opinions and things I noticed, y’all are more than free to disagree and discuss with me.

#can i EVER answer someone’s question without going on an entire ranting spiel? stay tuned to find out lol #ask #asks #nerdgatehobbit #sw the clone wars #morai musings #our only ho #queen of my heart #peace out #one (1) hot mess

[atths--twice]

Rm9.... was an episode I really liked. I know a lot of people didn’t like it because of the lack of dialogue, but I liked the fact that they don’t NEED to speak to be out and about. It was different, but it was good. Them out on a date was so adorable. Her laughing at his blobfish meal and taking a picture of it... God, I love flirty and fun Scully so much. She’s just so adorbs. 

Here we go...

Chapter Thirty Seven 

All a Buzz

After the catastrophe in Rm9.... Scully and Mulder take care of things at the house before heading to breakfast. Discussions are had, temporary decisions are made, and things begin to move forward. 

February 2018

The water was warm as Scully washed her hands in the diner bathroom. She looked in the mirror and smiled at her reflection. This night had been … well, to say insane was an understatement. A car ride from hell, a possessed room vacuum, her bedroom exploding, being chased by drones, and being shot at by printed 3-D bullets.

All because of a tip, or lack of one, she thought, shaking her head as she dried her hands and left the bathroom. Mulder was still sitting at the bar, looking at his phone when she returned. As she walked up, he turned to her with a smile, standing as he slipped his phone in his back pocket and drank down the last bit of his coffee.

“You ready?” he asked, and she nodded her head. Heading out of the diner, he held the door open for her as they walked to his car. She was tired, but oddly incredibly happy and unable to stop smiling, even after all that had happened.

Late last night, after they walked out of that warehouse, they trudged back to her place to inspect the damage the explosion caused. Not too surprisingly, no emergency services were present. The calls they tried to place before fleeing had not gone through, and the alarm system was operating with a mind of its own. None of her neighbors had appeared to be bothered enough to call it in either. More evidence that the world was slowly shrinking into its own worries and concerns.

Glass was everywhere, and they both sighed as they looked at it. Black scorch marks and areas of still smoldering smoke from the explosive ball of fire were on the carpet, walls, her bed, and dresser. There was even some damage in the bathroom, making the entire space unlivable. She was, however, thankful that the damage had at least been contained to that area versus the entire house.

Mulder looked at her, and she sighed again. Walking past the smoldering piece of metal that was once the floor vacuum, Scully walked into the kitchen and grabbed the fire extinguisher. She handed it to Mulder when she heard him behind her, and she began searching for the broom she could not find earlier.

When she finally found it on the back porch, she and Mulder worked to clean up the glass, putting it directly into one of her outdoor trash cans. The whole process took a lot longer than they had anticipated since glass had found its way into the small crevices and areas they would not normally have looked, but they eventually got it done. They even boxed the vacuum back up after they sprayed it with the fire extinguisher.

By the time they finished, the sun was coming up, making it easier for Scully to take pictures to document the damage for insurance purposes. She looked at Mulder as he stood outside, looking at the hole the shattered window left behind.

“So, what do we do about this?” he asked, opening his hands wide, gesturing to it. “Do you have any large pieces of plywood to cover this? Big pieces of plastic or anything like that?”

“Yeah, I have plywood in the garage,” she said, rolling her eyes, taking the last picture and putting her phone away.

“Well, this house is super fancy, who knows what you’ve got hidden away here,” he said stepping through the frame and back into the house. “Ooh, I’m not going to run into a Jabberwock, am I?” He grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes again.

“That’s what you might find going through the looking glass, Mulder, not a broken window pane frame,” she said, shaking her head.

“Points awarded for not insisting, incorrectly, that it’s called a Jabberwocky,” he said dryly.

“‘The Jabberwocky’ is a poem written by Lewis Carroll, Mulder, about the Jabberwock. ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son. The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! ’” She quoted and he stared at her in fascinated amazement.

“God, Scully,” he stated, shaking his head and stepping past her. “How do you make a children’s poem so fucking hot? Between your device you had on you earlier and this … how’s a guy supposed to not be aroused? Jesus Christ …”

She laughed as she watched him walk out of the room and out of sight. He obviously needed a minute, and she would give it to him. She heard him sighing loudly, causing her to giggle quietly. After a few minutes had passed he walked back into the bedroom and stared at her.

“So, what do we do about the window? Have you called someone?” he asked, and she nodded.

“He’ll be here by 7, so less than an hour from now,” she said as he sighed and nodded his head, looking around the room.

“When he gets  here, do you wanna go get something to eat?” he asked. “From a real restaurant with real chefs. No more of this automation bullshit. I’m starving.”

“Starving?” she teased him, and he shrugged.

“Unlike you, Scully, I wasn’t able to eat my dinner. All I’ve had since then is cold toaster pastries, and seeing as how you’ve offered no refreshments, I’m ready for some breakfast. Eggs and toast, some bacon. Mmm …” he moaned, closing his eyes.

“I have fruit in the fridge and there are some crackers in the kitchen cabinet next to the microwave. They have rosemary in them,” she offered, and he gave her a look of disgust. She rolled her eyes and smiled, shrugging her shoulders at him.

He grabbed two dining room chairs and brought them into the hallway to keep an eye on the place as they waited for the guy to arrive. She touched his shoulder as she went to the kitchen to cut up the strawberries she had in the fridge. She knew he would not refuse them if she offered them to him. Coming back a few minutes later, she handed him the bowl and sat down. Just as she suspected, he began to shovel them in his mouth.

She sat next to him and he offered her the bowl and she took one, eating it slowly. “Christ, Scully, come on …” he groaned, shaking his head. She laughed and took the next strawberry, eating it normally, his eyes cautiously turned away from her.

Twenty minutes later the guy showed up and Scully explained to him what happened. He whistled at the sight of the burnt room and shook his head, commenting that she was lucky to have gotten out unscathed. She nodded and thought how lucky she truly was, how close it was once again. They left for breakfast shortly after, another truck pulling up to help with the job at hand.

Now, finished with their meal prepared by real people, they were headed back to her place to check how things were progressing and to see what else needed doing. She still needed to call Alan and let him know what happened. Thinking about it made her sigh and hang her head. Mulder glanced over at her, and she sighed again.

“Not looking forward to explaining to Alan what happened,” she said, looking at him and he nodded.

“So, you’ll need to replace the carpet, fix the walls, replace items, check for any internal damage to that house,” he said, unlocking the doors so they could get in the car. They buckled their seat belts, and he put his hand on the back of her seat as he backed out of their parking spot. Putting both hands on the wheel, he headed toward her place. “So, you have all that to deal with, and you can’t possibly stay there of course. What’s your plan?”

She looked at him, smiling at what he was not saying. He shrugged, glancing at her before turning his eyes back to the road. “Once I know exactly what needs to be done at the house, I’ll make a decision,” she told him and he nodded.

“Well, just know that-”

“I know, Mulder,” she said covering his hand with her own. He grasped her hand and nodded again.

At the house, they found men pulling up carpet, the furniture placed outside in order to get the job done. Scully sighed as she began to go through the drawers of the dresser to see if anything was salvageable. Mulder asked where her suitcase was and went to get it for her when she said the guest room.

He came back with the suitcase and trash bags. “Just in case you need it,” he said. “I’m going to check the room some more.” She nodded, and he walked away.

Some of her clothing was fine and some had been singed through the wood. She put the clothes she would keep in the suitcase while with a heavy heart she tossed out her other things. Everything she packed would need a wash, but at least she had some clothing.

Mulder came back with a bag full of her toiletries and she smiled her thanks. “Do you have another bag? I’ll start loading up shoes,” he said and she stopped him briefly with a squeeze of his hand. He nodded and went to find the other bags in the guest room.

An hour and a half later, they had loaded up her car with items she would need. Some clothes, shoes, coats, toiletries, electronics, and other items. She called Alan and left a message to get in touch with her as soon as possible. Part of her was grateful she missed him, while the other part dreaded his return phone call.

The foreman in charge, Gary, said it would be a few weeks of work, at least, as they needed to check for major damage. Scully nodded and sighed, afraid that was going to be the answer.

“We’ll do what we can today and then board up the window. That glass has to be specially ordered,” Gary said with a sympathetic smile.

“Of course it does,” Scully sighed and then smiled slightly at him. “Thank you, Gary.” He nodded and headed back inside.

“Well, this seems fitting,” she said, putting her hands in her pockets. “Honestly, I’m surprised one of our places never blew up at some point in the past.” She laughed and he smiled.

“So many other things happened, just not that,” he nodded and put his hands in his pockets too, his eyes asking questions his mouth was not voicing.

“Mulder,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Scully,” he shook his head at her with a small smile. “It’s … you do what you want, whatever makes you most comfortable. I … it’s your decision and … the room is there if you want it, but I understand.”

She smiled and stepped closer to him, searching his face. “Thank you, Mulder,” she said quietly, her hands moving to hold his face. He leaned in and kissed her softly, his hands moving to her waist. She pulled back and sighed. “I’m going to go to a hotel. I … I think that would be best.” He stared at her and nodded, a small sad smile on his face.

Stepping back, he put his hands in his pockets again. “You want me to follow you? Help you unload the car?”

“No,” she answered. “I’ll be okay.”

He nodded and shuffled his feet around. “Well … then I should probably head home, make sure the onslaught of drones didn’t destroy the house. Maybe get some sleep,” he said with a shrug and smiled again, but she knew it was forced. She sighed, and he touched her face, his thumb stroking her cheek.

Stepping back, he smiled again and this time it almost reached his eyes. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Next time, I get to pick the restaurant, and maybe we can avoid this kind of fiasco.”

“Oh, this was my fault?” she asked, waving her arm toward the house, her eyebrows raised.

“You suggested the sushi place,” he responded with a shrug.

“And you didn’t tip, which set off this whole chain reaction.”

“Tip a place that gave me a disgusting smelling blobfish?!” he said taking his hands from his pockets and raising his arms in an exasperated stance. “How was I to know those goddamn robots were going to freak the fuck out?”

“And damn near kill me?” she said with a pointed look, causing him to hang his head. Lifting his head, he sighed, and she began to laugh. He shook his head, and she laughed harder.

“It’s a strange thing to laugh about, Scully,” he said and she laughed harder, the night finally catching up to her making her feel punch-drunk. “Go get some sleep.” He nodded, and she tried to sober up enough to say goodbye to him, but she failed. He waved to her as he got in his car, and she waved back.

Standing there alone, she looked around at the house again and sighed. Staying there had been fun, and she loved the comforts it afforded. Now she was going to be in a hotel for who knew how long. She easily could have gone back to the house with Mulder, stayed in the guest room again, but she knew how that would end. No chance would she be able to resist joining him in their bed this time. No chance.

She sighed as she looked at her burnt bedroom furniture sitting outside before getting in her car. The past couple of months had been wonderful, but even the amount of amazing sex they were having did not make a relationship. They were, and always would be, friends before everything else and right now, that was how it felt … kind of. Not ‘friends with benefits’ because that would never be who they were. Their attraction and desire for one another was far too strong for that. But right now … it felt like they were treading water, standing still, and waiting for something to happen.

Her phone beeped and she picked it up, finding a message from Mulder.

Hope purple is okay. Also, I thought you could do with an upgrade.

She frowned as she read it and then her cheeks flamed as the screenshot of an order he placed popped up. A new personal massager had been ordered and would be sent to the house. His house … their house. God, she hated the uncertainty she felt about it.

In no way am I trying to persuade you to change your mind, but just letting you know it will be here. Fully charged and ready for any activities you wish to use it for. ; )

Her pulse raced as she thought of the last time her old one was used, before it had been tossed away. She remembered the feel of it against her aroused flesh, the way it was dragged across her hot skin, the vibrations of it making her moan and shake, when it was placed exactly where she wanted and needed it.

“I love watching you come,” Mulder had whispered to her as he turned it up higher and she broke with a cry, clutching at his arm, spots dancing in front of her eyes.  

The scent of chlorine from their tryst in the hot tub, had invaded her senses as she came down and pulled his hand away from her, the sensations too intense. In the fumble of limbs, it must have gotten knocked from his hand and fallen under the bed. There it had remained, forgotten, as she had not been in need of it recently.

Looking at her messages again, she zoomed in more closely at the order form, mainly the timestamp on it. He ordered it when they were in the diner, while she was in the bathroom it seemed, but he said nothing until now. God, she loved him.

Shaking her head, she typed out a response, her cheeks flushed and a huge smile on her face.

Purple will be most welcome. And an upgrade with a couple new speed settings? Keep it charged up, and I’ll be sure to stop by and find out what all the BUZZ is about.

Sending it to him, she set the phone in the cup holder and put the keys in the ignition and started the car. Glancing down when she heard a beep, she grinned at the three words she saw as she put the car in drive.

Jesus Christ, Scully …

#The X Files #XF Fanfic #X Files Novel #Rm9...... #Flirty dates and happiness #That handhold at the end though... sigh #I love the MSR in this episode #Even without speaking much you can see how they love each other #They invented eye sex #Its the truth

[shewantedtobeasecretgirl]

Dangerous Type

Sooo... there was this writing prompt of @shadowsonoureyes ... that I really liked and I immediately started working on it... But something happened in the meantime. I think everyone who understands my username knows what I’m talking about... and I’ll probably feel weird or even guilty about writing my dumb little stories for a while, although I always tried (and keep trying) to do it as respectful as I can. Despite all these feelings I decided to finish and post this one shot, please don’t judge me because of doing it. And... as my side project called “real life” allows, I’m going back to work slowly on my “regular” fic... seeya...

Seattle, Friday, August 17th, 1990

When I stop my car opposite Central Tavern, I can already see the crowd gathering at the entrance. I agreed with Cee, my roommate on meeting each other somewhere there. It’s not difficult to spot her: being a young, aspiring artist, she always wears something extreme. And she always gets clues about the most promising gigs in town from her bohemian friends. I was still at the bureau when she called me on my office number so that I didn’t go home after my self-defense class but met her here. Normally, I don’t accompany her to these occasions but today is somehow different; that “carpe diem” vibe that strikes me once in a blue moon led me here.

“Hey, Al, what a babe!” she greets me. Gosh, I hope not many people heard that; I feel embarrassed enough in my classy “little black dress”. But you don’t really have a choice if you work at one of Seattle’s leading law firms…

“Don’t tease me, I’ve had a terrible day.” I roll my eyes as we’re heading to the bar counter. “Unbearable clients, piles of documents, impatient bosses… I can’t wait to have a blast.”

“The good girl in party mode? Finally!” she glances up at the ceiling with an exaggerated, victorious arm move. “Couldn’t you get the everyday shit out of yourself at the training?”

“Negative. Today, we worked in pairs and I had to fight against that menopausal hammer thrower… you can imagine, I spent the whole class lying on the mattress, searching for my internal organs.”

“Oh, you poor baby… You should…”

She’s cut off by an annoying teenage guy-like voice.

“This place is getting worse and worse, they already let cheap sluts in too.”

No. This too? Not today. I turn with a lightning fast move to find the owner of the voice. The first guy I spot is a tall, lanky kid leaning against the counter. He’s wearing a baseball cap with bandana and his hair down, so I can’t really see his face of the shadow of the visor, only the spaniel shape of this whole combination. A little move of his head reveals the region of his mouth and I realize he’s staring us with an obnoxious, challenging smirk. Who the fuck does he think he is?

“Excuse me???” I spit and instead of apology, I receive a short, nasal chuckle as answer. After a few seconds of blackout, the first thing I perceive is that the guy sits on the ground surrounded by lying bar stools and I feel a dull pain in my fist.

“Allison Holmes, what the fuck are you doing?” Cee screams and jumps to him. She crouches down and starts desperately examining his face.

“I… I don’t know… I probably… punched him?” I rather question than answer.

“Yes, you punched him, are you crazy?”

“Am I?” I mutter but slowly, I’m getting able again to recall what happened.

“Jesus, girls, are your conversations always that effective?” he laughs getting up leaning on Cee’s shoulder.

“Shut up, you jerk! And it’s me who should ask that, Cecilia, are you serious? He just called us sluts and you help him? You should punch him too!” I yell.

“Cool down, Al. Nobody will punch nobody, this is Stoney.” she explains and I feel my blood pressure dropping, I have to hold of the counter to prevent myself from fainting.

“Who?” I breathe although I exactly know the answer.

“Stone Gossard, from Northwest High.” she repeats. Of course. Jesus, a few minutes earlier I could have sworn this day couldn’t get worse but it can. It definitely can.

“What’s going on here, people?” I hear a male voice and as I turn back, I see a doorman approaching us, followed by a police officer. I burry my face into my palm, not that this way of hiding helps me get away with this.

“Nothing, everything’s fine, officer.” Stone answers but I wish he didn’t, his nose is bleeding and the purplish-blueish spot around his left eye doesn’t make his look better either.

“Where’s the other troublemaker? Someone reported disorderly and…”

“There’s no other troublemaker, officer. I punched myself.” Stone mimes hitting himself in the face with his fist.

“Of course, and I’m Ronald Reagan. Where is he?” the cop doesn’t let himself be tricked.

“There’s no one else, only me. You know, I’m not really satisfied with my nose, it’s kinda big, hard to miss it, I thought some intervention couldn’t hurt… but it did… Seriously, I think you deserve more complex crimes than inconsiderate self-harm at a bar… You seem to be a man of conscience, don’t waste your skills on idiots like me…”

‘Oh… well… even if I don’t believe a word from what you said, I’m sure you’re a nice kid so… I warn you, next time I won’t be that lenient.”

“There won’t be next time, officer.” he grins, knowing his tactics worked.

“I hope so. Take care of yourself, son.”

I wait until he gets out of earshot before I react anything.

“You’re familiar with talking your way out of shit, aren’t you?” I grunt.

“He’s known for his smooth-talk abilities, you’ve seen a classic Stoney performance.” Cee wraps her arm proudly around his shoulders.

“I do what I can… but do you have paper handkerchief? I’m already standing in a puddle of blood…”

“Jesus, of course…” I hand him a packet of it and try to repress my giggle as he stuffs Kleenex carefully into both of his nostrils.

“Look, I still don’t know what’s going on here but you look awful. I came by car, I’ll take you to the hospital… your nose seems to have been broken, you should see a doctor…” I offer.

“That’s the least you can do after having attacked him.” Cee agrees giving me a stern look. “I accompany you, I don’t want to leave you unsupervised.” she adds and I can’t decide if it’s only me whom she addresses with her words…

***

“Uhm… I’d pick the backseat, if you don’t mind… I want to feel safe until we get there.” Stone mumbles. I open the backdoor for him rolling my eyes but prevent myself from saying anything sarcastic. I would behave probably the same way if it was me whose nose got swollen to the size of an eggplant. Cee takes place next to him with a large packet of handkerchief we bought at the corner store in the meantime.

As I start the engine and begin to direct the car towards the closest hospital, I can’t help glancing in the rearview mirror. Stone is listening to Cee’s rambling with a straight face but his well-tamponed nose reminds me of a walrus, which makes me smile even if I feel terrible about that whole embarrassing incident. Stone Gossard. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard this name… Cee and him have met as old friends from time to time, Cee is even dating one of their common friend, Josh, so his name came up occasionally in our discussions… but as Cee was witnessing the hopeless episodes of my love life, these occasions got regular. Unrequited, platonic crushes, awkward dating attempts with disastrous consequences, endless ice cream and movie sessions on the couch with her… and the final conclusion was always the same: “I should introduce you to Stoney.” And this sentence was usually followed by an endless tirade about his smart, funny, handsome, talented friend who could be a perfect match for me. But her praises had exactly the opposite effect on me as intended: I refused even the thought of meeting him, the annoying superguy, who’s a musician by the way. What probably means he doesn’t know at all what to do with his life, he’s a rock guitarist in a town when there are more bands than inhabitants, he pulls espressos in a café and makes her girlfriend pay his rent. Sometimes I wondered if Cee mentioned me to him with the same idea in her head and if yes, what he might think of me… But I got these kinds of thoughts easily out of my head convincing myself about the logical fact: we wouldn’t like each other and I don’t need one more disastrous love affair.

And now we’re here. I managed to introduce myself to him in a pretty memorable way, which basically puts an end to the dilemma: I knocked him out, I can be happy if I’m not prosecuted by him, let alone go on a date with him…

“And… ahem… what’s this inside joke about cheap sluts?” I inquire to shut the voices in my head up.

“Everything began when we performed Cabaret at Northwest.” Cee begins. “I didn’t manage to earn any of the main roles so I was put in the choir that basically meant I had to play a random German prostitute. I was wearing fishnet stockings so I started calling them my “cheap slut stockings” and Stone started teasing me with it every time I was wearing them. And as you know, I’m wearing fishnet stockings today so…”

“Did you think I was serious? Or that I was talking about you? Your dress is not slutty at all… I mean, it’s a nice dress… but not slutty enough. I mean…” Stone giggles in a more nasal voice than earlier. Great, now I’m sure I broke his nose.

“I don’t know what I was thinking, I was tired and angry, okay?” I answer harshly. “Anyway, you used the plural form. Sluts…”

“She’s got two legs, for God’s sake…”

“Watch the road, Al.” Cee stops our developing debate about the grammatically correct way of calling someone a slut.

In the remaining part of our way I fume silently; I only notice after stopping the car that my hands got all sweaty, I must have gripped the steering wheel to tightly. We walk into the building and I lean my back against a pile waiting for them to arrange the registration at the counter of reception.

“What, four hours?” I hear Cee screaming.

“What happened? I approach them.

“We’ve just have been informed that the waiting time takes about four hour… which is a huge problem, since I have to get up early tomorrow, I promised Josh to accompany him to that outdoor video shooting… that can be true…” Cee whines.

“I’m a big boy, you don’t have to…” Stone clucks in.

“I can stay with him and drive him home.” I jabber and swallow hard at the end of the sentence.

“Really? That’d be great! I could even catch the bus! ” Cee grins and I start doubting in the existence of that video shooting. Whatever… I did what I did, I must take the consequences. “You’re the best!” she pulls me into a tight hug. “I’ll call you later, Stoney. Behave yourself!” she shouts back storming down the stairs.

Stone and I glance at each other with the same embarrassment for seconds that seem like an eternity until he speaks up finally.

“Uhm… I’m unbeatable at Twenty Questions.”

***

Gosh, that’s so embarrassing. We’ve been sitting here next to each other for like fifteen minutes and we’re just staring in front of ourselves. No questions have been asked yet, let alone twenty... I glance around and look desperately for excuses to leave him at least for a few minutes, I can’t stand this. A vending machine, bingo!

“Uhm… do you want to drink something?” I ask nodding towards it.

“Uhm… yup, a cola would be nice!”

Thank goodness! I walk to the machine and drop the coins into it but of course they land in the hole of change. As I lean down to fish them out I spot him staring at my direction but realizing I noticed him, he quickly turns his head in the other direction. Wait, was he checking me out? Stop Allison, you’re not a femme fatale at all, why would he…? I give a next try and this time the machine accepts the money and the can slowly moves… and gets stuck on its way. I can’t believe this. I beat with my fist a few times against the glass without any success. I try it more aggressively until I completely lose my temper and push it at full strength, using my entire body.

“Come on, work, you pile of thrash! Work!!!” I yell and finally, it reacts to my efforts. Luckily, I don’t have to fight that much for my ginger ale.

“Thanks” he smiles when I sit back next to him and hand him his drink. “To you anger issues!” he grins lifting it towards me and I can’t help reciprocating his expression.

“To your criminal introduction.” I answer as we clink our cans.

“Sooo… you’re that lawyer chick, huh?”

Great, if I ever had doubts about him having heard about me, now I can forget them. He definitely knows who I am.

“Almost. I still study and work as an intern at a law firm. I rather like to call myself an office monkey.”

“Ah. In that case, I’m not going to prosecute you. You must have a lot of slick colleagues who are ready to save your… backside.”

Am I out of my mind or did he actually emphasize the last word “that way”?

“Eheh, not really… they’d only undertake my case if I paid a shitload of money, I’m their droid, not their friend… Aaaand… you’re that rock star dude, huh?” I try to impersonate him.

“An almost-famous good-for-nothing with no band, at your service.” he lifts his baseball cap slightly.

“World famous rock band looks for a singer, lead guitarist, bassist and drummer?” I grin at him and we both start chuckling and silently smile at each other for a few second.

“Actually, you’re not far from truth. My former band… stopped existing this spring and now I’m trying to put together something new.”

“I’m said to be very talented at playing the pocket comb with parchment paper.”

“Nah, thanks, I rather need a washboard specialist.”

“I learn fast… anyway… Cee mentioned what happened with your last band… I’m really sorry about it.” I add in a lower voice and his smile evaporates immediately.

“Yeah… it was hard… but our record was released, we had to promote it not to breach our contract while we all knew it’s over… it’s crazy.”

“I know… Cee told me what happened… I don’t know much about record labels but I’m sure they are only interested in profit, no matter what happens with the band in the meantime.”

“It’s ridiculous, you haven’t even played one single note in the studio but you have already paid a shitload of money, as you said, and you have to decide with your bandmates in questions from which you don’t even have a clue. Not to mention that in our case, they try to overhype “the tragic death of the singer” situation.” he rolls his eyes while drawing air quotes with his hands.

“It’d be nice if someone helped young and unexperienced bands know their way around the business… But it’s difficult to find anyone who’s not only interested in money.”

“Right?” he agrees enthusiastically. “I wish I could have my own label and help other musicians.”

As we go on with discussing the topic, I realize he’s not that unreliable slacker I thought. On the contrary, he’s a rational, left-brained, down-to-earth guy who’s able to analyze everything without being blinded by his emotions. A lawyer brain. And Cee was right, he’s really smart, very smart and funny. It’s too bad he’s not my type. He’s cute but come on, that bandana, the baseball cap…

When the nurse calls him by his name, I glance at the clock on the wall and almost let out a scream of surprise. We’ve been talking for four and a half hour.

***

“Home, sweet home…” Stone groans stretching his arms in the air entering the kitchen of his tiny apartment that also serves as hall and living room. It’s almost 2 a.m., I offered to drive him home since public transport is basically non existing in that crazy hour. My assumption proved to be right: I did break his nose. The doctor re-tamponed his nostrils (obviously with more professional methods than Stone’s stuffing technique) and fixed it with a bandage; he also wanted to call the police seeing the nature of his injury but Stone managed to dissuade him from doing it by claiming he was attacked by an angry ape in a dark alley who also robbed his wallet. Surprisingly, he didn’t get to the psychiatry ward due to his improvised story…

“Do you need anything? Do you have enough painkillers, don’t you?” I ask although I can barely speak coherently and I feel I could fall asleep anywhere, this day is much longer than planned.

“I think I can handle pain.” he grins as he opens the cupboard that is full of alcoholic beverages.

“Whoa, I didn’t think you drink that much.” I remark and I can hear signs of disappointment in my own voice… but why do I care at all…

“I don’t. That’s why you can see the result of hoarding. I only drink beer… okay, sometimes a good, smoky whiskey can’t hurt.” he shrugs closing back the door.

“So no sex and drugs and rock and roll, right?” I smile fidgeting with the hem of my dress. I can’t believe I’ve said this, I started acting like an idiot, I should go…

“Sex and rock and roll are pretty okay to me.” he answers raising one eyebrow meaningfully. Damn, I’m blushing.

“Fuck, this headache… You did a proper job…” he presses his palm on his forehead.

“Uhm, maybe some cold poultice or ice would help. Do you have anything in the freezer?” I ask but I don’t even wait for his answer, I step to the fridge and open it. Okay, opening is a smooth expression, the door of the fridge is stuck in so I basically tear it off.

“Whoaaa… I knew you were going to try to finish the job and kill me before the sun rises.” he laughs and I realize he came nearer in the meantime so I almost managed to slap him in the face with the door.

“Ugh… do you prefer frozen peas or corn?” I inquire basically putting my face into the freezer so that he can’t see my embarrassed face. And the ice cold air maybe helps me win my normal face color back.

“Peas, please.”

As I close the fridge, I find him leaning against the counter squinting at me expectantly. I reach the package towards him but he doesn’t move. Does he want me to do it?

“You should take that cap off.” I walk to him reluctantly. He obeys and lets me cautiously remove the bandana too. I overcome the urge to dig my fingers into his thick hair and I brush one rebellious strand out of his face. He stares into my eyes for a moment, which I respond but I wish I didn’t since I find myself in the middle of some wild whirl, dazing and weakening, pulling me closer to reach those fathomless, green irises… Luckily, he closes his eyes, which pushes me back to reality and forces me to rearrange my breathing. I slowly lean closer and cool his nose area with my own breath before pressing the frozen bag against his forehead.

“Mhm, that feels good…” he moans softly as the ice meets his skin. Great. And now? I’m standing here holding frozen peas to his head… Do I have to wait in this position until they thaw out?

“Ahem… I think that’s all I could do for you so…” I clear my throat after a while and put the bag on the kitchen counter.

“Anyway, when I was sick or got some injury, my mom would give me healing kisses.” he goes on still holding those damn green eyes closed. Okay, this is ridiculous, this is the lamest pick-up line I’ve ever heard…

“Are you trying to say I should drive your mom here too?”

“Nah, that’s definitely not what I’m trying to say.” he snorts shaking his head. With still closed eyes.

“I think my job’s done here sooo…” I make an attempt to finish this awkward scene again but he’s still standing at the counter with a sassy smile.

“…sooo…?”

“…sooo… I’m sorry again, I wish you a quick recovery and... bye.” I jabber.

“Uhm… but you’re still standing in my kitchen.”

And blackout occurs again. A few seconds go by and I’m standing at the door again… but what happened in the meantime?

“I definitely feel better.” he smirks. No. Oh no. The first thing I start to remember is his scent, then the texture of his skin and I might have put my hand on his shoulder too when I pressed that short, light and most importantly, mindless peck on his face. I can’t believe I couldn’t resist, he’s not even my type, he’s only a kid...

“I really have to go.” I mutter and run out of the building not even looking back.

***

Seattle, Friday, September 1st, 1990

 “Allison, are you ready with that memo?” I’m woken up by my boss calling my name.

“Ugh… I need only ten minutes and I’ll bring you.”

I glance desperately at the piles of files and documents in front of me. Okay, if I force myself to focus on work I can do it in ten minutes. Actually, I haven’t been very effective in these days… I haven’t met Stone since the incident, but Cee called him a few times to check his condition. I don’t know if he told her about what happened after she left, I guess he didn’t… but he began to send me funny messages about our first meeting through her and I responded them… so I’m not sure whether something started between us or not… his messages weren’t particularly flirtatious… but the fact he didn’t forget my name immediately and decided to stay in touch even if we haven’t seen each other in the meantime… See, Allison, that’s why you’re not able to proceed with work. You’ve sworn so many times you give up daydreaming… and you’re still doing it. You build up a romantic plotline around the first guy who smiles at you, which already implies disappointment. But he’s smart and funny and amusing… Not that they all aren’t like this for the first time… they play the attractive, sweet guy only to pick you up but slowly and surely, they always show their true colors. And he isn’t an exception either, no matter what Cee tells you. She just wants you to date him to have a company on double dates, that’s all. But Cee is a friend, she wouldn’t promote someone who doesn’t deserve it… Gah…

“Allison???”

Ugh, fuck…

…

I somehow manage to survive the day and drive home. All I want is to order a pizza, curl up on the couch and watch a good movie. But as I get home, I find Cee in the kitchen in the company of a large amount of sandwich ingredients and crackers.

“What the hell…?”

“Oh, hi Al. Would you help me? Otherwise I won’t be able to finish the food by the time the guys arrive.” she tweets.

“Guys? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, haven’t I mentioned to you we’re throwing a party tonight?” she asks innocently.

“Cee, you’re impossible, I’m tired and I don’t really want to meet anyone and you haven’t even asked me…” I grunt at her.

“Come on, Al, it’ll be a very small party. Not that “everyone should bring one more person” sort of party. Only our friends…”

“…that means…”

“Josh, Karen, Steve, Sally, Regan, Tony… and Stoney.” she adds the last name in a casual voice.

“Stone?” I squeak. “I can’t believe you invited Stone…”

“Why? He isn’t angry at you because of what happened at all… plus… the phone calls… you seemed to get on well with each other and I thought you’d be happy to see him again.”

“That’s exactly the problem!” I throw my arms in the air. “I’d be happy to see him again and that’s exactly why I can’t see him again. I don’t need one more trouble.”

“You’re crazy. Anyway, he got super psyched when I told him about the party and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. And now help finally.” she puts a knife in my hand.

I began to chop vegetables and cheese with automatic moves but my brain keeps processing. What if he’s not as handsome as I remember? What if he’ll ignore me? What if he turns out to have a girlfriend? What if he even brings his girlfriend here? What if…

I almost drop the knife by the loud knock on the door.

“I’m coming!” Cee shouts and hurries to the door. Our guests arrive with loud laughter greeting us with hugs, waving with the wine bottles they brought as contribution. Stone is the last one to enter.

“Miss Balboa.” he nods at me with a deadpan and touches his Dallas Cowboys baseball cap briefly like a real Texan cowboy would do with the brim of his hat. Following the others he takes it off and hangs in on the hook on the wall, his hair spread all over his shoulders and… I have to grasp the edge of the table since he’s truly not as handsome as I remembered. He’s much more handsome. Okay, now that he’s not wearing that ridiculous bandana and baseball cap combo and he doesn’t have purple bruises around his nose, it’s pretty obvious that he’s the most handsome guy I’ve ever met. And he’s funny. And smart. And talented. And interesting. Shit.

I follow them in the living room and settle down on the couch. As I glance at him our eyes meet for a second and I can’t help sending a little smile at him that he responds and moves towards me but Regan plops down next to me. Great. Thanks, Regan. Stone takes place right in front of me, in the armchair. During our usual social activities – talking, playing card games, teasing each other –, the well-known game begins. Stolen glances, squints, awkward moves when we accidentally touch each other while serving ourselves from the food… it’s been the same embarrassing routine since my teenage years. Did he just look at me or am I just hallucinating? Was that a smile? Is he following me with peripheral vision the same way as I do with him? Jesus, I don’t dare watch him for too long, what if he notices it… What if he told the guys about our flirtatious scene in the kitchen? What if it wasn’t our scene, only mine? What if it wasn’t flirtatious but ridiculous? But fuck, I don’t care, who cares, apart from a few, punch-related jokes with which he addressed explicitly me, he hasn’t shown any interest in me. Inviting him was the idea of the year, thanks Cee.

We quickly run out of sandwiches so I decide to provide the bunch with supplies and head to the kitchen. I open the window and lean out to fill my lungs with fresh air. I feel immediately better as if it cleared my head too, making me realize we’re not in a tragedy, it’s no big deal if he doesn’t like me.

“Don’t jump.” I hear a nasal voice from behind my back.

“Hah, funny…” I close the window with a bitter smile. I open the fridge and pile the ingredients on the table ignoring him standing aimlessly in the room. I start spreading butter on the slices of bread signaling I’m busy.

“Hey, they don’t need to be stabbed… are you angry?” he chuckles examining my moves.

“I’m not angry!” I answer in a sharp voice. “I just thought we…” I flail but due to my intense moves the knife slips out of my hand and flies right in his direction.

“Whoa, knife throwing… that’s new to me but I’m in.” he leans away laughing as the knife bounces back from the wall and falls down with a loud jangle.

“Will you help me or did you come only to crack jokes about what happened two weeks ago and about which I’m really sorry? How many times should I repeat it?”

“Hey, easy girl, I didn’t want to hurt you. And I know you’re sorry. And I don’t mind it happened at all. And please tell me in which drawer I can find the cutlery.”

I point pouting at the drawer in question and reach my hand for a clean knife but he shakes his head with a severe expression.

“Ha, did you think I let you take pointed objects in your hands after this performance? I spread the slices and you put the ham and cheese on them.” he declares undeterred and I obey shrugging. We work silently for minutes when he speaks up again. “So what did you think?”

“Huh?”

“You haven’t finished the sentence you began when trying to kill me.”

“I…” I take a deep breath before going on “I just thought you were over it.”

“I am, just as I told you a few minutes ago…”

“But you keep joking about it…”

“Hey, I joke about everything in case you hadn’t noticed it… Plus, I haven’t known you very well yet so that’s the only thing related to you I can joke about…”

“Hey!!!” I nudge him.

“’I’m just kidding… just kidding…” he giggles nudging me back.

Okay, I can’t procrastinate it, I have to come up with it to avoid misunderstandings.

“And… I hope you don’t feel bad about the other thing either…” I jabber fixing my eyes on the table.

“About what thing?”

“You know… the other thing… the embarrassing one… I mean the other embarrassing thing that happened after the first embarrassing thing.”

“Uhm…” he scratches his chin. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about. I mean, I do remember one more thing from that night but that one was rather pleasant than embarrassing… no, it was considerably pleasant.”

I finally muster my courage and look up at him and our eyes linger on each other’s smiling face. It does exist. We have a thing. I wasn’t imagining it. It’s not only my fantasy. Maybe I should…

“Hey, guys, what takes you so long? Do you also butcher the pig and make the ham by your own?” Regan opens the door and peaks in putting his head in the doorway. “Oh sorry, I didn’t want to bother you…”

Thanks, Regan, again.

***

I hate this bowl. It’s so damn difficult to wash it without flooding the whole kitchen. And I hate these plates too, I’ve always hated that ugly pattern on them. And I hate these cutleries with their sticky plastic handle. Fuck, I hate everything. The dirty and disgusting dishwater gets mixed up with my teardrops, I try to wipe my eyes with my hand but it’s wet, I can’t even wipe my eyes, I hate, hate, hate…

I knew this was gonna happen. I don’t even know what I was thinking when I hoped he’s interested in me. After we had gone back to the living room, Regan sat down meaningfully in the armchair, and I took it for granted Stone would sit next to me and he did. And we talked and made each other laugh the whole evening like we’d done in the hospital and I got in that easy, happy bubble again with the guy with whom I couldn’t feel bored for a single moment… And that was it. I was hoping he’d ask me out or we agreed on meeting each other later or anything… But nothing happened. He left with the others, all he said was a short “seeya” and that’s all. It was only a flirt to him. And I rather don’t start daydreaming about him calling me later or looking for my company because it’s not gonna happen. He’s the first guy I’ve been really interested in since my latest relationship ended but obviously, he only wants me to be the girl in the bunch with whom he can flirt only not to be bored.

And Cee went with Josh to his place so I’m alone with my anger. At least I can beat my fist against the furniture and kick in chair legs as loud and strong as I can. And no one would laugh at me if I pummeled pillows. Ugh, but I’m swimming in tear and snot, I should restore my dignity at first. I walk to my jacket since I always keep a small packet of handkerchief in its pocket. And I spot that baseball cap on the hanger. He forgot to take it back… Great… Whatever, Cee can give it back to him anytime. Or what if he comes back for it? Or should I call him later or… No, stop, Allison. The guy has just ditched you and you’re already looking for excuses to see him again? And what about your dignity? If he wants the cap, he will…

I freeze as I hear a knock on the door again.

“Who’s that?” I ask loudly and try overcome the trembling in my voice.

“A dangerous criminal. Calls decent girls sluts, provokes fistfights and stabbings.” I hear a familiar nasal voice from behind the door. And I’m grinning from ear to ear again, how can he make me laugh in like two seconds every time he’s around?

“I take the risk.” I answer as I open the door for him.

“I forgot my baseball cap here.” he explains still standing in the door.

“I know, I’ve just noticed it.” I stare at him paralyzed.

“Are you okay? You’re eyes are red and swollen.” he leans closer and I lean back terrified.

“Oh, I was… I was washing the dishes and the detergent got into my eye so…

“I’ll help you.” he enters, closes the door quickly behind himself and marches in the kitchen and I can’t do anything but follow him. “I’ll do the dirty work, you dry.” he puts on the apron and throws the dish towel towards me. Since I’m still numb of surprise, it lands on my head and we both burst out in loud laughter. We start to work in the utmost harmony and I must admit, my anger evaporates in seconds to make place for this new-found comfort.

“Ugh, I’ve always wondered how delicious food can turn so quickly into alien snot due to a few drops of water.” he frowns cleaning kitchen sink with the sponge and then disappears behind my back probably to dry his hands and take off the apron.

“Actually, I’ve always thought they’re not food residues, there must be an alien base in the pipeline and they come up through the drain.” I explain drying the slotted spoon.

“Whoa, you almost put out my eyes.” he startles. “I’ll take this from you, nice try, again.” he takes the spoon out of my hand. Ouch. I didn’t notice he was standing that close behind me. Wait, why was he standing that close behind me?

“And… we’re ready… thanks for helping.” I wipe my hands in the towel hanged on the cupboard.

“You’re welcome.” he nods standing with his hands stuck deep in his pockets. “It’s late, I should let you sleep and go.” he adds but still, he makes a step towards me.

“Yeah, it’s late and I don’t want to waste your time, thanks again.” I walk closer to him too and began to examine my shoes.

What if this time I didn’t wait for the guy to make the first step? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

“You know, I thought, once we could…” I perk my head up and…

“OUCH!!!” we both yell as our foreheads collide with each other.

“Do you always try to kill guys who like you?” he groans pressing his palm against his head.

“I don’t… what? Who???” I stutter on the verge of fainting not because of the splitting ache in my head but due to the wild pace dictated by my heart.

“I glance a pretty girl with my friend but she punches me. We’re talking all night but she tries to knock me off with the fridge door. She touches and kisses me so softly that I nearly melt but then she runs away. I try to approach her again but she throws a knife at me. I leave my baseball cap intentionally at her place to be able to come back and stay alone with her and as I’m about to embrace her finally, she attacks me with a slotted spoon. I make an attempt to kiss her and she headbutts me. You’re a dangerous type, you know?”

“Am I?” I send a timid smile at him biting my lower lip. “You know… I only try to kill guys whom I like…” I utter slowly not taking my eyes off him.

“I want to try something, but you have to cooperate, okay? It’s extremely risky.” he explains stepping to me again, trying to keep a strict face. “First, I have to make sure you won’t make any sudden, unexpected move.” He wraps his arms around my waist pulling me closer.

“But my hands still have a clear way… that’s not safe enough… what if I put them here… like this?” I tiptoe and lace my arms around his neck.

“Excellent idea.” he mutters brushing his nose against mine.

I can’t stop smiling even when our lips finally meet in a long, light, gentle kiss caressing and tasting each other for long moments.

“I think we’re both still alive” he breaks the kiss breathing against my skin.

“I’m… I’m not sure… if I am…” I mumble between further stroking kisses.

“Actually… there’s one more thing I really want to try out with you… as for now…” he pulls away for a second. “But it’s very dangerous… we need to take more precautions…”

His one hand wanders slowly upwards on my back and his fingers end up in my hair while the other hand of his slips under my shirt to touch my bare skin.

“Precautions are important…” I whisper against his neck as I mirror his moves. He’s about to capture my lips again but this time it is me who cuts in.

“Stone?”

“Mhm?” he starts swaying with me impatiently.

“I’m so glad I punched you…” I sigh and let him pull me into a deep, greedy, relentless kiss…

#pearl jam fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #stone gossard #one shot

[limitededitionsanderssidesblog]

Speech Impediment - Chapter 12

Ships: logicality, prinxiety, platonic dlamp

Summary: Virgil reveals a bit of his past to Dexter, just enough for him to understand his friends pain. Afterwards Dexter confronts his family.

AO3 - Here

Chapter One Previous Next

TW: past suicide, mentioned parent abandonment, chocking.

“Why didn’t they love me?!”

The night was already quiet around them, the only sound provided being the wind howling against the windows. The freezing temperatures outside began to seep into the vehicle as the heater had been turned off when Dexter removed the keys from the ignition. Virgil shuddered in his seat, most likely from more than just the cold. Dexter had to get them out of there and to a better location.

Getting out of the car, Dexter went around and opened the door for the other, helping him out and escorting him to the dorms. Asking where he wanted to go, Virgil murmured in a hoarse voice that he wanted to go to his dorm room, so Dexter took him there. The room was empty, Roman still being at work, and shy of any warmth. So it wasn’t too much better than where they had been previously. The building didn’t have heaters, meaning that the students had to buy them themselves. Helping him to sit down on his bed, Dexter went over to the long, cylindrical heater and turned it on high. 

By the time he turned around to face him again, Virgil had already gotten under his covers and curled up in a ball, hidden from sight. Dexter smiled sadly and walked over, sitting down gently beside the blanketed ball and resting a hand on what he thought, and hopped, was his shoulder.

“Virgil?” He called out quietly, “Are you feeling bad?”

He was answered by a unhappy whine.

“You know you can’t talk to me right?” 

The anxious emo didn’t respond and instead just curled up more on himself, Dexter, not wanting to push his friend out of his comfort zone, made himself comfortable and pulled out his phone and opened the YouTube app, putting on a vine compilation. If there was anything he knew would cheer Virgil up, it was vines.

“Hey bro what do you want to eat?”

“The souls of the innocent.”

“A bagel.”

“No!”

“Two bagels.”

A muffled chuckle came from under the covers.

“He doesn’t deserve you. If he doesn’t treat you right by now, you’re gone.”

“I’m gone!”

“Now go chop his dick off!”

The vines continued on, and so did the soft giggles. After about ten minutes of the first vine compilation, Virgil poked his head out of the covers. Soon after, he was sitting side by side with Dexter watching the vines, his manner becoming more relaxed and his tears dried. About forty minutes of mindless entertainment had passed until he was finally calm and sure enough to talk.

“Thanks Dee.” He murmured tiredly as he rested his head on Dexter’s shoulder, exhausted from his emotional episode.

“Do mention it.” The sneky boi replied, “Feeling worse?”

“A bit.” Virgil shrugged, “Just... just remembered something is all.”

Dexter looked sideways at the older, but slightly smaller, student, noting the distant and sad look in his eyes,

“Do you not want to talk about it?”

Virgil stayed quiet for awhile more, appearing to be at a miniature war with himself over whether or not he wanted to speak. Dexter waited patiently until he decided what he wanted to do.

“Long fucked up story short: my dad left when I was ten, my mom killed herself when I was thirteen, and I lived with my homophobic grandparents until graduation.” 

Well shit, what was he supposed to say to that? Whatever explanation he had cooked up in his mind was nothing compared to that, now he’s going to look like an uncaring asshole if he doesn’t speak up fast-

“Wow.”

FUCKING PERFECT!

Virgil gave a halfhearted chuckle, completely different from the one earlier.

“Yeah, it’s not your typical story... but it’s mine. Guess we can be fucked up together, right?”

“I’m not fucked up?” Dexter echoed, well, tried to anyway.

“Yeah, I mean look at you!” Dexter faltered and looked down at himself, trying to find the flaw that Virgil saw. Realizing how he sounded, Virgil quickly backtracked, stuttering an apology. “N-n-not that there’s anything wrong with you, you’re a great person. I just meant that your family is a bit fucked up.”

“Is that why you didn’t yell at my mother?” Dexter questioned, feeling relieved that it was him that Virgil saw as a mistake.

“Yeah... seeing her act like you were... some kind of monster really pissed me off. I mean you were just hugging your sister! Why the fuck did she have to act like that?!”

“I’m aloud to be around her. That wasn’t the rule ever since she was born.”

“It’s a fucking stupid ass rule! You’re family not a stranger. A family should accept one another, stick it out through the bad, encourage each other and lift them up, no matter the flaws. At least that’s what I always thought. Not really how mine turned out either.”

“I haven’t gotten used to it, it’s never been this way-”

“But it shouldn’t have to be! Just because shit happens doesn’t mean everything needs to be shit. Fuck your parents, if they don’t treat you right by now, you’re gone.”

Dexter looked over at Virgil, and saw that the other was smirking at him. It took a moment, but eventually his brain processed what he needed to say next.

“I’m not gone.” He whispered, grinning as well.

“Now go chop their dicks off.”

The next day Dexter sat through several meetings with his parents and professors. His little sister Daisy often sat to the side while they talked, watching some kid show to pass the time on her tablet as she waited. The conversations with his Anatomy and Calculus professors went fairly well. Professor Mraz noted his early struggle with calculus at the beginning of the semester, but praised his tenacity and hard work with the subject to be able to come out with a B+ on the final. His parents seemed pleased enough that he was doing well.

The tricky part came at around three in the afternoon when they pad a visit to Professor Sharps’s room. Her room was so obviously a writing class, Dexter could only hold his breath and pray to God that his parents wouldn’t take too much notice. Miss Sharp was sitting at her desk when they all walked in, working on some kind of paperwork as she waited for them to arrive. Dexter had made sure to give all his professors a few hours notice prior to each meeting.

Her long ginger hair was pulled back into a french braid and she was wearing one of her favorite green dresses with a red blazer. Seeing the family walk in, Miss Sharp rolled her wheelchair over to greet his folks, each with a handshake and a polite hello.

“Hello, I’m Professor Sharp, your son’s Classic Literature teacher.” She introduced herself, giving a small wink and a smile towards Dexter, which he returned.

“Hello Miss,” His father replied, shaking her hand, his mother doing the same next, “I’m James Woodbrooke, and this is my wife Katrina.”

“How do you do?” She greeted with a smile.

“Simply splendid I solemnly suppose.” She giggle as she spoke, “That’s an alliteration, a little exercise I like to do with my students because it helps with- their study of classic literature!” Miss Sharp quickly corrected herself from spilling the beans. Dexter could find any fault with her however, she was a writing enthusiast after all. Trying to turn her switch off is as easy as lifting ten tons of bricks. That was an oxymoron.

“Hm, well I came here to ask about Dexter’s performance in your class. Has he been... behaving well? Been a decent student?” James asked delicately, trying not to appear suspicious in his concern. Miss Sharp’s eyes furrowed ever so slightly at his question. She glance over at Dexter before she answered, making him squirm a little in embarrassment.  

“I like to think of Dexter as my best student. He is always here on time, never misses a day, is well prepared, and fully attentive during lectures and interactives. His grade is the highest in the class and is work is commendable.” She answered curtly, holding herself with a firm stance, not breaking eye contact with his father. His father huffed and crossed his arms, apparently not impressed in the slightest.

“Well he did say he wanted to be an English teacher. Still, with his disability I don’t he’ll be able to make it very far in the field.” James said nonchalantly.

“With his abilities I believe Dexter will exceed in this field.” Miss Sharp wheeled herself back slightly, smoothing out the creases in her blazer, still not once breaking eye contact. “We met, we discussed, we concluded. I could do this forever, but time is money. Work will not wait. Anaphora, Hyperbole, Metaphor, and Alliteration.” She grinned widely, enjoying the offending face of her mother, and annoyed look of his father. “Don’t have a good day.”

His parents busted out of the doors shouting in anger, screaming complaints about her audacity to speak to them that way. In fact, they were so angry that they didn’t even notice that Dexter was holding hands with Daisy as they walked after them. He savored every moment of contact he had with his sister, and so did she, knowing that this would be a rarity for them.

Once they all climbed into Dexter’s buggy, directing them to take him to a decent place for dinner, their shouts became loud, angry talking.

“That woman thinks she knows our son? She must be just as insane if she thinks he could ever exceed.” His father scoffed, “Why are you even in school? I thought you were going to work at the shop with me.”

“I thought it would be a bad idea to have a backup career.” Dexter mumbled next to him, trying to not let his words sting and focused on the road.

“It is a bad idea. Maybe if you could talk correctly I’d be okay with it, but how the hell are you going to teach with your impediment?”

“James please, we’ve discussed that Dexter isn’t just cut out to be a mechanic. That’s why you’re training his cousin, remember?” His mom said from the back seat.

“Whatever.” He grumbled.

The restaurant he had taken them all to was a personal favorite of Logan and Patton called Romello’s Italian Restaurant. The two often went here on their dates and would sometimes bring back leftovers form him and the others to share. The clam linguine was to risk death for and he’d definitely be getting it tonight.

The four of them sat at a booth, Daisy and his mother on one side, and him and his father on the other. Dexter suspected it was to keep him away from his sister. Conversation would have been nonexistent if it wasn’t for Day, the little girl loved to talk the ear off of anyone who would listen to her rambled about what element Neptune’s atmosphere is comprised of and all the like. And at the moment, they had no chance but to listen, as neither he nor his parents budged.

The server came with their drinks and took their orders, leaving them to, once again, listen to Day talk about everything she knows about space. It seems that his little sister already knew what she wanted to be, and she claimed that she’d be the first human to reach beyond our solar system.

It wasn’t until their bread sticks were brought over that she had quieted down, shoving her face full with the snack. His father decided to take the opportunity to speak.

“Dexter, I think you should drop Professor Sharp’s class,” 

“James,” His mother spoke in warning, but was ignored.

“She’s filling your head with delusion. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was mentally ill as well.”

“James,”

Dexter shifted uncomfortably in his seat from cheek to cheek. Daisy watched curiously as she ate, filling her mouth with an amount of bread beyond what any small child should consume at once. 

“But I don’t love her class. I thought-”

“That isn’t important, this woman is filling you head with... fantasy. You’ll only raise your expectation beyond your capabilities.” James argued, focusing solely on his son. For once, his mother did too, not watching Daisy eat all of their appetizer. 

“If you love the class so much, perhaps you could simply request a different professor next semester?” Katrina suggested, trying to be the mediator in the family. “Whatever Sharp is telling you isn’t true, and you know better than to lie, right?”

“Mother please, Professor Sharp is the worst in her subject. You wanted me to not have a good education.”

His mother sighed and rubbed her temple, looking exhausted. No one noticed, but Daisy suddenly stopped eating.

“It’s ‘best’, Dexter, and yes I do want you to have-”

Daisy interrupted the conversation, slamming her hands on the table. James was about to scold her for being indecent, but then noticed that something was wrong. The three of them all turned their attention to Daisy, her little, plump face was turning blue and her small hands pulled at her throat. His little sister was chocking.

“Daisy!” The three of them shouted simultaneously, hopping out of the booth and surrounding her. 

“It’s the bread!” His mother said in panic, pushing the girl out from her booster seat.

“Obviously, do something!” His father demanded, looking frightened and unsure of what to do. Katrina wrapped her arms around Daisy’s stomach and started to squeeze her, having no effect. Daisy started to become worse, and looked as if she was about to black out. The staff were on their way to help, but Dexter acted first. If she passes out while chocking, it’s very likely she’ll die before an ambulance arrives.

Pulling Day from his mother’s hands he positioned the thumb of his fist slightly over her bellybutton, grasped his fist with his other hand, and thrust multiple times. It took several attempts, but after about twenty seconds of trying, a wad of soggy bread fell onto the ground. Daisy gasped for air and coughed horribly. Dexter let out the largest breath of air ever in relief. 

“Daisy!” His mother said joyously, wrapping her arms around her daughter loosely to allow her room to breath. His father kneeled down and hugged the both of them. Families and groups around them cheered, all apparently having witnessed the scene and had been just as worried.

Standing from the floor, Katrina lifted Daisy up on her hip, and his father stood by his side. He placed a hand on Dexter’s shoulder and stared at him for a moment, then pulled him into a hug.

“Thank you for saving your sister.” He murmured into his son’s shoulder. “You knew what to do when I didn’t, perhaps you have more abilities than I thought.” Dexter had the largest smile on his face because he was certain that was the closest his father has ever came to complimenting him. “You can stay in your class. Although maybe you should be a doctor.”

Dexter chuckled lightly, “Yes, I’d still like to be a teacher.” He lied.

Their meal was free that night, and apparently for the next year as well. They were all still a bit shaken however, so they had their dinner to go and went back to the hotel, and this time the invitation was extended to him as well. They sat together and watched the Hallmark specials until late in the night.

His parents still hadn't fully accepted him, but Dexter was patient and decided not to say anything. After all, they had promised to pay his tuition if he graduated, and he wasn’t about to pass up on that opportunity. He’d tell them one day, and now that day felt just a little closer.

His parents allowed him to spend the night over with them, having him share the bed with his little sister, no longer visibly upset about the two of them talking to or being with each other. If this was his late Christmas gift, it was the best they had ever given him.

His family flew home the next morning.

.

.

Yep, hi.

Tag List:

@noneed4thistbh @romanasanders @fuckingemoace @bunny222 @sea-blue-child @astraastro@helloitstimetofight @blue-wolfbane @applecannibal @ryuity @anxiouslyfred @i-identify-as-a-mango @shadowjag @scorching-scotch @cyberpunkjinx @im-so-infinitesimal @witch197 @sparkly-rainbow-salt @calvindientesblancos

#sanders sides #deceit sanders #deciet sanders #ts deceit #sympathetic deceit #virgil sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #sanders sides deceit #sanders sides virgil #sanders sides logan #sanders sides patton #logicality #prinxiety #princiety #speech impediment #platonic dlamp

[shirtlesssammy]

14x04: Mint Condition

Then:

I can’t believe this! Ghosts are real!

Now:

(Sidenote: I’m here for the fun Easter Eggs! Check out the credits on the Hell Hazers poster!)

At Smash Pow Comics, Stuart, a nerdy little dude with a trench coat, watches an advertisement for a horror movie marathon. There’s going to be slicing and dicing all week! (I spy a Racist Ghost Truck and the cabin from Hollywood Babylon.) He starts unpacking new inventory, when he finds a Mezco 15” Mega-Scale Panthro.

He promptly shoves it into a bag, clearly intent on stealing it. He gets a call from a friend, Sam, who wants to talk about the recent bad review their store received after Stuart got into a fight with a customer. The dude has principles. But, he agrees to be nicer to customers. He then leaves the store with the stolen Panthro.

Later, Stuart is yelling on the phone at a pizza company for being late with his delivery, when, now out of the box, Pantho turns his head and makes his way, nunchucks in hand, over to Stuart. Things do not go well for Stuart.

Speaking of things not going well, Dean is not adjusting well to his home being invaded by strangers (and the whole Michael possession thingy). He’s holed up in his (MESSY) room drinking beer, eating pizza, WEARING ‘SEND NOODS’ NOVELTY SOCKS, and watching classic 80s horror movies. I don’t think fanfic could have written this better, folks.

Sam checks in on our little hermit.

It seems that Dean is pouting because Cas is gone (and Kaia and her magical spear are gone and Michael and his deathly threat to the world are also gone.) Sam then continues to show his strong leadership skills and deftly takes control of the situation, telling Dean about a case --a killer toy! Dean’s on it!

Sam couldn’t be prouder of himself.

The brothers arrive at the comic store (and, omg, Sam’s little faux-scared reaction to the kids on the street is KILLER.) Sam, the store owner, is there and before Dean calls her Sam’s Wonder twin, I was thinking how she’d fit right into the hunter world with her plaid shirt. Sam then notices another worker, Dirk, and says he’s Dean’s Wonder twin. Parallels established.

Dean then completely nerds out over a life size mannequin of David ‘Hatchet Man’ Yeager, the monster from his favorite movie franchise, All Saints’ Day. DEAN BEAN.

Comic Sam asks how she can help them (Dean’s interested in vintage Hot Wheels), Sam wants to know more about Stuart. Sam tells them that he’s at his mom’s house. “Of course he is,” Dean quips.

At Stuart’s mom’s house, the brothers settle in with a little hot apple cider and wait for Stuart. 

*Bullet Points of Crazy Dialog*

Fortnite is the game

Dean’s a Zelda for life

MIRL

Who needs goth-girl drama, am I right?

The hospital report said that you had marks on your face, your legs, your back, and your genitals. That’s not a slip and fall.

Surprisingly, Stuart is not interested in cooperating with the insurance company. They decide to stakeout the home to do a sweep of hex bags, etc. Dean tries getting Sam to talk about his hatred for Halloween, but the stakeout interrupts the inquiry. They duck down to avoid notice.

Stuart then comes screaming out of his home, blood gushing from his gut. Dean heads inside to investigate.

For Science:

While looking around, Dean’s nearly bisected by a rogue chainsaw. WHELP.

Later, at the hospital, Dean and Sam visit Stuart and his mother. Alone, they discuss the lack of hex bags and overabundance of EMF at Stuart’s home. It’s a ghost!

Sam heads back to Stuart’s house, only to find no EMF. He does see a picture of Stuart, Sam, Dirk, and another man though.

At the dark, quiet hospital, Dirk stands watching over a comatose Stuart. Dean brings him some candy (awww), Dirk confides that Stuart is his best friend. He might have issues, but he’s there when Dirk needs him. Then they both nerd out over their favorite All Saints’ Day movie. Dean then confesses that he likes to watch these movies because he knows the bad guy is going to lose. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Sam heads back to the shop to talk to...Sam. Sam asks Samantha a few normal insurance-adjuster questions, like did anyone close to Stuart die recently? In fact, yes. The former shop owner, Jordan, willed the store to Sam and Dirk after he died. Unfortunately, Jordan was cremated, so the trail's gone cold. Speaking of COLD, the shop dips dramatically in temperature. Sam whips out his “carbon monoxide detector” and finds EMF signals are through the roof. They'd better run before they--

Later, Sam wakes up after getting knocked out by the hatchet man and discovers a traumatized Samantha and a set of missing shop keys. They've been locked inside the store while the possessed mannequin stalks the streets to hunt down Stuart.

At the hospital Dean continues to totally nerd out with Dirk as they keep their vigil over Stuart. They share their favorite moments from horror movies until Sam calls and interrupts (Interrupting Saaaam) with the news that Jordan's on his way as...the Hatchet Man.

Dean is over the moon that David Yaeger – the Hatchet Man himself – is on his way to the hospital. It's like a dream...er, nightmare...er, dream come true.

Jordan shambles through the Halloween streets wearing the Hatchet Man mannequin, blending in perfectly with the astonishingly well costumed children of the town. (For comparison, when children of this age came to my house last week they were wearing hoodies, jeans, and bored expressions.)

At the hospital, Dean makes a salt line around Stuart's bed and tells Dirk to stay inside the circle. Dean runs off, leaving the two alone. When the room grows cold, lights flicker, and the furniture begins to rattle, Dirk races out of the salt circle. As an audience, we collectively cry, “Oh noooooooo!” (And also, OH YES.)

At the store, Samantha informs Sam that Stuart was excluded from Jordan's will due to his tendency to give himself the ol' five finger discount. And now we have a motive. Jordan's after Stuart due to his thieving ways. Sam's having trouble escaping the store with its master locks and shatter-proof glass. It's so well fortified, you could use it to wait out a zombie apocalypse. All you need now is a deep freezer full of Cornetto ice cream cones.

At the hospital, Dean finds an ax.

For My Scientific Paper Entitled, Jensen Ackles, Your Face is a Menace:

And the Hatchet Man finds Stuart's mom. She shrieks and drops her dinner, but fear not! The Hatchet Man gets distracted by Dirk who confronts him from the other end of the hallway. Dirk tells Jordan to stop trying to kill Stuart but Jordan seems pretty locked into his role. He chases Dirk through the hospital.

We cut to some security guards enjoying popcorn and a movie in their office. On screen, they watch the Hatchet Man chase after a shrieking victim while on another unseen screen Dirk is chased through the hospital by Jordan. Beautiful.

Both chase scenes make lovely references back to the lampshade from earlier, screaming about the weird lack of people around to help them while they shout and run through the hospital. Yessss very good. Dirk, cornered at the hospital elevator, cringes in horror as the Hatchet Man advances.

In the impenetrable fortress of solitude, aka the comic book shop, Sam makes a casual chemical bomb out of household cleaners and a Scooby Doo lunchbox. He blows the back door off the shop. COOL.

Dirk continues to run from Jordan and finds himself in the morgue. Dean claps a hand on his shoulder from behind. YIKES! Classic jump scare. 

Dirk tells Dean that the homicidal Jordan/Hatchet Man is at the hospital and, right on cue, Jordan sits up from where he's been laying on a slab in the morgue. With a sheet pulled up over him. Like you do. Jordan has gone METHOD in this haunting, man.

Cut to a movie trailer, with the origin story of David Yaeger and...the Hatchet Man. Intercut with scenes from old Supernatural episodes including – no joke – an old shot of the back of young John Winchester's head in the auto shop, we see the basic story outline.

Yaeger was killed in a prank gone wrong and his body burned to hide the evidence. He returned to enact his revenge on the teens who'd killed him and mutilated his body. (Hey guys, who wants to talk about horror movies and fables as classic morality plays? The “bad” are killed and the “good” or repentant are saved. I would love to see this tie into Heaven's stability problems later in this season, and an exploration of vengeful ghosts and morality fables. That would be a nice, tight narrative woven through the season...Mmmhmmm.)

I digress. Dean faces down Jordan for an ax showdown.

Dean gives Jordan a choice. Move on to the after-afterlife or fight Dean. Jordan pushes a button on his...plastic suit? “Time to slice and dice,” he says, challengingly. And the fight's on. Hatchet Man's pretty strong with his two axes and quickly knocks Dean's ax out of his hands. Dean goes on to fight with 1) a sheet 2) an empty jug and 3) a bedpan in each hand. I. LOVE. THIS. FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER.

Sam and Sam walk through the hospital, racking their brains for what Jordan might be clinging to. They decide the keys are the culprit. Meanwhile, Dean's in a tight spot, on the ground in his fight against Jordan. The ax raises. Dean cowers. Suddenly, there's a blade from behind. Dirk stabbed the Hatchet Man right in the back but it's not enough to stab the plastic dummy. Jordan grabs ahold of Dean and starts to choke him. Sam races to burn the keys, and the two Sams pour alcohol into a bowl and light it on fire, destroying the keys and setting free Jordan's spirit.

“Is it really over? Just like that?” Dirk asks a little while later, to Dean's astonishment. Yeah, getting choked was super easy. (I love this subtle dig at us viewers' casual acceptance of violence and trauma. It's not a judgmental observation, it's just the way we function.)

On the way home, Dean opens up to Sam. He thanks him for getting him out of his pizza-box-filled bedroom. Sam asks Dean to stop “hiding out” in his room. He tells him that nobody blames him for what Michael did while he possessed Dean, nor for doing what he had to do to save Sam and Jack. Dean blames himself, though. “I'm never gonna get over it,” Dean tells him flatly. But he will pull himself up and fight alongside Sam. Dean addresses Sam as “Chief” and while the address is a bit tongue in cheek, it's also an affectionate nod to Sam's new responsibilities and leadership role. (Yaaay)

Dean grills Sam about his hatred of Halloween and, since emotions are being released, Sam relents. When he was in sixth grade he had a huge crush on a girl. He went to her Halloween party, but was so nervous that he threw up all over the apple bobbing game and all over her. “It was soooo bad,” Sam says quietly with a haunted look in his eye. (I LOVE how relatable Sam's trauma is. Who doesn't spend time sometimes dwelling on the scars of youth? No matter what true horrors lay in the past, some form of trauma is universal to all of us humans.)

Sam ran from the party and hid in the woods until Dean found him and picked him up. Dean vows to make Sam's next Halloween a good one. They can wear matching outfits like:

1) Batman and Robin (No)

2) Bert and Ernie (That's weird)

3) Rocky and Bullwinkle (Nooope)

4) Shaggy and Scooby! (Why?)

5) Turner and Hooch (Urg)

6) Ren and Stimpy (Come on)

7) Thelma and Louise (No thanks)

But the show’s not over yet, folks. A security guard heads into the morgue. He finds the knife, the two axes...and the Hatchet Man. The Hatchet Man cackles, “Trick or Treat” and then chuckles malevolently as the screen goes black. Dun dun duuuuuuuun!

Time to Quote and...Smote?

It’s so smooth, it’s like a dolphin’s belly.

Thundercats? Seriously? Panthro is mine.

If I had Kryptonite gloves I could beat up Superman. Anyone could. That's SCIENCE, Sam!

I can’t believe you had her make us apple cider.

We all do bad things sometimes.

Unless it's Godzilla, it's real.

One day we're gonna have to answer for the things we did that night.

In this dark, quiet hospital...they can run, they can hide, but there's no escaping the Hatchet Man.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn spoilers #spn recap #spn 14x04 #mint condition #dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural season 14

[hippychick006]

5.05 - Fallen Idols

I’ve not manged to get one of these done for a while.  It could be that I sub-consciously remembered this was the Paris Hilton episode and I needed to work up to it.   But it’s probably more that it’s painful to watch the earlier seasons (even with their problems) and then switch back to Dabbernatural.  I still intend to complete my analysis of all the showrunners, it’s just going to take longer than I anticipated.

This is essentially a MOTW episode and although it’s not one of the best, it’s not one of the worst either. Given that, it can be easy to overlook this episode and not have it on a re-watch list.  That would be a huge mistake because it’s actually a very important episode.  It’s the brothers first hunt together since their separation and we see how that dynamic is going (not well as it turns out). There’s a difficult scene between them around the middle of the episode, but I think in terms of where they come out of it at the end of the episode, it’s the start of the turnaround of their broken relationship so they can start to move forward on an equal footing (with some missteps along the way.  Dark Side of the Moon, I’m looking at you with trepidation!).  So, if you watch nothing else in this episode (though you’re missing out on some things), don’t skimp on 22:45 to 25:50 as this is one of the most important and honest discussions I think the brothers have had to date and 35:50 to the end of the episode which is the follow on to that conversation.  It’s really worth a look at the whole episode if you haven’t watched in a while. This is really long again so I’ve put under a cut.

The episode opens on two men squeeing over a silver convertible.  This particular model is a Porsche 550 Spyder, labelled “Little Bastard” which belonged to the actor, James Dean, who was killed while driving it.  When one of the men (Jim) goes to get a camcorder to record this historic moment, the other (Cal) waits in the car. We see cold air when he breathes out, which alerts us that something isn’t right, then the car radio switches on and starts hopping through radio stations.   We switch to Jim who is setting up the camcorder and hear tires screeching and glass breaking.  He goes to investigate while recording and we see some of the next scene through the camcorder lens which is a good shot.  We switch back to normal view and see that Cal has crashed into the windshield and is very much dead.  

Dean is driving and Sam asks about the case, which unsurprisingly turns out to be the death we’ve just witnessed.  Sam thinks they have bigger problems with the apocalypse and finding the colt than hunting right now.  Dean disagrees and even though Sam tries to push, Dean says, “This is what we’re doing! Okay? End of discussion.”  

I like this scene for giving us insight to where the brothers are since they got back together.  I like that Sam is not afraid to put his views across or question things, but it does looks like he’s being careful not to be seen to argue with Dean.  Dean is willing to converse only so much before he pulls the big brother card.  The effect on Sam is immediate, he looks away and sighs.  It’s this that causes Dean to relent a little as he explains to Sam his reasoning:

Dean: It’s just that this is our first real case, back at it together. You know, I… I think we ought to ease into it, put the training wheels back on.

Sam: So, you think I need training wheels

Dean: No, “we” need training wheels, you and me.  As a team.  Okay?  

Sam nods and says okay, but I don’t think he’s fully agreeing. It’s more his “okay” when he doesn’t want to argue anymore.  Dean sees this and continues: I really want this to be a fresh start, you know?  For the both of us.  

They look at each other and Sam nods and says okay again, and this time we can see he’s more on board with it, so I’m glad that Dean took the time to explain what he’s thinking, because open and honest communication is really important for them moving forward and healing their relationship.  

Sam and Dean posing as FBI Agents Bonham (Led Zeppelin) and Copeland (The Police) are at the Sheriff’s office.  He guesses they are there on account of Cal’s death, but says they already caught the guy that did it.  

Sam and Dean are confused at this (given they think it’s something supernatural) but they sit with the sheriff and watch the video that Jim recorded in the opener.  The sheriff believes the case is open and shut; that Jim killed Cal and taped it. Sam and Dean look at him in disbelief. Dean asks: How exactly did Jim slam Cal into a windshield with all the force of an eighty mile per hour crash? The sheriff blinks: drugs maybe?  He tells them that it isn’t brain surgery, whatever it looks like, that’s what it usually is. The boys are not impressed and ask to speak to Jim.

They interview Jim and ask him to tell them what he saw.  He says he didn’t see anything, but heard tires squealing and glass breaking and says it was the car that did it.   Sam and Dean raise their eyebrows.  Jim goes on to explain that he heard about the curse, but just thought it was a load of crap.  Dean asks what curse.  Jim says: The car, Little Bastard.    

Dean: Li… Little Bastard?  As in the Little Bastard?

Sam: Wait, wait, wait, uh, what’s Little Bastard?

Dean: It’s James Dean’s car.  It’s the one he was killed in.

Jim confirms that’s the one and Dean leans down to Sam (who is sitting at the table with Jim, while Dean was standing behind him), “Oh, we are definitely checking this out.”

Sam and Dean are walking around Little Bastard.  Dean with reverence and Sam not really being that interested.   Sam asks, “So, what, this is like Christine?”  Dean shakes his head, “Christine is fiction.  This… this is real.” Sam asks for Dean to enlighten him and Dean explains the deaths associated with the car.  The first that James Dean’s mechanic bought the wreck and fixed it up and it fell on him. The second being that Troy McHenry was killed when it locked up on the race track.

I researched these and neither story appears to be 100% true.  E.g. Troy was killed in a race, but he wasn’t racing Little Bastard, he was racing in a car that had spare parts from Little Bastard.  His car went out of control and hit a tree, killing him.  In the exact same race, another car locked up and rolled over going into a bend, injuring the driver.  The driver of this car was Dr William F Eschrich (who had purchased Little Bastard after the crash and had loaned Troy the parts).  Eschrich’s car also contained spare parts from Little Bastard. Most of the stories around the curse, appear not to be verified.   What I found most interesting while looking all this up, was that Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi) looked at the car, declared that it looked “sinister” and warned James Dean that if he drove it, he’d be dead within the week. And he was.  WTF Alec?

Anyway, I like how enthusiastic Dean was in telling these stories, culminating in Dean telling Sam that it vanished in 1970 and has never been seen since. Sam’s non-committal “hmmm” once again shows the difference between them in terms of their enthusiasm (or otherwise) for cars and I like the consistency in characters. Dean tells Sam the only way to know if it’s the car for sure would be to look at the engine number, which unfortunately would be underneath the car.  

Sam and Dean shed an entire layer each in the next scene (don’t get too exited, they are down to shirts and ties and not full suits).  The car is jacked up (but making ominous creaking noises) and Sam volunteers to go under, but Dean’s got this. And Dean’s got this, by talking to Little Bastard: “Okay, baby, I’m not gonna hurt you, so… don’t hurt me.”  Sam’s face during this!

Dean wheels himself underneath and the car starts creaking again which panics Dean.  He just about jumps out of his skin when Sam appears on the ground and asks if he needs a flashlight.   He tells Sam to go away and gets back to trying to get the engine number.  The car creaks again and Dean carefully takes a rubbing of the engine number then quickly slides out from under the car.  He breathes deeply to compose himself then hands the paper to Sam telling him to find out who owned it, “Not just the last owner, you gotta take it all the way back to 1955”

Sam (bitchface alert): That’s a lot of research.

Dean: Well, I guess I just made your afternoon.

Dean is at a tavern that wouldn’t look out of place in any English village.  He’s trying to pick up the bar tender that wants to be an actress by telling her he’s an agent.  And this is where I don’t understand his stans when they try to deny its canon that Dean has pulled these types of tactics to hook up with women.   I mean I love Dean, but yeah, he’s far from perfect in this respect.  Dean’s phone rings and it’s Sam, who starts to update Dean on the car’s previous owners, but his ears pick up the sound of pool balls being hit, and he asks if Dean is in a bar. Dean denies it and says he’s in a restaurant. Unfortunately, the bar tender at that point puts his requested beer down, announcing cheerfully, “Here’s your beer.”  Dean’s been caught so he says to Sam: “…That happens to have a bar.”  Sam’s not happy because he’s been working his ass off back at the motel.

Dean: Hey, world’s smallest violin, pal.  I spent the afternoon up Christine’s skirt. I needed a drink.

Sam tells Dean he didn’t (spend the afternoon up Christine’s skirt), that the car’s first owner was a cardiologist that drove it until 1972 so the car is fake.  They now need to figure out what killed the guy if it wasn’t the car.

We switch to a man (Mr Hill) sitting at a desk doing paperwork.  It’s dark outside and his maid (Consuela) comes to tell him she has finished for the day.  Mr Hill thanks her.  He returns to his paperwork and sighs, seeing cold air.  He hears a creak behind him and turns.  “Oh my god, it’s you.”  He stands up, “You’re dead, you’re supposed to be dead”.  Just as we wonder who it is, we see that it’s Abe Lincoln who snarls and advances on Mr Hill. Lincoln picks Mr Hill up with one hand around his throat and strangles him, spraying blood across a picture frame containing a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.  Nice touch Supernatural.

The next day Sam and Dean turn up at the new crime scene and tell the sheriff they heard he had another “weird one”.  The sheriff admits the case is “a little strange on the surface, I admit, but, uh… you know, once you… you look at the facts…”

Sam (I am not here for your b/s) Winchester: William Hill died from a gunshot wound to the head.  No gun, no gunpowder, no bullet.

Ably assisted by Dean (founder of the sarcasm society) Winchester: Nope, nothing strange about that.

The sheriff insists: Well there’s gotta be a reasonable explanation. There always is.

Dean: Well, what’s your reasonable explanation?

The sheriff looks around and then whispers, “Professional killer.”

Sam: Come again?

Sheriff: Well, CIA, NSA, one of them trained assassins, like in Michael Clayton.

Dean (very slowly): Riiiight (and looks at Sam)

The sheriff continues they are welcome to look around “but these guys don’t leave fingerprints.”  Sam asks if they can speak to the witness and the sheriff is fine with that but she’s not making any sense “And she’s not making any sense in Spanish either.”

I love this next scene.  Sam and Dean walk outside, and see Consuela is talking to a deputy in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish but I’m kind of getting something that sounds like I need my family.  And something like home in El Salvador, possibly going home to El Salvador.  

Dean introduces himself and asks her about what she saw. Consuela starts answering in rapid Spanish.  I’m as lost as Dean is when he looks at Sam, but luckily, we both have Sam Winchester, who sits down beside her and starts speaking to her in Spanish.  He’s not fluent, but he knows enough words to get by. He doesn’t know exactly what he wants to say at first and looks at Dean, while he’s trying to remember the words. He starts speaking to Consuela again and Dean is very proud of his little brother who explains, “Freshman Spanish”. Sam Winchester speaking languages, sigh.  Thank you show.  Sam translates the description of what Consuela saw to Dean; “a very tall man, very tall, with a long black coat and a…” he looks at Consuela and gestures to his chin, “a beard?”  She nods and adds “y un sombrero”.  Dean asks if the dude was wearing a sombrero.  Sam explains it means hat.  Consuela says “un sombrero alto.”  Sam checks, “a tall hat.”  Dean suggests “oh, like a top hat.”   Consuela shakes her head and repeats “un sombrero alto” and gestures very tall while saying “muy alto”

Dean: What, you mean like a – like a stovepipe hat.

Consuela: Si

Dean explains to Sam: Oh yeah, like Abraham Lincoln.

Consuela (sobbing): Si, El Presidente Lincoln

Sam and Dean look at her.

Consuela: Abraham Lincoln kill Mister Hill!

Sam and Dean look at each other.

Consuela (hopefully): So, I go home now?

Sam agrees and says gracias which Dean repeats, and he looks so pleased with himself while doing so. I just love the kick Dean gets out of learning something new.

Back at the motel, both Sam and Dean are researching on laptops. Not sure when they got one each?  Possibly Dean got one when he was separated from Sam?  Dean’s looking at Jim’s video and watches it frame by frame and sees a figure appear in one of the frames.  He shows it to Sam and asks, “Am I crazy, or does that look like James Dean?” Sam agrees that it looks like James Dean.

They sit discussing the information they have, and I love these moments, which show how well they work together, despite the trust issues between them right now.  Dean suggests famous ghosts which he himself immediately thinks is silly. Sam disagrees, “there’s a ton of lore on famous ghosts.” And is surprised they haven’t run into one before.  Dean thinks it’s unlikely they’d have two of them at once. But Sam tells him the ghosts are apparently ganking their fans as Professor Hill was a Civil war nut who “dug Lincoln” and Dean chips in that Cal must have been a James Dean freak since he spent 17 years of his life tracking down the guy’s car.  Dean says, “So you’re saying we’ve got two super-famous, super pissed off ghosts killing their… super fans?  Sam shrugs and says that’s what it looks like.

Dean: Well, that is muchos loco

Sam smiles at Dean and corrects him, “muy… not muchos”

They still don’t have an answer to the key question, what are the ghosts doing here, instead of haunting where they lived or spent time, so Sam keeps researching and we see on his face when he’s found something. He says, “You gotta be kidding me.” which attracts Dean’s attention from where he is (standing at the sink and drinking a soda) and he walks over to Sam and leans over to look at the screen, repeating Sam’s line “You gotta be kidding me.”

We don’t see what they are looking at, but the next scene opens with a waxwork of Abe Lincoln.  The camera pans round and we see it’s the “Canton Wax Museum”.  Sam and Dean are there looking around the exhibits, which in this section of the wax works appears to be politicians, with not just Lincoln, but John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon.  Dean stands in front of Gandhi and complains that he’s short.  I look up Gandhi’s height, and screw you Dean for saying that, dude’s an inch taller than I am!   Sam admonishes him and tells Dean that Gandhi was a great man.  Dean: “Yeah, for a Smurf”.

The museum owner appears and apologises for keeping them waiting, but it’s their busiest time of year.  Dean looks around the completely empty museum. “This is busy?”

Owner: Well, not right now, but it’s early.

Dean: It’s… four thirty

The owner asks what he can do for them and Sam says they are writing a piece for a travel Magazine.  Dean chimes in: “Yeah, on how, uh, totally non sucky wax museums are.”

The owner’s happy which makes me sad, because they aren’t really going to be writing an article on his museum and he’s likely going to go out of business soon.  

Sam continues that they are specifically interested in Abraham Lincoln and James Dean.  The owner says they are two of the museums most popular displays and that they have their regular visitors.  Dean asks if William Hill and Cal Hawkins were regulars.  The owner nods and says he heard what happened to them.  He asks for clarification that that’s not going to be in the article and Sam reassures him no.  

Dean says the Lincoln figure is so lifelike, that you could imagine him moving around.  “You ever see anything like that?” (oh Dean).

Owner (slightly worried): Uh… no

Sam rescues the awkwardness somewhat and asks if there’s anything that would make the museum unusual.  The owner says there isn’t another place like them, not anywhere.  Dean asks why.  The owner points at Abe’s hat and says that its Honest Abe’s real hat.

Sam: It is?

Dean: Almost like his remains (Dean looks pointedly at Sam)

Owner (back to being worried): uh, I guess

Sam asks if they have anything of James Dean’s and the owner confirms they have a keychain. They’ve got Gandhi’s bifocals, FDR’s iron lung… He gestures to the leather jacket he’s wearing, and Sam asks who it belonged to.  

Owner: The fonz, Seasons 2 through 4 (does the fonz double thumbs up and grins).

Sam: Wow, yeah, that’s… that’s really cool… ish                                

The owner tells them he’s going to make wax museums hip again, bring the kids back.  He grins and gives the double thumbs up again.  Sam humours him by giving them back.

We next see a shot of Sam opening baby’s trunk and preparing a shotgun which presumably is being loaded with salt shells.  He goes back to the room and Dean’s got his back turned to the door and is on the phone to someone and is explaining about the case.  “Yeah, Abraham Lincoln and James dean, can you believe that?  Why so kill-crazy?  Ah, maybe the apocalypse has got ‘em all hot and bothered.  Yeah, well, we all know whose fault that is…Well, I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

Sam frowns (as do I) and slams the door closed to alert Dean he’s back.

Dean spins around and looks at Sam, but he doesn’t look in the least guilty that he’s been caught.  He tells whoever he’s on the phone to that he’ll call them later.  Sam asks what’s going on, but Dean ignores the question and asks if the trunk is packed.  Sam confirms it is and asks who was on the phone.  Dean tells him Bobby.

Sam: And?

Dean (shaking his head): Nothing

Sam: So…we’re just gonna pretend I didn’t hear what I just heard?

Dean shrugs: Pretend or don’t pretend. (he walks away) Whatever floats your boat.

Sam: This was supposed to be a fresh start, Dean

Dean: Well, this is as fresh as it gets.  Now are we going or not?

Sam watches Dean leave and sighs before he follows him.

Oh boys, I understand Dean’s hurt and anger, I really do, but when you make a decision to go in a certain direction, you need to commit to that direction and not keep taking several steps back.  That isn’t fair to either of them.

Sam and Dean are inside the museum after closing.  Dean takes off Lincoln’s hat while Sam gets a trash can. Sam turns back to Dean and bitchfaces. Camera moves to Dean and he’s wearing Lincoln’s hat.  He imitates Lincoln: “Four score and seven years ago, I had a funny hat”.

He does a good impression, but Sam’s still pissed from earlier and not in the mood for Dean’s humour. He puts the trash can on the ground and holds his hand out for the hat.

Dean: We can’t have any fun with this? (he takes off the hat and instead of giving it to Sam, he tosses it into the trash can.

Sam:  Let’s just torch the objects, torch the ghosts and get outta here, okay?

Dean says he’ll “go grab East of Eden’s keychain.”

Sam’s left alone and he scans the room.  He looks at Lincoln, narrows his eyes and looks closer.  I’m waiting for Lincoln to move, but he doesn’t.  The double doors to the room slam closed though and Sam spins around.  “Dean?” He goes over to the doors and tries to open them, but they won’t open.  “Dean?”  Sam is not happy at the pesky doors separating him from his brother, even if Dean was being a dick to him earlier.   He hears a noise and swings around, bringing his shotgun up into position as he looks around between Lincoln and Gandhi.  He hears a creak and turns.  The shotgun flies out of his hands.  Sam turns to look where the shotgun landed and gets attacked by Gandhi leaping onto his back. Sam slams Gandhi into a wall and he falls off.  They circle one another but Gandhi is wily and scrambles under Sam and jumps on his back again. Sam tries to throw him off again by crashing onto a table.   It works but Gandhi attacks a third time and tries to strangle Sam.  Big brother bursts through the doors.  

Dean: Is that Gandhi?

Sam (while being strangled): Yeah!

Dean (just watching Sam struggling): Dude, he’s squirrely

Sam: Get the…

He can’t finish but shakes his head towards Gandhi’s wax figure.

Dean runs over to it.  “Get the what?”

Sam: Glasses!

Dean grabs the glasses, throws them in the trash can and sets them on fire. Gandhi disappears and Sam gasps for air.

Dean: You couldn’t have been a fan of someone cool?

Sam glares at him.

Dean: Really, Gandhi?

I’m putting this next scene in its entirety because the first part is amusing, but the second part is very important for where they are right now and every line of dialogue in this scene is vital.  They are back at the motel and Dean’s packing to leave, asking Sam if he’s ready to go. Sam though is having doubts about the case being finished.  Dean’s not really interested, as far as he’s concerned, he torched, the ghost vanished.  Sam’s not letting it go though, “Yeah, but I…” he sighs, “Also, I feel like he was… trying to take a bite out of me.”

Dean: A bite?

Sam: Yeah, like he was hungry.  But the thing is, Gandhi – or the real Gandhi – he was a... (Sam hesitates to continue)

Dean: A what?... (Sam hesitates to answer again), …spit it out

Sam (answers reluctantly): He was a fruitarian

Dean laughs: Let me get this straight.  Your, uh, ultimate hero was not only a short man in diapers, but he was also a fruitarian?

Sam: That’s not the point

Dean: That is good.  That is… even for you, that is good.

Sam: Look, I’m just saying, I’m not so sure this thing is over.

Dean: It was a ghost… It was a weirdly super-charged fruitarian ghost, but it was still a ghost.  Now let’s go.

Sam: So first you drag me into town, and now you’re dragging me back out.

Dean: You ain’t steering this boat.  Let’s go, chop chop.

Dean grabs his bag to leave and Sam doesn’t follow him.

Sam: You know, this isn’t going to work.

Dean turns back: What isn’t?

Sam: Us.  You, me, together, I… I thought it could, but I can’t

Dean: You’re the one that wanted back in, chief

Sam: And you’re the one who called me back in

Dean: I still think we got some trust building to do.

Sarcastic!Sam alert: How long am I gonna be on double secret probation?

Dean shrugs: Til I say so.

Sam: Look, I know what I did, what I’ve done.  And I am trying to climb out of that hole, I am, but you’re not making it any easier.

Dean: So, what am I supposed to do, just let you off the hook?

Sam: No, you can think whatever you want.  I deserve it, and worse.  Hell, you’ll never punish me as much as I’m punishing myself, but the point is, if we’re gonna be a team, you and I, it has to be a two-way street.

Dean: So, we just go back to the way we were before?

Sam: No, because we were never that way before.  Before didn’t work.  (Dean frowns).  How do you think we got here?

Dean: What’s that supposed to mean?

Sam: Dean, one of the reasons I went off with Ruby (Sam sighs)… was to get away from you.

Dean: What?

Sam: It made me feel strong.  Like I wasn’t your kid brother.

Dean: Are you saying this is my fault?

Sam: No, it’s my fault.  All I’m saying is that, if we’re gonna do this, we have to do it different, we can’t just fall into the same rut.

Dean shakes his head: What do you want me to do?

Sam: You’re gonna have to let me grow up, for starters.

At that point Dean’s phone rings, which interrupts their conversation, but I loved that they had it.  I love Sam’s being honest and that he’s not willing to go on and accept things the way they are.  I love that Dean listened to Sam in the end and that he seems to be thinking about what Sam has said and I think that’s all we can ask for at this point.

The phone call has Dean listening to someone that we can’t hear, he looks at Sam, then away and says “Yeah, yeah, okay” to the caller before hanging up and turning back to Sam, “I guess you were right about this not being over.”

What else might Sam be right about Dean, hmmm?

They are back at the sheriff’s office and go straight to the sheriff asking him what happened.  I love the deterioration of the sheriff over this entire episode from his world having certainty through to pretty much this:

Sheriff: I, uh, uh… (he shrugs and shakes his head), I don’t know! (he gestures to two girls in a room)

Sam and Dean go to interview them.  The scene is actually quite funny as they try to get information out of the girls who are very upset. The upshot is that Paris Hilton took their friend.

Sam: I’m sorry?

Girl 1: She looked really good though

Girl 2: Skinny!

Girl 1: Skinny and fast!

Dean: What… wait… huh?

Sam and Dean ask to be excused for a minute and go to the doorway.  Dean asks for clarification that “Paris Hilton’s not dead as far as we know, right?”  Sam answers: “Pretty sure, no”, which means they don’t think they are dealing with a ghost anymore and it’s unlikely that Paris Hilton is a homicidal maniac.

We see Sam in blue scrubs so he’s at the hospital.  He’s looking through Cal’s file and frowns so once again we know that Sam’s found something of concern. We next see him cut into Cal’s body with a scalpel, and it’s cute that even after all this time, Sam’s still a little squeamish at this sort of thing. I’m reminded why I didn’t go to medical school as we hear squelching noises when Sam reaches his hand inside the body and pulls out 2 small ball things the size of cherries.

Sam meets back up with Dean outside and he’s angry at himself for missing whatever he’s found.  Dean asks for details and Sam says there was major blood loss with both victims, much more than the injuries should have caused. Dean comes to the same conclusion that Sam did; that something is feeding. Sam then shows Dean an evidence bag containing the cherry sized objects. Dean: “What are those, seeds?”  Sam says yes and that he found them in the victims’ stomachs.  Dean quickly removes his hand from the bag, “I hope you washed your hands”.  Sam says they are unlike any seed he’s ever seen before. Dean hides his pride of Sam’s nerdiness with sarcasm, “Wow, just when I thought you couldn’t get any geekier.”  

Back at the motel, Sam’s on his laptop trying to identify what type of seeds he has.  He discovers that the seeds are not in the US but from a forest in the Balkans that doesn’t exist anymore.  Dean: So? Sam explains that a local legend said the forest was guarded by a mischievous pagan god which could take on infinite forms.

Dean: And let me guess.  He liked to munch on his fans.

Sam confirms that yes, the god can only be appeased with the blood of his worshippers, after draining them, it would stuff their stomachs with the seeds. What’s most important is they find out how to kill it; chop off its head with an iron axe.

Dean: All right.  Let’s go gank ourselves a Paris Hilton

They enter the wax museum after hours again.  Dean has the axe, Sam a flashlight. They walk past Abe Lincoln (who is now hatless of course). They split up and search different rooms, which is a little dumb, given Sam doesn’t have any weapon and he’s the one that comes across a door with a sign on it that indicates the place beyond it is closed for renovations.  Just as I’m about to mark a tick in the “dumb winchester’s column” of my analysis, he whistles for Dean who joins him and they break through the door into a part of the museum that’s decorated to look like it’s outdoors with a house in the woods. Looking around, Sam sees what we presume to be the girls’ missing friend, Danielle.  She’s tied to a tree.  Sam checks her pulse and she’s alive, but barely.

The axe suddenly flies out of Dean’s hand, like the shotgun did with Sam earlier in the episode. He turns around to find Paris Hilton in front of him. Paris is a mean fighter, easily taking down Dean and throwing Sam across the clearing, causing Sam to get knocked out.  Dean isn’t unconscious yet but that doesn’t last long as Paris stiletto’s him in the face. Ouch.

Our boys wake up almost at the same time, finding themselves tied to a different tree.  What probably woke them up was the sound of the monster’s nails being sharpened against the knife she’s holding. I’m wondering why the monster didn’t just kill them, but it helpfully explains that it’s been stuffing itself with too much fast food lately, so wants to take the time to do the ritual right.  “Prepare a nice, slow meal for a change.”  

Me: And you choose the best hunters on the planet to do that with? No wonder your kind are dying out rapidly.

I’ll spare you most of the villain monologue, it’s another god pissed that people no longer worship and adore them and throw themselves to their sacrifice “with smiles on their faces.”   The monster is tired of wandering hungry and scared, scrounging for scraps, and has taken advantage of the apocalypse to set up a permanent home, where adoring fans just stroll right in the door.

Sam: Yeah, but they’re not your fans

MOTW: So? They worship Lincoln, Gandhi, Hilton… whatever.  I’ll take what I can get.

Dean tells it that it’s not the first god they’ve met but is the nuttiest. The monster disagrees, says people are the crazy ones.  That they used to worship actual gods, but now… the monster indicates the Paris Hilton body: “This is what passes for idolatry?  Celebrities? What have they got besides small dogs and spray tans?

And kudos Paris, I like people that can laugh at themselves. Also, Sam and Dean’s expressions during this are great to watch.

MOTW: You people used to have old-time religion.  Now you have Us Weekly

Dean: I don’t know, I’m more of a Penthouse Forum man myself

Dean winks and clicks his tongue at the monster who gets up and walks over to him.  

MOTW (looking Dean up and down): Maybe, but…there’s still a lot of yummy meat on those bones, boy

Dean: Well, I hate to break it to you, sister, but uh… you can’t eat me. See, I’m not a Paris Hilton BFF.  I’ve never even seen House of Wax.

Sam looks at his brother and frowns, and it’s these moments I like; the little shout outs to Paris and Jared, both being in House of Wax.  It’s not pandering, it doesn’t impact the flow of the episode, it’s just a nice little mention that’s done well.

Anyway, the monster can read Dean’s mind, it knows who Dean’s hero is; Dean’s daddy.  She walks back over to the axe which is embedded into a tree. “And this belonged to him.  Didn’t it?  Poor little Dean. All you ever wanted was to be loved by your idol.  One distant father figure, coming right up.  

Dean’s been busy though, which is why villains should not monologue. Seriously, if I’m ever a villain, I’m shooting first, talking later.  He’s free of the ropes and tackles the monster, but as we saw with Sam getting beaten up earlier, this is no easy monster to take down and Dean’s soon getting repeatedly punched. Thankfully Sam’s also been busy, and he gets free a few seconds later, jumping over the two fighting and pulling the axe from the tree. Dean lands a punch throwing the monster off him and rolls to the side so that Sam can take the shot, which he does.  It’s a little bit like Mary Queen of Scot’s execution though as he has to bring the axe down several times to sever her head from her body.  And once again, Sam Winchester’s face is completely covered in blood.  (I should have started a count on this).  Sam turns to Dean who is still lying on the ground and grins at him.  Dean lifts a finger in warning. “Not a word.”

Sam (having too much fun): Dude, you just got whaled on by Paris Hilton!

Dean: Shut up (collapses back on the ground)

Sam and Dean are finally leaving the motel.  Dean is talking to the sheriff on the phone who tells them that Danielle is going to be okay and that he’s put an APB out on Paris Hilton.  

We get our final broment of the episode as they are putting their bags in the car, Dean’s been thinking about what Sam has said, about keeping too tight a leash on him.  Sam looks at Dean warily, not sure what Dean’s going to say.  I think he’s worried that Dean’s decided its best if they separate again.  

Dean: Hell, maybe you’re right.  I mean, look, I’m not exactly Mister Innocent in this whole mess either, you know.  I did break the first seal.

Sam: You didn’t know

Dean: Yeah, well neither did you (Sam looks away, and its painful that he is completely willing to absolve his brother of blame, but not himself).

Dean: I’m not saying demon blood was a great way to go, but you did kill Lilith

Sam: And start the apocalypse

Dean: Which neither of us saw coming.  I mean who’d have thought killing Lilith would’ve been a bad thing. (Sam looks away again).  Point is, I was so worried about watching your every move that I didn’t see what it was actually doing to you…. So for that I’m sorry.

Sam says thank you and I think some people might expect an apology in return, but Sam has already apologised multiple times for what he’s done and it’s not an appropriate point for him to do so again. Dean asks where they go from here.

Sam: The way I see it, we got one shot at surviving this

Dean: What’s that?

Sam: Maybe I am on deck for the devil, maybe same with you and Michael, maybe there’s no changing that.

Dean: Well that’s encouraging

Sam: But… we can stop ringing our hands over it. We gotta just grab onto whatever’s in front of us, kick its ass and go down fighting.

Dean considers that and nods: I can get on board with that.

Sam nods too: Okay, but we’re going to have to do it on the same level.

Dean looks at Sam: You got it.

Sam nods again and Dean says: What do you say we get the hell outta here?

Sam: Hell yeah.

They turn to go to their usual sides of the car, but Dean stops and looks down at the keys and says. “Hey.”  Sam turns around and Dean holds out the keys: “You wanna drive?”

Sam (looks at the keys and then at Dean: You sure?

Dean: Yeah, I could, uh… I could use a nap

Sam looks at Dean again and Dean hands him the keys.  They get into the car and Sam drives away.

Onwards to 5.06.  I believe the children are our future.  Aww, this is the antichrist one.  Where did Jesse go?

#supernatural #season 5 #rewatch #5.05 #fallen idols #episode recap

[obsidianarchives]

Game of Thrones Recap: S8E4 - "The Last of the Starks"

Didn’t we almost have it all? At the moment I’m not sure I’m talking about the episode, this season, or (if you really want to get spicy) the first four seasons of the series, but this show started off SO WELL and then devolved into an unfounded attack on everything I love and believe in. We’re back to split locations this week so let’s get into it, and trust we’ll be discussing that ending. TW: There is brief discussion about the use of rape as a narrative tactic in the “Winterfell” section.

Winterfell

The episode picks up right where we left off last week as the survivors of the Great War bid farewell to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for loss. As much as I’ve never seen it for either of them, Daenerys’s sadness over Jorah — her first friend and a man (for all his MANY faults) who was a constant throughout her adult life — and Sansa tearfully placing a Stark pin on Theon’s corpse were touching and earned conclusions of their character journeys. But there’s still no country for slave traders and child murderers so, bye!

Leading the ceremony, Jon puts some bass in his voice, does his best Captain America impression, and delivers the most impassioned and leaderly speech we’ve heard from him yet as he modifies the Night’s Watch farewell to begin lighting the pyres of fallen heroes outside the castle. Ramin Djawadi put his foot all the way in the score on this scene as we see just how much the fight took out of the survivors. All of our main characters are bruised and bloody, poor Ghost lost an ear, and Rhaegal has holes in his wings and is still too weak to fly without a bit of a hook. Everyone needs a drink.

And what an after party it is! Gendry suffers through awkward dinner conversations with his girlfriend’s father (we’ll get there) the Hound while he awaits Arya who’s a no-show at the feast. Daenerys sees him and takes the opportunity to note that he’s the unknown bastard son of a King. For a moment, I thought she was trying to make a point to Jon about the validity or lack thereof about his claim to the throne, but she instead legitimizes Gendry and proclaims him Lord of the Baratheon’s old seat of Storm’s End. By raising up the former blacksmith she not only installs a Lord Paramount of the Stormlands forever loyal to her, creating allies she desperately needs, she also buries another potential claimant against her crown.

For some reason Sansa is confused and disgusted by this and Tyrion clocks it but says nothing. As the drinking continues, Dany realizes how isolated she truly is as she listens to Jon be toasted by Tormund, a Kobe stan during a LeBron James championship parade. Instead of being a proud aunt towards her baby dragon riding nephew, Queen Daenerys sees how little she is loved by the Westorosi, an awakening that began with her witnessing Lord Royce and Theon’s admiration for Sansa earlier this season. Lurking dramatically behind her and observing all of this is, of course, Varys because he stays in the mess.

Ser Brienne, Podrick, and the Lannister brothers are playing Tyrion’s drinking game where they guess facts about each other, which is fun until the lord imp surmises that the newest knight from Tarth is a virgin. Brienne leaves in anger and shame while Jaime follows after her, leaving Tormund to finally realize where he stands as the third wheel, crying to the Hound. After Clegane chases him off into the arms of a willing Northern girl, Sansa and the Hound share their first conversation since season two and the Battle of Blackwater. When he acknowledges that the “little bird” has grown and changed as much as Arya, she tells him that without the horrors she’s had to endure she wouldn’t be the person she is today. There’s been a great deal of frustration with that line, as the notion that rape can be a tool to make a woman stronger, or that she owes her growth to the men in her life, is demonstrably false. I didn’t initially read the scene that way simply because the theme of terrible things and regrets forming people into who they are has been a repeated one this season (with Jaime, Bran, Theon, etc.), but it is a mark of poor and male-centric writing to not recognize the difference between intentional actions the male characters chose themselves and cruelty done to a character against their will that they’ve had to survive. But this wouldn’t be the last time the writers failed to understand context.

Gendry finally finds Arya in the castle working on her archery instead of reveling in the feast (Big Introvert Energy) and tells her that not only is he the son of a King, he’s now a proper lord himself. Kissing her, he gets down on one knee and tells her it doesn’t mean a thing without her by his side and proposes. Maisie Williams sells the scene with just her eyes, as she kisses Gendry back onto his feet, but has to let him down gently that being a lady is just not her. It calls back to what she constantly told Ned in season one, and the realization she had in her reunion with Nymeria last season.

Jaime channels his inner Drake and brings a flagon of wine to Brienne thee Stallion’s room, reminding her that she hasn’t finished the game. Brienne keeps her room nice and hot, so the Kingslayer starts to take off all his clothes, while probing her interest in Tormund. Always one to keep her guard up, Brienne finally realizes what’s about to happen and helps him take his shirt off as she joins him in disrobing and they finally consummate the years-long dance around and to each other’s hearts.

Daenerys and Jon finally have a heart to heart where Rhaegar’s son reiterates that he has no desire for the throne and is pledged to her. She then begs him to not tell anyone else (specifically Sansa and Arya) and to swear Samwell and Bran to secrecy lest the truth of a rival with a stronger claim gets out and threatens her position. So of course, Jon does the opposite and, forcing Sansa and Arya to promise to keep the secret in the family, has Bran divulge that he’s actually Aegon Targaryen. The scene cuts to black before we get to see their reactions to the news, but hold that thought.

With the demise of the Night King (who we’ll have to wait on the books which shall never be written to learn more about) and his army of the dead, Daenerys finally begins drawing up battle plans to take King’s Landing. As is her wont, the Dragon Queen wants ALL of the smoke and is ready to take Cersei out, whatever it takes. Ever the idealistic pacifist, Tyrion urges the long game of a siege to turn the people against her by starving the Lannisters out. Jon, who at this point doesn’t want to be in the middle of any other squabbles, concedes the feasibility of the plan but then in comes the maester of checking people in public, Lady Sansa. She councils a bit of patience on Dany’s part since her troops are dead tired from fighting zombies, one of her dragons is flying with a limp, and she really has no plan other than “I want the throne.” Admittedly, I’ve been #SansaHive for a while now, but the show seems intent on driving this division between the two matriarchs for no other reason than to manufacture tension and rush towards this narrative that Dany is the Mad Queen that has not been justified. Trying to get back in her good graces (or her bed), Jon however pulls rank and reminds the room that the North is pledged to Daenerys and will follow her to whatever end.

Ser Bronn finally arrives in Winterfell and displays the level-headed pragmatism that I’ve said more than once will put him on the Iron Throne. Rather than outright killing the Lannister men as Cersei wanted, he negotiates. While we finally discover the Queen offered him Riverrun and presumably reign of the Riverlands, Tyrion counters with Highgarden and the seat of the Reach. Less out of an affinity for the brothers and more because he’s seen what dragons can do to an army, he accepts the side he thinks is more likely to win, but promises his bill will come due once the war is over. Another thing this episode has done is remind us just how many Great Houses have fallen in Westeros. Daenerys mentions the support of a new, unnamed Prince in Dorne, and Edmure Tully is possibly still alive in a dungeon somewhere or hiding in oblivion with young Robin Arryn, but almost all of the ruling southern houses have been wiped out.

On the road from Winterfell, the Hound is riding south alone until he’s joined by Arya, and it seems they both have unfinished business back in the capital. If they’re pump faking us and we don’t get Cleganebowl, somebody has to square up. For now, the best buddy duo is back on the road again and neither have plans on coming back alive. Sansa, on the other hand, almost immediately tells Tyrion the ONE thing she promised not to and confides Jon’s secret identity. That’s how we know he wasn’t Ned’s son. Eddard managed to take decades of hate from his own wife to protect his nephew, Jon couldn’t even last a damn week.

The goodbyes continue as Tormund finally takes the wildlings back home to the REAL north to settle down and repopulate now that the threat of the White Walkers is gone. The show, choosing to emphasize his embrace of his Targaryen roots (and that he’s probably going to die soon) has Jon send Ghost north of the Wall as well, since a direwolf has no place in the South and would be happier. This is where the disrespect began and we should have seen the okey doke coming. The relationship between Jon and Ghost is one the show has always underplayed but my man would never! He didn’t even give his beloved companion a goodbye hug, simply looking on as Ghost whines for his friend. We also find out Gilly is pregnant with Sam’s baby for real this time, and if it’s a boy they’ll name him Jon. Yeah, he’s definitely going to die.

Hearing what went down at Dragonstone, Jaime, after knocking the sheen off of Brienne’s starry sapphire again for good measure, leaves in the middle of the night bound for King’s Landing. She runs out in her housecoat and slippers begging an ain’t shit man to come back into her life after just 24 hours; men are a curse. Jaime reads through the litany of things he’s done in the name of his love for Cersei and insists he’s not the good man Brienne thinks he is. It seems clear he’s going back to try to stop her this time (and possibly fulfill the prediction of the valonqar), but he doesn’t tell that to his new boo, who very uncharacteristically breaks down in tears.

Dragonstone

With her fleet preparing to invade King’s Landing and take back the throne, Daenerys and crew set sail to her birthplace on Dragonstone. Tyrion couldn’t even wait to make it to shore and immediately tells the news of Jon’s true parentage to the Benita Buttrell of Westeros in Varys, but he ain't one to gossip, so you ain't heard it from him. As the ships drop anchor in the port however, Drogon and Rhaegal are attacked by Euron Greyjoy’s suspiciously sneaky Iron Fleet now outfitted with improved Scorpions which catch Rhaegal unaware, killing yet another dragon. Gotta pour one out for the homie as we’re now down to one and I am inconsolable. Daenerys in a rage is tempted to fly Drogon straight on to light them all up, but facing another round of fire is forced to flee. Euron being the trash panda he is then targets the ships themselves, sinking most of them and forcing the Unsullied to swim to shore. A distraught Grey Worm is left to panic as he screams for Missandei, who was not among those who washed up on the beach.

On the verge of losing everything, Daenerys is understandably tired of being checked by her advisors and is finally ready to burn the Red Keep to the ground if she can sit on the ashes. In a private conversation, Tyrion keeps trying to push the obvious solution that Jon and Dany, who are in love as it is, should just get married, solving all their problems. As infuriating as it may be that the simplest answer is the one that will never happen, even he realizes the futility of hoping for logic to win out. Varys stops short of admitting he’s putting a hit out on Dany, but the Spider, going back to his defense of the realm, is obviously ready to move on to a new leader and leaves Tyrion to drink.

King’s Landing

Meanwhile, back in the capital Cersei has been opening the Red Keep to the common folk in an attempt to call Dany’s bluff that she wouldn’t burn the city with so many people inside the castle walls. Congratulating walking STD Euron on his successful mission Cersei tells him she’s carrying his child (as Qyburn confirms), and hides her disgust as Greyjoy is overwhelmed with new daddy glee.

The writers then lose the plot entirely as they cut to Missandei, back in shackles, Cersei’s prisoner as the queen remarks “so much for the breaker of chains.” We’ll get to it soon but it goes without saying that seeing a Black woman, the ONLY Black woman on the show, placed back into bondage when her story arc has been one of rising above her enslavement is reprehensible. That said, this is a show about reprehensible people doing reprehensible things. It hurts no less, but what used to elevate the series was that these actions were grounded in an internal logic and narrative fullness that resonated with character motivation and agency for both sides. This was simply done for shock value, both in-universe for Daenerys and out of it for the viewers.

Outside the Red Keep, the walls of which we see have also been outfitted with Scorpions, the two Hands of the Queen meet to discuss terms, and when it’s clear that Cersei will not be surrendering, Tyrion tries to speak directly to his sister and beg for her better nature to avoid bloodshed, insisting that she’s not a monster. WHAT WOMAN DOES HE THINK HE’S BEEN DEALING WITH FOR ALL THIS TIME? Of course that nonsense doesn’t work and Tyrion’s inability to recognize that villainy is possible even under the guise of white womanhood is what should get him killed. Instead it’s Missandei who is caught in the crosshairs of the 53% as she utters her last words, “Dracarys,” before being beheaded by the Mountain.

My personal affinity for Missandei should be well known, so you can imagine how I reacted to seeing this mess. To clarify, it's not just that she died that was so galling. If you read the episode two review we called that happening, and I’d assume most of you weren’t shocked either, even though it doesn’t hurt any less. It’s the how and why that was so poorly handled that added insult to injury of the pain that's inherent when you have so few people of color in the cast in general, but Black women specifically. Had she had the agency to choose her own end and her death come as the result of her story arc, so be it. This is a show of terrors and loved characters die everyday, B. Had she died in the crypts of Winterfell fighting for her life and the Queen she believed in, and Daenerys and Grey Worm had gotten to mourn her the way they gave tired, rockface Jorah his final respects it would have been better. Had her Dracarys command gotten Drogon to start the roast of the city? We outchea! But for it to be simply the impetus to justify razing King’s Landing, and as a pawn in a war of aggression between two white women while she’s placed back in bondage, was a perfect storm of disrespect, to the character and the audience. We've established for seven seasons that that city is a rathole, filled with people we haven't seen in years. I don't care about Dany burning the castle to the ground, but NOW? I need Thanos to show up because I want nothing left but ashes. For a blog whose motto is MORE Black Girls MORE Dragons, this episode was always going to be particularly painful, but the fact that there was no greater narrative purpose for it makes it even worse.

#Game of Thrones #Season 8 #Recap

[misssophiachase]

Gifs above from the brilliant Moni @joey-prue  not mine! 

Truth or Dare

How good was our Klaroline road trip? So, just before the recent episode I was asked what my hopes and dreams were and responded HERE. I can’t help but think what could have been based on the awesome episode and also my road trip ideas so I just had to write it. Hope you like it : ) 

Dialogue from the episode interspersed, but most is mine. Points of view will alternate. I might just be prepared for part 2 if interested (my preview post will let you know what may or may not be coming)...

 Somewhere near mile marker 79, outskirts of New Orleans, LA

“Must you play with the radio, Mikaelson?” She asks banging her hand on the steering wheel, her frustrated tone not lost on Klaus. The Original hybrid thinks he’s minding his own business but obviously he’s found some way to annoy his travelling companion. 

It feels like old times and for some reason he’s content, even as everything unfolds with his truant daughter. 

When Caroline came to him earlier, Klaus had initially been buoyed. After all, this was the second time they’d met in as many weeks; first in France and now his beloved hometown of New Orleans. The same place he promised to show her one day. Klaus didn’t think it was possible to be so in love with her still but he was, the fact she smelled and looked so heavenly was only toying further with his fragile emotions. If only the circumstances of their reunion had been different he might have kept his promise.  

“I see you have the headmistress act down, love,” he replies, lazily. For someone who’s in an extremely bad mood, Caroline can’t miss the slight tugging at the corners of his crimson lips. Ass. One for touching her stuff and two for drawing her attention to that mouth she still remembers so well.  

Showing up in New Orleans had been a difficult decision, she was caught between being the responsible principal of his daughter’s school and revisiting her very present feelings. Being close to him again was a challenge to say the least. France had been difficult enough and now here she was again tempting fate and trying not to imagine him naked wearing only a dimpled smile. 

She chooses not to respond, only prompting Klaus to elaborate on his many issues.  “Look, if the music was a little better, I might be tempted not to touch,” he hisses, pressing all the buttons at once and giving it an extra hit for good measure.  

“Sorry I don’t have any of your one thousand year-old favourites on my playlist,” she mutters, sarcastically.  “I swear if you break it, you bought it,” she snaps, clearly feeling somewhat out of control having to drive while he fiddles with god knows what, he always did love that control-freak side to her, amongst others.  

“You realise that even if I do break the radio, with your substantial vampire capabilities you can easily acquire another?” 

“That’s not the point,” she murmurs.  

Like that night you asked for a prom dress, he thinks, but doesn’t verbalise. 

Klaus is struggling with the myriad of memories racing through his mind, she always has that effect on him, again amongst others. 

“Seriously, you’re worse than my students who think it’s okay to get through life purely on supernatural powers alone.”

“Well, I can’t completely disagree…” 

“Of course you can’t but I suppose after being on this earth for a bajillion years you don’t know any better.” Again the memories race back.

Like the supposed fifty bajillion messages he left on her phone after mistakenly being staked by Silas. 

“I realise there’s an age difference, love, but no need to rub my nose in it,” he quips. 

“You started it, grouchy,” she replies childishly, but he can’t miss the sly smile she flashes in the rear view mirror. 

“Apologies for my impatience, I’m just plotting how I’ll kill this boy when I find him. Skinning seems to be the preferred option before ripping out his heart.” 

“What did we discuss about those unhealthy thoughts?” 

“Not to have or entertain them, but have you met me, sweetheart? We all know that was wishful thinking on your part,” he chuckles. “Or I could throw on some petrol and set him alight before a nice stake to the heart?” 

“You are having way too much fun at my expense, although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” She grins surprisingly. “Maybe you just need something to take your mind off those death wishes?”

“I’m listening…” And he actually is, in fact his mind is going a million miles a minute wondering just what she is going to suggest. Klaus can definitely suggest a few tactics to keep them both occupied.

“I think we should play a game,” she suggests, turning to glance at him briefly before returning her concentration on the road ahead.  

“I’m listening…” if he had a heartbeat, Klaus knew his heart would be racing right now. What could she possibly have in mind?  

“Oh, so now you decide to be quiet and stop ruining my stuff,” she scoffs. “How about Eye Spy? I was the Eye Spy champion three years running in primary school.” Klaus isn’t surprised given her competitive nature, another thing he finds eternally endearing about the bubbly blonde. 

“I don’t doubt that,” he shares, a knowing smile escaping his lips. “But I have a feeling it’s not going to quite cut it in terms of keeping my mind fully occupied.”

“Trust me, you will,” she offers. “You go first.” Klaus sighs knowing she means well in all of her Caroline Forbes perkiness but he’s disappointed this is her first choice. He gives her another look and the raise of her eyebrows tells Klaus she’s back in headmistress mode. 

“I spy…” he falters. 

“With my little eye…” he gives her a look which plainly says he’s not one of her younger students she needs to prompt. 

“Are you going to let me finish?”

“Call it the competitive, teacher in me.”

“You don’t say,” he growls. “Fine, I spy with my little eye something beginning with R.”

“Really Klaus? You couldn’t have thought of anything more original than road?”

“How do you know it isn’t road but some brilliant idea you’re never going to guess?”

“Because I was the eye spy champion 3 years…”

“In a row, I got that, Caroline,” he shoots back, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. “Of course I can come up with something else but I would rather name all the ways I can kill that boy starting with the letter R if I’m being truly honest.”

“Fine, what will get your mind off maiming your daughter’s boyfriend then?” 

“Certainly not calling him that,” Klaus replies, emitting a low wolf like growl and Caroline knows she’s gone too far. 

“What can I say, old habits die hard, spoil sport,” she mutters. “What do you want to play?” 

He stills for a moment and suddenly she’s feeling self conscious about how he’s interpreting her rather loaded question given their past. Damn him for being so gorgeous in that henley and making her want to do things she’s only dreamt about.

Klaus is finding it difficult to breathe, mainly because his arousal is growing steadily and threatening to escape his jeans and give his intentions away.  What does she expect saying something so suggestive and looking so delectable? 

He’s long dreamt of games they could play together, even a car scenario wasn’t completely out of the realms of possibility in his mind. 

“Fine,” he coughs, attempting to regain some control of the situation. “Truth or dare.”

“You cannot be serious,” she drawls by way of response.

“I’m deathly serious love, what do you have to hide?”

“Next you’ll suggest spin the bottle,” she scoffs, avoiding the question, a healthy blush crossing her face yet again and doing nothing to contain his budding excitement. 

“That was my first choice but unfortunately no bottle,” he teases, sending her a wolfish grin from the passenger seat.  

“I have nothing to hide,” she murmurs. “You’re going to wish you never challenged me Mikaelson, I win everything I play.”

Caroline wasn’t so confident; in fact she was terrified. Terrified of the fact that Klaus would see right through her and the feelings she’d kept so carefully hidden for years. But now they were alone, emotions threatening to be laid bare and she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to talk her way out of this.

“I suppose we’ll have to wait and see,” he boasts. 

Klaus knows from their past, he was the one who was always honest, always wore his heart on his sleeve. It was Caroline who continuously hid their burgeoning attraction and if anyone had anything to lose, it was her. 

“Do you regret the time we spent together?  

“Seriously?” She stalls, her blue eyes widening. “Okay, if it'll take your mind off of wanting to murder an innocent teenage boy, then no, I don't regret our time together.” 

Klaus is fairly certain he feels his heart torn from his chest given the loud interruption but the steering wheel is moving erratically and he knows it’s something more mechanical. 

If the universe was listening to their conversation, Klaus was fairly certain it had a plan and he wasn’t altogether upset about the interruption. 

#truth or dare #klaroline drabbles #misssophiachase #what an episode #what could have been #road trip

[aurimeanswind]

Back to Business—Sunday Chats 8-19-18

Okay. So Sunday Chats. How do I do this again? Oh yeah. Writing and whatnot.

Let’s get Started.

The Business Update

So as I’m sure you can tell, if you tuned into Irrational Passions Podcast two nights ago, follow IP on Twitter, or just see the silly shit I do on social media, I’ve been really busy. Sunday Chats has taken that hit, and as I don’t write everyday anymore nor am I writing every Sunday, it’s likely there is no reality I can do these on a weekly basis like I used to. Still, I’d like to work in at least once a month, which is what I have been doing. I know that’s not the pace I was setting back in the heyday of writing everyday, but I’d say I’m generally less stressed and the writing I produce is generally better than it was towards the end of me writing every day. Meaning maybe I made the right choice by decided to put a nice end cap to that journey? Maybe not.

I’ve been far more in a managing role since then, and the thing I do the most now is the thing I love to do the most, host and guest host on podcasts! My podcast output has been up about 300% the last couple months I feel, and that makes me super happy. It’s what I love to do. And with a ton of new shows coming to IP, I’m happy to be a part of them.

So let’s get the update out there. Here are some things we are doing/launching with Irrational Passions that I’m excited about, and I think you should be too!

Irrational Passions Podcast is now on Spotify! So is Input: A Video Games News Show, so if you’re a podcast listener on Spotify, I’ve got great news for you! Get Acquainted should be up there soon too!

Input has officially changed its format to focus on one news story per episode on a more intimate basis. There is still room for more traditionally formatted episodes, but episodes may be coming out faster and more frequently per week, with more focus on single stories and topics. I’m really excited about this change. Give it a listen!

Irrational Passions Presents is a new audio feed coming to podcast services around the globe, that will be home to Article Reads, one off interviews, and maybe other cool little stuff. I’m excited for the possibility it brings, and am stoked to have that out there!

Irrational Passions Video Game Book Club is a new monthly show coming TOMORROW. It launches Monday August 20th with the first part of Batman Arkham Asylum. Each game we will be splitting into three checkpoints, and discussing with varying groups of Irrational Passions members. Scott White has been spearheading and editing this show, and he has done a phenomenal job with it. Shoutout to Scott!

Podcast Ultimate, our Super Smash Bros Ultimate Podcast hosted by Mike Burgess, CONTINUES next week, with episode two all about the recent Smash Direct. We talked for about two and a half hours and it was a blast. Give that a listen on YouTube, which is still currently the only space it is and will be available. Working on possible other options in the near future.

PAX West 2018 is coming up, and much like PAX East 2018, we are coming in FULL FORCE.

I’ll be there, alongside Scott White, Logan Wilkinson and Mike Burgess.

We’ll be rooming with the fine folks from OKBeast.com, and we’ll be doing a crossover podcast with them LIVE on Twitch and YouTube on Friday, August 31st, at 9pm Pacific Daylight Time.

I’ll also be representing Irrational Passions at the Kinda Funny Interwebsite Peer Schneider Cup Tournament or whatever its called in the Hydra Theatre on Saturday September 1st at 7pm PDT. Come see me! Support me! Or just say hi! I am absolutely going to lose, but I’m going to try my best!

So a lot of this is the culmination of things we’ve been working on for a while. The Book Club especially we’ve been working on since February. Everyone is hard at work and CRUSHING it, in addition to the reviews, podcasts, and opinion pieces we will continue to put out. Jurge called this the “IP Direct” on Twitter because this is our Nintendo-direct level of announcements. We’ve been working hard and will continue to do so going forward, and while that may mean we can’t sit and chat EVERY Sunday, I still plan on making time for all of you once a month at least.

A big part of that, as some folks may have seen, is I’ll be soliciting questions for Sunday Chats on Saturdays now. So it’s the same deal outside of that, look for my tweet that has the hashtag #SundayChats in it, just look for it on Saturdays now. It gives me time to get things done and organized a bit easier and faster, and cuts less into my day off now, which will hopefully streamline the process.

That all being said, I’m going to skip game talk this time and go right into...

Questions!

Let’s get to it.

Whoa boy a lot to unpack here. I’ll go one at a time now.

Selfie Saturday has officially become Selfie Sundays. Sorry for the lack of warning all, but selfies aren’t going away anytime soon.

Am I concerned? No. Not after this last direct. You’ll hear me talk about it on this next Podcast Ultimate but for me the new Smash Bros would not be “ultimate” if there wasn’t a story mode in it. And there appears to be one, going off this recent teaser in the direct. I know it’s dumb, but as someone who predominantly plays Smash by himself, it’s honestly super important to me to have that. I think that’ll be new and I think that’ll be really exciting too!

I think as a game they will likely hope to update and support for a while to come, coming out two years into the Switch’s life and I think the Switch will be around for a while to come, that they are just teeing this up to have tons of stuff either in expansions and DLC later, and have as much in the base as it can. Smash fans I think want all the stuff from the previous games, and I think there are plenty of quality of life things that make this new as well. Like, the Wii U game was so good, but missed those QoL improvements that really stopped it from being great. Plus, it was on a platform that no one had. Now everyone has a Switch, and anyone can stop and say “let’s play Smash” and have folk break out the Switch to play Smash at any event or whatever. That’s a big deal. It’s kind of what they wanted the 3DS game to be, but even that version of the game was neutered compared to it’s same-release Wii U counterpart. Now it’s the best of both worlds, it’s a loving culmination of Smash itself and everything that’s made Smash great up until this point, and I’m crazy stoked for it.

So the Filip stuff is tricky. I haven’t really talked about it too much publicly, but the more comes out about it the more upset I get. To be perfectly honest? Yeah. I’m really pissed about it. But me getting angry helps literally no one. I took English and Journalism class super seriously, going through what little college I did. And I’m sure someone like Greg Miller would say the same being someone who went through actual journalistic training, for more than me, plagiarism is super fucked. And Filip built a career on it.

It makes me lose faith in the system of getting hired at a place like IGN. It helps reinforce those things you hear about folk that are hired out that they are just picking from a very specific pool that meet a specific vision for that place. And that hurts me. Because I would like to think and hope the quality of my work and my worth ETHIC above all and anything else, having done all I have done on a weekly basis for almost a decade would be enough. But clearly it isn’t.

But I’d rather not harp on too much about it. I do believe in good karma, and what goes around comes around, and so I will continue to push my positivity out into the world, and hope it does something good for me.

No, I cannot ride a bike. I know it’s crazy, and I know Jacob Bryant has trouble believing it.

The day I decided was the last day I’d try and learn how to ride a bike was the summer when I was maybe six or seven. At the house I grew up in there was this hill near the opening of our drive way. I took the training wheels of my Bike and went to the top of the hill. I said “this is the day. Make or break,” and I got my legs up on the Bike. I was either going to ride down that hill and keep riding, or fail and fall over and give up on riding a Bike for the rest of my life.

I pulled my legs up and....

Well, I immediately fell to the right and scraped up my knee and leg. I didn't even make it down the hill a little bit. I started quietly crying to myself, because I was like, six, took my Bike, put it in the garage, and went inside to play video games.

That was the last time I ever rode a bike.

Listen, so many folks have been coming to me saying how Video Game Book Club took inspiration from their show or whatever JON. One, it wasn’t even my idea. I did have the idea to split each game into three checkpoints.

But my MAIN INSPIRATION for the show was actually Rebel FM’s book club. The only one I heard them do was Dead Space 2, a phenomenal game. I know a lot of video game book clubs exist though, and for example Mike’s big inspiration for his ideas in the club was the GameInformer Book Club. Basically, no one is original.

I have a ton of stuff on Audible that I need to finish listening to. I do not read at all, because I’m awful, so I just listen to books. A couple I really adored and finished earlier this year were the King Killer Chronicles books. The first two in the trilogy are out, and hopefully the third will come out sometime ever in my life. They’re by Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man’s Fear. Super good. Amazing world building and a huge focus on currency, which I really liked.

I really want to finish Ready Player One, I got about two thirds into it and really liked it. I also grabbed Altered Carbon, the Dark Tower 1, and You’re Never Weird on the Internet, Felicia Day’s autobiography. Those are the ones on my shelf right now.

I’ve been following some of the Tweets. I love it. I’m also going through them again with the Three Best Friends Podcast folks in a Limited Run series they’re doing, featuring: me! All about Kingdom Hearts. The first two episodes should be out now, and they’re crazy fun.

Of those three, I think Birth By Sleep is the clear winner, and it’s really because it is the only “complete game” out of the three. What I mean is there isn’t kind of, revisiting or rehashing in it. 358/2 and Chain of Memories both rely so heavily on the Kingdom Hearts 1 worlds, especially Chain of Memories, while introducing their own stories that are both very good I think, Chain of Memories being the far, far, far better one for me personally, but the repetition in both still hurts it so much.

Birth By Sleep has the issue of revisiting its OWN bullshit like seven times in that game as you play through all three stories, and that sucks, but at least it isn’t something you’ve seen in a Kingdom Hearts game before. While I think the systems in BBS are rough around the edges, later to be better realized in a KH3D or even Kingdom Hearts 3 itself, the character work in that game makes it special. Terra/Ven/Aqua is a story you are AS invested in, if not more so, than the original Sora/Riku/Kairi story. And so it is this very intimate story for fans of the series I think.

That and playing it is just the best. Especially on PS4 where I recently played it. It just feels better with twin stick controls. It’s crazy grind-y if you’re trying to do everything, sure, but all the games are in their own way in that regard.

It’s funny how mechanically KH3D is the best of the handheld attempts at side stories, but it muddles the story the most. It’s a double edged sword, where they kept going until they got it right, and in a way they did irreparable damage to the story along the way because of it.

I really don’t know. I know it’s dumb and little but I’d really love to hit 1000 subscribers on YouTube. Super inspired by the work the OKBeast folks have done with their channel, and basically Mike Burgess has single-handedly turned our YouTube output up a notch. But not just him, he has got Jurge doing video reviews too, and with Scott White’s video talents finally being shown in Book Club, they’re got me inspired to get more work up there again too. It helps especially knowing it’s not just me.

But the big long team goal is outside fo 2018, which is to go to E3 as a team in 2019. That’s the big goal.

Downloading it to my Xbox One now. Hit me up. We’ll play.

That’s the end. That’s it. That’s all she wrote. And by she I mean me, in this case. I’m excited about the future of IP, I’m excited about the stuff we are doing, that I am doing, and while it’s a ton of work and a lot of stress, it’s the stuff I live for. It’s very rewarding hugely in part to the team that is doing it and how we are working together. Stick with us, and I promise we won’t let you down. Please god hopefully, at least.

Do me a favor until then.

keep it real.

#video games #gaming #kingdom hearts #questions #Alex o'neill #sunday chats #sundaychats

[missoneminute]

Evening with Carlos as requested - with some extra bits added as promised. 

Long post. This is being posted as a personal post. Do not reblog. After cut. 

Right at this point the shows are a blur but will write up some recollections on the plane home cos I know all y’all wanna know is about Carlos ha. So, myself and two lovely girls I met in Sydney, saw in Melbourne and tagged along with in Brisbane, went to Gary’s DJ set after the show. I spotted Carl at the doorway of the backstage area and the girls went down to say goodnight. Carl invited them in and they came and grabbed me to follow them and the door slammed and suddenly I’m standing on the balcony of the pub in the private artist’s area. Bit of a down the rabbit hole moment. Carl was in the doorway and I said “Hello again!” And he said a genuinely warm, “Heyyy! Hello you” and gave me a big hug because he’s the greatest.

Then we were just standing out there smoking with him, drinking his bloody complimentary Kraken. Was doing his brilliant Aussie accent again which I complimented him on. He started up on Neighbours again and I told him there was a video of his conspiracy theory rant and he said a quite genuine, “Is it embarrassing?” I said no it’s really entertaining. He asked two more times over the course of the night if it was embarrassing, and kept being assured it was not ha. I said he just said “Mrs Mangle” a lot and he said “yes! Mrs Mangle!” So glad I heard that in person. He declined to see the video ha.

He also likes Home and Away and was interested in my stories of being an extra on that show as a teen ha. He showed us on his phone a personal video message sent to him by the actress who played Sally that was organised for him because he’s a Home and Away fan. His phone was smaaashed. I asked if she liked the band and he said “No she hates us”. Which was funny.

He also rather enjoyed Scott and Charlene’s wedding from Neighbours and I was treated to him belting out a bit of the Angry Anderson song “Suddenly” (that was played during their wedding episode) in my face ha. He says he no longer watches Neighbours and the new episodes are crap.

I asked about the album and hotel, and he said they’re recording in about a month and should have a show at Albion rooms August or September but it’s likely the surprise show variety. We asked about how he liked Australia and he said he loved it, liked Melbourne best, but missed his kids and was keen to go home. He dug a bunch of picks out of his pocket and gave me one of his and two of Peter’s.

One of the girls said she loved Pete and he said “I love Pete too” which was lovely. She also said she was worried about Peter and Carl said, “Why does no one worry about me!” I said, “I did between 2004 and about 2007 if it makes you feel any better” and he said, “I’ll take it!”

Honestly can’t recall much else we all spoke about but then it was time to go and one of the girls asked if we could come along and Gary said it was fine with him so we just loaded into their van. It was pretty surreal just crossing the bridge with the warm breeze coming in the windows and Carl sitting in front of us talking about how Charlie Chaplain’s Smile was the best song ever written. One of the girls said CSMN was her second favourite Libs song and he asked, “What’s your second favourite soup?”

As we got out of the van he started taking about the Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan duet “Especially for you” also from Neighbours haha and sang a bit of the chorus as he pulled the chairs down in the van for us to climb out of the back.

Then we arrived at the hotel which was on the water, amazing view of a massive Ferris wheel, and suddenly strolling through the lobby behind Carl (what is life) and went up to Gary’s room. Such an amazing view over the river which Carl was envious of heh. Sat out on the balcony, Gary got drinks for us all, and just … chatted. Typical end of night stuff.

Carl was saying John has this game running where he tries to come up with really creative names for wanking, like “skinning a sausage” and whatnot. He also said that John used to be … quite the ladies man but he certainly didn’t put it as tamely as that haha. Gary had music on and Can’t Stand Me Now came on his mix and he was kind of flustered that he had it on there ha.

We ended up talking about #metoo and both Carl and Gary had thoughts on it. It became this discussion about feminism and what it’s become these days and the ramifications of that. That went on a bit and it was really cool to have that talk with them. There was a fair bit of talk about America and racism and Trump as well. Then Carl did this joke which went, “The Canberra national library burned down. Two books were destroyed. One of them was a colouring book”. No one got it so he did it again this time in an accent and still it took us a while haha, amazing.

Earlier one of the girls asked me what I do for a job and I said I edit this quasi feminist website and Carl said, “Is it Gusher?” Haha. He also complained (twice) that Peter’s dogs have run of the hotel and were pooping everywhere. He has a sore arm from playing he said and was rubbing it a bunch. He was worried he’d done a bad job on Can’t Stand Me Now (he didn’t) and said he feels like he’s trying to be cool and collected on stage but turns into Mr Bean, ha. He compared himself to Mr Bean multiple times. Also not true.

I told him about the Royal Albion seafront hotel in Brighton being the original Albion rooms and he said he didn’t know that but had stayed there in the 90s which is so cool. Carl also said he once made Russell Brand really mad because he put shaving foam in his hair haha. Other than that it was just chatter, I can’t recall much else! Honestly at that point me who never drinks was properly pissed.

Carl got super tried (he’d barely slept since Melbourne and missed his plane into Brisbane he said) and said he was off to bed, then gave us all a hug goodnight. We all cleared out after a chat to Gary. He was so lovely and said he never calls us fans, it’s friends of the band, and it means a lot to them to see the same people at shows all the time then gave us all a hug.

We left as the sun was rising and that was that and it was just, a super great way to end such an incredible week. Of course I was kicking myself for the 80 things I wanted to ask but you never do in the moment do you. But those two are some of the best humans on earth.

As promised, a few extra Carl things from Brisbane:

The lovely lass who was with me that evening reminded me that at the hotel, Carl mentioned he’d like to get Dirty Pretty Things back together for a tour, this year possibly. I was out of earshot getting a sneaky photo during this exchange!

Peter’s diaries came up on the balcony and I said I found them at times indecipherable to read. Carl said, “They’re a bit... yeah” and trailed off and made a slightly strained face. No idea why, but it was amusing and interesting.

Also on the balcony, we briefly discussed Carl’s book. He said he’d genuinely sat down and written it on his own. We all encouraged him to write more, but he said he struggles with procrastinating. Then the subject of the stories he’d told about Peter in his book came up, and he said, “I was very bloody kind to him!” and he laughed in a very bemused fashion, eyes all sparkly. 

At one point one of the lovely girls with me said she used to worry a lot about Peter. “You did!” he answered implying he worried more. This led into the complaint that no one worries about him, naw, that I mentioned earlier. 

I’ll make quick mention of something I won’t go into detail on, but when the issue of our various mental health quirks came up, Carl did say some very candid and honest things about his own mental health, and how he deals with it in various ways, which was a very cool thing for him to share. 

At the hotel, the lovely lass who was with me reminded me that Carl had said Russell Brand’s mind moves “a million miles an hour” and he related to that because his does too.

That led me to recall that Carl made colourful mention of the large bosoms attached to Russell’s then-girlfriend.

Carl also said John’s wife handles all his social media. “You’ll never get to John” he said, and both he and Gary laughed heartily.

I didn’t initially mention this but Carl went to bed after looking at his phone and saying, “My missus is livid” haha and he scooted off post haste. He was slumping down in his chair getting progressively more exhausted at that point.

Bonus round: The lovely lass with me that night reminded me that Gary called the playlist which included Can’t Stand Me Now his “SOS playlist of shame”.

#personal

[ironinkpen]

The Secret of the White Lion

Alternatively Titled: Local Girl Ignores Responsibilities in Favor of Overanalyzing Children’s TV Show

Alright so ever since we were shown this mural, which depicts Voltron fully assembled and a lion off to the side, some people have started discussing the possibility of there being a sixth lion. And since I have nothing better to do with my time (besides my midterms next week whaaaat), I thought I’d try to answer the question: if there is a White Lion, who would pilot it?

Now I don’t want to get too into the whole idea of “how likely is it that this is going to happen” because like? That’s hard to tell. But, I’d say that it at least makes narrative sense for there to be a sixth lion.

What Alfor faces throughout Zarkon’s fall is the very real possibility that the leader of their magic robot lion fighting team could easily end up crossing some sort of line and going too far. Alfor begins to doubt Zarkon’s leadership, and has several arguments with him about his judgment and his and Honerva’s hunger for power. It’s not that big a stretch for Alfor to go from “this dude could try to use Voltron for evil / go rogue / etc.” to “I need to have a back up in case he pulls some shit.”

And a hypothetical sixth lion could logically be that back up. If Alfor built one, the idea was probably for the lion to either be an alternative head for Voltron or just an alternative lion in general, in case any of the other lions were unavailable, so that they could still create Voltron even if someone went missing / ran off / turned evil. 

And there’s a pre-existing precedent for a physical white lion, too:

In one of the Voltron spinoffs / AUs / whatever (I’ll be real, I only know as much as the wiki page tells me lmao), there’s a White Lion, whose location is only known by Alfor. Alfor leads some guy named Rick Hunter to the lion and he becomes its pilot. 

And of course, in OG Voltron, there’s an episode titled “Secret of the White Lion” where Haggar makes a mirage of an actual white lion (ie not a robotic lion like the voltron lions), and sends it to Allura, who thinks it’s a reincarnation of her dad, to try and kill her or whatever. 

So the idea of a White Lion in our Voltron wouldn’t be completely out of the blue, and would solve the problem that Lance expresses in season 3: there’s six pilots and five lions, so who should be on the bench?

With a White Lion, the answer would be “no one.” But then the question becomes: who would be its pilot? And as far as I can tell, the answer is either Shiro, Allura, or Lance.

Alright, so I maintain that the Shiro that’s with the team right now is actually a clone, but, let’s say that he’s real. Or, rather, let’s say that when real Shiro comes back, Black still chooses Keith or someone else as the Black Paladin. Shiro could, in that case, fit the role of the White Lion’s paladin.

In OG Voltron (or, at least, the English dub, which combined Shiro with his twin brother), Shiro left Team Voltron and worked with the resistance, coming back in a final whammy against Lotor. While I do think that Resistance!Shiro is a completely interesting concept on its own, having Shiro be in the White Lion would allow him to not only be a fighting force for the resistance, but also be able to go back and forth between it and the team more easily, so we wouldn’t have to lose Shiro from the team dynamic. 

Having Shiro be in a lion separate from the main team would also allow more room to explore his lost memories and what happened to him during his year in captivity– he would have more mobility, and still be able to hold his own in battle, making it actually possible for him to run off on solo “let’s discover my past” adventures. And, given the original Voltron’s precedent for having Shiro outside of the main cinco, this would make sense.

Allura is another possibility for the White Lion’s paladin. One of the most compelling pieces of support in her favor is that the white lion story in OG Voltron was all about her. Her discovering the White Lion, her father’s final legacy, would be an interesting plot line. And I dunno, there's this sense that Allura has this unique place in the group that's almost separate or above Voltron itself-- giving her the White Lion would allow her to act independently but also continue to be a paladin (which is a role I love her in ahhh). She could lead without being in Black in that case, and I honestly think the mobility of being able to operate outside the main group suits her? One of my favorite scenes in season 2 was when the castle shorted out and she and the Blade ran off to fight Haggar.

On another note, having her in White and Alfor being its creator is in tune with something the cast said about why they “killed off” of the Alfor AI: he basically knew too much. What did he know? Well, maybe the existence and location of a White Lion, which his daughter would be the perfect fit for?

There’s also another neat theory that the castle could be the white lion. And think about it: only Allura can pilot it to its full potential, it’s linked to her quintessence, and is shown to have a mind of its own to an extent (seen when it actively tries to kill Lance and Keith during the Crystal Venom episode, showing an ability to reason to some extent). And, speaking of the Crystal Venom episode, it seems to mirror the events of the original “Secret of the White Lion” episode, where Allura is tricked by something she thinks is her father (in this case an AI) and almost gets killed.

Also, when Allura moves to Blue, she complains about how Blue’s controls are different from the castle’s in a similar way to how Lance complains about Red’s being different from Blue’s. The castle seems to operate pretty similarly to the lions. Coran mentioned that his grandpa built the castle but I don’t recall ever getting the exact timeline of when he finished. I don’t know, maybe Alfor could have jumped in and asked to add some aspects of the comet to it? It’s probably not all that likely lmao, but wouldn’t it be super fucking cool if the castle suddenly transformed into a magic fighting robot?

Anywhom, last possible pilot:

Lance has expressed on multiple occasions a sense of being a “seventh wheel,” or kind of separate from the team. In this scene, when talking to Keith about the whole five lions, six paladins situation, he puts up six fingers and, when he’s done, singles himself out as the one separate from the five others. And, interestingly:

The hypothetical White Lion is pictured as separate from the others as well. 

Lance seems to view Allura as Blue’s true paladin and Keith as Red’s, so he sees himself as not having a real place with the current lions. But, maybe that’s because he hasn’t found his real lion yet? 

(On that note (and this is sort of a tangent but still neat): look at the team’s color coding! Everyone else is color coded to their lions (Pidge wears a green shirt, Hunk wears a yellow shirt, Keith wears a red jacket and a black shirt, Allura’s outfit is Blue, and Shiro’s is Black) but Lance is color coded white)

Plus, if I’m right about the White Lion being an alternate head of Voltron / alternate lion in general, placing Lance in that position makes sense. The crew of the show has said before that Lance’s thing is filling spots that need filling. And, since he and Keith (if Keith is still Black Paladin after Shiro’s return) are something of a dynamic duo, having them being able to swap places would be a really interesting dynamic (and fucking hilarious).

Also, Rick Hunter, the pilot of the White Lion in the comic I mentioned earlier, seems to be a pretty similar character to Lance? Wiki says: “As a young man, Rick was good-natured, although he could be disrespectful at times… Throughout the course of the First Robotech War he went from being a relative pacifist into a full-fledged soldier, becoming a deadly ace who even the Zentraedi feared.” Good-natured, sometimes disrespectful, deadly ace… It’s food for thought.

I’d also say there’s something of a chance that Keith could be the White Paladin? I don’t have too much support for the theory yet, but his whole view of himself as the “loner” and the hanging plot line of his mother and his mysterious past would make him well-suited for the White Lion’s mobility.

Anyway, as with all of my metas this is Getting Too Long and doesn’t make sense lmao (sorry I just wanted to scribble this down before s4), so I’ll cut it off here. My point is that while I have no idea how likely it is that a White Lion exists (though again, I think it’s narratively possible and maybe even narratively probable), you could squeeze an interesting arc out of any of these possible pilots. Plus, having the White Lion (if it is an alternate lion) around would allow for a lot of mobility and give everyone possibilities for cool solo adventures that I think would be fun.

#voltron #voltron meta #whoop #anyway this would be neat