#my only enemy are people who think cas is straight lol

[themonkeycabal]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Episode 1 SPOILERS

If you need to blacklist, I will be tagging all things as #tfatws and/or #tfatws spoilers

My roommate keeps calling this The Falcon and the Snowman. I'm not entirely sure it's accidental.

I was going to watch at midnight and then fell asleep. Betrayal. I will not forgive this, brain.

Bucky Barnes character development. Sam Wilson character development. Six full episodes of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. When we watched Civil War, did we think we'd actually be lucky enough to get a buddy idiot cop movie? Let alone six hours of it? #blessed

What are we expecting here? I have no idea, honestly. I think all the clips we've been seeing are from the first couple episodes, so they've hidden any sort of plot from us. We know Baron Zemo's around with his stupid purple ski mask and burning hatred for superheroes and probably specifically for Bucky who he tried (and honestly kind of succeeded, before then ultimately failing dramatically) to set up. And Sharon Carter will turn up at some point. OMG guys, Sharon Carter character development!

I'm just here for the buddy bickering and badassery.

SPOILERS BELOW

New World Order: Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes realize that their futures are anything but normal. *Realize*? lol

Also, it's tagged as "science fiction, action-adventure, buddy" Awww.

Aww, Sam looks sad as he gazes at The Shield.

"How's it feel?" "Like it's someone else's." "It isn't."

That's right, Sam! Listen to that voice. That's yours now, baby.

We're just going to roll right into a mission. Rescuing a Captain Vassant, whose plane fell out of contact shortly after take off, from the ridiculously named group LAF, somewhere over Tunisia. Sam's got to keep LAF from doing bad things and the US Military can't be seen doing anything blah blah blah, violation of treaties, yada yada. And Sam's all "blah blah got it". We're on the same page, Sam and me. Nobody wants to hear it, Briefing Exposition Guy.

We will have a Lt. Torres on the ground following along and offering helpful commentary as they go.

Sam is warned to be subtle as he falls backwards out of the cargo plane in very dramatic fashion and then swoops off on his brightly colored wings. lol

Sam gets to the captain's plane but the pilot is dead and a shady LAF guy is piloting. Oh no. Hey, it's Batroc. Last seen getting his ass kicked by Captain America in "CA: The Winter Soldier". He makes some jokes about their prisoner - presumably Captain Vassant. Awful cocky for a guy with a history of getting stomped on, you know.

Anyway, he's about to get his ass kicked by a Captain America again as Sam breaks into the plane. You might just be using wing shields now, Sam, but you're Captain America in my heart. Also, hey, dumb bad guys, don't open fire with an automatic weapon inside a plane or the ricochets might kill your pilot. And his body will slump forward and put the plane into a steep dive.

Batroc distracts Sam while the bad guys gather up Vassant and jump out of the plane with him. They have wingsuits, but Sam has, you know, wings. And like a jet pack. Don't hit the canyon walls, Sam!

Somehow the bad guys have waiting gunships. Did they expect to jump out of the plane over this canyon? I can only assume. Red Wing takes care of one of the helicopters. Man these guys are a pain in the ass. They wing suit into one of the many many helicopters that just happen to be right in the right spot. They're racing for the Libyan border. Then Sam shows up, they throw Vassant out the copter again — this guy is having the worst day — and glide into another chopper.

Man ANOTHER gunship? The hell? They're causing serious ecological damage to this canyon, what with all the zillionty missiles they're firing at Sam. How strapped is this thing?

LT Torres is trying to keep up, and you know, trying to get Sam to not fly into Libyan territory and cause an international incident or some such. Sam is struck by inspiration and not by a missile. But, the missiles are following Sam and Sam is following Batroc's chopper. Sam zooms through the open doors of the chopper, knocks poor Vassant out of the chopper AGAIN (but then catches him), and LAF blows up their own helicopter. Alas, Batroc escaped.

Sam saves the day and LT Torres is like super excited. Don't break your humvee, Torres.

Torres and Sam stop by a tea shop in Tunis, or somewhere. Sam's trying to fix his tech that got a little shot up and Torres buys the tea. A man comes up and thanks Sam for saving his wife. It's sweet. And then Torres gets up and wanders about a bit with his phone as he exposits about LAF. Is Torres about to become a pin cushion? Only instead of pins it'll be bullets? I'm not feeling good about his continued health. He's too cute and earnest.

Oh, he's looking for some sort of hidden, augmented reality tag on the walls. A red handprint, id'ing some group that calls themselves the Flag Smashers. Bad guys are really scraping the bottom of the evil name barrel. Anyway, they think the world was better during the blip. Nothing says better like mass failure of infrastructure and probably world wide famine. They want a unified world without borders. I have big doubts the world would be a borderless utopia during a blip-like event. Power vacuums invite trouble, seldom unity.

Anyhoo. Sam kind of agrees with me, "every time something gets better for one group, it gets worse for another".

Torres will track the 'online chatter'. But he's also heard some wacky things about Steve Rogers, conspiracy theory stuff, "they think that he's in a secret base on the moon, looking down over us". LOL. What? Is Steve a moon angel now? or Santa Claus? "You didn't like fly him to the moon?" Sam assures him that's all very much silly foolishness. Steve's in Boca working on his tan.

Sam's back in D.C. giving a talk about Steve at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space museum. "And he mastered posing stoically". Hey, I have that picture. Also, RHODEY! Hi Rhodey!

"A few months ago, billions of people reappeared after 5 years away. Sending the world into turmoil." Again. I know this was meant to come out before WandaVision, but timeline-wise this works better.

"We need new heroes. Ones suited for the times we're in. Symbols are nothing without the women and men that give them meaning." Sam holds up The Shield. "I don't know if there's been a greater symbol." Aww, he's retiring the shield. He hands it off to museum people and they put it in a display case. I think Rhodey has some thoughts about this. I suspect Rhodey maybe doesn't agree.

Sam and Rhodey wander through the Cap exhibit and Sam's talking about how when he left (or got snapped, it's not like you had a choice about that, Sam), his nephews were babies and now they're little men. Awww. Rhodey says Sam should bring them to D.C., he'll teach them how to fly, "the right way". lol.

Rhodey says it's crazy to think nobody will be carrying the shield. Sam points out they went 70 years without, so like …

Rhodey wants to know why Sam didn't take up the mantle. BTW, this is a cool exhibit, marvel peeps. Sam says it feels like it belongs to someone else … Steve. Rhodey says everything's broken. Allies are enemies, things are torn apart. People are looking for somebody to make it better. Having made his pitch, Rhodey leaves Sam to stare mournfully at the shield. I think you're afraid to pick up the shield, Sam. Afraid you won't measure up. But, you can do it. I have faith. Also, Steve was kind of a disaster in his own way. He wasn't perfect, which was the point of Steve as a hero. Pick up the shield, Sam.

A fancy hotel, chatting people in the lobby, up to a mezzanine, a group of very Russian oligarch looking dudes and their security. And lo! A metal arm punches through a wall and the Winter Soldier, looking very Winter Soldiery appears and stabs some dudes in the neck. This has a sepia, dream/nightmareness to it. Oh yeah, it's his old shiny silver arm. Totally a nightmare/very bad memory. "Hail Hydra" and he kills the head Russian guy. The poor dude who was just chatting in the lobby is caught trying to get into his door. He swears he didn't see anything, begs for his life and the Winter Soldier shoots him. Bucky wakes up, breathing heavily. Poor Bucky.

Glad he's in therapy. I'm sure goat herding in Wakanda was good and peaceful and all, but, goats will only get you so far. Also glad we've skipped the "wanted terrorist" part and gone on to traumatized hero.

I get the feeling he's not the best patient. He lies to his therapist straight off. Twice. lol. "You're a civilian now. With your history the government needs to know, you're not gonna … [therapist makes stabby motion]." lol (I love this actress by the way. She's been in everything for ages. She's great). "It's a condition of your pardon. So tell me about your most recent nightmare." "I didn't have a nightmare." She starts writing, Bucky objects and tells her she's being passive-aggressive, but he gives in.  

He has a list of amends to make and three rules to follow. He crossed a name off. There's a Hydra pawn who's a senator, he helped her get into office. "After Hydra disbanded, she continued to use the power I gave her." Hmm. He tracks her car and listens in on her plotting to have a congressman killed.

* Rule number one: Can't do anything illegal.

He's hijacked the Senator's car and is remote controlling it, making it drive all out of control and freaking her out. He says he was collecting intel to give to an aide to convict her. Absolutely only did that. Not one illegal thing about that at all, no ma'am.

"Rule number two?" "Hmm. What was rule number two?" "Nobody gets hurt. It's a big one." "Then why isn't it rule number one?" Oh, Bucky, you're a jackass.

* Rule number two: Nobody gets hurt.

"I didn't hurt anybody. Promise." He totally broke a dude's hand and then punched him in the face, knocking him out. I mean, there's levels of 'hurt' I suppose.

"The whole point of making amends is to fulfill rule number three." "Of course I completed rule number three."

* Rule number three: "I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James 'Bucky' Barnes. And you're part of my efforts to make amends." He says to the corrupt senator he's just been terrifying. And then he walks away as a tac team pulls up. lol.

What I'm getting from this therapy session is that Bucky is a big fat fibber.

Also he's got a little black book full of names. Including, I see, H. Zemo. That's not going to go as smoothly as taking down a shady government fatcat, I think.

"So you did it all right, but it didn't help with the nightmares?" "Well, like I said, I didn't have any." Fibber.

People wanna help you Bucky and you can trust them. "I trust people," he mutters grumpily. She asks for his phone and he hands it over. Look, lady! Trust! Probably government mandated trust, but still!

"You don't have ten phone numbers on this thing." … I don't have ten phone numbers on my phone. :( "Oh, and you've been ignoring texts from Sam." Well …

"I am the only person you have called all week. That is so sad." lol. Tough love from the therapist. I'm feeling a little judged myself, though. "You're alone." ALRIGHT DON'T RUB IT IN!

"You're a hundred years old. You have no history. No family—" "Are you lashing out at me, doc? Because that's really unprofessional." I love you Bucky, but you are a disaster patient.

Bucky relents. "I'm trying. This is new for me. I didn't have a moment to deal with anything. I had a little calm in Wakanda. And other than that, I just went from one fight to another for 90 years." Get this man a goat farm!

"So now that you've stopped fighting, what do you want?" "Peace." A goat farm. "That is utter bullshit." lol "You're a terrible shrink." "I was an excellent soldier, so I saw a lot of dead bodies and I know how that can shut you down. And if you are alone, that is the quietest, most personal hell." Get some friends, Bucky. "I know you've been through a lot. But, you've got your mind back. You're being pardoned. These are good things. You're free." "To do what?"

On the streets of Brooklyn. Bucky breaks up an argument between neighbors about trashcans. Hey, Bucky has a friend! Yori Nakajima who's probably like 80+. Did you babysit him back in the day, Buck? har har. They were going to meet for lunch, but some punk named Unique was putting his trash into Mr. Nakajima's trash can and just derailed the whole day. The horror. No joke, though, people get so nutted up about that. It's weird to me. Of course, I did also have a neighbor who never put out his trash for pickup and just snuck out at night before trash day and distributed his garbage into in other people's bins. Cheapass.

"Hey man, I'm Unique. Like Monique but it's got a 'u' in there for uniqueness." Yeah, you should have let Yori smack him, Buck.

Well now Yori is just not in the mood for lunch. Bucky tries to persuade him, but one grumpy old man out grumps the other. "But Izzy. We always go to Izzy on Wednesday. What if I buy?" "Fine. But no talking." lol. BFFs!

Yori is looking at the obituaries. "Look, nobody made it past 90 this week." Bucky tsks "So young, such a shame."

Bucky kind of smiles at the girl behind the counter at the sushi joint, Yori tells him he should ask her out. Bucky makes a "are you nuts, shut up" face. That doesn't stop Yori. "He would like to take you out on a date. Maybe to bingo or a night of pinochle." You're a wild man, Yori!

She's down by it, though, and she and Yori hammer out the details while Bucky's like uh, okay, so wow, that's happening. "There's a dance to these things. You can't … you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943."

Yori sees something and suddenly gets sad. His son loves red bean mochi. His son was a consultant, working abroad and he was killed. Oh. Oh Bucky, why you gotta … Yori's son was the innocent witness he killed at the hotel in his nightmare/memory. "I will never know what really happened to him." Brutal.

Delacroix, Louisana

Sam's on his way home. Wilson Family Seafood. Aww. His nephews are helping mom with the catch. "Blue for the snapper, orange for the white fish," Sam calls out. The boys run over to him. They do look like fine gentlemen. It's weird, Sam, I get it. I recently realized my oldest nephew will be 13 in May and it's like "no, he's only in kindergarten, what are you talking about?"

His sister greets him then tells him he's looking all sneaky. Sam deflects. Their boat has seen better days. The Paul & Darlene. Aww. Is that his parents names? "Baby being held together by duct tape and prayers." Just needs to float long enough for his sister to sell it. But Sam's all, uh I thought we were going to *discuss* that. Uh oh, family drama. "We did, and then you were off fighting Dr Space Cape or whatever (lol), while I was holding it together for five long years." Ouch.

Sam is not down by this selling the boat thing. His sister doesn't seem to think they're in a position to hold on to it. Also, she'd really like to not hash this out on the pier with like twenty other people around, Sam.

They get into more of an argument on the boat. The family biz is not doing well financially. Sarah won't let Sam help for some reason, and he makes some comment about the house and loans and she punches him in the chest. lol "I forgot how hard you hit."

Sam insists they can turn it around, consolidate loans. And she's all, been there done that, I've come to terms with this. He's a persistent little jerk. This is such a perfectly sibling argument. Notably he has moved himself out of punching range.

Aww, she wants to believe he can save the boat, but she has DOUBTS.

Back in Brooklyn. Bucky attempts his date. He turns up at the end of the sushi girl's shift and gives her flowers. "Well, if that's not the most adorably old-fashioned thing anyone's ever done."

They chat while she tidies. He tried online dating oh lol. It didn't take. She tells him "You sound like my dad. Wait how old are you?" "Hundred and six." Oh yeah, what a funny joke. Next she wants to know why he's wearing gloves. "I have … um … poor circulation." He grimaces at himself and glances out the window. Smooth as silk, Bucky. Smoooooth.

"Let's play a game." Now, I'm thinking like some weird dating word/get-to-know-each-other game or something. I don't know. But, nope, she means Battleship. lol. I like her.

The drinking game version of battleship. Bucky sucks at it. "You sure can drink." "Yeah, well." Super assassin, unfair advantage.

We're just going to rub in this whole The Winter Soldier killed Yori's son thing, as she says it's nice that he's spending time with the old man. Since he was all messed up after his son was murdered and how it was extra hard because he didn't know what happened. I'm not sure this is healthy, Bucky.

"There's no word for someone whose kids die." Okay, ouch, lady, jeez. Bucky looks like he wants to puke. Or crawl into a deep dark hole. Or something. "Because it's the worst thing that can happen." Bucky nopes right out the front door. So, maybe they should have played pinochle instead.

Bucky goes to Yori. Are you really going to tell this man you murdered his son when you were a brain-washed Hydra assassin? Yori asks how the date was, and Bucky sees a shrine to the man's son in the apartment. Poor Bucky. He makes some excuse about owing Yori for lunch and leaves. Yori's name is in his book of amends. :(

Back in Louisiana. Sam and the kids are packing up meals. His sister maybe wants to sell meals in addition to fish. Sam says they've got to get going to their appointment at the bank. She's says it's in an hour. Sam must be just the worst brother to live with "There's no such thing as on time. You're either early or late. Pick one." Man, no wonder he gets punched.

Switzerland

Lt Torres is walking down a street with an unusually large number of people just sort of milling around in the middle of the street looking at their phones. He's got his kind of hidden, recording. He stops a guy and asks if he knows what they're supposed to be doing. Oh it's the flag munchers, or whatever. There's a weird phony bird whistle and then people gather around a person handing out masks with red handprints on them. His decoy bad guy phone chirps and gives the order to run. A guy jumps out of a nearby building with two huge duffle bags (of money it seems) and walks off while the previously milling people become a seemingly panicked mob, distracting police and whatnot.

Torres tries to arrest the jumper guy, who appears to have some super strength as he kicks a policeman halfway across the street. Torres, you're cute, but not super bright. Torres gets body slammed and then stomped. He survives again, however, defying the odds.

At the bank. The account manager keeps giving Sam the side-eye as he goes through their paperwork. "Do I know you from somewhere." Sam's all modest, "I don't know. Do you?" And then he makes a little wing flappy move with his hands. lol. What a nerd. "Falcon!" Then he takes a selfie with Sam. Sarah is very done with all this. She tries to get them back on track. Account guy wants to know how Avengers make a living. Probably not looking good for your loan, Sam.

"Is there some kind of fund for heroes? Or did Stark pay you when he was around? My condolences, by the way."

Yeah, financially this is looking bad, my dude. "You have no income over the last five years." Well, but, he was blipped. I mean …

Alas, shot down for the loan.

Sam and Sarah argue on the street. Ah, Sam ran off to the Air Force and didn't deal with what was going on at home. Oh my, this is getting ugly. Speaking as someone who got disowned on account of a family business, let me just say, they're not easy. Nuh-uh.

"Half the boat's mine and so is the house. We're not selling our family's legacy." "You gonna do me like what when you know I'm right?"

I get it might be awkward to ask, but I bet you could have asked Pepper for a loan, Sam, and she would have given it to you gladly. Come on, man.

Later. Sam's working on the boat's engine, and it's not cooperating. In the cabin he looks at the family pictures on all the walls. He's having a rough day. About as rough as Torres who texts him to find a secure line and call him along with a selfie of his bruised and battered face. #important (lol, really?)

Sam watches the footage Torres caught and they chat about how Torres was supposed to be doing that stuff online and not getting his face kicked in in Switzerland.

Sarah interrupts and turns on the TV. Some guy is giving a speech about how everybody needs a hero. "We need someone who can inspire us again. Someone who can be a symbol for all of us. So on behalf of the Department of Defense and our Commander-in-Chief, it is with great honor that we announce here today that the United States of America has a new hero." hmm, no comment. Except, you should have taken up the shield, Sam. Now it's Sam's turn to look like he's going to puke. What did I say about power vacuums? Somebody will fill them, whether you want them to or not. 

This new guy looks like a goober. There, I said it.

credits

So … lots of setup. And very clear on the two guys trying to figure out where they fit in this world post blip and big wars. Both of them trying to fix broken families.

Plus a goober in a Cap suit.

So far so good. 

#tfatws #tfatws spoilers #the falcon and the winter soldier #the falcon and the winter soldier spoilers

[dotthings]

Heavily cluttered, as many Bucklemming eps are, but worth the trip. There was a lot of goodness in 15.08 and there were two moments where I shrieked out loud.

My two out loud-shriek moments, let’s get that out of the way: 

Queen Rowena. Caaaaalled it.

Dean and Cas are going back??? To???? Purgatory???? Together?????? And Bobo???? Is???? Writing the episode???????????? *SHRIEKING AND FLAILING*

Okay more orderly and sedate now. Eileen is so damn fierce. She’s a very physical fighter, she’s smart but seems to use a blunt fighting skill. She can punch HARD. I love watching that so so much. I would enjoy female characters on SPN like this regardless, but the fact that this is a hero character with a disability and it’s never a big deal is deeply refreshing and SPN did something really really right bringing her back, amen.

Protective Sam shows up and Eileen is happy to see him but literally pushes him aside so she can make the kill. She doesn’t need his protection, but she also values him as a hunting partner as the ep shows. Also they’re trying to build a relationship here. Eileen seems used to hunting solo and Sam wants to offer backup, and he got worried. 

So the plan is to lock up Chuck like Chuck locked up Amara. The sweet irony of this delights me. He tried to shut away the divine feminine rather than actually stepping up to deal with his sister as, well, a person (well, a divine deity, but still, a being with feelings and thoughts and complexities). Chuck, the arrogant and narcissistic toxic masculinity God, maybe to be locked up now instead as his hubris and his lack of empathy and his petulance is exposed. What if Amara was the more competent deity all along? 

There is no way Dean doesn’t know what an Achilles’ heel is. The random WTF of this is so much it’s not even angering it’s just so bizarre. LOL what even. Look I am really enjoying S15 but I hope the butterfly net tightens on stopping this kind of thing because honestly. I’ll just pretend that scene isn’t there. Luckily I enjoyed the episode overall a lot.

Team Free Will in research mode together in the bunker just really makes me happy. Cas is where he belongs.

Donatello!Chuck threatening Jody, Donna, Eileen, “pretty much everyone on your speed dial” as a deterrent to Sam and Dean is bearing out again my impressions of how Chuck views these characters. I’m still not 100% sure what he thinks of Cas who is right in the room but Chuck doesn’t seem to acknowledge him, except as some sort of right arm to Sam and Dean, as I’ve said in other posts, I think Chuck regards him as a nuisance now, and a deterrent to his miserable endings, and a pawn. Just like Donna, Jody, and Eileen, to him, they’re just pawns. They’re all people Sam and Dean care about, and Chuck will use them to keep his two favorites in line.

See what I did there?

Yeah. Chuck doesn’t care about the characters as people. Everyone except Sam and Dean are expendable and tools to be used so he can control Sam and Dean and that’s it. He’ll destroy them with a snap of his fingers and won’t care. Look at that. Familiar attitude, isn’t it. How interesting.

“If you want to stay here, stay here.” Dean’s gone back to not!listening to Cas I see. While Cas is Dean-avoidant and trying not to look at him throughout the episode. But both of them are thawing just a little.

Like when Cas heals Dean’s cut palm and the way it’s staged looks like he’s going to take Dean’s hand to do it which I don’t think is an accident. That moment was meant to be soft.  Dean didn’t ask. Cas offered. And Dean didn’t jerk his hand away or say no. Then there’s the fact that Cas is going to go with Sam and Dean into Hell despite all his misgivings about Michael and this entire plan. 

Team Free Will, getting all researchy together, and then getting all BAMFY together with their angel blades going into Hell.

We didn’t get any kind of nod back to Dean and Cas’s last visit together to Hell and that’s the second time they have been back to Hell (well the last time was some sort of Hell ante-room, the cage was brought up iirc) and SPN failed to nod to it, WHY AM I CONTINUALLY DENIED THIS.

“Hello, boys.” There it is. My actual shriek of delight. I hope it didn’t alarm the neighbors.

“I took it.”  Yes you did, my red-headed goddess queen of the underworld. You sure did. GET IT ROWENA. Rowena won the game of thrones. Boom.

She’s a little flirty with Sam, still has a soft spot for him I think. 

And then starts playing marriage counselor for Dean and Cas. “What am I picking up with you two? A wee tiff?....So fix it.” Someone called this, I’m fairly certain, that if Rowena saw Dean and Cas again during their divorce she’d size that situation up and down and comment on it. FIX IT. So say we all.

“Family sucks.” Jake Abel did such a fantastic job in this. tbh I didn’t give much thought to Adam all these years, it seemed like SPN was never going back there. I liked Jake’s performances in S5, but it just seemed like a story that was over. But Jake Abel, man. He comes back after all this time and owns the dual roles and made me care. With a performance that was alternately fearsome and vulnerable. 

“That’s adorable.” Dean is SO happy about Sam and Eileen, he looked so soft, and still a bit not okay because his chosen other half is barely looking at him, but mostly Dean’s rooting for Sam to have some happiness. “If it was to work, she gets it, she gets us, she gets the life.” It’s a retreated on Sam’s speech back during “Baby” about someone...something...who understands the life. And Sam has found that with Eileen.

Meanwhile Cas is right there, with Dean, with this great big chasm still open between them but...he’s there. And all the arrows point towards him for Dean. 

Dean and Cas are being magnets again. Not like in S14 where every time there is a crisis they stand very close together and are drawn together, now they’re like magnets that are trying not to feel the pull but they cannot escape each other’s pull nor do they really want to, but they can’t quite figure out how to cross the distance. 

There’s more than one scene where Dean or Cas is out of focus and the other in focus, as if to emphasize how they’re both there but not in phase with each other. Not yet.

I so enjoyed the Cas and Michael stuff. Cas’s prayer to Michael, Michael’s mad on for Cas. “Oh, I didn’t come to beg.” And there’s the ruthless strategic angel.

There’s also something really...fitting about Sam and Dean and Cas all being the ones standing outside the ring of holy fire together to trap an archangel who they effectively hope to bring in from the cold, to their side, in a post S6 era of the show. 

“To paraphrase a friend you had an entire oak tree shoved up your ass.” I see Cas is still quoting Dean, having Dean as a compass point or a North star. Even if he can barely look at Dean right now.

Cas telling Michael his unimportance to God and keeping the upper hand is just...so satisfying. Cas has grown so much. I keep thinking about S5 Cas and how despite how powerful Cas was back then, radiating power in ways he doesn’t quite do the same way now, Cas always seemed so...smol next to the archangels. Punching above his weight class. But now he faces down Michael and tells Michael rawly how it is with their dad Chuck. And when Michael tries to choke him, he fights past it and goes into Michael’s mind to show him everything, to help him see the truth. Cas has grown so much, this felt a lot like a little brother constantly picked on leaves home, grows, and comes back to find big, big brother isn’t quite as big and intimidating as he remembers. 

Which in fact he isn’t, because Michael is capable of insight and change and feelings too. He’s not his father. Despite being the favorite. Despite clinging still to his hero-worship. But Cas worked past that with Chuck long ago.

When Eileen’s friend needs help on a hunt, and Eileen goes to Sam, Sam goes with her, no doubts. Tells Dean he’s going, as Dean recounts to Cas, and Dean seems cool with it. 

Sam and Eileen seem to be growing closer and closer, and while there is something tentative about Sam, he definitely is drawn to her and cares. That tentativeness is from past hurt and loss and maybe he’s scared to enter into this kind of relationship. But they’ve got their own magnetic pull together, they fit. 

Dean and Cas facing each other in that bunker kitchen, the lighting darker and colder than usual. They’re facing each other, and each shift in and out of camera focus, not looking at each other much. Cas can’t look at Dean at all in this scene, while Dean keeps sneaking glances at Cas. In other scenes, Cas does sneak looks at Dean. They are ridiculous and my heart hurts. The blocking here is them facing each other only not--they are a few feet off, so looking past each other.

Cas sitting at that table, hands folded, staring straight ahead and working very hard obviously to Not Look at Dean. 

Dean’s reaction on Cas reporting the words Michael said, “I want you dead, get out.” The things Dean has said to Cas are coming back to haunt him, coming from the words of their once mortal enemy, that’s gotta sting.

Both Dean and Cas have some work to do here, but Dean definitely is already very aware his own words went too far, and has been for a while. 

“God lied to me. I loved him.” Oh wow that hurt, I didn’t expect these feelings. 

A thing about Adam and Michael, both feeling so abandoned by their families, and losing everyone. They offered support to each other. They worked out a time-share in Adam’s body. We’ve seen genuine vessel and angel bonds form before (in Lily Sunder). There’s also a S7 episode by Ben Edlund about the bond between a human and the demon who possessed him. Not sure how healthy Adam and Michael are, but they seem weirdly functional, and don’t despise each other and I kind of have some feelings about Adam and Michael bonding the way they did in The Cage. Perhaps Michael shielded Adam from the worst of it. It’s how Adam is coherent after being down there for so long. Maybe Adam made Michael less lonely. Did I ASK for feelings about Adam and Michael, no I did nOT and yet here we are.

Then there’s Adam. It was interesting that scene where Sam acknowledges maybe they gave up too easily. Because Sam and Dean refuse to accept it when it’s each other they lose, and have gone way over the line to get the other one back. Here Sam is admitting that it shouldn’t be just for them. That Adam was worth saving. Even though they don’t know him well, he still didn’t deserve what happened (as Dean acknowledges at the end of the ep). And Sam and Dean never mentioning him again or giving him another thought apparently, all these seasons...well, that kind of made me assume that was that. Just because someone is blood, doesn’t make you family and they barely knew Adam. 

But if it’s someone who could potentially earn that? Someone basically good? And they just...forgot about him and left him to his torment in Hell? So this did need addressing. There’s not much time to develop a relationship with Adam and TFW this late in the game but there was a start here. 

Dean likewise offers his apology to Adam at the end. “You’re a good man. You didn’t deserve that.”

Right when I was thinking, so many of them don’t get what they deserve, they just keep getting Hell heaped on their heads, Adam says “Since when do we get what we deserve.”

There’s a subtle thing there where Adam looks at Cas, Cas very pointedly still tries to be not looking at Dean, and after Adam leaves Dean turns to Cas looking so...sorrowful for a moment. I keep saying, Dean and Cas deserve each other, and right now they can’t figure how to have each other. 

But Michael left them a strange gift. The Leviathan flower, to seal away Chuck, but the gift has a double meaning (unintentionally on Michael’s part). It’s not just the tool to shut away the villain, Michael opens a door to Purgatory and boom just like that, opens up a whole doorway on Dean and Cas’s story because of the emotional significance of Purgatory for them. What they had there. What happened there. The way that place broke loose some of their feelings. I’m not sure what’s going to happen now, if they both go, as the promo glimpses seem to suggest, does one return and the other gets trapped? Is Dean’s prayer to Cas going to be inside Purgatory, is Cas also still in Purgatory and they get separated? Is being thrown together back into that environment going to help them heal? Or will they be torn apart again but that provides another route to reconciliation?

#spn #supernatural #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Castiel #team free will #rowena macleod #Adam Milligan #Eileen Leahy #Saileen #Destiel #meta #Michael

[mittensmorgul]

Aah season 9. I’m watching 9.22 right now (*waves at Dabb from s15*) and crylaughing about how much s9 Metatron is just desperate to be Chuck.

METATRON: Yeah, and you met with the enemy... In secret. What is that old line about sins and stones? GADREEL: He spoke. He lied. And I listened. That's it. But I serve heaven. I serve you. METATRON: Good. Don't forget it. I mean, I-I don't get this whole Cas lovefest, either. I'm offering our people a way home, and still -- still, they're choosing him over me. I mean, sure, he's cute. And Castiel has this simple...charm. He's like a mentally deficient puppy. But I'm lovable. And funny. I made God laugh -- twice! GADREEL: You're the one who asked him to lead an army. METATRON: Well, I didn't think he'd be good at it.

Metatron is trying desperately to control the story, but he doesn’t understand the characters, and has completely miscast them for his purposes, you know? He could’ve written Gadreel as his villain, and rightly or wrongly, most of the other angels would’ve bought that story. They’d bought Gadreel’s original story and locked him in prison for millennia. But that’s not the story Metatron wanted to tell. He didn’t just want to elevate himself, he needed to villainize Cas, to cast him down in the eyes of all the angels. Yet all the while, Metatron wanted to BE Cas. He was even trying on trenchcoats. He was fascinated, and obsessed, with Cas.

All the angels Metatron convinced to explode themselves for Cas were CONVINCED they’d actually been approached by Cas himself. So another of Metatron’s “writer’s tricks” was this ability to create reality out of whole cloth. we KNOW Cas wasn’t the one who convinced Tessa to explode herself for the greater good or whatever, and yet:

TESSA: People like you, they never understand. Sacrifices have to be made. DEAN: So you go after one of the bad guys, and if a few humans get microwaved, no big deal, right? TESSA: In the grand scheme, they don't matter. DEAN: Oh, Tessa, you are so wrong. TESSA: When Castiel came to me and told me what I had to do, he said I was chosen because I was strong. Others...they couldn't handle this. They're too weak.

and

DEAN: Good times. Here's the deal. I like you, Tess, okay? For an angel. But tell me, why are you doing this? TESSA: Castiel. DEAN: No, forget Cas. Why are you doing this? What would make a person want to pop their top, huh? I mean, look, I've been in bad shape. I have. But I have never been that damn low. TESSA: I guess I just can't take the screaming. DEAN: Who's screaming? TESSA: All of them. The lost souls. The ones that can't get into heaven now that it's been boarded up. I hear them. They are so confused. They're in so much pain. All I want to do is help them. It's what I do. It's my job. But I can't. So I suffered... Until death, nothingness. Suddenly, it didn't seem so bad. It seemed quiet. DEAN: So, why don't you just jam an angel blade in your throat and call it a day? TESSA: I thought about it. But I was too weak. Till Castiel gave me a reason to die. DEAN: Yeah. See, that just doesn't sound like the Cas I know. TESSA: But doesn't it, though? And the Cas you know, would he raise an army of angels without telling you? 'Cause this Cas did. I'll tell you a secret. There's more out there...Like me. So many more.

And Dean said he was doing what he had to do, so did Tessa, as she killed herself with the first blade. She’d been driven to desperation. Then Metatron goes on about the very same thing. He engineered the experiences of all the angels-- from the bombers convinced Cas himself had recruited them. It’s... eerily similar to what Chuck has engineered in 15.05. It’s like the entire “case” was engineered specifically to lure Sam and Dean, right down to the victim they swore to protect appearing to be Lilith on a mission to destroy the Equalizer gun. I mean, for all Chuck’s machinations, he could’ve written it as Dagon instead of Lilith, you know? But Chuck’s somehow still stuck in the “old days” of the story, and even his cast of side characters is reflecting that now.

GADREEL: Tessa, Constantine -- I recruited them, and you brainwashed them into blowing themselves up. METATRON: So? Well, that's an old writer's trick -- flipping the script. You start by building up a seemingly unbeatable enemy, like the death star, or a rival angel with a bigger army. That way, I look like the underdog. But then, oh, no! The competition gets greedy. He starts pushing things too much. With the help of my combustible double agents. And then, after a rousing speech, his true weakness is revealed. He's in love with humanity. And now...I'm inevitable.

Isn’t this exactly the way Chuck is “writing” for himself in s15? Metatron will eventually tell Chuck (in 11.20) that in his descent into evil villainy, he’d only been following Chuck’s own playbook, writing from Chuck’s own story. Metatron engineered every circumstance in his rise to power. While I’ve been typing, 9.23 has been playing now, and the entire scenario with the woman conveniently hit by a truck and killed right where Metatron happened to be on the scene to resurrect her ON CAMERA, his entire “miracle” broadcast out on Youtube the way he used the Heaven Microphone to broadcast his propaganda to every angel at once... Even with “God power,” Metatron still needed to engineer circumstances, and circumstances still weren’t guaranteed to play out exactly as he expected or intended. Because his plans couldn’t account for free will, just as Chuck’s can’t in s15.

Team free will is horrifically broken. Sure, they’re all on the same side, but the fractures between Sam, Dean, and Cas are severely limiting their ability to truly achieve a “win.” Dean, driven in part by the Mark but also just from his own frustration and anger and guilt (which drove him to take the mark in the first place), hasn’t had an appropriate outlet for his anger (which will be lampshaded by his eventual impotently angry speech to Metatron in 9.23 before his ultimate failure).

In s15, it’s Sam with a “mark of cosmic significance,” with an unwanted connection to Chuck the way the Mark once connected Dean to Amara. And now that we’re about to move into s10 on the tnt loop, I feel like I’ve been waiting for five years for Dabb to finally get his revenge on the 23 episode narrative failure of s10′s mytharc, this time “flipping the script,” as Metatron once called it, in favor of TFW.

At the end of Dean is on the outs with Cas because of Cosmic Nonsense interfering directly between them. Dean’s anger at Cas comes to a head, and it’s revealed that the real target of Dean’s anger is Metatron. As Cas tries to tell Hannah while he’s trapped in Heaven Jail, Metatron is the cause of all of their suffering. They only need to expose that fact and confront him. If only, for once, they could get out ahead of Chuck’s script.

DEAN: You've been working those people outside for, what, a day? They've already spilled blood in your name. You are nothing but Bernie Madoff with wings. METATRON [rising to his feet from the floor]: So I'm a fake. Do you have any idea how much pan-cake makeup and soft lighting it took to get God to work a rope line? He hated it. And, you know, humans sense that. So they prayed harder and longer and fought more wars in his name. And for what?! So they could die of malaria? Leukemia? And all the while, blaming themselves! "Oh, if only I'd been more prayerful, "God would have loved me! God would have saved me!" You know what?! God didn't even know their name! But I do. Because I've walked among them. And I can save them. DEAN: Sure, you can. So long as your mug is in every Bible and "What would Metatron do?" is on every bumper. METATRON: And? What, are you blaming me for giving them what they want, giving them a brand they can believe in? DEAN [starting to unwrap the First Blade in his hand]: I'm blaming you for Kevin! I'm blaming you for taking Cas' Grace. Hell, I'm blaming you for the Cubs not winning The World Series in the last 100 freaking years. Whatever it is... I'm blaming you.

Metatron wanted to be Chuck so bad, right down to insisting everyone call him Marv like he was just folks. Right down to using the same manipulation on Dean that he would eventually use on Cas.

METATRON: And you're powered by the bone of a jackass, and it is just awesome, right? Here's a tip -- next time, try to be powered by the word of God.

LOL. The word of God has lost a lot of its power in s15, and even Amara-- aka the source of power for that jackass bone-- has even pointed it out to him. But once again, Chuck’s favorite plot seemed to be working out anyway, through Metatron’s plagiarized story-- One brother sacrificed, check. But something went sideways. Dean and the Tablet shattered at the same moment. 

METATRON: Ah. So Gadreel bites the dust. And the Angel tablet -- arguably the most powerful instrument in the history of the universe -- is in pieces, and for what again? Oh, that's right -- to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what. He's dead, too.

[...]

METATRON: You know, why you could never quite pull it together, Castiel? While you're sitting here with Your Grace slowly burning away and your reputation long extinguished? No curiosity. You didn't read enough. You never learned how to tell a good story. CASTIEL [looking straight at METATRON]: But you did. [CASTIEL swings his eyes over to the desk where METATRON's all-angel microphone sits with the switch on, broadcasting his entire speech to every angel in Heaven and Earth. The doors fly open and many angels walk in and take METATRON captive. CASTIEL raises an angle blade but then doesn't use it.]

The words were the thing. And whoever truly understands the whole story holds the key.

Sorry this got so rambly (I think everyone expects that of me anyway), but this is exactly what s15 is subverting, FINALLY. And not through the proxy of Metatron the Scribe, Metatron the Editor, and Chuck’s written word, but finally placing his due with Chuck The Author himself.

#spn s15 spoilers #spn 15.05 #spn 9.22 #spn 9.23 #spiders georg of the tnt loop #that's what free will is #using your words #s15 meta rewatch #the story became the story #i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse #if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass #it's spirals all the way down

[shirtlesssammy]

4x07: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

We’ve already recapped the closest episode to a Thanksgiving episode Supernatural has so we thought we’d pick another holiday episode this week. Since Cas and Sam’s friendship is getting a little more screen time this season, we thought we’d go back to the beginning and recap the episode where they meet. Yay!

Then:

This badass graced our screens for the first time.

Now:

Ah, Halloween. A young mother comes home loaded down with a literal bucket of candy. Her husband wants to taste test for quality control, but she shoos him away. She then heads upstairs to give their baby a bath --the husband coming in a minute. First, he needs to sneak in a few pieces of candy!

After eating a piece, the husband starts to gag, and finds a razor lodged in his mouth. He starts coughing up blood and razors and dies on the kitchen floor just in time for his wife and baby to find him.

One Day Before Halloween

Agents Sam and Dean are interviewing, Mrs. Wallace, the victim’s wife. Dean finds a hexbag. Sam asks about enemies her husband might have had.

Back at their hotel, Sam is researching the contents of the hexbag. Dean is scarfing down candy (razors or not, I agree with your plan, Dean!). Neither brother can find a reason for Luke Wallace’s death.

At a Halloween party (no booze=lame), Jenny and Tracy, who are clearly rivaling for one dude’s attention (NOT WORTH IT), arrive to assess the lameness. Tracy decides to liven the festivities up by bobbing for apples. Jenny follows, only she gets stuck under the water while it starts to boil and she dies a horrible burning death that I can’t imagine.

Later, Sam and Dean arrive at the crime scene. Dean is gross. Sam finds a hexbag.

While researching the second death, Sam discovers that this might be part of a spell. “Three blood sacrifices over three days, the last before midnight on the final day of the final harvest.” This spell is summoning a demon. Samhain to be exact. (My headcanon is that they mispronounce Samhain because they’re in a completely different universe than ours.) This ritual can only take place once every 600 years. This year just happens to be that year. Of Course! When Samhain rises, every evil and bad thing Sam and Dean fight will rise with him.

On a stakeout, Dean continues to eat his Hell stress away.

While he’s complaining to Sam on the phone, he watches Tracy walk up to the Wallace house. Son of a bitch.

This is A Look:

Sam finds some dirt on Tracy. She’s been suspended from school in the past for an altercation with a teacher. They head to the school.

In the art room, Dean sees horrific masks that clearly remind him of Hell. “Bring back memories?” Sam asks. OUCH. Sam was just talking about high school though (of which Dean didn’t really get to experience and didn’t finish.) Don, the art teacher, comes in and the brothers ask about their altercation. “I was only trying to rap with her about her work.” Far out, man. But really, it seems that Tracy’s art was getting a bit too violent for school appropriate work. Cryptic symbols and gory drawings. The brothers wonder where Tracy is now, and Don reveals that she lives in an apartment.

Later, the boys reconvene at their motel. Tracy is AWOL. A little trick or treater is eager for candy.

Dean ate it all. Then he fat shames the poor kid. The kid has a death stare to end all death stares so I think he’s winning. (Natasha: #TeamKidAstronaut)

Sam forges ahead of Dean and finds an intruder in their room.

“Who are you?!”

“Sam! Sam, wait! It’s Castiel.”

(I just love that both Sam and Mary got to meet Cas the same way --with guns drawn and Dean rushing over to stop them.)

There’s Bunny Colvin another angel there as well, but Dean doesn’t know him.

Sam is SUCH A CUTE BEAN meeting Cas. He’s so flustered and excited. And Cas just poops all over his excitement.

He calls him the boy with the demon blood and congratulates him on stopping his “extracurricular activities.” He then asks Dean if they’ve stopped the rising of Samhain. They haven’t. And now the witch is wise to them. Cas found a hexbag in their room.

AAGGHH, Cas is foreign and formal and he doesn’t even look at Dean (haha, they’ll have plenty of time to stare and stare at each other in the next scene.) Cas informs the brothers that the rising of Samhain will break one of the 66 seals. It must be stopped.

For Posterity:

Uriel, the other angel, is a specialist and he’s here to destroy the town. Dean is incredulous. They can’t destroy this town. Cas is thinking big picture though --destroy the town, save humanity.

Dean’s got to stare think on that.

Sam is incredulous too. “No, you can’t do this, you’re angels, I mean aren’t you supposed to – You’re supposed to show mercy.” Lol, Sam, welcome to the reality of angels on Supernatural. It is a bit crushing to watch Sam’s faith get burnt a bit here. Dean then pulls out the Free Will big guns and asks Cas, “You’ve never questioned a crap order, huh? What are you both, just a couple of hammers?” Cas bites back with a rhetorical question about John Winchester. Dean’s digging his heels in though. If they’re going to destroy this town, they’re going to destroy Sam and Dean along with it.

Cas acquiesces.

Dean and Sam emerge to find Baby egged. BABY. Heads will roll for this, I swear to god. (Uh, #TeamKidAstronaut?)

In the car, Sam contemplates the hex bag and confronts his disappointment with the righteously dickish reality of angels. Dean urges Sam to not abandon his faith. (Dean Bean!) Sam gently absorbs this moment of brotherly insight and then realizes that the charred bone in the hex bag was cooked by an industrial heat source. Moment. Over.

At the school's art room they narrow the bone char down to the kiln and find a heavily locked drawer in the teacher's desk. In the drawer they find a bowl of children's bones. Blegh.

Meanwhile, Castiel and Uriel hang out in a park, Uriel casually dropping insults to humanity so fast it's like he's on an I HATE HUMANS game show.

Cas admonishes Uriel for maligning God's favored creations and counsels him to settle down and wait to see what happens with Dean and Sam. Uriel proposes yoinking the Winchesters elsewhere before blowing the town straight to Hell, but Cas tells him they need to follow their “true orders,” whatever those are.

On Halloween night, costumed children walk past creepy garden displays while within one very normal looking house, the girl from earlier is held captive in the basement of the witch/teacher's house. He creepily draws his knife down her breast (ew), raising his arm for the killing blow (jerk), when his chest gets riddled with holes. It's the Winchesters! Yay! They save the totally innocent girl, who backs away and begins to...sneer at her dead witch brother on the floor. Before the Winchesters can kill her she power blasts them across the room and presumably holds onto their guts (or their balls?) while she monologues.

While she works a spell to bring Samhain into the world, Sam smears blood over his face and that of his brother's. Is it the latest facial trend? Time will tell. The floor splits open and black demon fog emerges. It gives Sam and Dean the miss and then swoops into Don’s dead body.

“My love,” the witch greets Samhain with a kiss (me: gags at the incestual overtones). He greets her with, “You've aged.” EXCUSE ME, MOTHERFUCKER?

Samhain clearly isn’t one for loving reunions because he immediately snaps her neck and surveys his surroundings. It's time to PAR-TAY. He stares at Dean and Sam, who lie still on the floor, and then shambles past them. After he leaves, Dean asks Sam about the blood. It turns out, Sam gave them both a nice blood mask because masks are what people used to use to hide from Samhain. Nice work, Sam! As an added bonus, that blood mask should also keep away the bunnies. (You're welcome, Dean?) Samhain stumbles through town, past unsuspecting costumed children. Dean and Sam race for the cemetery to head him off.

Sam proposes whipping out his super magic psychic mojo to fight Samhain. Dean begs him to not use his power, handing off Ruby's knife instead.

At the crypt, the not-mourning-their-friend-at-all teens throw their Halloween party when they hear a noise. It's definitely not the cops, unless the cops are six feet tall, undead, and covered in blood. Samhain locks the confused kids into the vault and walks away again without a word. Oooookay. And then behind them, the vaults begin to rattle. The dead are coming out. Sort of. They pull kids into the vaults like sand worms and shoot out viscera, blood canon-style. Dean finds them, shoots out the lock, and joins the party - I mean, saves the kids.

It’s zombie dance off time, baby.

Sam heads off to fight Samhain, who tries and fails to power blast Sam.

They engage in fisticuffs, a demon’s favorite way to hold an ultimate battle. Sam uses his powers to suck the demon essence from Samhain and send him back to Hell, but Samhain's strong. He advances, step by step. It's slow enough that Dean has time to head upstairs and witness his brother mind-whammy the demon straight back to Hell. Err....awkward.

Samhain filters back down to Hell, leaving the Winchesters to shoot sad puppy eyes at each other instead.

The next day, they pack up and get ready to leave. Uriel zaps in to rub salt in the wound, and tells Sam that he was told not to use his powers. Sam tells Uriel that his powers saved the town, thank you very much. Uriel uses his wings to flap about 4 feet across the room so that he lands right in front of Sam's face. DRAMA LLAMA ALERT. Uriel threatens to annihilate Sam as soon as Heaven doesn't need him anymore. “As for your brother,” Uriel advises Sam, he should “climb off that high horse of his.” Sam should ask Dean about what he remembers from Hell. (Us, in a chorus: we wish we couldn't feel a damn thing.)

At the same playground where Cas and Uriel observed humanity, Dean sits contemplatively on the park bench.

Cas appears on the other bench and Dean gives him a less-than-warm welcome. “You're here for the I told you so.” Nope. In fact, Cas tells Dean that their true orders weren't to stop the summoning of Samhain. Instead, their orders were to do whatever Dean and Sam told them to do.

“It was a test to see how you might perform under battlefield conditions.” Dean loves this revelation (not). He defiantly tells Cas that he saved the town – including the kids playing in front of them. And that's enough for him.

Cas reveals that he was praying for Dean and Sam to save the town. “These people – they're all my father's creations. They're works of art.” With the Samhain seal broken, they're one step closer to Hell for everyone on Earth and Cas and Dean share a knowing moment about the reality of Hell's horrors. “Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?” Cas asks. “I'm not a...hammer, as you say. I have questions. I have doubts. I don't know what is right and what is wrong anymore.” He tells Dean the coming months will continue to test him. It's clear they'll test Cas as well. Cas flaps out.

What in the Sam-Quotes is this?

It’s Halloween, man.

Those little dudes are scary. Small hands.

Yeah, well, if you were a six-hundred-year-old hag and you could pick any costume to come back in, wouldn't you go for a hot cheerleader? I would, hmm…

For us, every day is Halloween.

You're angels! You're supposed to show mercy.

There's nothing more dangerous than some a-hole who thinks he's on a holy mission.

Babe Ruth's a dick but baseball's still a beautiful game.

Zombie ghost orgy, huh? Well, that's it. I'm torching everybody.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn 4x07 #it's the great pumpkin sam winchester #dean winchester #sam winchester #Hippie Castiel #cas #uriel #supernatural season 4

[queen-scribbles]

Stars Rewritten AU

Here we go, headcanons for the Adi-verse where Heodan survives. Everything’s behind the cut, since it won’t let me do one in the middle of bullet points(BOO) and this baby is long.

They’re originally just planning to stick together until they reach Gilded Vale and go their own ways, but with how messed up everything is there, that plan gets scrapped very quickly. It’s sketchy and they don’t know who to trust, so they wind up sticking together “just a little longer”.

Only thing that changes about joining up with Aloth is the fight with the drunks is over faster, and there being three of them means there is bed sharing bc they can’t afford a room with a bed for each of them. Adi and Heodan share bc this is a wish fulfillment au they know each other better.

When the Watcher dream starts, she kicks him in the chest twice and narrowly misses clocking him in the jaw. He, of course, tries to wake her up and can’t. She snaps awake just as he’s really starting to worry and feels v guilty for hurting him(especially since he still has a healing injury from the Cilant Lîs ruins), which he brushes off, promising it’s not that bad.

After Adi “talks” to Caldera and has her advice to head for Caed Nua, she asks Heodan if he wants to come with her(promising not to punch him any more in her sleep, which makes him laugh). He agrees, since he doesn’t have any reason to stick around Gilded Vale--no business prospects, unfriendly neighbors, she’s much better company, take your pick--and Caed Nua sounds like a place where they might find the fresh start they’re looking for.

Of course things don’t turn out all sunshine and roses, bc why should life be easy? After Maerwald’s dead and the Steward declares Adi the Lady of Caed Nua, she offers to let Heodan set up shop at the keep, so he doesn’t have to wander so much. Things need to be fixed up first, obviously, but he’d be safer here and knows the lady in charge.

He accepts. This is promising location, she has a good point about knowing the person in charge(knows she’ll be fair).... It’s actually going to be a pretty advantageous arrangement, once the keep’s fixed up some.

While they’re waiting to get things fixed up, however, he also accepts when she asks if he wants to come to Defiance Bay with her. He doesn’t have anything better to do, and getting an idea of how things stand in the city is a good idea.

That’s how it starts; him going pretty much everywhere with her. It’s not really a conscious choice on either of their parts so much as Adi goes  “Hey, Heodan, wanna come do ____ with me?” and he says “Sure”. They enjoy each other’s company and one more person to watch your back never hurts, and he’d be underfoot for the work crews if he stayed at the keep..... Why would there be any deeper meaning than that?

Before a month is out, it’s just assumed he’s going with her. The threat of bandits and other dangers means security-enhancing repairs come first, so the craft hall’s construction keeps getting bumped. “Heodan, wanna come with me?” has turned into “We’re leaving in the morning” with the unspoken expectation he’s coming. He never corrects her. He likes going along.

It’s around Teir Nowneth/Brackenbury (my usual order is Teir Nowneth -> Brackenbury ->Dyrford, it’s like how I always do the treaties in the same order for DAO) that the two of them start paying above average care to each other in combat, and roughly the first jaunt to Stalwart(2-2.5 months in) that they start prioritizing threats to each other over other opponents. They don’t notice what they’re doing until Edér makes a joke about it. 

Dyrford + associated quests came between the halves of tWM, so there are some latent--if unacknowledged--feelings beyond Adi’s (ever-growing) crush when she slips jumping the gap for the back way into Clîaban Rilag and Heodan wrenches his shoulder really bad catching her so she doesn’t plummet to her death.

He just reacted, and that 18(to 21, depending on resting bonus) dex meant he was fast enough to catch her and he’s glad and he doesn’t care that his shoulder hurts because she’s okay and no, Edér, stop grinning like that, it doesn’t Mean Anything, that’s ridiculous. When Adi tries to apologize, he waves it off as paying her back for helping him that first escape into the ruins after the Glanfathan attack.

Sagani’s the one who does the adventure that rewards with the Lovers’ Light rings, and she kinda tosses them to Adi with a smirk and a “Here Watcher, you can find a use for these, right?” *wink wink nudge nudge* It takes a bit of studying to figure out how they work, but once she does, Adi wears the copper one and gives the silver one to Heodan. She does explain to him that they’re enchanted so the wearers can tell if the other is hurt and give some of their essence by squeezing the jewel to help if they want. She’s mostly thinking so she can help him if--gods forbid--he gets hurt in a fight. He’s more front line than she is, after all. Even if he is usually backstabbing people as opposed to Edér’s facing people head-on. (So I’m basically headcanoning that they work like Vox Machina’s “medic alert” necklaces or whatever they called them that they got after Tary joined, with the option to sacrifice your health to stabilize the other person)

Heodan’s not as adventurous as Adi but keeps tagging along on these trips of hers. “I’d be bored and underfoot back at the keep with nothing to do” is his explanation. “Once there’s a building for my shop and I have that to stock and take care of, then you’ll lose me.” (it’s almost a running joke between them by this point--how one or the other keeps finding excuses to prolong his adventuring. Neither really dwells on why they keep doing that.)

She actually ‘loses’ him sooner than that. On the way back from Dyrford Adi decides to (finally) investigate Fyrga’s vision, figuring she can then report back to Fyrga and Lady Webb in one trip. Whatever she was thinking this vision implied, a temperamental, possessive dragon is so not what she was expecting to find.

Despite Adi’s best efforts to defuse the situation and just walk away, the dragon’s not having it and attacks them. They’re actually doing pretty well handling the dragon and its xaurip underlings(first time I’ve ever been over-leveled for that fight lol), but the last remaining xaurip gets in a really good hit on Adi before she kills it via grimoire slam. Thanks to both her cry of pain and how much damage she’s doing, the dragon zeroes in on her.

She has pretty good reflexes, but you can’t dodge and cast at the same time, and ofc she has blood from the xaurip’s parting blow running down her arm, so it’s only a matter of time before it catches her. (She’s largely worried that catching her will also catch Aloth, since they’re both hanging back in roughly the same area, and she really doesn’t want one of her friends getting hurt bc of proximity to her)

Between seeing her predicament and feeling through the ring how badly she’s hurt, Heodan takes a pair of very big risks right together: squeezes the jewel in his ring to heal Adi(he’s standing closer to the paladin, besides, with an enemy that can fly, best to keep those who do ranged damage in good shape, right?) and rakes his stiletto along as much of the dragon’s tail and leg as he can reach, hoping to distract it.

Both of these work a little too well; leaving him hurt and dazed when the dragon wheels around and takes a swipe at him. He doesn’t move fast enough to dodge completely, and the dragon’s claws catch his shoulder and the side of his neck and rake in almost to the center of his chest (how the claws didn’t catch an artery and just kill him outright is a miracle straight from the gods and me *cough*).

Now truly freaked out as she watches him just crumple, bc she knows what he did, Adi pops off a Call to Slumber spell(since Unconscious is not one of Cail’s resistances, suck it, loser). This gives them a serious edge bc now the dragon is unconscious and on the ground where everyone can reach. They finish it off rather quickly(Pallegina gets the killing blow), and then can worry about the unconscious and badly bleeding rogue.

Adi tries to help by squeezing the jewel in her ring right back, but apparently the enchantment needs time to “recharge” between activations and it doesn’t do anything. So they have to patch Heodan up through conventional methods as best they can and Adi decides they should take him to Caed Nua since she has a couple very skilled healers on staff in case any of the workmen get hurt while making repairs. Pallegina cautions that between the extent of his injuries and the... mediocre at best healing skills among their group, he might not even make it that far.

Cue Adi being worried sick and checking on him every half hour max the entire day-ish it takes to reach Caed Nua. She doesn’t sleep the night they have to make camp, instead sitting up and watching Heodan breathe to make sure he keeps doing it. Every so often she squeezes the jewel in her ring, but it never does anything(she starts wondering how long the damn thing needs to recharge[answer: a day, because if I’m giving her a hella powerful magical artifact, there has to be some kind of catch to it]). 

Despite Pallegina’s concerns, Heodan does hang on long enough to get him to the more skillful healers at Caed Nua. (In a twist of something like irony, the work crews were just getting ready to start building the craft hall) Adi hangs around anxiously in the corner while the healers get him properly patched up. They’re honest with her--he’s not in good shape (aside from the shredding damage and blood loss from the dragon’s claws, the initial blow broke his collarbone and a couple ribs), it could go either way, they can’t make any promises.

Between worrying so much she can barely breathe and feeling guilty he got hurt protecting her, Adi wants to stay at Caed Nua until she knows Heodan is out of the woods. But it’s not to be.The second night at Caed Nua, sleeping on the floor of his room(basically passed out from exhaustion; she hasn’t slept since the dragon fight), she dreams about the Eyeless.

This is clearly a major and pressing threat. So, reluctant as she is to leave with Heodan in such bad shape, she gives her friends another couple days to rest and get together supplies they’ll need before they head out.

She’s personally hoping that Heodan will at least wake up--even if just for a few seconds--in the interim, but it’s not to be. So she makes the healers swear to send word if there are any major changes, good or bad, before setting off back to Stalwart.

Adi and Co spend the next two weeks running all over the White March dealing with first some smaller scale problems--like the Battery cannons--then the Iron Flail, and then the Eyeless. No news comes Caed Nua the entire time. Not sure if this is good or bad, she books it back home after finishing in Stalwart.

Heodan’s actually awake when they get there, has been for about a week. The healers wrote her but something must have happened to the letter bc she never got it.

Adi gives him the most enthusiastic hug she dares considering, y’know, broken collarbone and all. She’s relieved beyond words that he pulled through.  She decides to hang around the keep for a couple weeks, surprising absolutely no one, spend some time with him until she’s 100% sure he’s out of the woods. Once the craft hall is finished, she helps with getting that all stocked and ready for when Heodan’s recovered enough to start running it.

Finally, though, she has to go back to work. Starts with Kana’s quest and probably the Battle of Yenwood, maybe Raedric round 2, then it’s just hunting down bounties,short trips that give her an excuse to come back and make sure he’s still alright. (By this point, Edér and Sagani have money on which will come first; Adi confessing her feelings or Heodan figuring them out bc the girl is not as subtle as she thinks she is) But Adi definitely knows the Leaden Key are up to something sketchy by now, and she can’t leave things alone forever. So she heads for Defiance Bay to tell Lady Webb what she found in Clîaban Rilag. While she’s there, she hears a rumor about a group of bandits planning to attack Caed Nua, so puts the animancy hearing on hold to go back and deal with that. The fight is actually rather grueling--this group was better prepared than she expected--so they take a couple days to rest before heading back to the city. (This is where Let It Snow would fit)

Between nerve damage and the way his collarbone heals, Heodan’s arm doesn’t “heal” all the way; stays kind of stiff, which puts an end to his adventuring. He’s no good in a fight anymore, and with the craft hall done, it’s better he focus on that anyway. Being a merchant is what he came to the Dyrwood for in the first place, after all. He’s happy for Adi(and her friends) to be his primary customer(s), but this is for the best.

Adi drops in to say hi every time she’s back at Caed Nua, without fail. This starts during the end of the bounty hunting spree that he’s recovered enough she’s visiting him in His Shop rather than the infirmary, and after  that it’s always the first place she goes when they come back. Still doesn’t say anything about her feelings. Life is too crazy right now, she doesn’t feel like it would be fair to him. (also, there’s a small part of her that’s afraid of losing their friendship, him being the oasis of normal in the craziness of her life.And, look, either way things are going to change, whether he likes her or not. It would just be different kinds of awkward and she doesn’t need that in her life right now)

She finally caves, though, after the animancy hearings and the riots. She stops by the keep “To tell the Steward what happened before rumor get there” (Sure, Adi. The Steward’s the one whose emotions you’re worried about). She’s never quite sure why, later; maybe it’s just finally hit the breaking point of being too much to keep secret, maybe she was inspired by Aloth’s confession to be more honest, who knows? Whatever the reason, she feels compelled to tell Heodan before she follows Thaos to Twin Elms. Just completely spills her guts.

Turns out he knew, or at least suspected, months ago. Adi is a very heart on her sleeve, unsubtle person, it didn’t take a genius to figure out. Especially not with all that time Heodan had while he was recovering where all he could do was lay in bed and think. He didn’t say anything because he figured she had her reasons for keeping quiet and would tell him when she was ready. Also, the longer it took, the more he started to wonder if he’d read things wrong, which was another reason to keep his mouth shut; he didn’t want to make things awkward because he also valued her friendship.

But, you know, he does like her back. She’s kind and passionate and curious and a whole laundry list of other admirable qualities. This prompts Adi to reel off part of the list of reasons she likes him, and they agree to talk more after she gets back from stopping Thaos. There’s a goodbye kiss and then she’s off to save the world.

She’s uncharacteristically impatient to get through Twin Elms, a place she would normally want to spend hours exploring and talking to people and learning all they’re willing to share. Between her rush and her even better than usual mood, Kana actually asks her what’s going on when they settle in for the night at the Celestial Sapling. She’s only too happy to spill the beans. The Watcher dreams are really bad that night, she hardly gets any sleep, but she’s still in a relatively good mood come morning

Is actually really shaken by the revelation her Awakening is permanent. She puts on a brave face talking to Aloth about it, but she was really, really hoping there was a way to reverse this, whether convincing Thaos to undo it or some Engwithan ritual or whatever. Part of her wonders if it’s smart to stat a romantic relationship with someone knowing this is permanent. She saw what happened to Maerwald; she’s uncomfortable with the chance of making someone who loves her watch that happen to her. (When she admits that to Kana, he points out Maerwald had multiple personalities Awakened, some in direct conflict with each other, she only has one)

They win, they go home(Adi kept her promise to Galawain), Heodan is very relieved to see her. They’d been hearing rumors she’d as good as died and other things to that effect. There’s a very long hug involved, which only ends bc he’s kneeling on stone floor and that’s not very comfortable. :P Rather than join the rest of her friends and Caed Nua’s staff in celebrating her success, the two of them find somewhere quiet they can talk about Them.

There are, of course, concerns; her Watcher-ness and Awakened soul are the first ones Adi brings up, but there’s also difference in social standing, lifespan disparity between folk and orlans, the prejudice they’ll deal with given that it’s not just a mixed relationship but she’s an orlan. In the Dyrwood. Edér might be terribly bad, but, y’know, she’s been called ‘cat-fucker’ enough times she wants Heodan prepared if he really want this, wants her.

(he does)

In the end, they acknowledge there will be challenges, but decide they can handle anything together. They’ve always made a good team, if it took a dragon to change their dynamic before, what chance does petty gossip and name calling have?

They share a kiss--a good kiss--with the sunset, enjoy their moment of peace and quiet by cuddling and looking at the stars etc etc happy ending there ya go. ;)

The Deadfire headcanons will be a separate post bc boy HOWDY did this wind up longer than I expected.

#queens fic #adela 2.0 #heodan #stars rewritten au #(and yes i'm calling it fic it's like 3k words) #heodi #otp: here in my heart

[boompowkablam]

My Favorite Fics Rec List

Supernatural List

Defy Any and All Expectation    by @tenoko1

Chuck's newly released books tell of another war between Heaven and Hell. Team Free Will sets out to try to defy prophecy, only to realize there is a lot more at stake and amiss than the not-quite-accurate words of one Prophet of the Lord.

Along the way, Dean and Cas' relationship continues to evolve into something neither expected or were prepared for, all of their lives transforming in ways no one could have expected.

But with no shortage of cases, monsters, and mayhem, it's going to require the help of new friends and old enemies if they're to have a hope of saving the world one more time.

Alternate Season Six.

I have read this a thousand times it will always be my all time favorite story. Pairing Dean/Castiel, Sarah Blake/ Sam, Lisa Braeden/ Dean, Lucifer/Sam, Becky Rosen/Samandriel . Word:137,688

Ordained by @tenoko1

There’s one born to every generation. Joan of Arc was the first Ordained. The first of the archangel Michael's Chosen bloodline to protect humanity from Hell and monsters during a time when Earth faced unprecedented threat. Fast forward to present. Dean is the current Ordained, complete with costume change and masked allies. Mostly? They're like regular supernatural hunters who spend their nights going after whatever tries to munch on the student populace, and occasionally taking on petty crime to help out the cops. Okay, so maybe juggling double-lives, college, and romance is easier on TV, by a lot, but Dean's determined to have some semblance of a normal life while they can.

Then demons and angels start showing up and it’s up to the masked warriors to stop Hell from literally being unleashed on Earth. This was NOT part of the plan.

She is actually re-writing this story right now. It is going to be longer with more characters and i am so pumped! Pairing Dean/Castiel, Sarah Blake/ Sam, Charlie/Gilda , One sided Sam/Lucifer.  Word:46,182

The Fourth Wall Series By Entanglednow

It's all Sam's fault, really. It had just been research. Then it got way out of hand. Or, in which, fanfiction takes over their lives for better and for worse.

This has to be to me one of the funniest stories ever. I love it.Pairing Dean/Castiel, Sam/Lucifer

Due Cause by  FortinbrasFTW                                      

"This wasn't right. Things like this didn't happen to people. First days were full of training documents and get-to-know-you chats and friendly talks with pleasant secretaries, not super-lawyers in disguise with molesting eye contact assaulting you in elevators. This really really wasn't how this was supposed to go... Maybe it wasn't how it was going. Maybe none of it was really happening to him and in a few minutes they would leave the room and all of this would go away and he'd have his normal, average first day exactly the way he'd wanted it."Sam gets his first job at the law firm of his dreams, which just happens to be the workplace of his law-school idol, who in real life is a good deal more cynical and a great deal more creepy than he might have imagined. Also: Cas runs a snack cart. Also: Dean helps.

Its like the lawyer version of supernatural with less death and more coffee. Pairing Sam/Lucifer, Dean/Castiel, Lilith/Lucifer, Crowley/Gabriel Word:93,407

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (And Other Myths)  by @scarletjedi

For the summer after Junior year, Puck and Kurt are sent to Sioux Falls, Puck to his mother's cousin, Sheriff Mills, as punishment for his stint in Juvie in hopes that she will "set him straight," and Kurt to escape the Hockey Team's violence and to learn to Hunt like his mother from his Uncle Bobby. They meet at Singer Salvage, where they're both surprised, yet very pleased, to find a familiar face. A few days later a black impala drives up with two bloody Winchesters and an injured Angel. Then all Hell breaks loose....

This was a fun story to read and a good crossover.Glee/supernatural.Pairing Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel, Kurt/Noah. Word:55,221

Hear Both Sides    by Meh_forget_it

When Sam went to Stanford, he expected to go to classes, probably get a job and possibly miss Dean and be lonely. He didn’t expect to meet Loki and Crowley.

At least he wasn’t lonely.

This is a monster of a fic but its awesome! If you get into it around bedtime don’t expect to sleep. Paring Gabe/Crowley/Sam. Word:118,022

Sleep With A Gun by HollowIsTheWorld

Castiel Novak has been hunting for four years. His little brother, Samandriel, has been with him for half that time. When a job causes them to cross paths with the infamous Winchester brothers and their pet vampire, Samandriel is wary of them and wants to skip town while they can. Castiel, on the other hand, isn’t sure he wants to write them off so quickly.

Samandriel is a sassy emo kid in this and it is my most favorite thing in the whole world. Paring Samandriel/Benny , Dean/Castiel , Gabriel/ Sam. Word:88,634

The Laundromat 'Verse by @ozonecologne

Dean runs a laundromat. The punk kids come to him for all their clothing repair needs.That includes their bad boy ringleader, Castiel. A collection of ficlets.

Ive read this through a couple times now and  i still  love it. Pairing Castiel/Dean. Word:57,557

Where Are We Going From Here  by River_of_Dreams

It starts with a nightmare and an unexpected compliment. It doesn't end there. Lucifer and Michael walk the Earth again, except that this time they don't have an Apocalypse to focus on. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, they say. What happens when those idle hands belong to the Devil himself?

This ending up being another never sleep story. Like i didnt sleep till i was done reading. Paring Sam/Lucifer.  Word:112,633

How the Other Side Lives by @tenoko1

Maybe God doesn’t always answer prayers, and maybe the Apocalypse nearly happening without him stepping into stop it had been really bad, but it’s becoming clear that things always work out, even if they don’t work out the way you wanted or expected them to, they work out the way you NEEDED.

Tenoko1 has a way that she writes characters where you fall in love with them. I love Becky in this story.  Background pairing Dean/Castiel . Word:22,442

  How To Fall   By FortinbrasFTW

 '“I’ve been falling for some time, through darkness, and pain, and fire. And then I saw you, shining through the shadows, and I knew you would catch me one day. But you didn’t, I fell right past you, further than I ever imagined I could, and now I wonder if I’ve finally hit the ground.”'

When a spell goes wrong Sam ends up stranded in the north Canadian wilderness with nothing to do but bunker down and wait for rescue, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the broken angel he's accidentally brought along for the ride.

This was so good. Pairing Sam/Lucifer. Word:41,425. Podfic by Shmaylor

An Exercise In 'Worthless'  By Beastofthesky

 "I mean, you’re–” He gestures at Cas, in his neat oxford shirt and nice pants. “–and I’m a high school dropout who tattoos for a living.”

Wherein Dean makes a hefty living as a tattoo artist who owns the space next to Gabriel's cafe. Sam attends the local university. When Gabe's cousin comes to live with him while starting grad school at Sam's university, Dean thinks for sure that all his negative karma's coming to bite him in the ass because Cas clearly has a thing for Sam. No one would ever choose him over Sam. That's just logic.

This is great you will get your dose of angst. I shouldnt say that i dont want to put you off its a good story. I might be over dramatic. Pairing: Castiel/Dean , Sam/Gabriel. Word:26,547.  Podfic by skyunicorn

Thats the list it was going to be longer but I got frustrated and kind of messed it up twice before I got it right.... I mean it might be right lol. If a link sends you to the wrong place please tell me because that was one of the problems I had. I’m not made for tumblr. Also check out the authors other works because they are all great these are just my favorite. Some of these also have podfics if thats something you are into. Oppisum does the podfic for due cause if you have trouble finding that one hit me up i did too.

#supernatural #rec list #i suck at tumblr #have fun #dean/cas #sam/lucifer #becky/samandriel #samandriel/benny #my rec list

[awed-frog]

Hi! I realized something the other day (I'm really slow wth) My parents have the same age as Dean, lit (I know weird but wathever) and my mum is homophobic (I'm bi, sad story lol) and she watches the show with me. The thing is that I annoy her with Destiel and she gets really angry (at some point she started disliking Cas, imagine that) and she looks for back up in my aunt for example, peolple her age. But me? My friends know that I'm bi, one confessed she thought she was too 1/2

2/2 and one of my bf ships Destiel really hard too. And it made realize of just how difficult it must be for Dean to “came out of the closet” if he is bi (I’m sure he is but till it becomes canon…) I mean, it’s not easy for me, it’s not easy right now for a lot of people but I’m positive that it’s better than before. Dean and people his age had it worse I think and it opened my mind to how much he must have struggled, how possible it was that Jhon could have hit him for that, oh too long 2/3

3/3 Bc before realizing this? I was like “Jhon beating hip up for this? no way. Maybe if he caught Dean while drunk and half out of his mind, but sober and knowing exactly what he’s doing?” And i must sound really stupid sorry, bc now it happens this too but it’s just WOW poor Dean, I wanna hug him. Also Charlie is a champion, and those married hunter couple 😢 Why do people do this (Also, if you have more idea of how it used to be, could u tell me? Correct me if I’m wrong?) bye ❤

Hey there! Sorry you’re having some trouble with your mom, here’s to hoping she’ll grown more accepting with time!

(But even if she doesn’t, remember that has nothing to do with you - she can choose whether to be tolerant and kind, while you can’t choose whether to be bi or not, so the ball is in her camp.)

As for Dean - yeah, he’s more or less my age, but he moves in a background that’s vastly different from mine - I’m sure other people (maybe @bert-and-ernie-are-gay or @mittensmorgul or @thejabberwock?) could tell you what it was like to grow up in the States around that time, and how queer people were perceived. All I can tell you is that in my corner of the world, being gay was something people expected you to keep quiet about - in my school, only one kid was out, and five other had that kind of ‘we all know but they never said anything so we pretend we don’t know and maybe we’re wrong’ status, and I know life had its ups and downs for them. Some people were really antagonistic (it was mostly boy on boy banter that was the problem, and I know that the worst time for gay kids was P.E., because here everyone is expected to shower together, so a vague ‘Tom looks sorta gay, haha’ can quickly turn into a ‘Hey why is that f*ggot staring at me now I’m naked’ and then all bets are off), and most people didn’t really care one way or the other, but still - the trouble is, you grow up in a culture where you don’t really have positive representation of any kind - gay people were either men dressing up and wearing feathers in funny movies or hospital patients dying of AIDS in sad movies - even for someone like me, who grew up in a weird household and read all kind of books, it was difficult to imagine a gay person being - a normal person, you know what I mean? Someone who’d have a relationship one day, and a house and a whatever job and would fight over whose turn it was to wash the dishes. And for kids with conservative parents, things were often much harsher, as I wrote here. Plus, even in the 1990s, AIDS was a big concern for most of us, gay or straight, so that was a problem as well - the illness was no longer perceived as a ‘gay’ illness (which it never was, by the way), but the fact we were bombarded with messages about the importance of condoms and safe sex, even as kids, played a role in our general understanding of sexuality (our own and other people’s).

For me, personally, the consequence of this climate of silence and diffidence in how we approached the matter meant that I considered my crushes on girls to be ‘just a phase’, or something like ‘I want to be like her’ rather than ‘I want to be with her’; whether this prevented me from seeking out romantic connections with women, we’ll never know, but since I’m insanely happy with the relationship I have now and am deeply in love with the man who shares my life, it’s not really a problem for me. That said, yeah, it doesn’t really surprise me to see that the more openly we discuss the subject and the more we respect what we feel, the fewer people identify as straight - in the UK, 49% of young people are not straight, and to me that’s a figure that makes perfect sense. We generally fall in love with souls, not bodies, so the more open-minded we are about such things, the more our potential to form relationships with anyone broadens. And, of course, as we’re heading into an age where AI will be a thing, it’s likely our understanding of what a suitable partner is will change a lot over the next few decades.

As for Dean Winchester - as I said, I’m not an expert, but this is a guy who grew up in a very different - and often hostile - environment. Unfortunately, the US is still a country where members of the LGBT community face significant risks - risks teen!Dean would be very familiar with, since half his job as a hunter-in-training was going through the newspapers looking for cases. For instance, in 1993, when Dean was fourteen, there was the murder of Brandon Teena, and the year before, Allen Schindler was killed - since he was a soldier on duty, it’s likely John would have discussed that sooner or later, and the wider ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ issue. And, I don’t know - I don’t see John as homophobic, exactly, but still - he would have considered his kids’ legitimate wish to form a relationship with someone an annoyance at best (I wonder if Sam or Dean ever sulked when they had to move because they’d lose touch with a crush or a girlfriend, for instance - they must have, right?) and an irrational luxury at worst (a partner can distract you or get targeted by enemies, as John knew from experience), and as for Dean being bi - objectively, men are more dangerous than women, and there is a significant risk a predator will pretend to be gay to trap you and hurt you, so I’m thinking this is the reason John would have objected to Dean’s choices, if nothing else. Furthermore, we’ve seen how conservative the hunter community is (or used to be) - I think John would have agreed with the adults I met growing up - would have said that okay, whatever - if Dean wanted to have fun with a man, who could stop him, right, but he’d better be careful and he’d better be private about it and ‘Jesus, let’s hope the kid doesn’t like it up the ass’ because, whatever, people have been having trouble with this particular thing for the past three thousand years and that’s not likely to change any time soon. So, yeah - I think there’s a good chance Dean took a long time to even understand he was attracted to men as well, and there’s a possibility that his acceptance and understanding of himself was muddled by the fact he was abused at some point, and turned tricks later in life - personally, my headcanon is that his experimenting years happened during the Stanford era, when he was mostly alone, and since then he’s not really thought about the whole thing a whole lot - partly because he’s always with Sam (and Sam can be very judgemental), and mostly because Dean’s got zero time for any of that stuff, and a lifespan to match - we know he thinks he shouldn’t have any relationships at all, for a bunch of reasons, and that honestly breaks my heart. 

Poor guy. I really, really hope he’ll get his happy ending - God knows he deserves it.

#ask #dean winchester #dean meta #kid!dean #the 90s #gay teen #lgbt issues #guys please feel free to pitch in #it's important that kids learn about history #and i'm really not qualified to answer this question

[lovvercore]

1-65 >:3C

uh oh… time to do this thing

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

sometimes, but usually its me feeling like im not real

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

4, maybe 4.5

3. The person you would never want to meet?

s*ca

4. What is your favorite word?

hmmmm moonstruck

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?

aspen? ? ? ?

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

i havent looked in a mirror all day

7. What shirt are you wearing?

plain black

8. What do you label yourself as?

uh gay emo nerd

9. Bright room or dark room?

dark

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

sleeping maybe idk

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?

hmmm probably rn, 14

12. Who told you they loved you last?

shrug….

13. Your worst enemy?

thinking emoji……… u know

14. What is your current desktop picture?

griffin cronching a banana

15. Do you like someone?

yea uwu

16. The last song you listened to?

for forever - dear evan hansen

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

[thinking emoji]

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

[thinking emoji]

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?

i dont want a slave thanks!

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

uh uh uh eyes

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

i dont think so tbh,,, im kinda open with what im “talented” at

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?

i dont know exactly what this question is asking but ill say uhhh talking to people and annoying them and them being tired of me

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

H i dont eat sandwiches often enough to answer this

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?

clothes

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

england

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?

UH I DOnt drink bc im tiny but i guess mikes hard lemonade it sounds appealing

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

hhhh no straights unless i say theyre ok

29. What is your favorite expletive?

does thrussy count

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

fuck uh my phone would already be in my pocket so probs my backpack bc it has all of my super important stuff

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

oofa doofa most likely some stuff from an old discord chat lol

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

england.

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

heres the problem with this: i dont really…. know of many dead people. so i cant. answer this well.

34. What was your last dream about?

idk i have a shit memory something about my online friends being at my school and shenanigans started

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?

u never specified so rip i guess 

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

nope

37. Have you ever built a snowman?

yes

38. What is the color of your socks?

i think i wore sushi socks, theyre grey with som sushi on them

39. What type of music do you like?

a lot

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

sunrises but im never awake for them :o

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?

cookies n creammmm

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

none

43. Do you have any scars?

yes, quite a few

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

either an artist of some sort, a school counselor, orrrrr a teacher?? idk

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

skin type lol

46. Are you reliable?

id say so !

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?

are u a single btich

48. Do you hold grudges?

for some people c:

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?

horse and bird. i want a pegasus. please.

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

“ethan avery had such a glow up”

51. Are you a good liar?

thinking emoji

52. How long could you go without talking?

a long time……. id like to never talk again thanks

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?

i had an a line in 1st grade idr what it looked like

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

yeah. ask me about the 8 pound cake

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?

yes. sometimes when im reading something or talking to myself while doing hw i go into a british accent im turning british

56. What do you like on your toast?

butter and raspberry jam

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?

me new oc bayani :o

58. What would be you dream car?

uhhhhh i dont,,,, know

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.

yeah i sing a lot,,,,, like a lot,,,

60. Do you believe in aliens?

how self centered does someone have to be to think that theyre on the only planet that has living things in an infinite universe…..

61. Do you often read your horoscope?

no but i read zodiac posts a lot

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

u ;) aksudhfkasdjfkjsdh

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

dragons

64. What do you think about babies?

sometimes theyre cute but from my experience they are hell and i dont like them

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.

u didnt specify sooooooooooooo lmk what this should b

#asks #himeki #hime tag

[earl-of-221b]

Tagged by @laryna6 to say what I’m working on/ have been working on/ should probably stop procrastinating on

1) supernatural fic

 I’ve been working on this one supernatural fic (working title ‘Tripwire’) that has three arcs (I think.) It’s a destiel fic.  I’ve only written one arc in about half a year last year and haven’t done anything with it since. First chapter deals with how Cas meets Dean in random circumstances. By second chapter, there’s a big time skip wherein Dean wakes up with no memory and Cas has already fallen in love with him.

The following chapter, it goes straight back to where chapter one ends off. And then goes back to the timeskip next chapter. Yeah - both timelines are running concurrently - past Dean meeting Cas for the first time and getting into shit, and then present Dean not understanding why this Castiel cares about him so much and trying to figure out what happened. The timelines get closer and closer together (reveal/back up information at the same time) to the point where it converges - Dean loses his memory/Dean is about to find out why he lost his memory. The end of timeline one should fit immediately to the beginning of timeline 2, chapter 2. So it’s a pretty different structure I’m trying out, instead of just spamming flashbacks like in Monster lol. 

The actual story I might be a little cliched - Cas is in a Shadowy Organisation, has been indoctrinated into it his entire life, has Super Spy Powers. Goes into a fancy black tie event To Kill A Man. Meets Dean, a guy who stole a suit and snuck into the party For Funsies. Things happen and Bad Guys mistakes Dean for Cas, kidnaps wrong guy.

(CUE TIME SKIP.)

Dean wakes up. There is a bullet hole in him. Apparently, he’s officially dead on paper. His brother has finished law school. Mysterious guy Cas nurses him back to health and then leaves. Bad Guys are (still) after him, though he has no idea why. Tries to find Cas, while Cas is shooting down people who try to catch him. (violence! action movie vibes!! cliches, probably!) (I’m actually really proud with the concurrent timelines but not sure if I have the motivation to do the full three arcs....) (There’s 14 chapters but I haven’t worked on it in months and months.)

2) Noblesse time travel.

An entire year and only three chapters to show for it: That Noblesse Time travel fic I said I was going to do. I have the ideas but not the motivation ugh.

Three main storylines:

1 - For Reasons Not That Important, Just An Excuse To Do The Premise - Rai goes back the past to find a Frankenstein who has not yet met him. A Frankenstein who is hunting nobles and mutants. (HOly shoot I just got the idea to add Tesamu in this omg maybe I should.......get on that.....)

2 - Tao, M-21 and Takeo wind up in Lukedonia. Like near a thousand years ago. When Franken and Rai are living together, but not bonded. Frankenstein is very suspicious of them. (Actually....this might be a little ‘parent trap’ ish if I can pull it off hahahahaha.)

3 - Frankenstein goes to the future, where he meets Regis and Seira grown up. In the future, there is no Noblesse.

Then the characters start time jumping to each other’s timelines before going back to present day.

3) Rurouni Kenshin and Shakespeare fic 

Gosh this could have been good if I wasn’t such a fuck. I’m four chapters into this Rurouni Kenshin fic. Except, it’s Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and I named it “Twelfth Knight.” !!! 

(Also probably blatant indulgent fic but fight me.) It’s a crime mystery. Kenshin and Kaoru (married) and co. go back to Kyoto because Saitou told them to Come See This Shit. Which is - a lot of murders that were definitely done by Kenshin’s Hiten Mitsurugi ryu, because Saitou knows his rival’s style too well. 

Meanwhile in The Past, a hardened samurai woman- an onnabugeisha - is searching for her disciple who ran away. A thing happens and she ends up in Kenshin and co’s present. 

Meanwhile Hiko Seijuro has also come across these clearly-Hiten-mitsurugi-murders. So. Because there are only two living practitioners of the Mitsurugi ryu, and Kenshin and Saitou know that it’s not Kenshin who lives in Tokyo, they think Hiko Seijuro did the murders. Hiko Seijuro, who hasn’t had to kill anyone in years, thinks it’s Kenshin who’s gone awol. They try to track each other down.

The samurai woman, of course, turns out to be the third Hiten Mitsurugi user. But she came from the past. Making her the twelfth heir of the style. Meaning she was the master of Hiko Seijuro 13 - she’s Hiko Seijuro 12. Who is looking for her missing kid disciple in Meji era 1880, wherein he would be 40+ years old. Thus, “Twelfth Knight!”

Based on Shakespeare’s best comedy imo 

4) “embers, smog, cinder, ella.” About Cinderella. And the demon who lives in the walls of the house she cleans.

Exactly how it sounds. Everyone treats Cinderella like a servant. The demon that lives in the old wood of her family’s country home sees everything. The role of the fairy god mother is given to Mr. Demon, who never shows up, but is always there, watching, lurking, helping Cinderella clean the house and get to the ball. Never really planned on posting lol purely aesthetic and indulgent XD, a character study more than a fic. I named it.

5) “A Magnolia Rides to War” Mulan character piece

Don’t know if I’m going to post this lol not really a fic. Totally for my own indulgence. Just a character study - full of oodles and oodles of pretty metaphors and purple prose. Magnolia flower is the eng translation of ‘mulan.’ 

6) An Unadmitted Defeat

Ah yes, one day I decided to, you know. Rewrite the entirely of the Lotus Lantern myth. (???) This was so spontaneous I don’t know hahaha. 

About the story of Chen Xiang, a young boy who lived in mostly mountain isolation with his loving parents. One day, family he didn’t know he had rocks up. It turns out his parents were trying to raise him away from celestial gods and magic, because his Uncle is the Heavenly Law Enforcer, Erlang Shen. Who quickly destroys their house, steal’s his mother Sanseng Mu’s powerful Lotus Lantern weapon, and traps her under a mountain after a big fight. 

Chen Xiang learns this happened because he is a demigod - his dad was human and mum was a goddess. Human-god intermarriage is outlawed and Chen Xiang is a Heretic. After stealing back the Lantern and escaping from Erlang Shen’s cold fifth layer palace, Chen Xiang has one singular objective: Save Mum. To save Mum, he has to defeat God Erlang Shen, who has never lost a fight in recorded history.

But just because he never lost a fight doesn’t mean he’s won every single one. Who is the person Erlang Shen could not win? -- Heavenly rebel, Sun Wukong, who is just what Chen Xiang needs. 

8) Two and Three

Character piece on the Yang twins before their heavenly fallout - goddess Sanseng Mu and Erlang Shen. 

7) Who is the Monster

Of course, my long running Noblesse fic!! A rift comes between Frankenstein and Raizel when an enemy from Frankenstein’s past comes back to enact a grand plan. 

(minor spoilers - First adopted child is terribly jealous and mad at adopted father’s new partner and new adopted children, thinks dad deserves better, so does most logical thing - destroy everything he loves.) 

8) A man with no mother 

An ongoing naruto fic.....that I have not updated for a long time :( 

An excuse for Kakashi to hang out with Kushina and get motherly vibes from her. Minato, Konoha’s best, goes missing. Kushina goes out of retirement to go Find Him. Outside the KOnoha boarders, she finds young ANBU Kakashi, who has broken rank to also go Find Him. Hijinks ensue. 

(One of the early fics looking back now I’m a little...eugh...but I will try -- try-- to finish it.) 

Tagging: @kurasaika, @daylight-star, @qdeanna, @pizza-with-me-okay, @whiteplum

#I write very random things #I wrote who is the monster to fill a gap in noblesse fic #and then it changed into a Franken/Rai fic #for the better #I wrote unadmitted defeat out of spontaneous passion #and then those prose-only character pieces #Cinderella and best friend demon #Mulan #for Indulgence #planned the Kenshin fic so carefully but now I don't know how to go about it sigh #supernatural fic I'm losing motivation but I already wrote 14 chapters #tell me about your works in progress :) #writing

[azazelsocks]

vengeuse replied to your post: sometimes i think it would be really fun to try a...

you have a lot of scenarios??? i would like to hear them all thank you

LMAO OKAY UH HERE’S A CUT IT’S 1.3K OF ME BABBLING ABOUT BOY KING SAM

THE CLASSIC: it’s s4, Dean has gone to Hell, and with Ruby’s help Sam storms Hell to get him back

RESULT 1: Dean is already a demon. Depending on how Sam was characterized this could either end really serial-killer-y with them staying in Hell together or maybe Sam, using his newfound Hell resources, isn’t okay with it and tries to cure Dean? Boy king Sam trying to cure a demon is kind of hilarious to me because I don’t think any other demons would be okay with it they’d all be like “WTF my lord, what’s wrong with being a demon” and Sam would be like “no no it’s not that I don’t like demons it’s just that this one can’t be a demon” but that would also be so tied up in self-hatred for Sam because he’s a demon he just feels like he actually deserves it ahhhhhhh

RESULT 2: Dean is not a demon yet. Sam has to choose between Hell & his brother. On my Dean-negative days this ends way differently than on my non-canon Dean-is-a-good-brother days lol. either way, sam stays the boy king. you can’t take that back.

RESULT 3: The angels got there first. Sam is like “well that’s... not the worst thing that could have happened” but as he learns about the plans for the apocalypse, it starts seeming a whole lot worse. + because Sam isn’t actually there with Dean, I figure it would be even easier to manipulate Dean into thinking that his brother is a lost cause and he needs to say yes to save the world. Sam declares war. this one could end all sorts of ways like maybe Sam looses Lucifer by accident preventing Lilith from taking his throne and it runs pretty close to canon; maybe Sam faces down with Michael at the end and kills the vessel Dean in the process; maybe we get endverse but it’s actually Sam in the white suit this time!!!

actually i just thought of the endverse ending and i fucking love it i’m keeping that as a scenario on its own

THE POLY S4: Dean comes back from Hell, but he’s still a demon. Sam is with Ruby (who in this AU does not intend to raise Lucifer). Dean is upset because he’s a possessive fuck, but he’s also gained something of a new perspective being a demon, and it’s like... basically all Dean x Ruby fighting over Sam with Ruby usually winning because she has more experience and Ruby is all like “You’re not the only one who loves Sam or the only one Sam loves” and Dean is like “-splutters-” but eventually after a disaster they come to a truce to get rid of Lilith and put Sam on the throne and it’s a happy poly V or triad, whichever you prefer 

THE PRODIGY: Sam doesn’t make it out of the house with Dean and John and is raised by Azazel from six months old. I don’t know where this one goes I just like the idea of it. sometimes the other special children are his siblings and sometimes he’s the only child, the heir from the beginning. 

THE KNIGHT OF HELL: s9 Dean gets Sam back on the blood. I don’t really like the way most fics go with this bc they always end with Sam really dependent on Dean and like ... ehhhhhh. (This sambenny one by waterbird13 is a really good take on it tho not boyking) BUT I do like the idea of Sam pretending to drink it for Dean but actually taking it for the power boost. Thought you could lead Sam around like Ruby did?? THINK AGAIN. HE’S KING NOW. 

THE RACK: The crossroads demon won’t trade Sam for Dean, but he does offer Sam a way into Hell. See what you can do with that, he says. Better than what you’ve got now, right? (Look, if you like boy!king and you haven’t read Threefold Path To Redemption what the fuck are you even doing unless you don't like wincest or torture then okay)

TORTURER 1: it’s Dean whooooo is surprised. I have this headcanon that the longer a demon stays on the rack, the more powerful they are when they get off so I personally like this one because I just have this image in my head of Sam finally agreeing to get off the rack and Dean is thrilled and lets him off and then Sam force-slams him and grits out “We’re getting out of here.” Except once a man tortured into demonhood always a man tortured into demonhood OOOH especially because he wasn’t dead when he went to Hell (that would cheat Dean’s deal). (and yeah you have to shed blood in Hell but it doesn’t say torture I think murdering a bunch of demons on the way out probably counts)

TORTURER 2: it’s someone else, Sam’s personal Alastair, who raises not a torturer but a king. tasty

THE QUEER RULER: This one is just one where Sam is trans (sometimes I like it to be trans girl Sam and sometimes I like it to be trans boy Sam or nb!Sam) & it’s like...one more thing for people to be disgusted by and it drives home the “freak/pariah” themes they were going with Sam (kind of overshadowed by the addict themes, but they’re there) and then Sam takes the throne and fucking. owns it. this one is just cathartic for me cos i am trans

THE ANGELS: Sam has been dreaming of an angel with blue eyes and he doesn’t know why. I don’t know why either, but I do like me a Hades/Persephone boy king sastiel mmmm

THE SELF-INDULGENT SAMCEST: these ones are just... you know what, don’t judge me.

YOUNG SAM’S WORLD: idfk but this one is like a sitcom where Sam is still in Stanford and something fucked up on the boy king’s end and he ended up in Sam’s dorm and is out of juice so he has to crash for the time being. Shenanigans with Brady! Shenanigans with Sams! God, why can’t Sam’s life be normal!

BOY KING’S WORLD: Somehow regular!Sam ends up in the world where he’s the boy king (ANOTHER FIC REC (SASSY/GEN)) anyways 

1: Boy king Sam’s Dean has been dead for years; really, properly, inaccessibly gone. Mad with grief, he performs a summoning spell across dimensions (if he can’t have his Dean, a different one will do) with the Samulet as the focal point, but it’s a Sam that ends up in the circle instead of a Dean. This Sam has the Samulet on him because in his world, Dean died as well, before Sam was 18, and it was the catalyst for Sam leaving. These Sams have some things to learn from each other, cos other Sam has managed to deal with his grief and move on, and boy king Sam has managed to deal with his destiny, so I just think it would be a fun character study

2: Older Sam (s9-s11 i haven’t watched s12 yet but i probably will when it comes to netflix) fucks up a spell and ends up in Boy King Sam’s world. Older Sam is a little shellshocked from the travel, meeting his other self, and like...how much respect his other self commands? his other self even has friends and trusted confidants? being a hell-bound freak didn’t ruin his other self’s life? Boy King Sam figures out both a spell & Older Sam’s emotional state, and, because, well, he’s really helping himself, sends Older Sam back to his dimension with a few tips and some contacts from the old guard of demons who wanted Sam on the throne from the beginning. MAYBE THEY FUCK IN HERE SOMEWHERE

okay i’ve run out WAIT NO

THE SEASON NINE: Gadreel happens. Crowley happens. Being possessed by a demon for the first time since...Meg? reawakens Sam’s powers, cleanly, without the use of blood (he SHOULD be able to use them without blood, everyone else could) and SAM IS FUCKING PISSED. The healthy way to resolve this is Sam just leaves forever and fixes the big bad by killing/recruiting Abaddon.

 but I also have a pissy catharsis dean-whump version where Sam, furious, does exactly what Abaddon threatened, burns off Dean’s tattoo, and lets his most favorite demon have Dean’s body indefinitely. See how you like it, Dean. (HAS DEAN EVER FUCKING BEEN POSSESSED EVER??? NO????? WE JUST GOT THE ABADDON SCENE. MAKE IT HAPPEN WRITERS.)

okay that’s actually all of them. for now. maybe i’ll come up with more later! do you see my dilemma

EDIT: TWO MORE THAT I FORGOT

THE SPECIAL CHILDREN: it occurs to me that since the foresight kids (sam & ava) had initial visions keyed into the other psychic kids to start with… if sam had gone with Meg proper in Scarecrow and done a little focusing, it would have been unbelievably easy for him to find the other special children. whenever he summoned a vision he’d know where another one was. he could have hunted the non-premonitionary kids down before the death matches even started happening. he coulda won before there was even a competition

THE DEAD FAMILY: there are some who headcanon that hellfire takes you, guess what, straight to hell. Sam gets to hell, and finds his mother and his girlfriend are there?? obviously he rescues them from whatever tortures they may or may not have endured. jess learns all of sam, no more secrets, and sam gets to learn who mary is (and mary tells sam she was sorry, it wasn’t his fault she died).

EDIT THE SECOND: EVEN MORE THAT I FORGOT

THE FALLEN ANGEL: Instead of falling in love with humanity, Castiel falls in love with the boy who the entire world hates, whose destiny is to rule Hell, and yet is still pure of heart & soul. When he gives up Heaven, he gives it up to go to Hell.

THE GODSTIEL: Sam is the boy king. Cas is God. Enemies to lovers. A lot of snarky negotiation between the two as they duke out what exactly the roles of Heaven and Hell will be in this new world order.

CONSORT!DEAN: aka, what 90% of boy king fics are. i don’t really care? but it probably deserves a place here anyways.

THE REPLACEMENT: all those wincest aus where Sam uses another person as a surrogate Dean. fleshflutter had an amazing and absolutely horrifying one with adult!Ben. i have one with frenchmistake!jensen. absolutely terrible. 

THE AMPUTEE: Sam’s coup goes poorly and results in him being really physically fucked up, but successful. Compatible with most other AUs. Basically like...what if Sam wasn’t the all powerful godking we usually picture but just, still Sam, fighting through broken arms and missing fingers, and being badass at the same time.

If anyone reading this wants to steal one of these idears and write a fic/do art, blease, i will sacrifice my firstborn child to your boyking

#vengeuse #uhhh #this is long. #boy king sam #sock talks (to people) #THERE'S LIKE NINETEEN OF THESE WTF AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE

[ificouldflytotheclouds]

Youngblood Album First Impressions

These are my initial thought after listening to the album for the first time.

Youngblood

I was at work when the studio version of this song first dropped, I was standing in the foyer as I waited for campus transportation to arrive. I was familiar with the song because I had listened to live recordings to prepare me for my concert, which at the time was three days away. My jaw dropped. The live version was good, but the studio version was a killer. This song is a  deserves to be danced to, HARD. In concert, I don’t feel like this song goes as hard, and for that reason, I prefer the studio version. It’s funny because I thought this song went hard, I WAS NOT PREPARED. 

I think this was an excellent title track and song to start the album. It encapsulates the feel of the entire album from the production, singing, and the lyrics. 

Favorite Lyrics:

“Surrender my everything/'Cause you made me believe you're mine“

This line is so vulnerable and it tugs at my heartstrings.

“When you looking at those strangers/Hope to God you see my face”

I am a sucker for these lyrics after making eye contact with Luke during the concert, but I also relate this to the crush that at had at the time, and the friends that are no longer friends.

Want You Back

When I first listened to  this song I was like wHo iS tHiS bAnD?? I think this was a good lead single (had they known the success of youngblood that might’ve been better, but it might not have gotten as popular if it came out of nowhere) to introduce the new song. Compared to rest of the album this song is fairly tame, I’ve listened to it so many times that ofc this is 5sos. I just wow I’m so proud of them (imma try not to write this through the entire post bc thats basically what I did on twitter all night)

Favorite Lyrics:

Is it tears or just the fucking rain? (who am I liking explicit lines, I am a changed woman)

And the way that I used to make you laugh/'Cause you know every morning I wake up/Yeah, I still reach for you/I remember the roses on your shirt/When you told me this would never work

Lie to Me

Out of the non-singles performed on tour (+valentine, talk fast, moving along), this one is my favorite. I fell in love with it instantly. It makes me think of Come Back… Be Here which is my second favorite Taylor Swift song. Ngl, hearing the studio version was a tad disappointing because I was hoping that there would be piano in the song, even though why would there be? Lol. It’s not like there was piano in the live version. Listening to the studio version made me understand the boys when they talk about the contrast the sad lyrics with the happy beachy vibe instrumental. I still LOVE this song, it was just a bit of a shock because I had unrealistic expectations for the studio version (I think I was thinking closer to Ghost of You vibes), regardless, I will request they release a piano cover of the song. The short clips of Luke on the piano is not enough. The harmonies in this song are so good and my hear hurts over the lyrics. 

There is violin in this song and that needs to be appreciated. There’s also a certain sound at the end of the chorus that sounds like something else but I can’t remember what.

Favorite Lyrics:

And I caught you looking too, but you didn't look twice

Valentine

This song took me a while to get into. 1) The rhythm is very different from anything else I have heard by them 2) The word choices in the chorus, there are some words that automatically turn me off of songs they just sound cringy to me. After listening to the song enough I have gotten us to it and enjoy the song.

I don’t know why it took me so long to realize, well I do, it’s because I had to get used to the lyrics, but this song is HOT. Another good song to perform on tour to introduce how SEXY this album is, literally. It’s funny because I normally am not a fan of albums when they’re too sexual but I am so in love with this album and they also address the topic in a classy, normalizing way, that doesn’t just focus on being horny, there’s an additional psychological dimension within their song.

Favorite Lyrics:

We know we're classic together like Egyptian gold/We love us

Talk Fast

This was the only song they sang on the tour that I hadn’t heard the studio version, my jaw was on the floor (I mean it was for most songs but lol). This was my second favorite non-single song they performed on tour, it has a fun ‘80′s inspired feel. The bass (and the drums) stand out in this song. 

Favorite Lyrics:

Leave all of your indecisions with you at home/Don't see you're doing me a favor

lol me. 

God dammit we look good together

Moving Along

This song also took me a little while to get into, besides the beat, I think it has to do with the more talk quality of the song. And again, the interesting lyrics. But now you see me bopping. I feel like they chose very unique songs to perform on tour and I appreciate that it also gave me the time to love them, so now I can properly enjoy them now that the album is out. 

Favorite Lyrics:

For this song, my favorite lyrics has to do more with what part of the song is the most fun to sing along to.

I know I’m the stupid one who ended it/And now I'm the stupid one regretting it

I've been thinking about you lots, lately/Or are you moving along?

If Walls Could Talk

This is the first new song that I heard and it was so exciting. From the first listen I knew that this is going to be one of my favorite songs. Which makes me scream because this is a straight sex song. This song just makes me smile and makes me want to dance. 

This is the first song that Ashton has a proper feature and it makes me so happy :) I love the drums and the piano in this song. Michael’s guitar part during most of the song brings a lightness during the song but then during the bridge it brings the gritty, we're getting down and dirty aspect to the song. 

-Disclaimer- I will not talk about bass enough through this post bc I do not have the best ear for bass, I am just not as familiar with the instrument. I can tell in some songs, but in others, I have to listen very closely but even then I don’t necessarily hear it (I mean I’m pretty sure Cal will be playing the piano in this song so... it makes sense)

Favorite Lyrics:

Bodies are hoping to get addicted to sound

I love this line. This is a song that makes you want to put your head back, dance and get lost in the music. It is a perfect representation of the song. 

If these walls could talk, I'd hope they wouldn't say anything/Because they've seen way too many things

This lines really brings perspective. I find this song to be very vulnerable. The line is saying that it’s seen everything you’ve done within these walls, the sex, the desire, but also you break down crying, the look of falling in love, anger, and frustration as you hit the wall… The walls know your everything.

Better Man

Another Taylor Swift reference? Lol. But actually, this song reminds me of Ed Sheeran. I even feel like how it’s sung gives me ed vibes, the guitar, down to the mhhh. 

This song is so cute. 

Favorite Lyrics:

New friends again and again, gone when the morning comes/Demons I try to defend, but I couldn't get enough

This line stood out right away it was sad and relatable. 

Wrapped in your arms, I swear I'd die for you

im not emo.

More 

Another fav. This song goes so hard. It reminds me a little bit of ONE OK ROCK. There is a heavy guitar part, Ashton kills the drums at the end, and there's a shaker?? in this song too.

I mean... this is about Luke. It can easily apply to the other boys, but there’s a reason why this is a Luke dominate album. 

Favorite Lyrics:

Enemy lines are drawn, lines are drawn

I love how Calum sings this line

I like a lot of lines in the album, the first verse is a standout, idk, this is a very sad relatable song.

Why Won’t You Love Me

Lol the first few seconds makes me think of Chole by Emblem3 

This was the first song where I was still and entranced while listening to it. This is a very cinematic song, which is very beautiful but also makes me think of someone (cough cough) staring out a rainy window.

While I have never been in a relationship I can relate to this song, specifically to friendship. Sometimes people change or need something better even if nothing actually went wrong. I think this is something important to remember with any relationship, sometimes “It’s not you, it’s me” is as true as it gets. 

The ooh at the end is cute. 

Favorite Lyrics:

You say you can't wait and need to make a change

I check my phone to see your face/Staring back as if to say/Don't worry, you won't be lonely

Woke Up In Japan

I can’t help but think about my time in Japan while I listen to this (Even though I am actually visualizing China bc we were in a hotel for a short time, while the dorm we were in Japan was more like an apartment). This song is good, they lyrics standout the most, but it defs doesn’t stand out as much as other songs. It’s an interesting contradiction that I am trying to wrap my head around. It’s all over the place. The song is about amazing sex, the ecstasy of a night out while being in a bad mental place in another country. (even though japans probs metaphorical in this context)

Favorite Lyrics:

It was more than just a neon weekend

Empty Wallets

This is another song that does stand out too much but it’s still GOOD.

Favorite Lyrics:

Dancing on empty wallets

I love the visual 

Shoulda caught a break/The fluid ain't to blame/For the sugar causing pain

Ghost of You

I’m not dying, I am already dead. This song pulls at my heartstrings so much. I can’t. It also reminds me of songs that they play in ‘00 movies which makes me emo (closest I can think of I’ll be, but that’s not exactly the feel I’m going for).

This is a masterpiece. 

Favorite Lyrics:

The verses. I can’t pick. 

Monster Among Men

Michael starting of the song. Yes.  This song is funky and fun. I really enjoy the instrumental arrangement in this song, Ashton’s drumming goes hard, mikey’s guitar solo, cal on the piano. It’s amazing. This isn’t my #1 but it’s defs up there (as with the next to songs)

Favorite Lyrics:

one, two, three, four 

I love how this switches with the beat. The oh no’s in this song also go hard.

it's time for me to admit/That I'm an asshole, so here I go

boy…wyd? At least you’re being honest. 

Meet You There

The chorus, the beat drop. YESSSS. I also love the attitude of whatever will be will be, the universe will choose our destiny.

Favorite Lyrics:

I would break in bed, if you wanted me to

I. AM. SCREAMING.

Babylon

Calum F it up. The intro to this song. I had heard that a song sounded like FOB, my friend made the direct reference last night, but not until this morning have I finally been able to hear it. Sounds similar to centuries which is one of FOB’s best songs (that I’ve heard).

Favorite Lyrics:

The entire second verse 

I'm tired of the feud, your short fuse, my half-truths are not amused/I wish we had a clue to start new, a white moon, no residue/The color of our mood is so rude, a cold June, we're not immune/But if we're way too faded to fight, you can stay one more night.

And there we have it, folks. I am so incredibly proud of these boys. This album was life-changing for them, their excitement feed off to us, and it followed through. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed an album so much since Made in the AM and that was back in 2015. Well, this will all I will be talking about for a long time. So I am sorry in advance. 

Ranking to hopefully come later in the week.

Album Review/Ranking Masterlist

#youngblood album #youngblood reaction #youngblood first impression #song review #5 seconds of summer #5sos #calum hood #luke hemmind #michael clifford #ashton irwin #ghost of you #babylon #meet you there #empty wallets #woke up in japan #why won't you love me #more #if these walls could talk #talk fast #moving along #valentine #want you back #monster among men #lie to me

[laziturtle]

Reactions: Stranger in a Strange Land

This is my response to the episode as I watch it. It's not meant to be a review, and you won't understand unless you've seen the episode, though it does contain spolers. I put further detail and musings, as well as theories at the bottom.

Road so far, let's go. Jack. Cas dying, Michael, Gabe. Then Michael!Dean

Sam has the impala, of course.

Hello man with music … Ah, arabic man praying.

"Gabriel?" "The other one, the better one." "Michael." Lol

Michael!Dean asking this guy what he wants. "Peace and love." Oo, Michael. Ouch. But yeah, doesn't understand humans at all.

Michale's wings and blue fire for the eyecatch.

Everyone in the bunker. Eating soup! Three weeks since Dean. And there's Sam leading, and being overworked.

And Jack learning to fight.

Okay good, Cas. With a gay man … Cas doesn't like him?  Yep, meeting with a demon. "I thought the two of you were joined at the …well everything." Looking down. Ahhhh. Lol (1) Oh man, Cas is in it. "Tell me everything you know or I will burn you to ash, right here, right now." Guys got demons. Cas is itching for a fight. Wow. Yeah, Cas just goes right to fight. My poor Cas.

And Anel. (2) Still up to being her. Oh wow, we saw Michael face, what the angels see. He asks her what she wants. He knows what Dean knows. He can sense there are not many angels. But he's disappointed in them.

Sam and Jack: Oh, Sam is interrupted from talking to Jack for …Cas? (Dean really) 7B is not Cas' room. Oh …wtf mate? Ah, Nick. Yeah, they really wanted to keep this actor around. Why the hell would he survive? (3) Oh archangel blade thing. Which is good news for Dean, except they don't have another archangel. Still weird. (4)

Ransom call for Cas. Oo, Sam, is that Dean's gun? Sam's letting Jack come. I like 'in charge' Sam. (5)

"It's kinda what you're for, isn't it?" Oh wow, Michael!Dean talked to him. I dunno if this demon is too close to Crowley though …seems almost like the same char.

Sam's giving up on Dean. Mary isn't giving up.

Sam ignoring the man and checking out Cas. Kipling, Kip for short he says. "So, let's make a deal." We'll see. I want to like him, but I think it's just because he's like Crowley. He's even saying "I want the Crowley deal." " But you're no Crowley." Says Sam. Okay, they're going more crazy with Kip. "Take the deal, before I stop 'trying' to be Crowley." Okay, that's interesting. Huh, more slowmo than I'm used to in the fight. Lol, one hit to Jack. Oo, Kip can fight. Crowley couldn't fight. Awwww…I actually was getting interested in him. (6)

"There will be no new King of Hell. You'll have to come through me." Wow, Sam scared all the demons into smoking out. Lol. Remember how hard that used to be? (7)

Sam and Cas scene.

Mary and Bobby scene. "Sunshine." really? (8)

Jack Cas scene. Jack's room is across from Cas'. I think his was 22.

Sam is in 21? ...I thought he was ll. (9)

Jo called Sam. Why would she call Sam? (10)

Michael working with a vampire? (11)

I admit, they packed a lot into this episode, even if Cas was mostly just a hostage. Weird that they took Maggie when they did a good job of showing she's rather worthless (well, untrained).  

They put Mark Pellegrino’s name at the end of the episode so you didn't know he was going to be in the episode.

(1) I had heard tell of a "destiel" line in this episode that people were happy about. I enjoyed it, but I was not as impressed with it since it was coming from someone who could very easily be seen as just making fun of the two of them. However, it really does stop to make you think about how they've made it very obvious in this show that everyone knows about Dean and Cas, even their enemies, the implication being that it's not just people who know them who see it, but most anyone who interacts with them. More on this later*.

(2) It seems we're going to call Anel, Jo, because it can't be a female angel without a female name!

(3) I had heard hints of this as well. I was angry about it at the time, even though I love Mark. I am unhappy with this turn because it feels like another half-ass attempt to keep around the actors they love even when they should be dead. (Don't get me started on how Ketch came back from the dead last season …) However, I am willing to put up with a lot since I love this show. Possible theories: Nick will have been influenced by spending so much time with Lucifer and eventually turns evil himself.

(4) This took longer to hit me than it should have. This means Gabriel's vessel is still alive too. As much as I love Gabriel, I was unhappy with his return and redemption arc last season. I thought it was heavy-handed and poorly paced. Having 'Gabe' around as a human will at least solve the problem of having archangel power on the team.

(5) While I am a hardcore Destiel fan and have loved the Dean and Cas centric plots, I do still love Sam and I am really happy to see what they do now that he's away from Dean for a time, hopefully! for more than three episodes.

(6) The more I thought about Kip, the more impressed I was. I thought the character was beautifully done and I could feel the back-story with him dressing as Crowley specifically to help his bid toward being King of Hell and getting in with the Winchesters. This guy had a *plan*. And when he claimed to have run with Genghis Kahn and then showed his temper and ability to fight, I actually got excited to see more of this character. I was genuinely upset by this death. That was good writing.

(7) The gravitas behind this scene hit me while I was watching it. Sam rolled an intimidate check and caused four demons to smoke out. His team didn't even have the upper-hand. The demons were just that scared of Sam. It was a great moment.

(8) I am more upset about them pairing Mary and Bobby than I feel I should be. Maybe it's because I want to see Dean and Cas and so I'm pissed they're romantically attaching anyone who isn't them, but also I'm just not liking the idea of Mary and Bobby together. And using Dean's "sunshine" line that he said to Cas …sigh.

(9) Yes, I pay a lot of attention to room numbers.

(10) I genuinely don't remember them leaving Jo in the type of situation where 1) She would have Sam's number and 2) she would call Sam. I may have to go back and watch that episode again. Though I am impressed by the that Jo was willing to stare down an angry Lucifer and is terrified enough of Michael that she goes to Sam.

(11) I'm somewhat intrigued by this decision. This is a vampire and not a human, so Michael is choosing monsters over humans and angels. And the vampire wants to eat …so is Michael going to go the leviathan route, of trying to turn humans into a food source?

*Unlike a lot of the destiel fandom, I don't blame the writers/actors for a lack of canonizing Dean and Cas' relationship. Firstly, their Dean and Cas' care for each other is beyond brotherly affection too obviously unless you're trying not to see it. Plus the writers and actors have come out and said, "um, yeah, we put this in on purpose." I assume the problem is someone higher up the chain, who is in charge of making money. If you think about it, there are fans who will straight up boycott the show if Dean and Cas are canonized. I've seen the fandom enough to know that. While all the destiel fans are already watching. So canonizing destiel will only hurt the bottom line. It's a sad way to think about it, but it's why I don't truly believe we'll get destiel canonized unless it's the last episode of the series. (A popular way to do handle same sex relationships. Legend of Korra (yes, it wasn't a kiss, but come ON) and Adventure Time, though I am gladdened by it happening in Steven Universe before the series was over. And yes, these were all girl/girl, but it's still the same battle.) It could also simply be the TV censors, but since those other shows have gotten past it, I'm less likely to blame them. I mean I am holding out hope, of course, but I don't actually expect it.

#supernatural #spn 14x01 #castiel #my opinions #destiel