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python333 · 4 months

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déjà vu — python333

— — — —

synopsis you and ghost are more similar than the two of you realized.

relationships platonic!ghost & gn!reader.

characters ghost.

word count 2.88k

warnings 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [call sign/code name], ghost's backstory [yes that is a warning within itself], kind of badly written.

note holy shitttttt i'm so sorry i haven't posted in two months. to everyone who is disappointed this isn't a req they submitted—i am very sorry but i have like. no motivation. please take this small fic as a peace offering after being silent for two months. also yes i said alej fic but i only had motivation to write for ghost LMAO

“So…” Ghost can hear Price next to him, creating an echo as he speaks through his earpiece, “Doesn’t it get hot, always wearing that mask?”

“Not when it’s made of the right materials,” Your voice crackles through, the wind blowing by slightly distorting your voice, “It’s also winter, captain, so no, it doesn’t get hot.”

The corners of Ghost’s lips twitch upwards when you answer, but he otherwise doesn’t say or do anything, simply leaning against the wall parallel to Price. For you, maybe your mask doesn’t get hot, but his certainly does—though, he doesn’t voice that, simply listening.

“Oh really?” Price hums, looking around the corner of the wall he’s leaned up against, spotting a few enemy soldiers walking by without a clue of who they’re in the presence of, “What’s yours made of, then?”

“Polyester,” You answer.

From what Ghost understands, you wear a mask for the same reason as him—anonymity. As much as he can respect that and understand the want to remain anonymous, he can’t help but wonder why you would want that. Is it for reasons similar to why he wears his? Have you gone through things similar to what he’s gone through? Did a fellow SAS soldier also murder your entire family and attempt to pin it on you, to which you responded by killing him, stealing his dog tags, and burning your own house down? He had many questions, but didn’t ask any.

He doesn’t think you’d answer them, anyway. He certainly wouldn’t. He’d maybe try to divert the conversation with a bad dad joke, or simply not dignify the question with a response, anything but an actual answer. He strangely expects the same of you.

He vaguely remembers a conversation he had with Price when you first joined maybe two months ago, specifically a comment Price had made about your file; “I had the same conversation with Laswell about their file that I did when I first got yours. She said the same thing when she saw their file, too, word for word.”

It turned out that they had the exact same exchange that they did when they saw Ghost’s file, verbatim. Laswell had pointed out that you had no picture, and Price said, “Never.” Ever since then, Ghost has felt an inexplicable connection to you, despite not having talked to you that much.

He’ll admit, he tried to initiate a conversation with you more often than he did with the others when he first met them. Maybe one or two times a day, he’d find you and make small talk, something that made his skin crawl with discomfort but something he still forced himself to do, just to try and make sense of the invisible line that seemed to tie you both together.

This small talk started off as anything from a question about the weather—yes, Ghost asked about the weather, unfortunately for the both of you considering how awkward and stilted that short conversation was—to asking about training and skills. He didn’t normally initiate conversations with anyone else, he was typically the one that was walked up to and barely even had to carry any conversations he was in.

Every conversation the two of you had always ended the same way, though; with you cutting it short the moment it got anywhere near your personal life, or even just your life outside of being a part of the 141, and walking off elsewhere. Ghost could see the tiniest bit of himself in you everytime you did that, and an annoying voice in the back of his mind always asked, Was I always that much of a hardass? … Am I that much of a hardass?

“Ghost,” Price’s voice snaps Ghost out of his train of thought and he grunts, looking over at Price. The man in question nods his head towards the now clear path to the building they needed to get into, and Ghost nodded back, taking his SMG out of the sling and moving out of the small alleyway they’d camped in, following after Price.

They quickly rush over to the building, the doors thankfully unlocked and the soldiers guarding it stupid enough to not be right beside the front doors, and lock the doors behind them once they’re in.

“Are you guys in?” You ask, the wind no longer distorting your voice, the background of your audio now relatively silent except for your faint breathing.

“Yeah,” Price replies, the darkness of the building making him squint as he scans the walls for some sort of light switch, “Anyone notice we got in?”

“Not that I can see, no,” You answer, your sigh audible through the comms, “They’re pretty far from the building, actually.”

“Perfect,” Price hums, patting his hand along the wall for a moment before finding a large lever. He hesitates to pull it, and ultimately decides against it, deeming it too risky. Instead, he searches his tactical vest and goes through a few large pockets that sit around his lower midriff before finding a relatively small flashlight.

He presses the button on the end of the handle with a small click, and the flashlight flickers for a moment before the light becomes consistent and a small buzz begins to sound. Price looks around for a second, scanning the area for any immediate threats, and motions for Ghost to follow him.

“See anything?” You ask curiously, some rustling heard on your end. Ghost looks around for a second, footsteps echoing eerily through the building.

“Nothing important,” He replies, voice quiet, “Just dust and old furniture.”

“His office is just down there,” Price interjects, nodding towards the hall to their left, making Ghost look in that same direction, “I’ll head down there, you stay here, let me know if anyone’s coming.”

The echo from Price talking to Ghost both through comms and being right beside him, as well as the echo from being in such a large room, starts to irritate Ghost. He rolls his shoulders and puts his gun back in the sling, looking back at Price.

“Turn off your comms,” His suggestion sounds more like a command, but he’s sure Price understands it’s more of a request than anything else, “You’re echoing. If anything happens, I can just talk to you without them.”

Price pauses before nodding, and pressing the small button on his earpiece to turn off his mic, and the piece entirely. He trusts Ghost wholeheartedly, and it shows. He takes one last look around before walking towards the office he pointed out.

The office belonged to the man who had stolen vital intel from the 141—not intelligence on the task force itself, but rather a separate team that had recently allied themselves with the task force. They couldn’t risk that data being taken, as it would not only expose the other team, but several other similar teams and task forces.

Ghost waits until Price is actually in the hall before speaking again, “You still there, [c/n]?”

“Yeah,” You answer almost immediately, “Need something?”

“No,” Ghost hums, leaning against the wall behind him, “Just wanted to talk.”

“Please don’t ask me about the weather again,” You sigh, almost exasperated, “Or about how my training is going, or about how my CO is, or—”

“I’m not,” Ghost interrupts you, not sure whether to laugh or cry at your examples of past conversations.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” He says, before asking, “How long were you apart of the army, before joining here?”

“Before the 141?” You pause, thinking for a moment, “Sounds kind of personal.”

“You don’t have to answer,” Ghost offers, voice almost reassuring, “Just curious.”

“Aren’t you always,” You mutter, a comment Ghost promptly ignores, before you properly answer, “Just a year. Maybe a year and a half.”

“American army, right?”

“Mhm,” You hum, “Would you believe me if I said we sang Yankee Doodle before going on any missions?”

“Oh, sure I would,” Ghost chuckles, before countering, “Would you believe me if I said that song was made to mock Americans?”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended that you believe that,” You say, a lighter lilt to your voice as you do compared to a few moments ago, “But yes, I believe you. I think that almost every American has reclaimed it as one of the most patriotic songs, though.”

“Almost every American?” Ghost questions, growing more amused as the conversation goes on. It confuses him, making him wonder why he’s so easily drawn into conversations with you, no matter how small or dry.

“I’m sure there’s some here and there that don’t like it,” You elaborate, “But I haven’t met any. Not yet.”

“Alright,” Ghost nods even though you can’t see him, before asking another question, “What branch?”

“The Navy,” You answer, now without questioning Ghost which brings him a strange sense of relief, “I flew planes around and stuff. Didn’t really like it, though.”

“Oh yeah?” Ghost sounds more interested now, “Why not?”

“The soldiers there aren’t the best people to be around,” You hum, the sounds of you moving audible, “One mention of any sort of mental issues, even if it’s just something like feeling anxious or being sleep deprived, and suddenly everyone’s on your ass pressuring you to be better or just… being weird about it. It gets draining after a while.”

“I bet,” Ghost murmurs, “Is that why you left?”

“Partially,” You answer honestly, “Half of it was that, the other half was that I just didn’t like flying planes. I was also eighteen and couldn’t really control my impulsive thoughts, so a majority of the time I was fighting myself trying not to crash the plane on purpose.”

“Makes sense,” Ghost considers what you said for a moment, before his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he asks, “Isn’t the enlistment age for the Navy nineteen?”

“It is,” You assure him, “I was an exception, ‘cause I was a month or two away from turning nineteen.”

“Hm,” Ghost hums, “And you’re twenty now?”

“Twenty, almost twenty-one,” You confirm.

“Did you wear the mask back then?” Ghost asks, praying that the question isn’t too personal to the point where you stop responding. He’s been dying to ask the question, always worrying whether or not it was too personal—it was pretty personal, to be fair, but he wasn’t used to worrying this much over another soldier, much less one he only met two months ago. Sure, you both wore a mask and remained somewhat anonymous, but that didn’t mean you two were automatically best friends who braided each other’s hair.

“...” You don’t respond for a moment, making Ghost’s worry increase, before you reply, “No.”

Your simple answer makes Ghost more curious, and he can’t tell if he should ask why or not. He stays silent for a few seconds, weighing his options, before he ultimately says, “Alright.”

He tries to leave it up to you whether or not you want to tell him about your own story, of if you’re comfortable with that, which you probably aren’t, considering that—again—the two of you only met a couple months ago.

“Did you wear the mask?” You ask quietly a moment later, catching Ghost off-guard, “Before this?”

“Before the 141?” He echoes your question from earlier, nodding to himself, “Yeah. For some time before this, I had a different mask, but it was still a mask.”

“Was the skull always there?”

“Mhm.”

“… For just aesthetic purposes, or?” Ghost feels the corners of his lips tug up in amusement at your question, and at how genuinely curious you sound.

“Eh. Not really,” He answers, taking a deep breath in and out through his nose. He doesn’t say any more than that, not being able to as his mind takes him back to a time a while ago, when he was being held hostage and was in the same room as some kids who heard him spill his entire background to the men holding him hostage.

He remembers one kid in particular, a little girl with blonde hair, who had listened to every detail that he’d said. When he was telling the story of why he has the call sign Ghost, in hopes of distracting the men so that the 141 could rescue him and the kids, she had clung to every detail and later asked him if what he had said was true, her tone of voice eerily similar to yours.

He remembers when he was carrying her out of that room, the questions she’d bombarded him with, and how he answered every one with as neutral of an answer he could muster. He debates doing that now with any questions you ask, but decides against it almost instantly—something that shocks him, even though it was his own thought—considering that he wanted to ask you those same questions. Not about your call sign, only about the mask.

“It’s a long story,” He says after you’ve been silent for a while, your curiosity somehow palpable even through just the comms, “But it has to do with some family members.”

“Yeah?” You hum, “I know a thing or two about that.”

“Do you?” Ghost asks, slightly ashamed at the small jolt of excitement he feels at the opportunity of hearing more about you.

“Mhm,” You pause, staying quiet for a moment, before continuing, “About family members. Dead ones.”

“Ah,” Ghost nods, the discomfort he originally felt sharing some of his own story starting to melt away, “Dead ones. I understand.”

“Can’t tell if I should be glad or not,” You snort, “Like, I’m glad you understand, but also sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ghost grins under his mask, “I was wondering the same thing.”

“So… dead ones,” You think out loud, before asking, “That’s why you have that call sign and mask?”

“Yeah,” Ghost looks around for a moment, reminding himself to keep watch while talking to you, before cautiously asking, “Are yours the reason for your mask?”

“Not really,” You answer honestly, with a little less resistance behind your answer to Ghost’s relief, “Well… I mean, kind of. But they’re not the reason-reason. I didn’t really like them, so I’m not gonna give them all the credit, but I’ll give them… maybe twenty-five percent of it.”

“A quarter’s still a lot,” Ghost points out, “What’d they do to earn that?”

“They died, and…” You’re doing more pausing and hesitating now, making Ghost wonder if he’s going to personal every second that you stay quiet, before you finally answer in a more guarded tone, “I almost got blamed for it. Almost.”

Ghost gets hit with a pang of mixed emotions, like a weird sort of uncomfortable nostalgia. They almost got blamed for it. He lets out a breath that’s slightly shaky, and thinks for a moment before saying, “Almost?”

“Almost,” You confirm, tone a little less guarded, presumably at Ghost’s more calm reaction, “Then I handled it the best I could, and the guy who killed them got what he deserved.”

“Which was?” Ghost feels more of that uncomfortable nostalgia bubble up, giving him an uneasy feeling in his gut, as if he knows where this conversation is going.

“Death,” You answer softly, “And the nameplate on his uniform stolen, which I replaced with mine. I would’ve taken his dog tags, but we didn’t really wear them on missions ‘cause our drill sergeant didn’t care too much.”

Ghost can put a name to the feeling now. Déjà vu. He takes a deep breath and considers your words for a moment.

“And the body?” His lips move before he can think.

“Burnt.” You answer simply, “The whole house. It was mainly drywall, so it took a moment to actually completely catch on fire, but it was quick enough. It also smelled disgusting.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Ghost swallows, vividly remembering the smell of his own house, before continuing, “He was a soldier for the Navy, too?”

“Mhm. He was… a Private, I think,” You reply, “I wasn’t too close with him. I wasn’t with anyone.”

“And so the reason you wear the mask is…?”

“I didn’t really exist anymore after that,” You hum, “At least, not to them. I was dead in a burned down house, my own house, and was far gone. I like wearing the mask; it keeps me as just another soldier, not as the person who died in that house.”

“But you didn’t,” Ghost points out, trying to ignore the eerie feeling that only grows stronger the more you talk, “You’re here.”

“… Yeah, I am,” You say after a moment of thinking, smile evident in your voice, “Doesn’t mean I can take that back, though. ‘s not the best feeling, doing something like that.”

“Trust me, I know,” Ghost chuckles, “If anyone here, I’d be the person to know, kid.”

“Really?” You ask, voice more curious like it was before, “Why’s that?”

“I’ve… weirdly been through almost everything you said,” Ghost admits, “Word for word with the house burning down, actually.”

“… Huh,” You huff out a small laugh before saying, “I’m wondering if I should feel happy or sad again.”

“Me too, again,” Ghost smiles, eyes flickering up at Price’s footsteps sound through the hallway, his silhouette slowly coming into view, “One last question.”

“Shoot.”

“How’s the weather?”

“I’m not answering that, fuck you.”

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thesimonkshow · 3 years

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How AHS: Double Feature - Red Tide Should Have Ended

So I think all of us have pretty much seen the AHS: Double Feature - Red Tide finale. To put it both politely & bluntly: Choices were made, the majority of them not executed well. Me & my sister were agitated following the finale and we spent a good deal of time working on a better one & I think we made a good set of ideas. So let me go into them below.

So the only thing I’d change in the episode is the fates of Mickey & Karen, instead of becoming beneficial from The Muse, they instead become pale people, I know sad, but it’ll make sense in a bit. Also remember how The Chemist verbatim said that pale people keep the thoughts of them not being good enough to succeed? Well instead of the episode ending with Doris feeding off of an animal, it has her remembering her other memories with the Gardners, in particular what Alma, Ursula & Harry said about her the night before and day of her release.

The episode jumps ahead in time a bit since the last one, but besides that the beginning stays the same: The Chief is found in the water, it’s brought up at the council, Holden turns the new chief away, Harry wants to give up The Muse, Alma & Ursula interject but he puts his foot down, Eli gets captured by Belle. Harry & Alma decide to go but need backup, Ursula refuses at first but then the two begin to bait her, if she comes out alive with or without them, she’ll be hailed as a hero & will have opportunities to milk it in public and make millions, the story of how she rescued Eli could be a book, a miniseries, a film, but she’ll never get it if she stands to the side. Hooked in, she agrees and goes with them.

They arrive at Belle’s, however they get overpowered and tied up. When they come to, they see Belle preparing to feast, The Chemist looking on & Austin standing guard over them. Harry pleads for their lives & how they’ll leave Provincetown and never take another tablet, but Belle & Austin ignore him. Belle gets ready to drink but Harry tries to lunge forward, Austin takes his knife and drags it across Ursula’s throat, feeding on her while Belle barks at Harry to stay still or he’ll be next. He stills & Belle goes into her rant about having to clean up the town, when the pale people break in. We see a flashback of Doris regaining her memories & beginning to speak english again. The pale people bow to her, perceiving her as their leader, an anomaly which makes her happy, however her happiness soon turns to rage when she realises she has a whole army to serve her. She goes to the Gardner’s house, prepared to break in when she overhears Eli has been kidnapped by Belle & she instead forms another plan: Follow Harry, Alma & Ursula to Belle’s, wait for the right moment and strike.

Returning back to the present, The Chemist takes Eli and runs, whilst Austin & Belle attempt to attack the pales to no avail, they both end up dying (Remember when Belle is being fed on by two pales in the episode, they ain’t no ordinary pales, it’s Mickey & Karen, they kill her as revenge for all the turmoil she’s put them through). Whilst this is going on, Alma works Austin’s knife closer to her & cuts through the ropes, setting herself & Harry free. She then runs to attack Doris before Harry rushes in front of her holding her back, reprimanding her as she is still her mother, pale or not, and how he should never have gotten her mixed up in this mess. Doris’s anger fades as she sees he still cares, and tells them both to leave, sparing them from her army. Harry & Alma do so and bump into The Chemist with Eli. She has an emotional moment with Harry about how she never wanted things to be this way, how she just wanted to be successful and have her own family, but she got dragged into this whole mess and taking pity on her, Harry extends an invitation to LA with them to start anew, she accepts and they leave the same night.

The next day, the town awakens to find Belle, Austin & Ursula dead and upon investigating, the new chief finds possessions of Holden’s in Belle’s house and later receives an anonymous tip off that Holden was involved with Belle & Austin. See in addition to remembering everything, Doris remembers that Holden was with Harry, bagging out her designing choices. As a final act of revenge, she sets him up, making it seem that he was responsible for all the murders. He gets taken in alongside the council, whom are all suspended from their positions. Doris watches with the other pales, pleased that they have had the last word.

We then head to LA; where The Chemist has been pawning off the pills to racist cops, same as the episode shows. However she’s also been supplying them to Alma behind Harry’s back alongside blood bags so she can continue her violin career. Harry is too busy to be caring anyway, as his scripts are an absolute success, again same as the show. Everyone is lining up to work with him, and critics and civilians alike are lapping up his content. The only problem is that the content is starting to run dry & despite Harry wanting to be off the pill, the weight of expectations from critics and fans overwhelms him, and he gets The Chemist to give him a pill, however he wants one that won’t work like The Muse did before, he’s past drinking blood from the bums in Provincetown like he did before. She agrees and spends a few days perfecting it before she completes it and gives it to him, he takes it, and experiencing a rush, he heads to his laptop and spends time writing his next project. However on a reread of it (which he must do himself as he no longer has Ursula) realises that it’s the same sort of script he would have written before he got The Muse, the pill isn’t working.

Meanwhile Alma has her audition & as in the episode comes down to her and another guy. This time instead of being left alone, the caster joins them and hires the other guy. Alma is shocked and asks why, and the caster condescendingly tells her all the other guy said, she’s a viral hit and only that, she’s not versatile enough, a bearded lady in a freak show, she’s not talented enough. Given Alma can’t resort to murder, as she’d be overpowered, she must bottle up her rage until she gets home where she then throws a massive tantrum, screaming as she breaks several household items including her violin. Harry hears her and goes in to find Alma & the wrecked house. An argument follows about it where Harry tells her scathingly that everything she said about Doris actually applies to her: She isn’t talented. Harry demands she pick up her mess, which she does begrudgingly, starring daggers at her father and this distraction causes her to she cuts herself with one of the pieces of a broken china plate.

Harry suddenly turns stoic and before either can register, he rushes forwards and begins to feed on Alma’s open would. She tries to get him off her, trying to appeal to his better nature, but he ignores her, pushing her to the ground and digs his teeth in, drinking more. Once he’s drained Alma dry, he comes too, realises he’s killed his daughter & is horrified at what he’s done. Hearing the floorboards creek, he turns to see The Chemist, whom has been watching. She now knows the side effect of the new pill she has given him, he can still write & be as talented as he was on The Muse but instead of feeding on human blood, he must feed on those whom have taken The Muse. She presents Garry with a little black book of all the people who’ve taken it, as Belle & Austin were only a couple of many. Angered, he storms over to her, rip the book out of her hands, when he starts experiencing the same rush he did when he first took The Muse, ideas springing to his head in rapid succession. A glazed look in his eyes, he takes his hands off the book, walks past The Chemist back to his table, opens his laptop, erases his work and starts again, completely unperturbed by what has happened. Smiling, The Chemist goes to dispose of Alma & clean up her mess. The camera cuts to black as the episode ends.

#American Horror Story #American Horror Story: Double Feature #American Horror Story: Red Tide #AHS #AHSFX #Harry Gardner #Alma Gardner #Doris Gardner #The Chemist #Belle Noir #Austin Sommers #Ursula Caan #Tuberculosis Karen #Mickey AHS #Holden Vaughn

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priortoallthoughts · 3 years

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TBB Character Thoughts

Where do you live Filoni I just wanna talk

Why are they white Filoni

Filoni answer me

Spoilers for TBB episodes 1 & 2 under the cut

Crosshair

There are two distinct instances where we see Crosshair being more than just the asshole character and I’m gonna talk about them

The first one is S7E4 of TCW when everyone is escaping Skako Minor and he and Wrecker are comparing kill counts

don’t look at me blushing about Crosshair being a top

But just look at Crosshair’s mannerisms when he says “no he won’t~”

Popping up right after Hunter assures Wrecker just to rub it in that he topped him killed more droids

The little head shake and shoulder shrug he does

And his voice

That’s not the voice of someone saying something cruel

That’s a straight up teasing voice

He’s teasing his vod like vode do

The second instance is in TBB S1E1 when they’re loading the marauder for their mission to Onderon

“He actually cried”

And ya know what?

I don’t doubt that Wrecker cried

But “hey, we both did”

I like to think that Crosshair, seeing a fully stocked armory with force knows how many (probably new) rifles, also teared up a bit

THAT’S the Crosshair I’m holding out hope for

But I swear if I don’t see him trying to fight the chip’s control

(Just like Rex tried to do)

(Just like Jesse tried to do)

If I don’t see that and he doesn’t get any character development beyond being just the bad guy

I’m gonna go feral

But maybe we do see it?

He still wants Hunter’s permission before pulling the trigger even with his chip half active

And Wrecker is a big target

Crosshair only hits his shoulder when they’re escaping Kamino

From that close range he misses a kill shot?

No sir I don’t think so

Wrecker

There was never a doubt in my mind that Wrecker would be good with kids

Look at him standing up behind Omega in the galley for intimidation like the ori’vod he is

And to see him interact with Shaeeah and Jek

“Uncle Wrecker!”

I just 🥺

Amazing

And can I just say that when they’re locked up on Kamino and he punches the wall the first time

He explains the sounds to the guard almost verbatim the way Tech did to him

Had me cracking up because the way he’s written, he would never say that by himself

He trusts Tech’s explanation so much that he parrots it back to the guards

Not to mention all the little interactions between Tech and Wrecker in both episodes

Them arguing about the hand signals

Him reacting to Tech’s teasing about his conditioning

Wrecker suplexing the droid which was hot

And maybe they’ve done it before, but all Crosshair needing to say is “knife” for Wrecker to know what to do

Great moment

And his SCAR

We get a so much more detailed image of it in the first episode

Like, I’m of the opinion that that injury is part of the reason he acts as childish as he does

Because are those or are those not electrical scars

His brain was fried

Them mentioning it at all would be nice

Give me more than big dumb guy

I love and support the headcanon of him being emotionally intelligent

Also, him going through the Marauder with Omega and they both fall asleep together is the sweetest

He probably showed her everything they have while talking about it

He showed her where they hide the snacks

Lula is cute and so is Wrecker’s poncho and hat

Tech

His confidence in everything he says is so attractive

He might be misinformed about some things, namely the inhibitor chips

But boy

Him being positive about where to hit the wall to break out of their cell

The fact that he could slice into imperial data easily even though he’s never seen those codes before

How he didn’t tell Hunter about his plan to impound the Marauder until after the fact because he knew his plan would work

The biggest flex

Also, I want him to hear Rex explain the true purpose of the chips

I want him to say “actually” like he’s about to say something

I want Rex to have undeniable proof of it all

And I want Tech to become progressively more horrified about what he sees/hears

Tech is Tech

He knows technology

He trusts technology

And look at what the Kaminoans put inside him and his vod

He immediately starts planning on how to get the chip out of Crosshair

Also he’s a secret softie with Omega

He probably researched everything about her right after they meet the first time

He’s upset because she’s upset on the farm in Saleucami

The way he reaches up to catch her when she drops down from the Marauder

“That would be dirt”

Like he can and will happily explain anything about anything to her if she asks

Hunter

Guess who just made the Galaxy’s Top 10 list of best dad’s?

Look at him trying to be a dad

You don’t know everything yet but you’re doing great sweetie

Immediate ride or die for Omega as soon as he finds out she’s some sorta defective like them

Also the way he goes after Caleb to try and protect him from the other clones

He just wants to help kids

Probably shoulda called Crosshair out on his acting strange more/earlier

He knows his vod, and Cross is not being Cross

The way he watches Cut and Suu to try and figure this parenting thing out because he’s just acquired a child

The way Cut and Suu look at him when he interacts with Omega

Cut’s like, yeah vod, I’ve been there

HIS SMILE

HELLO TALK ABOUT GORGEOUS

Also talking about gorgeous

Hunter in civvies

He wasn’t yelling at Omega because he was mad, he was yelling because he was scared

He was yelling at Tech because he was mad

I knew Omega wasn’t going to leave but him suggesting it because he wants her to be safe

So good, so pure

And he’s a great leader, honestly

He doesn’t do anything to put them in danger if he can help it (see: Onderon)

Crosshair says he’s missing the big picture but I think he sees everything, but he also knows it’s an incomplete picture

He just wants the best for his vode and that means getting all the facts straight before he does anything

Echo

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY SOMEONE TELL HIM ABOUT FIVES

My man deserves to know exactly how Fives’s actions helped saved Rex and Ahsoka and is still helping to save other vode

He deserves to remember his last batch mate fondly

I love how he reacted to AZI-3

The recognition of his PTSD is a good thing as much as it hurts to see

Need more of that

Echo using his cybernetic arm as a shank on the droids during the training simulation is peak feral fighting

Also he definitely asked to get some kamas again

He earned his ARC status before and he’s not gonna lose that too

Plus he knows the kamas are hot

The fact that he’s complaining about the smell of their room too is just so funny?

Like it’s an offhand comment at first

But then he gripes about it again when Wrecker says it smells funny in the cell

“That’s because it’s clean”

All Echo wants is to kick everyone out of their room for the day and deep clean everything

And the way he acts because of Omega

“Harm her and you’re a dead man”

Completely serious

He absolutely would murder someone if they so much as scratch her

I wish we got more bonding between him and the others

He probably had that awkward phase when you find a new friend group but you’re still new so you can’t just be your normal weird self

He’s gotta build up to being just bantha-shit insane

Otherwise the others would think he’s serious about the shit he says

And be worried

But it’s actually nothing to worry about

I just want them all showing love to him and each other

Also, in case you were curious,

Galaxy’s Top 10 Best Dads (in no particular order):

Hunter

Din Djarin

Jango Fett

Waxer

Boil

Plo Koon

Cut Lawquane

Kanan Jarrus

Bail Organa

Chewbacca, probably

#the bad batch #bad batch #tbb #bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers #spoilers #crosshair #wrecker #tech #hunter #arc trooper echo #character thoughts #i love them so much

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watch-grok-brainrot · 4 years

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Jin Guangyao's Violation of 忠孝仁义

So I had written about WWX and his strong sense of 忠孝仁义 last week. While I was writing it, I kept on thinking about JGY and how he managed to violate all of these virtues. I wanted to go into this characterization of him because I find it so interesting how opposite he is to WWX in the decisions he made. (Warning: i’m not nice to JGY here so if you don’t want him dragged, don’t read?)

忠- loyalty, devotion, fidelity (usually for country or monarch)

(Can I take a moment to talk about how much I LOVE THIS SHOT?! The blood of WRH on the camera lens, WRH falling over, the sudden shift to brightness that mirrors the scene in ep 50 where JGY obscures the sun in his bow (picture above the read more cut)! I can’t get over how much I LOVE the lighting and the way WRH collapses, making way for JGY to become the new sun. Foreshadowing much CQL Crew?!)

This one might be a stretch depending on how you read JGY. I fully believe he went to work for Wen Ruohan as Wen Zhuliu did -- seeking someone who will value his skills. However, WZL died for WRH and JGY just bided his time. (Note: While we know very little about Wen Zhuliu, we know he was at least 忠 and 义. He died for WRH and Wen Chao and refused to let WC desecrate Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan’s bodies. For that, I have to give him respect. He, despite everything, still had that jianghu sense of 义. Also, the man can count. And knows what a golden core feels like.)

So we know JGY gave Lan Xichen the maps, but he also lured them to Nightless City where the puppets were waiting. Had WWX not brought out the Stygian Tiger Amulet, would JGY have murdered WRH? Or would he have stayed in the shadows forever? As a viewer I have no idea what JGY is thinking, what he’s doing, or what he’s hoping for. He hides so well his intentions that there is debate about if he really was helping with the Sunshot Campaign or not! That isn’t something you can say about someone with loyalty.

What upsets me further is that Nie Mingjie, having been JGY’s superior officer, sees JGY more clearly than LXC can. NMJ has seen JGY murder and has seen the level of self-serving vindictiveness JGY is capable of. In the case of the Sunshot Campaign, this self-serving attitude made JGY become a double agent uncommitted to either side. Too bad NMJ could not convince LXC of JGY’s duplicity. I’m gonna blame those dimples.

The fact that we do not know JGY’s intent really shows his lack of 忠. If You Stand For Nothing, JGY, What Will You Fall For? (Answer: Himself and that is not 忠)

孝 - filial piety (deference to your lineage)

So for 孝, you’re supposed to respect your parents, honor your parents, and defer to your parents. What are you not supposed to do? Kill you father. That’s what.

So this should’ve been a really short section because that’s pretty cut and dry. But I want to look at what JGY says to JGS when JGY brings in Sisi and the other women.

(He’s so creepy in this picture! *shudders*)

“父亲,我给你找来了你最爱的女人. 有很多个. 你高兴吗?”

“Father, I have brought you your favorite -- women. There are many. Are you happy?”

(Translation note: you can translate the line as your favorite women or your favorite -- women. I chose to translate it as the latter due to the context.)

First of all, the tone. JGY’s voice is breathy. I can almost hear a smile. He has zero moral qualms about this. He addresses his father as father, not dad or anything close. But he does acknowledge that relationship. And then he says he’s brought JGS’s favorite. There’s a slight emphasis on the favorite there. And it’s creepy. JGY adds the next line and goose bumps start to form on my skin. He knows his father’s sins and he’s punishing his father with it. Why are you doing this JGY?! And at the end, when it asks “Are you happy?” his voice is so sinister I want to scream. JGY clearly knows what he’s doing. He knows exactly what it means to be 孝 and chooses to make a mockery of 孝, to make a mockery of his father, and to kill his father.

And then, after he watches JGS die, he tells Sisi and the other women to continue -- to desecrate JGS’s body. This is about as un-孝 as one can get! Remember, WWX and JC were willing to die to get JFM and YZY’s bodies back so they could be cremated and honored. The difference here is night and day! Yes, JGY was very good to his mother, including building a Guanyin Statue in her likeness and sparing Sisi who was a friend of his mother’s, but I cannot get over how much of an abomination he was toward JGS (even if JGS deserved an awful death).

仁 - benevolence, humanity, love of man

JGY has no 仁. Does JGY love anyone other than himself? Maybe his mom. (He might have some 仁 towards Su Sh*t She but that’s only suggested by the last couple of episodes.) That’s really it. He might have loved Jin Ling as his nephew. He might have loved LXC for LXC’s kindness and brotherhood. He might have loved Qin Su as whatever relationship he thinks they had. But when push comes to shove, JGY has zero benevolence towards anyone. He’s willing to kill Qin Su, take Jin Ling hostage, and take LXC hostage. (He also has no 义 but that’s the next section!)

And there’s ep 23. When LXC, JGS, and NMJ were discussing what to do with the Wens, JGY suggested the Wens be imprisoned at QiongQi Path. Since WRH had ordered the slaughter of multiple clans, including the Jiangs at Lotus Pier, doing the same to him would not be considered unreasonable. Ruthless, yes, but a good show of might and order. This acceptance of murder is due to the concept of 诛九族. 诛九族 (zhū jiǔ zú) is one of the most severe punishments in ancient China. The character breakdown makes it fairly self explanatory:

诛 - to execute, kill, put to death

九 - nine

族 - family, clan,ethnic group, or tribe

诛九族 condemns you and your entire family to death (Depending on the source, some say it’s you + 8 types of relatives. Some say it’s everyone related to you from 4 generations above to 4 generations below).

By suggesting the Wen remnants be imprisoned and not slaughtered, JGY presented himself as 仁. However, by turning around and slaughtering the people per JGS’s wishes, JGY knowingly chose the immoral path where blood flowed like rivers.

(Also! The way this shot pans down makes me think about how JGY is descending into a hell of his own making...)

义- righteousness and code of brotherhood

Good god, 义. I have so many feelings about 义. Let’s start with some history because CONTEXT is so important. So when you ask a chinese person on the street to give you an example of 义, I’m willing to bet one of the most common answers you will get is 桃园结义 (tao yuan jie yi, or peach garden/grove establishment of brotherhood). This is THE story of fraternal love between non-blood related men.

So quick and dirty synopsis of 桃园结义 and the three kingdoms story (I actually haven’t read it and it’s been a while since I actually tried to figure out the plot… so hopefully this is all correct!). Three men (刘备、关羽、张飞/ Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei) met on the streets, fought each other, became besties, and decided to start a rebellion. They took over one third of the country with the oldest (刘备) being the monarch and the other two working at his side (a little Yunmeng bros feel there, right? You’ll be the leader, I’ll be your right hand man). And they died for each other. 关羽 was the first to go. To seek revenge, 张飞 worked his men to the rebellion. Two of 张飞’s subordinates ultimately decapitated him while he was sleeping and brought it to their enemy. 张飞’s head and body are buried in two different cities in China (doesn’t this make you think of NMJ’s fate? Because it did when I was thinking about this and I wanted to cry. Also, 张飞 started out as a butcher. SERIOUSLY CQL/MDZS, can we pretend to be SUBTLE!?). 刘备 continued seeking revenge. Prior to 关羽’s death, the three kingdoms were in semi-equilibrium where the two smaller ones were allied against the larger. However, 关羽 being killed by their kinda-ally destroyed the delicate balance between the three kingdoms. 刘备 could’ve tried to make peace but he wasn’t going to let his sworn brother’s murder go unavenged. They all died in the end but with honor and brotherhood intact. 刘备 and 张飞’s determination to avenge 关羽’s death epitomizes the virtue of 义. They are willing to die for eachother.

In CQL the parallelism to the 桃园结义 imagery is obvious to anyone who has a cultural background that screams Romance of Three Kingdoms at you. Let’s take a look, ok?

A quick Google image search yields these images (I couldn’t choose):

You know what they look like? This (from ep 40):

You know what 桃园结义 looks like when mainland China made a live action? This:

And you know what that reminds me of in CQL (ep 23)?

Are you freaking out now about the visual parallels? Ok. Good. Because we’re moving onto a tiny bit of text comparison because i’m excited and i can.

Per Romance of Three Kingdoms (note: historically inspired novel, not history), 刘备、关羽、张飞 swore the following oath:

“念刘备、关羽、张飞，

Hope that Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei

虽然异姓，既结为兄弟，

Even though we have different last names,since we have sworn to be brothers

则同心协力，救困扶危；

Then let us unite our hearts and efforts towards helping the needy

上报国家，下安黎庶。

Repaying our country, bringing peace to the people.

不求同年同月同日生，

We do not ask to be born on the same day of the same month of the same year

只愿同年同月同日死。

But hope to die on the same day of the same month of the same year

皇天后土，实鉴此心，

Heaven and earth, verify our hearts

背义忘恩，天人共戮！”

If we turn our backs to righteousness and forget charity, may we be slaughtered by all.

Now, let’s look at the oath said by the 3zun:

“神明在上。

Brilliant gods above,

今日我兄弟三人在此立下重誓，

Today, we three brothers swear a solemn oath here

上报仙门，下安黎庶，

To repay our cultivation sects, To bring peace to the people.

天地同证，如有异心，

Heaven and earth be our witnesses. If we become disloyal,

千夫所指，天人共怒”

May a thousand men point their fingers at us and may we be incite the anger of all

Even some of the wording is verbatim. The parts I bolded are what I was excited by since they’re either parallel or verbatim.

The first set of lines: 上报国家，下安黎庶 and 上报仙门，下安黎庶 . (Remember when I guessed in my WWX post that since there are no countries, the cultivation sects are the target of 忠? This is my proof that I was right!) My hubris aside, this is the part of their oath where they swear to be both 忠 and 仁 together. The wording is verbatim except for the part that doesn’t apply to the CQL universe!

The second set of lines: 天人共戮 vs 天人共怒. The sentence/phrase format and message is identical-- betray this oath and incur wrath. (I can’t help but headcanon NMJ wanted to say 天人共戮 because it’s so much more metal but JGY was like, that’s really severe and convinced LXC to side with him to get it changed.)

Even the structure of the oaths are similar. Both oaths start with an introduction (we are three who want to be brothers), both oaths ask the heaven and earth to see them (Heaven and earth, verify our hearts & heaven and earth be our witnesses), and both oaths call upon the wrath of the people for vindication in case of betrayal. The CQL version is an abridged version of the three kingdoms oath and the writers set that up along with all the imagery because they want us to be constantly thinking about the three kingdoms bros and their amazing “even after death we’re still brothers” sense of 义. They want us to compare JGY’s 义 with that 义 and find JGY lacking.

The obvious betrayal of 义 is NMJ’s death. Not only is JGY the cause of NMJ’s death, he butchers (i’m cringing at my own pun... but it’s so accurate) NMJ’s body so that NMJ’s spirit cannot rest.

But, to me, what JGY does to LXC is betrayal on par with what he does to NMJ (and not dissimilar to what Xue Yang does to Xiao Xingchen). As we went over in the section about 仁, JGY says one thing so that LXC suggest JGY handles the matter. When everyone leaves, JGY does the un-仁 thing, essentially with LXC’s blessing. JGY kills NMJ but he does it by asking LXC to teach him how to play guqin. LXC becomes an unknowing accomplice (like XXC who becomes the killer of tongueless victims of corpse poison).

So remember in my WWX post how I said WWX took on what he perceived as JC’s debts so JC doesn’t end up 不仁不义? JGY says one thing and does another in front of LXC. He knows LXC cares deeply about being righteous and kind. He knows LXC wants to do good. And he leads LXC down a path of self doubt and regret. LXC ends up teaching JGY the techniques that kill NMJ. LXC lets JGY handle the Wen remnants. Thus, unlike WWX who tries to absolve JC, JGY intentionally puts LXC into the position of 不仁不义.

Can WWX and JGY be more diametrically opposed (foes)?

198 notes · View notes

mammon-sama · 4 years

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To Be Human (Fanfiction) Part 5/?

This took ... way longer than expected due to my sheer laziness. Thank you for your patience! Also, here is the link to this chapter on AO3. (Also yay, I finally remembered to include a Michael and Lucifer Celestial Realm flashback!)

Title:

To Be Human

Summary:

When a mysterious force attacks the Devildom and destroys it, the brothers are forced to turn to their Father in the Celestial Realm for answers and assistance. However, the Almighty is still miffed at the seven due to their involvement in the Great Celestial War, and sends them to seek asylum in the one place they have yet to make their mark—the Human World.

Without the help of their beloved MC, the brothers must learn to assimilate into this strange new world, all while trying to figure out who is responsible for the destruction of the Devildom and take back their home.

Rating:

Word Count:

4195

Previous Chapter:

Read Chapter 4 here!

Lucifer adjusted his halo, which floated almost ominously over his head. Halos were considered part of the angels’ “formal attire,” but considering Lucifer was constantly in the presence of Father, wearing something so ceremonial for his work attire seemed appropriate.

“Michael, are you nearly ready?” he called, his voice reverberating through the House of Great Elation. “You know Father doesn’t like it if I’m late.”

He checked the ornate gold grandfather clock that was situated at the edge of one of the many parlors in their home.

It was almost fifteen minutes until eight, and in that time, he and Michael had to walk to Simeon and Uriel’s home—Perfection Hall—and drop off the infant Luke on their way to their Father’s Palace, where Lucifer worked. After that, Michael would meander his way to the Celestial Realm barracks, where he led Father’s legions as their Major General.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Michael panted, running down the grand staircase which connected to his wing of the house. He supported Luke, who was thrown over his shoulder with one hand, and in the other, he held his Sword of the Spirit.

Lucifer cringed when he noticed that the rest of the Angel of Destruction’s Armor of God had been strapped on haphazardly — tightened and loosened at ill-fitting places, but he sighed when he remembered that all the soldiers under him were far too terrified of their Major General to ever point it out.

He nodded at Michael. “Let’s go, then. Step lively—we’ll be late, otherwise.”

The pair walked silently down the bustling streets of the Celestial Realm, which, sad to say, became infinitely less bustling when they saw Michael. In fact, sometimes Lucifer wondered if his Father had gotten His idea of parting the Red Sea for the Israelites from seeing the wide berth that the other angels gave toward the Angel of Destruction.

Lucifer hated to say that he—and Michael—were used to this. Used to the stares, the whispers, the glares, the hushed scathing remarks.

Even Luke cooed uneasily.

“He destroys everything he touches!”

“Love the guy, but you can’t keep him around. The man carries an aura of destruction.”

“So powerful, but at what cost?”

“Who does he think he’s fooling with that puppy-dog attitude?”

“Why do we even need an Angel of Destruction, anyway? He’s just a menace.”

The words were a dagger, dull but piercing, toward the happy-go-lucky Michael, who had but nothing but love and friendship to offer his fellow celestial beings.

Lucifer heaved a sour breath as he and Michael made their way toward Perfection Hall.

If it wasn’t for him and the Archangels, Michael would’ve been all alone.

Or worse—ran out of the Celestial Realm.

Mammon bit his lip as the static-laden voice boomed through the landline base. He hadn’t been asked to study the Bible or any ancient history regarding it since his stint at the Celestial Realm. The only thing about King Solomon that he remembered from back then was that he was incredibly wealthy, and Mammon had always reveled in calculating how much the king’s possessions were worth—the sheer magnitude of the value never ceased to amaze him.

However, he also did remember something about King Solomon being the “wisest man to ever live.” His heralded wisdom, supposedly, had come to him through a dream from God, Who had promised Solomon anything in the world. Instead of choosing riches and wealth, the king had chosen wisdom. Pleased with his request, God granted him not only the wisdom that he had requested but worldly pleasures as well, such as insurmountable wealth and power.

… Why in the world would such a blessed and influential man pose as a menial exchange student and interact with demons thousands of years later?

Mammon lost his train of thought when Lucifer walked closer to the speakerphone and bellowed, “It is us.”

There was silence on the other end and the other five brothers exchanged glances—partially due to Lucifer’s vague response and partially because of the aforementioned quietness.

Suddenly, a crackle came through the speaker and Solomon said, “Ah, I see; unfortunately, that doesn’t aid me in discerning your identity, and as I’ve a great deal of powerful enemies, I think I will have to say goodb—”

“Solomon, it’s me! Asmo!” the fifthborn chirped. He raised an eyebrow at Lucifer, who sighed in surrender and stepped away from the phone.

From the speaker came an audible gasp. “Asmo! It’s been a long time.” Another crackle. “I suppose that that was Lucifer just now?”

Mammon snickered and called, “That was him, alright.”

“I see! Pardon me for asking, but why are you calling from this unknown number? I believe I have your D.D.D contact saved still.”

“Long story,” chimed in Leviathan. “We’re in the Human World now ‘cause we think someone’s out to get us in the Devildom.”

Satan nodded. “And we’re using this primitive human technology called a ‘landline’ to reach you, as we’ve yet to be provided with mobile devices.”

Something crashed on Solomon’s end, and Mammon wagered that he must have dropped his phone in shock. A moment later, the sorcerer’s voice returned. “Did I hear that right? You seven are in the Human World?”

“Yes, we are. We called you because we have some questions.” Beel walked forward so that he was standing directly in front of the speaker. “What are the best restaurants up here?”

A confused mumble came from Solomon, before he answered, “Uh, well—”

“You can hold off on answering that one, for now, Solomon,” interrupted Lucifer, shaking his head at Beel. “Rather, we figure you can help us solve a different problem of ours.”

“And that would be?”

Lucifer took a deep breath, and Mammon had to admit that he’d never seen his elder brother look so stressed. He was surprised that Asmo hadn’t scolded him over the wrinkle that was beginning to form between his brows. “Diavolo and the Devildom are in trouble, and someone has stolen information regarding the culprit behind this entire ordeal from my Father’s omniscience. Without it, we cannot find Diavolo or discern who is behind this. You have ties to many demons, not to mention are a sorcerer—”

“And the primordial King of Israel! Did you ever plan on telling me that? I think I should know if I have a pact with someone as glamorous as royalty!” huffed Asmodeus.

Solomon let out an amused hum. “Oh, so you figured that out, did you? Did Simeon tell you?”

“Apparently he’s the one who set your contact into our phone under the name ‘his Imperial Majesty, King Solomon of Israel,’ so kinda, yeah,” Mammon said.

“Mind explaining how you’re some kind of immortal king?” demanded Belphie. “Last time I checked, humans don’t live for very long.”

The sorcerer laughed. “I suppose you know that I once asked God for wisdom in a dream, and as soon as I had it, all kinds of arcane knowledge regarding sorcery and magic, demons and angels, was opened up to me, and from there I learned about demon pacts. One time I pledged my life to a demon—my soul for immortality.”

Satan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If I’m following you correctly, wouldn’t that have to mean that you sold your soul rather early in your life to look as youthful as you do now? Unless … you also managed to change your appearance entirely?”

“Nice catch, Satan,” mused Solomon. “Actually, yes, it was quite early in my reign that I began to dabble in the dark arts and sell my soul, and yes, my immortality does prevent me from physically aging. Ah, wait, that’s not entirely true—my hair is the only thing that continues to age, which is the reason as to why it’s as white as it is.”

“I really feel as if I ought to have been made aware of this!” grumbled Asmo.

Mammon put a hand to his cheek pensively, as the fifthborn continued to bemoan the massive injustice that had been done to him through this secret. Something didn’t seem right about Solomon’s story. As far as he was concerned, his Father wasn’t a fan of demons—that much He had made very clear—and there was no way that a person who consorted with them to the degree that Solomon supposedly had in the past would be remembered honorably in the Bible.

But that wasn’t the case. If he was remembering correctly, God had nothing but praises to sing of Solomon, and save for his singular mistake of having his heart led astray by his unholy number of wives, the king was revered and respected in biblical history. He even had penned several books of the Bible, displaying his wisdom and knowledge.

That certainly didn’t line up with the current Solomon’s tale of occult dealings.

Mammon shot Lucifer a look, and the firstborn nodded. It appeared that he had made the same observation. He stepped forward.

“Solomon, do you really expect us to believe that someone as perverse as you claim to be could be remembered so admirably in the Bible? The words written in there echo Father’s thoughts verbatim, and there is no way that someone as obsessed with purity and light as He is could approve of your dark actions,” inquired Lucifer with a raised eyebrow.

Solomon chuckled in amusement but gave no reply.

Lucky for them, he didn’t have to, for Satan’s eyes lit up as he pieced the two shards of information together. “You wanted to be remembered as a proper and perfect king for millennia to come, so you went in and removed all traces of your dealings with the occult from Father’s omniscience. Because it’s all that Father knows, your memory in history now consists only of your good deeds.”

“And one bad one for realism,” added Solomon. “Everyone makes mistakes, you know. I can’t have humanity believing that living a perfect life is attainable, no matter what your Father says.”

Mammon felt as if his head was starting to spin with all this new information.

He realized … if Solomon revealed that the process of removing information from their Father’s omniscience was easy, then perhaps he could use it as an excellent business opportunity. Who wouldn’t pay gobs of money to have their past mistakes wiped completely from the Almighty’s knowledge?

But maybe that was going too far …

Nevertheless, Mammon still had to ask, “So how’d ya do it, anyway? Remove stuff from Father’s memory ‘n’ all?”

He could hear the irritating smile on the sorcerer’s face as he replied, “I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

To his surprise, it was Asmo who yanked the phone upward and yelled, “Solomon, don’t make me spank you—and not in the fun way, either! That kind of information is the kind we need to go back home to the Devildom. I can’t stay here in this stupid Human World for much longer! We’re poor, and I have to share a bathroom—a bathroom—with these barbarians!”

Solomon sighed. “Calm down, Asmo. Fine, I’ll explain, but I doubt it’ll help you as much as you think.”

Lucifer gestured for the other five brothers to inch closer to the speaker, and Satan whipped out a notepad and pen from his pocket to write notes, as Solomon began, “Your Father is only as powerful as He is because He possesses three things that make Him so—His omnipotence, which means He has the power to do anything; His omnipresence, which means He can be anywhere at any time, and finally, His omniscience, which means He knows all. Your Father has access to these three attributes of Himself at all times, but that doesn’t mean He uses them constantly—”

“Because He thinks that it takes the fun out of things—yes, we know that, Solomon,” interrupted Lucifer impatiently.

Solomon coughed. “Er—well, okay, then. Anyway, these three attributes are considered separate from God Himself, as in, they have a separate location in His mind than His regular thoughts. All you have to do is find a way to transport yourself directly into God’s mind where the three attributes are located, find the omniscience attribute, and then alter the information found within it.”

The seven brothers stared at each other in disbelief, before Levi moaned, “Oh, that’s all? You just have to teleport yourself into the mind of an OP deity? Piece of cake.”

Satan snapped his fingers. “Wait, since this feat appears to be so difficult to achieve, that should help us, since I’m assuming only a few people could execute it. With such a small pool of potential suspects, we should easily be able to discern who was the one who removed the information regarding the Devildom’s destruction and Diavolo’s whereabouts from Father’s memory.”

“You’re right—but I wasn’t finished,” said Solomon, eliciting a chorus of groans from the demons. “Teleporting into your Father’s mind is difficult enough, and even if you do, you’d instantly be marked as an intruder, because since everyone’s power pales in comparison to your Father’s, His mind can instantly recognize when something weaker enters it. Imagine you have a soft lump of clay and somehow a stone gets mixed into it. When you touch the clay, it’s easy to distinguish the stone because it feels so different from the malleable clay that surrounds it—that’s how it’s like in God’s mind. Anyone that enters it immediately stands out because everything else in His mind is so powerful.”

Belphegor yawned. “Do you have a point?”

“Yes. The only way to blend into His mind undetected is if you yourself are powerful and combine your power with others who are just as powerful; that way you generate enough power so that you can not only cast a spell to enter God’s mind but also so that you remain unexposed in it. I find the best combination of beings to combine powers with are angels and demons—at least one of each. Somehow the potency of this combination is unprecedented.” Solomon cleared his throat. “Does that answer all your questions?”

Mammon scratched his head. Powerful angels and demons were in abundance in both the Celestial Realm and the Devildom … that didn’t necessarily narrow down their number of suspects. “Was it s'posed to?”

Solomon laughed. “I guess not. I told you me telling you things wouldn’t help as much as you think.”

The brothers exchanged irritated glances, before Lucifer, massaging his forehead, grumbled, “I suppose it’s better than nothing. You’re dismissed, Solomon—” He ignored the protesting sorcerer as he clicked off the landline and turned toward Satan. “Start making a list of all the powerful angels and demons back home and in the Celestial Realm.”

Satan grumbled very loudly, but obeyed without any other protest, as Mammon asked, “How’s that gonna help? It’s not like we got a gauge that tells us what a powerful angel or demon is.”

“Yeah, calling Solomon was one of the most useless side quests I’ve ever done,” said Leviathan.

“Hush, you two,” scolded Lucifer, staring intently at Satan, who was voraciously making his list. “I can already see the gears turning in his head. If any one of us can figure this out, it’s Satan.”

Satan’s head whipped up at his words, a fire in his eyes. “I see how it is—stick all the work on the middle child .”

Before anyone could retaliate, a sound echoed through the house. It sounded strange, like someone had rung a bell, and Mammon had to stop himself from instinctively leaping into Levi’s arms—which he considered to be very proactive of himself, for the thirdborn had a nasty habit of hurling Mammon into the ground whenever he did so.

The brothers, who had fallen silent at the sound, shrugged as a unit when they couldn’t discern where the noise was coming from, before Lucifer put his hand on his forehead and addressed Satan again, saying, “If that’s how you wish to see it, then—” He was interrupted once more by the ringing sound. “What in Father’s name is that?”

“Almost sounds like a cowbell,” mumbled Belphie.

Leviathan’s eyes lit up. “Wait—I’ve got it! I’ve heard this sound about a thousand times in What To Do When A Big-Tiddy Anime Girl Is At Your Door But You’re Too Afraid to Let Her In Because She’s Glowing The Colors of the Entire Electromagnetic Spectrum. It’s one of those Human World doorbells!”

“Doesn’t sound like any doorbell I’ve ever heard,” Mammon said. Didn’t all doorbells sound like the screaming of ten thousand souls trapped in a burning abyss? Their doorbell in the House of Lamentation certainly had.

Lucifer gestured toward the fifthborn. “Asmo, you go check the door.”

“Me? Are you crazy? What if it’s a murderer or something? They’ll take one look at me and be so jealous of my beauty that they’ll kill me on sight!”

“In that case, you definitely should go. Take Mammon with you, too.”

“The Great Mammon resents ya, Lucifer, for that!” Mammon replied, glaring daggers at his elder brother as he walked toward the door, a sulking Asmo in tow.

As they neared the door, the bell sound rang through the house again, and the sheer volume there led Mammon to conclude that Levi was right—the sound definitely was the doorbell. He yanked open the door, and immediately upon seeing who was behind it, slammed it closed.

He ignored the injured “Hey!” that came from the other side as he yelled toward his brothers, “Call Animal Control!”

Asmo laughed. “Don’t call Animal Control on the cute little chihuahua.” He turned toward the door and opened it, greeting the guest with a “Hello there, Luke.”

The young angel let out a very offended sniff, before walking through the threshold, pulling behind him a droll little white wagon. “Don’t expect me to entertain the company of demons for very long, but Simeon said I should deliver these things to you.” He gestured toward the parcels that almost overflowed out of the wagon bed.

Mammon’s eyes lit up at the packages. “Whaddaya got for me?”

Luke, who seemed to not have forgiven the secondborn for slamming the door in his face said, “Your box is at the bottom.” Quietly, he muttered, “Hopefully, it’s all smushed by now.”

Before Mammon could snark a reply, his other brothers walked into the hall.

“Ah, welcome, Luke,” greeted Satan, nodding at the angel. “I take it that those packages are for us?”

“Please tell me there’s a gaming console or some manga in there,” begged Leviathan, yanking a hand through his hair. “The laptop we’ve got now can barely stream any anime and forget downloading any games—the thing’s way too slow.”

Luke’s eyes widened in disgust at Levi’s suggestion. “O—of course, there isn’t! The stuff Simeon gave me is all useful stuff.” He began to unload the boxes off of the wagon, handing each brother a package with their name on it. “I know Simeon said everything would arrive later in the week, but things went faster than expected, so.”

Mammon grumbled when his parcel, indeed, was all scrunched and squished at the edges. Inside the bundle was a driving license, a mobile device that was creatively called “iPhone,” and various boring papers that were supposed to be bank statements (he almost vomited at the sight of them) and other official documents.

Mammon gulped as he shuffled the contents together; seeing them made him realize that this was all real. His brothers and he were really going to be living in the Human World, posed as humans, for Father-knows-how-long.

He could feel the bile rise in his throat, but he choked it down and shook his head. What kind of demon was nervous about living with humans? After all, one of his most favorite beings in all three worlds was a human, weren’t they?

Before he could ponder anymore, Beel gestured toward the last box in the wagon. It was plain and unmarked and smelled of sweetness and love and joy and other generally unpleasant things for demons. Nevertheless, it made all of their mouths water. “What’s that?”

Luke blushed as he gently picked up the box and held it out. “It’s—it’s not like I—I baked Heavenly Peace Petit Fours for you demons as a housewarming gift or anything! I just happened to be making them for Michael and had some extra!”

Beel snatched the box out of his hands and immediately began chowing down on the delicate confections. He pat Luke on the head gently mid-bite. “Good doggy.”

Mammon could barely contain his laughter as Luke’s face turned a shade akin to the strawberry jam he’d layered between the petit fours and sputtered, “I—I am not a dog!”

“Shh, now, don’t tease him so much,” Lucifer chided, although a small smirk had formed on his lips, as well. “We need him to answer a few questions, now, don’t we?”

Mammon raised an eyebrow. “We do?”

He didn’t like the look on Lucifer’s face as the eldest bent low to reach eye level with the young angel, whose eyes widened in something that seemed to be a cross between indignation and terror.

“Tell me, Luke,” demanded Lucifer, his voice low and as smooth as honey, “what you and Father and the other angels have to say about the Celestial Realm Cellular Service and Internet Provider?” His eyes flashed red and Luke stumbled backward, dropping the handle on his wagon.

“I—I’m not supposed to tell you,” gulped Luke. The obstinacy drained out of his eyes and was replaced with pure, unadulterated fear as the eldest bared down on him. “Anyone who’s not an angel isn't supposed to know that.”

Lucifer laughed, a menacing sound. He inched closer, “Ah, but you’ll tell us, right?”

Mammon normally didn’t mind when Lucifer went full-demon on people, but … come on, Luke couldn’t have been more than ten in angel years … he was just a kid. He put a hand gingerly on his brother’s shoulder. “Yo, calm down.”

Lucifer whirled toward him, and Mammon’s heart sank in pity. Beneath the glowing vermillion eyes, he could see it all.

Fatigue.

Desperation.

Disappointment.

Shame.

He understood.

In just a short period of time, Lucifer had lost his home and his beloved friend, was forced to bow to the aid of a realm that had abandoned him and so he despised, and was made to live in a place that was far inferior from what he was used to. Solomon had been their only lead, and he had proven to not be much help. Their only respite at this point was to get this little angel to divulge the only other information that they could hope to have.

Mammon sighed and pushed Lucifer aside—a dangerous move, he knew. “Let me do it.”

Lucky for him, Beel and Asmo were already restraining their elder brother as they tried to calm him down. He turned to Luke. “Look, chihuahua, ya really think we’re gonna feel comfortable knowin’ the Celestial Realm is spyin’ on us with that little phone company of theirs?”

Luke wrinkled his nose. “Spying on you? Why would anyone want to spy on a bunch of demons?”

“Why else would the Celestial Realm immediately make us use their cell service and internet provider?” argued Levi.

“Well, I guess you demons wouldn’t know this, since it was implemented after you guys left," explained Luke, "but the Celestial Realm Cellular Service and Internet Provider—we call it CRCSIP, by the way—is one of the many Celestial Realm-owned companies throughout the world—”

“So I was right,” Mammon interrupted, “the Celestial Realm is goin’ capitalist.”

Luke fervently shook his head. “No, it’s not. All companies owned by the Celestial Realm are there for angels and angels only. They’re to be used free of charge for any celestial being since angels who are residing down on Earth are usually Guardian Angels who still need to purchase things for themselves but don’t work human jobs and therefore don’t have any human money.” He kicked the ground. “Father put you guys on one of the CRCSIP’s plans just as another way to help you out.”

Lucifer, who had calmed down a bit and now was flushed with embarrassment at his actions, coughed and said, “Unacceptable. We never asked for this.”

“We’ll be takin’ the free stuff, though!” Mammon chirped.

Leviathan ran a hand through his hair. “All that doesn’t necessarily mean we still can’t be spied on.”

The angel grit his teeth. “For the last time, who the heck would wanna spy on a bunch of demons?”

“The same person who’d destroy the Devildom with Hellfire and possibly abduct Diavolo and remove information from Father's omniscience,” Satan shot back. He drew out his notepad and pointed to the column where he had been printing powerful angel names. “Do any of these angels have access to any of the inner workings of the CRCSIP?”

Luke peered at the list for a moment. “I’m just a Junior Guardian, so I don’t know much, but I’m guessing that the only one with clearance to the records and information like that would be … oh yes, he’s on the list—Michael.”

Lucifer blanched. “Michael?”

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thewhiterabbit42 · 6 years

Text

The Unexpected

Pairing: Gabriel x Reader

Word Count: 3710

Summary: You disappear in the middle of the night, causing the Winchesters and Gabriel to worry what’s wrong.

Warnings/Tags: Established relationship. Human Gabriel. Some angst.

Written for: @Key–lime–pie and @tricksterxangel and @gabriel-monthly-challenge Prompts: “I’m pregnant.” / “Just talk to me.” January GMC statement prompt: It was going to be an adventure and, though he didn’t know it yet, life would never be the same.

Author’s note: For some reason I thought someone requested “Just talk to me.” With Gabriel but now can’t find the ask so if I lost it… apologies. If I made that up then… extra prompt.

Also, this is my first time using a statement prompt from GMC without it being verbatim so I hope I still did it correctly.

Beta’d by: @sumara62 (many thanks my dear!) I went in and added several things after she took a look, so chances are any mistakes are still mine lol

“Open the door, y/n,” Dean demanded, pounding heavily beneath the faded number seven with the side of his hand.

“Please open the door, y/n,” Sam echoed, and his brother resisted the urge to roll his eyes. As if please was somehow the the mystical password they needed to gain admittance after they’d been standing there for over a half-hour trying every trick in their book to get you to let them in.

“I know this has to do with Gabriel,” Dean continued. “If he’s done something –”

“Why do you always assume the worst of him?” You screeched and for the first time that evening, he was glad there was a semi-solid piece of wood standing between them and you. It was never a good sign when you bypassed pissed and went straight into banshee mode, and whatever was wrong must have been big. “He didn’t do anything! This is my fault –” You stopped short, a thick silence falling for a few moments before you finished in a much quieter tone, “And I just need you to go.”

“Whatever it is, we can help,” Sam offered after a few moments.

“Not with this, you can’t. Go home. I just need some time.” You sounded tired, almost defeated, both of which only had them exchanging a worried glance. Dean inclined his head toward the Impala and they both began to move away from the motel door. Neither of them spoke until they were near the trunk, their voices hushed as they tried to figure out what to do.

“We should call him,” Sam insisted.

His brother folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Considering I’m ninety-percent sure he’s the reason for all this? Not happening.”

“Did you hear her, Dean? She’s scared, and clearly we’re not going to be the ones she lets in that door,” the younger man implored.

“So we bust it down.” Simple. Effective. Just how he liked his plans.

Sam just looked at him as if he’d gone crazy, before remembering that was just how his brother had always been. “Yeah, let me know how that goes. I’m going to do what we should have the moment we found her and get Gabriel here.”

…

He’d flown as fast as he could the moment he knew where you were. Not literally, of course. Those days were well behind him. Even if Metatron hadn’t clipped all their wings by shutting the gates of Heaven, the vial of ethereal golden liquid that hung around his neck was an ever present reminder of all that he had been and all that he now was.

He always kept his grace close to him, in case things ever hit the fan more than normal and he should need it. He also found it innately comforting, the essence humming with an energy he never recognized as being anything but his own being. It was strange in some ways, having it removed, and though it had taken a while to find his footing without it, every moment he spent as human had been entirely worth it.

The decision to fall had been startlingly easy once he realized staying an archangel would only limit his experiences with you. He wanted to know what it felt like to fall asleep beside you and wake up to you the following day. Not to mention it was a little difficult to be pleasured awake by someone when one never slept. Not that it stopped you from trying.

He wanted the passing of time to be the same for each of you. As an angel, it was meaningless, and he had often been unable to keep track of how long he’d been gone. He grew tired of disappointing you when what had felt like a few days turned out to be weeks. He couldn’t stand to see you slowly wilting beneath your worry and insecurities the longer he happened to stay away.

He wanted to know what it was like to sweat with you, to bleed with you, to have an appreciation for every moment because life was short and finite. Mostly, he wanted to have a life with you. A real one. One you both could share. One you both understood. One that kept you both out of Heaven’s eternal issues and off of Hell’s radar.

Apparently being an archangel’s main squeeze gave angels and demons alike all sorts of stupid ideas that resulted in them dead and he, Sam, and Dean finding one subject to bond over.

Sure, being a hunter meant you’d never completely be off the grid, but he’d found that sticking near the Winchesters had actually improved your chances of surviving. In fact, he owed them more than they knew (not that he’d ever admit it to them) for keeping you alive at a time he couldn’t, as a human or one of Heaven’s greatest weapons.

Then again, they were partially responsible for releasing dear old Auntie Amara from her cage to begin with.

He wasn’t sure how many laws he broke getting to you, only that he was incredibly lucky he didn’t get caught for any of them. The last time he’d had to phone anyone to get bailed out, Dean had nearly put him on lockdown. He could only imagine what the man would do now. Probably drive him out to the middle of nowhere and leave his ass behind for the elements and wildlife to take care of.

He wondered if he deserved it.

He couldn’t think of anything he’d done, but that didn’t mean much. Over a millenia of experience, and still there were times he found himself floundering to know what to do or say. He couldn’t keep track of how many messes he’d made, actual or otherwise, and yet, every time you’d be there to help him clean it up and learn from it.

This was the first time you’d ever run.

The closer he came to the address he’d been given, the more his nerves thrummed inside of him. He had never been more frightened than he had over the last twenty-four hours. He barely slept, his mind creating an endless list of possibilities of what could have caused you to take off so suddenly, none of which were comforting, and he was never more aware of human vulnerabilities and limitations than he was thinking of all the horrible things that could be happening.

By the time he actually reached the motel he was a mess. His palms were sweating, the leather from his gloves sticking uncomfortably to his skin. His motorcycle gear was light for this time of year, but it probably saved him from being a sopping tangled ball of stress instead of just a regular one. He could barely keep his hands from shaking as he pulled off his helmet, setting it on the seat of his motorcycle before he made his way to where Sam and Dean stood.

“Where is she?” He demanded, unable to keep the fear from bleeding through his tone.

“Number seven,” Sam said, and the look he gave the former archangel was a mixture of concern and sympathy.

Dean, however, fixed him with stern look. “She said it wasn’t your fault, but if I find out that it was, I have no problems putting a bullet in you.”

If it was as bad as Gabriel imagined and his fault, he’d have no problem letting the man do just that.

Sam shook his head slightly, eyes rolling briefly to the sky before landing back on the former angel. “We’ll be out here if you need us.” He pushed off the hood, giving his brother a meaningful look before getting into the car. Dean followed suit, but not before pulling back his jacket and motioning to the guns strapped to each side of his hip and his face spoke volumes. Specifically, your choice which one.

Gabriel sighed, his head turning toward your hotel room. The curtains were drawn across the window, but he could tell there weren’t any lights on inside. He doubted you were sleeping, however. Neither of you could much when the other wasn’t there.

He made his way over, everything inside him clamoring to a fever pitch. His heart hammered in his chest, his emotions squeezing tightly and adding to the stress on it. He swallowed as he raised his hand and knocked, only to be greeted by silence.

“Sweetheart?” He called, doing his best to keep the alarm and uncertainty from his voice. “It’s me.”

When he heard a second round of nothing, he knocked again, his other hand unconsciously moving to his chest. His fingers worried over the small bump beneath his jacket create by his grace. If only he had even a tiny ounce of it inside of him, he’d have far more answers than he did now.

“Open the door, sugar. Whatever it is, we can figure this out,” he insisted. Your silence was killing him, the unknown more terrifying than anything he had ever faced before. He had never needed to know so badly what it was you were feeling at that moment. Were you angry? Sad? Scared? Were you even alone?

The final thought was heart-stopping, and it was all he could do to keep from channeling his inner Dean and simply taking back his grace so he could know you were safe.

“Honey, please,” he begged, his own own desperation spilling out through his words. “Just talk to me.”

He leaned his head against the door, eyes slipping shut, and for the first time since he’d fallen, he wished that he hadn’t. Because no matter how many times Sam had assured him you were ok, he couldn’t believe it, not until he heard it from you. Even then, he’d need to set eyes on you to fully accept it as truth, but if he had his grace, he’d be able to tell everything, from the state of your mind to how fast or slow your heart was beating… if it even still was.

Metal rattled near his head from the other side of the door, and his head popped up. He could hear a chain sliding across a track before a jarring click sounded from the deadbolt. He stepped back, his eyes dropping to the doorknob. His pulse quickened, his mouth suddenly dry. He swallowed, trying to tamp down on his emotions as he reached for the handle. It turned with little resistance, and he could hear his heart hammering in his ears as he pushed his way inside.

He found you sitting in the darkness, the only light source a faded, almost orange glow from an outdated nightlight in the bathroom. You were sitting on the bed, your legs pulled up to your chest with your head resting on your knees. He didn’t have to see your face to know you’d been crying. He couldn’t smell the salt anymore or taste your emotions on the air, but he still knew. He just wished he could see you, or anything, so he could better assess the situation.

“Hey,” he greeted, his eyes sweeping the room before he made his way to you. “I know we have a lot to talk about, but the boys were wondering if we were still on for the game later?”

He sat down beside you, putting himself on the far side of the bed. It kept you closer to the nearest exit, if needed, as he waited for you to respond to the code the four of you had worked out to subtly tip each other off to danger.

“No one else is here,” you murmured, taking a moment to clear your nose.

He let out a breath, relieved, before reaching over and turning on the light. Worry immediately flooded him anew as he took in your features. You looked terrible. You pallor was off, your skin pale save for a slight flush in your cheeks. You looked exhausted, though the circles beneath your eyes were faint in comparison to what you often looked like coming off a case. This was a different kind of tired, one he had never seen before, and it only furthered the suspicion that something was terribly wrong.

He pried your hands away from where they were hugging your legs, taking your fingers between his. You closed your eyes, tears peeking through your lashes, and the tightness returned to his chest. “What’s going on, y/n?”

He didn’t want to ask too many questions, although he had plenty of them at this point. Why had you run? Why had you shut them all out? What could he have done that would make you think you couldn’t come to him?

“I’m sorry,” you breathed, your voice growing thick as your emotions swelled to the surface. “I shouldn’t have left, but I - I found something out and I panicked.”

His brows drew together as he tried to fathom what information could possibly make you, of all people, lose your head. Sure, he had his share of questionable history, but he was fairly certain he’d told you everything important. Then again, there was centuries worth of it, and Kali hadn’t been the only immortal still kicking around that he shared something with.

The look on your face suggested it wasn’t a simple matter of who or what he had dated. This went beyond mere information.

“Whatever it is, we can figure it out. Together.” He reached forward, brushing the tears from your cheek. “Remember what you told me in Tulsa when I went behind your back and had the boys clear that vampire nest instead of you?”

If the sudden sharpness in your stare wasn’t a good indication you were still a little salty about that incident, what came next certainly was. “That I would kick your ass back to the dawn of time if you ever tried anything like that again?”

Technically, he’d deserved the snappy remark, though the ass-kicking was debatable considering he had done it because you’d been pushing yourself too hard and he was worried you weren’t at your best. He realized now, though, it had been less about him calling in reinforcements and more about him doing it without your knowledge.

“There is no ‘I’ in team,” he corrected, unable to keep from adding, “And I would also like to point out, nowhere in there will you also find ‘vanish’ or ‘run’ or –”

“‘Take off in the middle of the night and give your boyfriend a heart attack’?” You guessed. The minute you glanced up at him with sheepish, watery eyes, he immediately softened again, realizing his own anxieties were getting the better of him.

“I mean it,” he continued, his voice much gentler. “You never have to run from me. There’s nothing you could tell me that would ever make me break my promise that you and I are in it for good, sugar snap.”

The look you gave him said you wanna make a bet? And for the third time in less than a day, he felt like he might be on the verge of heart failure. “Gabriel… I’m pregnant.”

He’d been wrong. This time he felt an aneurysm coming on.

“What?” He breathed and the entire concept of how limited a human’s cognitive capacity could be hit him square in the face as he had everything in existence flying through his mind at the exact same moment everything drained out of it.

He was vaguely aware his mouth was still open, that he might have even stopped breathing for a moment. Mostly, he noticed the way you’d gone completely still, a sign that you were steeling yourself for whatever reaction he eventually had once everything came back online.

Unfortunately, it was not an intelligent one.

“I - but - how?”

Your brow crept up and surprise shifted closer to exasperation when you looked like you were debating on leaving again if you seriously had to answer that question or laughing. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“I know how,” he huffed. “I just - we’ve been so careful.”

Frustratingly so. Hunting didn’t exactly leave much room for scheduling appointments at a clinic for birth control or allow you a routine to use some of the more readily available forms, which left condoms as the only consistent option. Giving up that luxury had been harder than he imagined. Thousands of years of never needing any had been a difficult habit to break.

“Do you remember that night in Oklahoma when we got so drunk we took a cab to the wrong hotel, couldn’t figure out what the right one actually was, and ended up breaking into someone’s car so we had a place to sleep?”

He scratched the back of his head, eyes drifting up to the ceiling as he tried his best not only to remember something from that night, but to also figure out why in the world you’d even be mentioning it. “I remember the part where we woke up to the angry owner of said car and spent the morning playing a countywide game of hide-and-seek with the police. The, uh, rest of the night is kind of a little hazy.”

“I don’t think we just fell asleep there, Gabe, and I don’t think we came prepared either.”

He glanced back down to find you giving him a meaningful look. “Oh,” he said and it took an extra moment for what you were saying to fully kick in. “Oh.” His brows shot up straight to his hairline. Oh shit.

“You’re sure?” His question was just a formality. You were thorough in your cases and there was no reason he’d believe you’d be any less meticulous when it came to confirming this.

“Five tests and two weeks late sure,” you told him.

To be honest, he was surprised you hadn’t hit up Cas on your way out, though there wasn’t much room to argue with any of the evidence you already had.

“Ok. You’re pregnant. So… what do you want to do?” He surprised himself with how calm he was. His inner self was indeed wildly running around the room, arms flailing, because what did he know about having children?

You looked at him a moment, startled, as if that was the last thing you expected from him. “I - I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

He could tell by the manic edge in your gaze that your inner self had joined his, and both were in utter panic mode together.

He let out a slow breath, trying to push his own fears and uncertainties aside. “Sweetheart, I am something that has lived for thousands of years with the knowledge that I was not meant to procreate. I haven’t the slightest clue what to do with the idea of being a father.” He realized it was the wrong thing to say, or at least to start with, by the way your eyes widened, your trepidation trickling out from the darks of them. “Oh, wait, that - that’s not what I mean - I mean it is what I mean but…”

Oh Father, please don’t panic. Because the moment you did, he was sure to follow, if for no other reason than he had absolutely no idea what to do if it got to that point.

He released a slow breath, his eyes shutting tight while he pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a moment to try and gather his thoughts, but they kept coming back to the same, familiar loop of he wasn’t good with these types of things.

A sudden tap on his forehead had him opening his eyes again and you gave him a small, tentative smile. “Reset.”

An amused puff of air left his nose. It still amazed him how you could calm and refocus him with the simplest gestures, and he couldn’t help but smile back as everything that was important became clear to him.

“I love you,” he began, and reached up to cup the side of your face. “I want a life with you. Whatever that means. Kids. No kids. Attempting a nine-to-five existence in the suburbs. Hunting until our trigger fingers get too stiff with arthritis and we can’t shoot anymore. I don’t care what road we take or how we get to the end of our lives. As long as that path has you on it, that’s all that matters.”

Your eyes welled up, overflowing with so many emotions, he couldn’t even begin to tease them all apart. “Do you really mean that?”

“Sugar plum, I became human for you. Everything else should be a piece of cake.” He didn’t know how he knew, but in that moment, there wasn’t anything he was more certain of.

“… including telling Dean?”

Correction: the only thing more certain than what he just confessed was that Dean was going to put a bullet in a certain part of him for knocking up the closest thing the man and his giant kin had to a sister.

“Maybe you should be the one to tell him you’re with child,” he suggested.

Your lips twitched. “Really, Gabe? With child?”

He arched a brow. “Would you prefer I tell him you’re preggers?”

The smile you gave was equal parts amused and relieved. “I can’t believe God made you his messenger.”

He leaned forward, stealing a short series of kisses that were slow and sweet, infused with the same tender sentiments that had inspired his words. “Maybe, but you’re the one that keeps me around.”

Your legs drifted open, your arms reaching through to pull him between them. “You know, there is a reason for that…”. You playfully bit his lower lip, eyes glinting with a sudden spark of mischief. “And there is an upside to all this.”

“What’s that?” He murmured, allowing you to pull him down into the mattress.

“We don’t have to worry about getting me pregnant if I already am.” You mimicked his trademark brow waggle and he chuckled. He had always appreciated your ability to just get him, not to mention your tendency to try and keep things light. He couldn’t imagine spending his existence with anyone else. Whatever lay ahead would be unlike any journey he’d ever taken, and though he didn’t know it yet, life would never be the same.

GMC Tags: @revwinchester @lacqueluster @archangel-with-a-shotgun and @ashiewesker

ALL the tags:

@girl-next-door-writes @sumara62 @fand0maniac @feelmyroarrrr @omgreganlove @jannalionheart @baritonechick, @lucifer-in-leather @stone-met @blondecoffeecake @raspberrypuddle @ourloveisforthelovely @the-moose-of-baskerville @crowley-you-sinnamon-roll @tistai @christinalibertymikaelson @room-with-a-cat @authoressskr @revwinchester @flufy07 @greieba @deaths-maiden @deanxfuckingadorablexwinchester

Gabe Squad:

@theblackenedsky @bloodstained-porcelain-doll @pepperwoodatnight @lacqueluster @samikitten @a-vast-african-plain @kazosa @carryon-wayward-winchester @nobodys-baby-now @dlb1999 @ludwigs-a-monster @archangelgabriellives @a-wing-and-a-pen @tricksterxangel @cipherwheeldecoder @amandaecrn @onlyanothersocialcasualty

#gabriel x reader #human gabriel #gabriel monthly challenge #spn fanfic #rabbit writes

249 notes · View notes

angel-gidget · 7 years

Text

Stars Unearth Your Fires (ch2/?)

Title: Stars Unearth Your Fires (Ch 2/?)

Fandom: DCU, Teen Titans, Red Robin (preboot)

Rating: PG | Words: 1200 approx | a03 link

Summary: Tim Drake never thought of himself as a troublemaker as far as Robins go. But a passing accusation quickly escalates into a case of stolen memories, technologically backwards clues from his past self, interdimensional hijinks, reflections on the good old days, and possibly the rekindling of a foregone romance. Eventually Tim/??? Mystery ship!

A/N: I ask that any fashion nerds reading this forgive me for my fake fashion week plot device. Lets just say the DCU has extra fashion weeks bc magic and leave it at that. Thanks again to @kiragecko for the beta!

"Wait, dude. Scrappy Doo hacked your diary?"

"It wasn't a diary, Kon. But, kinda."

"A lockable device on which you record your private thoughts you share with no one? Soundslikeadiary,man. Youshouldembraceit."

"I could repeat lectures verbatim from Diana about refusing to be shamed for traditionally feminine things that are actually emotionally reinforcing, but I think I'll spare you since you're not fooling anybody."

He could have come alone, but he had returned their texts on a whim, and when they had learned he was going to scavenge their old HQ at Happy Harbor... well, there was no stopping the remnant of Young Justice otherwise known as his best friends.

"It was more like a smartwatch jam packed with ridiculous hardware and old ipod levels of memory that I had filled with work reminders, but whatever."

Cassie and Bart had a point. But the truth was, the closest thing he really had to a diary was the dozens of hand-written letters he had written essentially screaming at his father. Letters he had tossed in the fire before he could be tempted to actually leave them where the (now dead, now lost) man could find them.

But some things remained too raw to share.

"Hey," Cassie was the first to touch her toe down on the threshold (Normally, Bart would beat her, but he had allowed himself to be a bit distracted, fully zipping around a couple laps to check out external changes).

Cassie started entering the old security codes without a hitch. She was not even thinking about it, and it gave Tim a tiny surprising warm fuzzy tingle in the chest, "Damian didn't use anything in it against you, did he? Trying to dig up crap on--"

Tim allowed himself a chuckle, "No. Assuming he did manage to read any of my entries, I would have paid money to watch him try to figure out what any of it meant."

"Oooh," Bart zipped back, and darned if he wasn’t talking faster and faster, allowing his own nostalgic excitement to kick in, "Did you write it in a code?"

"Sort of."

Kon was floating by the graffiti wall. It didn’t matter how many times they cleaned it, "Hanson Sucks" would always reappear as if by magic. Tim used to suspect Bart solely, but looking back, (and looking at Kon's face now) he suspected a little differently.

The guy's grin has a bit of the ol' Kid when he glanced over his shoulder, "You didn't just write it in code, you wrote it in SLANG, didn't you. Yes, you did."

Tim snorted. But denied nothing. There was no point.

"Bet it was like 90% rap references."

"Ooh, don't underestimate Tim's eclectic-ness, Bart. There was no doubt a healthy dose of Enya lyrics entwined in there."

Bart's nose scrunched, "Enya? Seriously, Tim?"

"Hey," Cassie interjected, "I like Enya."

"You also like country music and boy bands dangerously similar to Hanson. It's okay, Cass. Weloveyouanyway."

The rules for Gotham and his team had always been different. While clever hiding spaces had been a practically intellectual game in his home city, sometimes the trick to hiding something in YJ HQ was to just place it somewhere really dumb.

“The girl’s locker room, Rob? Really?”

“You never looked for any of my toys here, so clearly, it worked.”

The locker combination was Steph’s birthday. Something his teammates had no reason to know and something Batman and Nightwing might overlook. Or at least, they would have overlooked it back then. Maybe he should change it. Did it matter? Would he ever have cause to use this thing again? It was worth thinking about, but not something for just yet.

The lock released with an obnoxious clack and the door swung open with a creak. There were some things in his life that Tim kept meticulously clean, but no locker had ever been on the list. His crumpled extra Robin uniform tumbled out along with a collection of scratched CD’s, multi-sided dice, hand-drawn diagrams of team formations covered over by Bart’s doodling, and a cracked baseball bat.

At least his uniform had been through the wash before he stuffed it in there. Small favors from his former self. Tim carefully unrolled the Kevlar cape, tumbling his old wrist computer into his palm.

He would need to replace the battery. Specifically, remove the battery, and carefully charge it, then place it back into the device. He was not going to risk synching the thing—even to the old YJ mainframe—by plugging it into the computer directly. Maybe he was being paranoid. Hm. Not the worst thing to be.

“So…” Kon interrupted, “You gonna tell us what’s up?”

His first—heh—impulse was to be cryptic, but he swallowed it down. These were his friends.

“I was singled out by those Gatekeepers. I want to know why. When I checked the dates, I realized all of our computer records were compromised. I think… I think a more personal record might have escaped their notice.”

A moment of silence. He would have enjoyed the rarity of quiet in the old YJ cave of all things, but they were looking at him with a high-alert concern that was on the edge of tipping into horror.

“Woah. The bat-computers were compromised? Holy Hera, Tim.”

“DoyouthinkitwastheGatekeepers? You do. You totallythinkitwastheGatekeepers.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah. I do.”

“So what, man? You think they waved their triple-joined finger and just…?” Kon waved his own hand.

“Erased a week—maybe more—of events that happened while our reality was colliding with something outside of our own multiverse. And in a room with you, the Flashes, Booster Gold, and Guy Gardner; the person they expected to cause trouble was me.”

“And you can’t remember because they probably also erased our memories.” Cassie inferred.

Kon nodded until Tim’s earlier comment sank home, “Hey wait, whattaya mean ‘with me’?”

Bart giggled, “Oh, as if you don’t remember what you were like back then.”

Kon sighed as Bart and then Cassie joined in on ruffling his hair. They had to be fast. And reach up on their tip toes to do it. But Kon let them for a good half of a second.

“Ok. Point taken.”

The wait for the charger to hit green felt like an eternity. Plenty of time for the ambiance of the old cave to slip from nostalgia to haunting. Bart had opened up an entire closet of junk—chemicals, paint, mechanical insects—that he had apparently collected with Greta. Kon had dusted off Anita’s old masseuse table, only to find that no one was really in the mood to hop on it. Cassie found an old set of brass knuckles that belonged to Slo-bo, but quietly set them down when she noticed their discoloration was due to dried blood.

Nobody messed with the dusty arrows kept in hopeful little spaces. Nobody looked at the archer’s targets. At least, no one looked when others were looking.

Tim sighed and watched as Cassie floated around, fidgeting. He remembered how hard she had clung to the idea of Cissie returning to the hero life, terrified that her best friend would grow distant as a result. Tim had… been more optimistic. At the time.

He knew where their old friends were. He knew Greta Hayes was a freshman in college now. That they girl they had once called Secret had impressed the entire faculty of St. Elias with her ability to catch up and surpass academic basics. He knew that while she excelled in her math and science classes, she enjoyed the chaos and the friendships she found in her drama electives. He knew because her teachers kept good notes that were easy to hack.

He knew Anita took odd jobs to support the two tiny children that were her de-aged parents. She would put on her old Empress costume on occasion, when crime had the gaul to come to her doorstep, but lived quietly in Louisiana for the most part. Supergirl had been the last hero to come into contact with her, and told him all about it.

None of them had really had the chance to feel close to Ray, but Tim knew that didn’t make them special. Ray Terrill’s profile with the Justice League displayed a new team every year. He had run with reserve units, the JSA, Freedom Fighters, and more.

Then there was Cissie, Arrowette, the girl who took them by all by surprise once every few months as her face appeared on a cereal box, in an energy drink commercial, or on a motivational poster in a sporting goods store. Because nothing sold that stuff better than an Olympic archer who had looks as well as accuracy.

It wasn't a painful thing for Tim personally. Hell, there had been a time when he thought he was headed for a similar path, a time when he thought retirement for himself was a strong possibility, just a few years away. But he knew better now. And he knew that Bart always bought things with her name or her face on them, but didn't actually look at them. And that when Cassie heard her voice blaring from the TV, she would stare mournfully at an old number in her phone before putting it away unused. As much as they would wish otherwise, Cissie King-Jones had drifted away from them.

Not that Tim didn’t also fit the drifter profile to an extent. The thought hit him hard. He hadn’t been to the Tower in over a two months, but like a dog with a bone, the Titans had refused to let him stay out of touch. Even when Dick had the bright idea of sending Damian to the tower, to try to get him to interact with ‘younger’ heroes—because apparently Dick could’t be bothered to remember that he was sending an eleven year old to socialize with a crew that no longer possessed a member under the age of sixteen—his friends had reached out, insisting that Red Robin was the only Robin on their roster.

It was humbling, and it put a scratch in this throat and a watery heat behind his eyes that—

BEEP!

Charging complete.

Bart zipped toward the outlet, and hopped on his toes while waiting for Tim to unplug the device. He felt Conner and Cassie join in hovering behind him as he began to skim through the files. There was only one that matched what they were looking for, with its simple text repeated in the space-tab code.

R E M I N D E R S

Dig up 8th grade time capsule

Go 2 fashion show @ Hollywood Mall. Compare/Contrast costume

Be outside July 4th

Go 2 most romantic city on July 15th

“That’s it?” blurted Kon and Bart at once.

“Fashion show?” Cassie scratched her head.

Tim sighed, “I was watching out for key word triggers. I think.”

Bart frowned, “Like, if you actually said anything close to what you meant, you were worried the Gatekeepers or whoever would notice and erase everything like they did with the Batcomputer?”

Tim nodded, “The ‘reminders’ are literally reminders. Straightforward intel would be too dangerous.”

“‘Cause God forbid your lil’ bitty bat-self actually tell your future self what was going on.” Kon huffed impatiently.

Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

Kon hissed. “Sorry! Too dangerous. I get it.”

Cassie raised her brows and let it go. “So, what are you going to do?”

Tim shrugged, “Do what they tell me to and hope they help me remember, I guess.”

Bart looked up from his phone, “Better hope the ‘reminders’ don’t have to go in order, Tim.”

Tim winced, “Why?”

Cassie looked over Bart’s shoulder at his screen, “Because the only major summer fashion demonstration in California hits the runway in about 12 hours. Woah.”

Tim powered down the wrist tech. He didn’t like the idea of going out of order, but only two of the reminders had actual dates attached. At least he had opened the file right before July. Small favors.

“Fine. Mall first. Grab some food and rest and meet back with me in—“

“Only if you do,” Cassie’s eyes were narrowed.

“Yeah, man. No caffeinated all-nighters.”

“Kon and I will tuckyouinifwehaveto.”

Tim snorted, “Fine.

It messed with his plans, but if he was being honest, Cass was in town, and Steph had mentioned to Dick in the cave that she was done with her freshman comp essay. Red Robin wasn’t strictly necessary when Blackbat and Batgirl were around to help out.

He did his best to take it as the impromptu bit of fortune it was.

He didn’t let it hurt.

#stars unearth your fires #fanfic #gidgeblog #tim drake #the core four #core four #bart allen #cassie sandsmark #kon-el #conner kent #dc fic #dcu fic #red robin #wonder girl #kid flash #superboy #kiragecko

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vinyloftheyear-blog · 7 years

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Vinyl of the Year 2016

It’s finally here! And because I basically had to do one mega-review of every album I listened to in 2016, it’s very long too, culminating in a top-10 album countdown. This post is gonna start with an essay-style discussion of every album that isn’t in my top 10, followed by the countdown (number 1 of course also being the VotY). So, without further introduction, here’s a huge review of the music I listened to in 2016.

The image above is in order of release date. Unfortunately, 26 isn’t a great number for an even grid, and tumblr might mess with the image quality, so you can see a bigger, better version of the list here.

There are a few things to note about the discussion’s formatting before I actually get into it: 1) The albums aren’t in any particular order, just what made sense to write about next, but 2) the album titles are in bold so you can skip to them easier if you just care about some of them, and 3) they’re all links you can click to listen to the album via YouTube, or Google Play Music if there wasn’t a good YT link.

Here we go.

There were a few albums that came out early in the year that were good, but didn’t blow me away. Daughter’s sophomore LP Not to Disappear was great, bringing with it all the dark ambience I love from their music as expected, there just wasn’t much about it that stood out. A few songs sound in line with the quality that If You Leave has more of (Numbers, Mothers, and Made of Stone off the top of my head), but the rest was just forgettable. I tried to jump on the Animal Collective hype train as well once their album Painting With got released, but as I probably should have expected after disliking Merriweather Post Pavilion for the most part I just didn’t enjoy listening to it much. (That being said, FloriDada is fun and beachy and catchy as hell.) I gave the group’s style one more try with Deakin’s solo record Sleep Cycle, which has its pretty moments—namely the Pink Floyd-esque tune Golden Chords—but now I’m certain that they aren’t my style. The same went for James Blake’s record The Colour In Anything: I see the appeal in Blake’s lovely voice and the simple-yet-moving production, but the album just doesn’t vibe with me.

There were also a couple of rap albums that I appreciated more than I liked. Atrocity Exhibition, for one, was my first taste of Danny Brown on his own, and I thought it was good but not amazing. Amid some real bangers like Really Doe and Ain’t It Funny were songs I wasn’t sure what to make of, and not yet being totally used to Danny’s voice didn’t help much. This was my first listen to Danny Brown on his own, so I can’t really speak much for how much he or his music has evolved from previous albums, but if other music critics are trustworthy then it’s a solid improvement, and I respect that. I also respect A Tribe Called Quest for coming back with their last album as a full group, We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, in the wake of Phife Dawg’s unfortunate passing. Their style stays true as ever, the album has tons of modern and classic features, from Busta Rhymes to Kendrick Lamar to Jack White of all people, and the subject matter is tied strongly to the current events of the past year, and for all of that I think it’s a great album—I’m just way too new to Tribe and the time their music was steeped in, so their album wasn’t a personal favorite.

Of course, there were other big 2016 hip-hop releases that I liked more. I’ll talk about most of them a bit later, but one particular album made waves even several weeks prior to its release (when, fittingly, Waves was its working title): How could I not mention Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo? The hip-hop legend dropped this mishmosh of a record to critical acclaim, and I try not to use that term too negatively: West himself said the album is “a living, breathing, changing creative expression,” so I don’t fault him for leaving some breathing room in terms of production. There are some real standalone hits that stand out, of course; Ultralight Beam, No More Parties in LA, and the hilariously self-aware I Love Kanye are all fantastic in their own right. However, there are also many clear areas across the record that sound like they belong on the cutting room floor from one of Kanye’s previous albums—but that’s just what makes this album great. Whereas most notable albums these days are more cohesive, this album knits itself together more like a quilt: Very far from seamless, but that makes the effort and care that went into making it much more visible. Because of that, the album was a tough contender to the number 10 spot on my list.

Another close contender to the top ten this year was Glass Animals’ groovy album How to Be a Human Being. In previous albums they sounded samey to me, each song not deviating too much from the last one, but the band definitely seems to have fixed that with this record. Songs are backed with everything from video game sound effects to dreamy ambient synths to heavily distorted drums, and they’re all mixed really well with the trademark breathy vocals and wide scope of sounds. My favorite example of this on the album by far has got to be The Other Side Of Paradise, with stop-start synths that stick in your skull till sunrise—alliteration aside, I can’t listen to this song and not move to it, and it’s definitely one of my favorite tracks to come out this year. A good few of the tracks on How to Be a Human Being still sound way too similar though, and there’s lots of repetition within songs—for most of the tracks, you’ve heard it all after the first minute or so—but I commend Glass Animals for making their music more dynamic and hope that trend continues.

In the more EDM-influenced pop world, we saw two EP releases from the duo Lemaitre this year, 1749 and Afterglow. Both EPs show a huge improvement in Lemaitre’s mixing and composition talents from their Relativity EP series, but Afterglow was a bit less interesting than 1749 in terms of song diversity and uniqueness. Not Too Late remains my favorite track by this group, and with it Lemaitre really made themselves worth following as more than just nightclub fodder, but Afterglow seems to slip back into that mold a bit—albeit still being wonderfully composed and a delight to listen to, whether dancing in the club or sitting in bed.

On the flip side of the pop releases this year, there were a couple groups that decided to get funkier in 2016, as most pop seems to be doing these days (I blame Daft Punk and Bruno Mars): Namely, I’m thinking of Two Door Cinema Club’s Gameshow and STRFKR’s Being No One, Going Nowhere. These albums are far from bad, but the shift in sound they went with didn’t improve them much, and actually made them slightly worse just by sacrificing some of their uniqueness as a group to pursue the mainstream sound. Both records were interesting blends of funk elements with each group’s signature style, Two Door bringing their quick-guitar-riff driven rock and STRFKR using various catchy synth rhythms. While Gameshow sounds more like a watering-down of Two Door’s punchier sound to make room for a groove, STRFKR’s album is still an improvement from 2013’s Miracle Mile, when the group first started to experiment with adding a groove to their music. Being No One is certainly more seamless and even harkens back to their much earlier work in its tone, even using voice samples like they used to. If Gameshow becomes Two Door Cinema Club’s Miracle Mile, insofar as being a transition to a cleaner, more characteristic funky album later, then I understand its necessity and welcome their fourth record with open ears.

A few new names also appeared on my radar this year, these two with albums that are rock-oriented, and have well-written themes about growing up. Car Seat Headrest and their album Teens of Denial rocketed the small bandcamp group to stardom this past year, with dense, meaningful lyrics about the transition into adulthood and an accessible garage-rock style. I’ll admit that if I listened to this album more it very well may have ended up on the top ten, but unfortunately I didn’t get around to reading more into it. I fell into a similar situation with Mitski’s record Puberty 2, which had to do more with the teenage years themselves, lyrically focusing on the angst and anxiety that riddle them. This album was also a highly acclaimed one with many layers of meaning and depth, and one I also thought was just okay because I hadn’t listened to it more. I certainly won’t make the same mistake the next time either of these artists release an album (or with any album of note in 2017, for that matter).

Looking back, there were a lot of albums released this year that were incredibly relevant to the events of 2016 that were praised for being beautiful artistic expressions of a year that not a lot of people liked. As well as the aforementioned A Tribe Called Quest album, Solange’s A Seat at the Table was one of the most critically acclaimed examples of this, and I can hear why—the messages of black pride come through the pleasant and well-composed R&B songs on the album and the candid spoken intermissions between them, and playing the two off of each other really makes this album a unique take on what it means to be a black woman in today’s society (which is a phrase you may be tired of hearing verbatim by now if you’ve been reading about this album, but there isn’t a much better way to put it). 2016 will also be remembered for its numerous unfortunate celebrity deaths, beginning in earnest with David Bowie just two days after his swan-song of an album, Blackstar. He knew he wasn’t long for this world at the time, and you can hear that throughout the record (you don’t need much more proof of this than “Look up here, I’m in heaven”), and sad though it is, it shows Bowie’s amazing creative potential one last time. Last January I saw someone I don’t know on Twitter sum this up perfectly by saying “Bowie stared death in the face and thought ‘I can use this’”. In that way this album also seems to represent 2016 as the forced transition away from old times, saying goodbye to the classic, groundbreaking, and nostalgic works and their artists—in any medium—that brought us to this point, in favor of looking to the future and making a mark for this generation.

And now, onto the top 10!

10. JANK - Versace Summer

The best way I’ve found to describe JANK to someone in an X-meets-Y style is that they’ve got the lyrics and tone of an emo garage band, but with the intricate guitar work and immense overall talent of an early Modest Mouse. The more I listen to this album, the more little instrumental details I catch: every little guitar or drum fill, and just how much the tempo and dynamics change within and between songs is so impressive that you’d think that the songs would be about something more complicated than, say, a bicycle named Ralph—but it doesn’t even matter, because JANK pulls you into their mood until you’re singing every word regardless. And even still, a good number of their songs can really hit heavy—like that song about a bicycle named Ralph. Even Gucci Spring, the one out-of-place song on the album, is a chill tune with great composition. I really hope JANK keeps dropping albums—hell, as long as they keep releasing music, I’ll never feel older than sixteen and love it.

Favorite Tracks: Chunks (kool enuff), This is a Song About my Bike “Ralph” and it’s Called “Ralph”, #freesam

9. Noname - Telefone

Noname first made a name for herself through features on Chance the Rapper’s albums, but this mixtape marks her first solo venture, and it is one hell of an album. Telefone has got to be the calmest and kindest-sounding rap album I’ve ever heard, if only because of the lovely, smooth keyboard backs, but there’s so much more. All the singing is so well-mixed and pretty, and the rap verses aren’t too loud or aggressive; in a way, in lends them even more honesty—which makes the realer, darker songs about Noname’s life in the Chicago hood even more deep-cutting. Even still the album holds its optimism: the laments of the album are surrounded by a resoundingly positive attitude, smiling in the face of any obstacle. On top of that, the lyrics flow well with the music and have universal meaning behind them in just about every song, covering all the ups and downs that connect Noname and her Chi-town community. A hip-hop/R&B album like this is as pleasant as a surprise phone call from a loved one, and I can’t wait to hear another one from Noname.

Favorite Tracks: Diddy Bop, Reality Check, Forever

8. Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered.

“EVEN THE B-SIDES!” cried the Kendrick fans in praise on all the hip-hop messageboards online circa March, and boy were they right. This is an album purely of live-only tracks, scraps, and B-sides from Kendrick’s previous masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly, and it’s still just as genius and fantastic as anything he’s done before. What continues to blow me away with Kendrick’s work is his sound design: he uses so many different sounds, tones, voices, and effects in every single track he makes, and still puts it all together masterfully. Even within one song, Kendrick throws three different inflections on his own voice and uses each one to manipulate his flow—and that’s about average for this record. Don’t let the fact escape you that these songs were rejected from being published until now; one of the best rap albums to come out this year was picked up and dusted off from the studio floor. That alone should tell you what kind of talent Kendrick has, and why he’s considered one of the greatest rappers of this generation.

Favorite Tracks: untitled 02, untitled 03, untitled 07

7. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book

If Noname is the girl keeping her block optimistic with Telefone, Chance is the older brother that takes that to the entire city. It means a lot to be the second-biggest name in Chicago rap and Chance knows that, counting his blessings very explicitly on this record and letting everyone hear. Even this album has its down moments, mostly more somber tunes about Chance and his friends growing up and changing, but he uses a gospel choir and religious themes to keep the smile on his and any listeners’ faces. There have been some critiques of the mixing on this record, and I won’t deny that it’s a bit out of wack, but it’s nothing that makes the album even remotely unlistenable or dilutes its messages (and sure, All We Got is a bit of a shitshow, but I blame Kanye for that). All of the features are great too, and they run the gamut from gospel artist and choir director Kirk Franklin to Lil fucking Yachty. Overall in Coloring Book, Chance’s optimism and pride for himself and his city are contagious, and it makes me smile every time I listen to this record.

Favorite Tracks: Same Drugs, Angels, How Great

6. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3

It’s a Christmas fucking miracle! RTJ dropped this album early online for the holiday, and at the last minute it made my top ten. Run the Jewels 2 was damn fantastic, and this awesome dynamic duo of hip-hop just keep getting better. El-P and Killer Mike bring even more trademark establishment-hatred and adrenaline-pumping arrogance with their latest installment, and they really sound like they’ve found their groove with this record. The proof is everywhere, from the production from El that’s more vivid and diverse than anything he’s made before, to the opinions of a pissed-off generation of millenials that fuel their lyrics, even down to the dynamics in their tone of voice. And as if it weren’t enough to improve on their style, RTJ even included a few tracks that are strong shifts in tone: Instead of their usual middle-fingers-up attitude to society, they rap some verses that sound just like shock and disbelief for how events turned out, even getting sentimental with the surprisingly personal Thursday in the Danger Room, which is equal parts banger and mournful tribute that cuts deep. I think that’s a feeling we all shared in 2016, a year where we needed voices like El’s and Mike’s to keep us strong and angry enough to do something about it—and they couldn’t have delivered more perfectly.

Favorite Tracks: Talk to Me, Hey Kids (Bumaye), Thursday in the Danger Room

5. clipping. - Splendor & Misery

Four words: Experimental space rap opera. Still interested? I didn’t think I was when this album first came around. As mentioned in this album’s Pitchfork review, I was surprised that clipping, now much closer to the spotlight after Daveed Diggs’s famous role as Lafayette/Jefferson in the hip-hop musical Hamilton, would use this opportunity to push something so bold and unique instead of an album full of experimental bangers like their last album CLPPNG was. But the more I listened, the more I thought it was the right move. Diggs and his crew bring their creativity to somewhere no artist has ventured before—an epic tale of a slave mutineer taking over a spaceship and flying it past war-torn planets in search of a new home. And while this album doesn’t have as many standalone hits (as it really shouldn’t), the incredible talent Diggs has for storytelling is brought to new frontiers in character development and worldbuilding (seriously, I get chills when he transitions from African world-shaping mythos to the human idols that moonwalk). From the cold, spacey production to the delightfully abstract storytelling this album brings, Splendor & Misery is my favorite narrative album since The Antlers’ Hospice, and a welcome twist to contemporary rap.

Favorite Tracks: All Black, True Believer, Air ‘Em Out

4. Childish Gambino - “Awaken, My Love!”

Speaking of twists in rap, how could you go much further than not rapping at all? Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino has gone from internet sketch comedy to writing for TV to acting on TV to doing stand-up comedy to dropping hip-hop albums to making his own (now Golden Globe-winning) TV show, and this album marks yet another sharp turn in his career to releasing an album of pure funk and R&B—and while other critics (and a few of my friends) aren’t so sure about this one, I enjoy every song on it. Across the record Gambino runs the full gamut of classic funk and soul styles, and on each one he distorts his voice differently to fit the song—belting passionate cries in one tune and pitched-up soulful melodies in another. Even California, the most-debated song on this record, lends itself some praise for being a catchy abstraction of Jawaiian reggae. If there’s any way to compare this with his previous records, it’s with production and instrumentation, and both seem vastly improved and expanded upon—really, my only gripe with this album is how poorly it’s mixed in some areas. If Gambino sticks with this funky pursuit for at least another album to iron out its few problems, though, we could see a real masterpiece in the future. Other artists that dabbled in funk this year should take note: sometimes it’s better to dive in headfirst.

Favorite Tracks: Me and Your Mama, Zombies, Redbone

3. Bon Iver - 22, A Million

Bon Iver has made a name for themselves over the past decade or so with their ambient, snowy-cabin music (including the hit Skinny Love) and features on Kanye West songs, and the three records they released before this one are all beautifully gentle explorations of abstractly-mixed soundscapes—but this record transcends that in favor of something almost completely different. Inspired in part by group founder Justin Vernon’s battles with personal and existential loneliness while recording it, 22, A Million shifts gears suddenly to a dirty, sample-based, electronic sound that is disorienting at first to say the least. It ranges from uncanny-valley distortions of otherwise mellow acoustic songs to broken percussion-heavy tracks, with lyrics full of half-phrases and made-up words—and while the details are incoherent, the way they’re put together results in a strange electronic recreation of Vernon’s signature calm, somber tone. The devil is in the details on this record, so to speak, and just how much there is worth discussing is impressive—like the amazing voice layering in 8 (circle), or the psalm sample in 33 “GOD”, or those chilling few seconds near the end of 29 #Strafford APTS. It’s a very postmodern album, all told, opting for the expression of raw stream-of-consciousness instead of being more explicit, and like many postmodern works, it can be analyzed from so many different angles and parsed to convey so many different ideas. 22, A Million is the kind of album that belongs in an art museum, and I’m so glad a record so unique, deep, and beautiful exists.

Favorite Tracks: 715 - CRΣΣKS, 29 #Strafford APTS, 8 (circle)

2. Anderson .Paak - Malibu

This album was the first I’d heard of Anderson .Paak like many other people this year, but after listening to this album I feel like I know him like a family member. On this album, Anderson celebrates himself and overcoming his difficult past with contagious honesty and confidence on top of beautifully-produced tracks that range from soulful R&B beats to dance-floor grooves. The wide range of instruments, effects, and beats applied on this record are all mixed seamlessly, and even the samples from old surfing movies between most songs carry the album’s tone beautifully while holding up the songs’ themes. It’d be good enough if it was just pretty, but it’s also by far the most personal and intimate album of 2016. In addition to offering his signature take on more classic R&B, taking after his own inspirations and revamping them for the present, Anderson sings and raps verses about his childhood, family, career, and relationships that are all equal parts candid autobiography and inspiring motivation. In a way, the combination goes so far as to put you into Anderson’s life story and create a potent sort of nostalgia for it: you’re where he was decades ago, letting the music on the record player push you to rise above the not-so-good situation you might have at home. And in that way, Anderson celebrates you, too, and you just can’t stop grinning.

Favorite Tracks: The Waters, The Season | Carry Me, Come Down

1, and the 2016 Vinyl of the Year:

The Avalanches - Wildflower

I’m not even sure where to begin with this freaking fantastic album. When I first listened to Wildflower, it was being raved about online, so I figured I’d see what the hype was about, in bed, with my laptop speakers. I didn’t want to leave that spot for the next hour as I listened—I even delayed plans I had made just to finish it. In a single word, this album is immersive, and there has been no other record that pulls me into the environment and atmosphere that it creates like Wildflower does. The hundreds, maybe thousands, of 1960’s samples that The Avalanches mixed together brilliantly instill an indirect but pure nostalgia for America in a unique and strange era, with a fantastic demonstration of show-don’t-tell and utilizing tone and instruments more than words—more blatantly, it’s at number one because it does artificial nostalgia better than Malibu and conveying raw feeling better than 22, A Million. Even the several excellent rap features don’t ruin the immersion, despite rap not being a thing back then: it’s almost like being at an alternate Woodstock with a more modern lineup of acts. The sheer amount of detail in the sound design is the key to how captivating Wildflower is: all of the samples that are used as background noise and sound effects take you to a different place and time for practically each song. That also makes this album excellent travel music: regardless of where you’re going or what you’re doing, you feel like you’re on summer break from school, having fun in the sun and enjoying the psychedelic era to its fullest. In several ways the current time parallels that one—a silent majority resulted in a publicly-disfavored president and a young counter-establishment attitude, and civil rights movements and vinyl record sales are making a nationwide resurgence, to name a couple—and whether by design or coincidence this album runs with that perfectly. It’s both here and there, in 2016 and 1966, within and without, a celebration of the moment as much as it can be an escape from it, and there’s just no other music quite like it. For all of these reasons, Wildflower is my Vinyl of the Year for 2016.

Favorite Tracks: Because I’m Me, Frankie Sinatra, Kaleidoscopic Lovers

A quick post-script

In a little while I’ll update the blog theme from Currents to Wildflower. Looking back, I’m surprised how much hip-hop showed up in the top 10. It wasn’t really until this year that I began to follow it more actively, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite genres--if I can even put the music I like into genres these days, anyway.

2016 has been a great year for music, but 2017 could easily top it: we’ve got anticipated/potential albums from The xx (who already released theirs), Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Portugal. The Man, The National, Arcade Fire, and many more brand-new artists to discover. I’ll be reviewing albums as I listen to them this year, so future VotY posts won’t be this huge, and you can keep up with VotY more regularly. I hope 2016 was a great year in music for you, too, and that 2017 proves to be even better!

Thanks for reading, and happy listening!

#vinyloftheyear #VotY2016

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