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talenlee · 2 months

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Game Pile: Gensou Narratograph

I’ve spoken in the past about the sprawling storytelling tradition of the Touhou Project. If you’re unfamiliar, the way I consider Touhou is not a series of videogames or even a franchise as you might conventionally interpret it, but rather a sort of communally shared storytelling space created by a large body of uncapitalised creative sources. Despite the fact that Touhou is the product of, initially, the work of one person (working in concert with an audience and then a community), it isn’t really reasonable to call it a franchise or even a universe. Those things imply a structure, a sort of coherence or an overarching ownership, and that’s something that Touhou absolutely does not have.

What Touhou has is a community and that community connect with other members of their community in almost any communication media you can find. It’s games, sure but it’s also doujinshi, fanfiction, fan art and in pretty much every single place people can create stuff, you’re going to see people creating something Touhou adjacent. In this way, Touhou stretches from a source point out and into pretty much every single other place people can be. I don’t have any proof but I’m confident that someone on the Antarctic Research Station of some country or another had a Marisa sticker inside their backpack or whatever.

Touhou is a lot of things, which is to say, I better watch my mouth. What I think I can say, pretty unreservedly, is that Touhou is distinct. Touhou material does not tend to look like or present itself as anything but Touhou. There are other materials full of girls who look like they’re twelve and wear numerous petticoats and ostentatious hats, but most of them succeed at looking like Touhou and not so much like their own thing distinct from Touhou.

What Touhou makes tends to be made for an audience of Touhou fans, which is why some of the games have a reputation of being brutally, comically hard. There’s a sort of deliberate alienation at work: Don’t you dare ask Touhou to change for you, you need to change for Touhou! Yeah the game is unfair and hard and you can’t get the good ending if you can’t skate through these bullets right, that’s how we like it! That’s how you know you’re a real fan!

(This is not really how they talk)

(most of the time)

(Since they left 4chan)

Anyway it’s this pre-existing weirdoscape that gave rise to what is, to my eye, simply the strangest goddamn Tabletop Roleplaying game I’ve ever seen.

Content Warning: I’m not really a Touhou fan and this game doesn’t change my opinion of it. If you’re heavily invested in this game being a good game and want to see me praise it, you won’t, so it’s probably best to just jog on.

Just a note: I’m reading an unofficial translation of Gensou Narratograph. I’m not fluent in Japanese, and any time I think a phrase is badly written or clunky or strange, I let it go. That’s not important to this and treating the game as if that’s vital is a great way to cut yourself out of a lot of really cool translated TTRPGs.

If you’ve been paying attention to me talking about Tabletop RPGs for any length of time, you might find that because I don’t get to play them very often I usually look at them in terms of their approach, their interface, and their offerings. Oo, what fancy words. What do they mean?

The approach of a game is how it induces you to play it. What’s the introduction to the book like, when does it start you playing it?

The interface of a game is how it plays. What does the game let you dick around with? What are the systems in the game space that you can play around with and that you can express using the game’s systems and how does the game’s systems make them work? Simplified, what does the game give you as a button and what happens when you push it? This includes things like if the book is well-written, how you handle it, and if it looks nice.

The offerings of a game is the promise of the fantasy you get to indulge if you play it! Whether it’s becoming an adventurer engaged in tactical combat or a spacefaring captain doing deals for rare goods, the offering of a game is how all the other stuff makes space for you to enjoy this thing.

I think, fundamentally, that the more I read and reread this book, every single part of Gensou Narratograph is extremely, extremely bad. Or rather, completely unsuited to my experiences of what I want in a tabletop RPG. It’s one thing to call the approach bad, but is it bad if the approach is explicitly trying to get a mere normie like me to go away? Is that not the point?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Also behind myself. Because in terms of approach, this game starts not with an introduction to the universe, nor an invitation to fantasy or even character creation, but instead with a page describing the ‘correct’ way to read this book. The first thing the book says to do, the way you should start with this game, is not to look at mechanics or character options or anything like that, but to instead read a recap of a play session of the game, with Zun. Zun is the creator of Touhou. Zun is, in a way, just some guy.

This recap is a hundred and ten pages long.

It is a hundred and ten pages long.

This game does not start you with character creation, but instead an actual play script with someone famous, and you should want to read it because that person is cool and famous and important. I read some of it. I tried. I also didn’t have any meaningful context for the actual play because to me, understanding how the game works is important to knowing what’s going on when they make gameplay decisions. But okay, after that, we get to the introduction, which begins with a pitch for its fantasy about being resolution experts who use spellcards to unleash a beautiful hell of bullets. Great! This is the stuff I expect I’m supposed to be seeing in a game like this, so far so good. Then we get a description of what a tabletop roleplaying game is, a description of the gamemaster and players, and then a description of what you’ll be playing.

Let’s put a pin in that point though.

Then we get a list of requirements – rulebook, players, place to play, d6s, writing tools, types of sheet, tokens, and a nice reminder to take breaks. Then there’s a list of nice-but-not-necessary things to include like snacks, music, time and place for post-game talk, some resistance to bullets, and people to play with, which gets mentioned twice as both necessary and not necessary. I personally would file players under ‘essential’ rather than ‘nice to have.’ Then we get some glossary and it’s blessedly short – this whole introduction is only five pages long! – before the book introduces characters.

Now, in my preference of an approach, I think that you should give people the pitch of the offering – here’s the fantasy! – then the basics – here’s what a d6 is! – and then the fundamental mechanics of the game, like the d20 resolution system, where big numbers are better – and then move on to character creation. Which means that while I feel like I’m missing something, once you get past that 110 page introduction, then this approach is more or less doing what I expect to do in a book with what I consider a good approach.

But we’re going to put a pin here to jump ahead a chapter to talk about the rules, the things that make up the interface.

The rules system is built around checks; you roll n dice to aim for a target number of y, formatted as ‘nd:y’, and that works fine as a formatting choice. This is not an additive kind of dice roll, though, but a dice pool. So if you roll 2d6 aiming for a target of 4, and you get a 3 and a 3, you didn’t succeed at the check. It’s a simple binary system too – either you rolled the target or higher, and you succeed, or you rolled below it, and you failed. You have triumphs and fumbles, representing very good success and very big failures, and, shout out to thy dungeongal, it has even got a failure table for fumbles. It’s not a Rolemaster fumble table, but it’s pretty good for a small affair in a simpler game.

There’s something like an initiative system for most of the story – a ‘yet to act’ and ‘acted’ system, which means that once you do something significant, you have to wait until everyone else has a turn. I don’t mind this, this is a system that formalises something I know a lot of people already do in their game situations. Some players don’t like this? I know a few who would rather be quiet and let the story happen without being regularly called upon to check if they’re okay.

From there, there’s mechanics about a multi-phase story, following a pattern; you have an investigation phase with quests you should fulfill, and the quests serve as flags for getting to the next part of the story, in the next phase. Clues are distributed randomly by dice on a pre-established map, and then there’s a time limit to work out how long you have left to fulfill the investigation phase of the story. There’s random daily events that represent the ongoing life in Gensokyo, a recovery stage of the day, and players even move around the map of the world based on rolling dice according to their motivation stat.

You know, like a roll-and-move board game.

Players are atomised in this part of the game. They don’t move as one but instead everyone is moving and investigating in their own time. If you wind up in the same square as a player you can build a bond with them and do your thing with them, which is useful for assisting later on. Failing to uncover a clue in a location leads to more clues being propogated, meaning that over time the play space fills with clues and failures still bring opportunities.

The combat system – called Danmaku Combat – is heads-up, one PC vs one NPC. Characters have unique boards for combat, known as their Danmaku Fields. From here the rules get complicated, and I use that word in place of the word complex. You roll to determine attacks. Your die rolls represent how many bullets you place around your enemy, but also where. You don’t get to control that. You can use spellcards, and then you can roll to dodge, and finally the game calculates hits. Then there’s a set of qualifiers to check how the resolution of that round works, bullets are tidied up, and the combatants reset to a new initiative.

After that, there’s a denoument which also suggests that you should share the story of your game on social media.

I will say about this system I appreciate some simplicity. If you’re in the same square as a bullet, you get hit. That’s just how bullets work. There’s even a mechanic for grazing! I like some of the board-gamey mechanics and I think the idea of flying characters bringing their own ‘board’ to represent how they influence the space around them in battle is pretty novel!

I do not like any of the other mechanics.

No not even that one.

I’m trying to be kind. I’m trying to be kind, I’m trying so hard. I’m trying to approach this as if it’s just extremely alien, as if it’s categorically different to what I want in games and therefore every single thing I dislike is fine because cheese and apples, oranges and pears, some people just like different things, it’s fine, it’s fine, and hey, maybe even I’m being a bit of a western chauvinist expecting this game book to be built the way I think a game book should be.

Except hang on, no I’m not, I’m talking about this strictly as a matter of preference. And we’re not even at the thing I find the most repellent about this game.

See, when I described above ‘characters,’ you might notice I didn’t use the term ‘creation.’ I called the section ‘characters,’ because you don’t get to create characters. Characters are pre-generated. This game comes with thirty writeups of established, pre-defined, pre-characterised Touhou girls, and you get to get to pick one of twenty-one character traits about them that can, based on the dice, be entirely equally distributed across all thirty of these characters.

This is fantastically strange to me.

This is actively player hostile to me.

And it’s not like this breaks with the trend of how people care about Touhou: I don’t know anyone with a Touhou OC, but I know a lot of people who refer to old friends, friends they had in younger days, as ‘a Marisa’ or ‘a Reimu.’ I know more Touhou fictives than I know people who create new things in the Touhou space. If you’re a Touhou fan, you’re probably a fan of these characters, and I guess if that’s all you’re a fan of, you wouldn’t be bothered by the lack of a creative toolkit for existing within this world.

This is a vision of tabletop RPGs that does not exist to me outside of the most fishknived deliberate designs like Everyone Is John. This game’s vision of its setting and its characters are not that this is a place you want to play in but that this is a pre-existing cast of characters you want to embody and play. You don’t make a Touhou OC (A TouhouC) in this game and get to play them meeting important NPCs, you pick up a pre-established Touhou, with her established interests and behaviours, and try to play her as close to your vision of her as you can. And I say her, because they are all women, and…

Lords.

I know there’s a queer angle on all this but I am too aware of the audience that likes Touhou for the Wrong Reasons, because, again, I know where a lot of the English-speaking fandom came from.

If I was going to be so gauche as to talk about Gensou Narratograph as if it were a mere game that I was going to have an opinion on I’d say it looks like it sucks. But that’s just my opinion based on merely reading the entire book and not being already a fan of Touhou, a shorthanding of a number of critical considerations of the qualities and choices made in this game, summed up in a short form to express my ideas clearly. It’s not that it’s a bad game, it doesn’t make people ill or commit tax fraud or anything. Chances are good, if you’re a fan of Touhou, you’re probably going to love the idea of a game that hands you a character sheet at the start and says congratulations, you’re Suwaku Moriya now! Look at your funny froggy hat! You have a skill called Creating Kun (Earth)!

It is, in the truest sense, the most Touhou TTRPG that could exist, in that it seems completely impenetrable to me, offering no reason to engage with it outside of pre-existing love and veneration for the property, and happy to be that way.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Game Pile #Games

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tf2fansderogatory · 2 years

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scout day

okay we know hes got rabbit theming with the domination voicelines but in my head i take it one step further

"mon lapin" (my rabbit) is a thing to call your son i think and so whenever i daydream i have one universe where scout just cries every time he hears anything rabbit related because he tried learning french and he found out what it means

in other words: hes a blorbo so i make him suffer

it turns out, to some degree, that Spy's eternal smugness is his downfall, something predicted by everyone ever. at the beginning his coworkers were greeted with usual wariness, caution, dodging questions and obscuring answers with well-placed bribes and cryptic threats and careful strategy; it only took him a few days to lower his guard just a tiny bit, and realize his coworkers were mostly obnoxious lunatics with very few coherent thoughts to any of their names, and once he knew who to be careful around he let his guard drop most of the rest of the way. it turns out, if you say something enough you begin to believe it on some deeper unconscious level, and you are an idiot isn't really an exception. It becomes a mantra. Eventually, he decides his teammates are incapable of even normal English and, therefore, absolutely would not know or be able to learn to speak French, so he lets himself be a little less careful. His constant little French phrases are sort of a compromise between secrecy and some other need he doesn't want to put a name to; in some way, it allows him to say anything he wants right to his disgusting coworker's faces without facing any repercussions whatsoever. To Spy it seems like a flawless solution.

But, well… maybe he lets it spiral a little too far. Scout gets the worst of it, and he knows it--everybody's already figured out he's probably insulting them to their faces and have accepted it as a normal fact of life, but Scout's watched him do it to other people and Spy does not do it to other people like he does it to him. It never fucking stops, for one, a constant train of syllables running in-between actual English sentences--and especially when Spy's scolding him, or complaining about his clothes or his voice or the gap in his teeth or the black eye that could've been very easily avoided if he didn't just go in swinging like a fucking idiot--or, the worst of it, when it's dark in the rec room and Scout's reading comics and Spy's in the other corner reading whatever he reads and everybody else is gone and you could cut the air with a knife, and Spy gets this weird little light in his eyes as he mutters and doesn't really hide the fact that he's watching Scout out of the corner of his eye. Drives him up the fucking wall. So he mail-orders one of those stupid little French-to-English books, starts keepin' a little journal of all the stupid shit he says, and asks Engie to help him out when he realizes he doesn't know how to spell French at all (and when the letters on the page are swimming too hard for him to keep his head straight).

Engie disappears for a few hours and when he gets back it's with a big fucking pile of books all about French, plus another big handful of notepads and recording devices. Scout says he doesn't care about it that much, but he does, and as Engie sees it if this is a way to get Spy to stop going through his goddamn things he'll take whatever path he can go. Over the next few days they collect information, spell the best they can, start organizing and translating bits and pieces of it; what they find is mostly insults, as expected, a few pleas for mercy, though Engie comes across a few lines spoken to him that he has to read back a few times to make sure Spy's actually calling him handsome.

Scout's asleep for most of it, to be completely frank. Letters were never his strong suit, but Engie's perfectly happy to truck along on his own. One night, one of the longer ones where he's mostly just there for moral support, Engie nudges him awake; he looks worried, almost, and Scout rubs his eyes as he shoves a torn-out page of a notebook into his face.

It says, highlighted among dozens of nondescript sentences, in Engie's barely legible chicken-scratch: My rabbit, you make my life so difficult. I wish you took more care of yourself. You don't deserve to live like this.

He sees it smeared all over the rest of the page, in the French Engie's still working through--mon lapin, mon lapin. My rabbit. And Engie gets another grave look, and points to a sentence near the bottom, in a considerably neater font.

He says: "This one's 'my rabbit, you look just like your mother'."

Medic runs a DNA test, for a good portion of both Engie and Scout's paychecks. Scout sees a little rabbit plushie in the window of a stupid little chachki store as they make their rounds around Teufort and Demo, who's a little too tipsy to be driving, is surprised when Scout starts sobbing, curled up on the shitty vomit-dusted leather.

Spy gets a visit, after most of everybody else has gone to bed. The broken nose he has when he shamefully stalks into the kitchen for breakfast and promptly leaves doesn't really surprise anyone, and neither does Scout's sullen silence for most of the morning into the afternoon. Spy stops going through Engie's things. French, formerly ever-present, vanishes from his general speaking patterns. There would be a celebration among the team, were it more appropriate. Everyone mostly just watches Scout stare at the rabbits running around outside, scowling, and feels bad for him.

#answered by bungus #scout #spy #engineer #tf2 #anon #i would be sorry this is super fucking long if i felt remotely any remorse #might be posting this to my ao3 by the way. so look outu for a shameless self-promotion at some point

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dcviated · 11 months

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@hallowleylines sent: Current's staring... or... staring? It's difficult describe how his eyes wander in random directions. Hmmmm. Thinking now. He's kind of annoying to deal with considering he's doing all the talking (to himself) in his head. Trickshot was an engineer, so how much better than Closure. Soon to be seen. "Bombadier Princess, got a favor to ask." That nickname stuck. How sweet. "More like a customer request. I need you to do a model update on this arm. I'm willing to put down... hmmm... 2 million lungmen dollars right now as an upfront. Then once you're done and it's up to standard I'll cash out the other half. I need this... more combat capable. Your competitor is Closure after all, so best not to disappoint." There's a lot to digest here. First off... 4 million dollars? Like the fat stacks he's dropping in front of her as they speak. He didn't even haggle but that's certainly a drop in the bucket. Second of all, and the question you shouldn't ask, where is that money coming from? Regardless, who cares? If she does spectacular... he might spread good word? Doing better than Closure is quite the boost to a reputation, not like either of them are completely honest businesswoman anyways.

"....?? Whuhf?"

Could it be he's staring at how many fries she's shoved in her mouth at once? With his art-sight or whatever? Creepass he is. But. A service bay in the lower decks isn't the best place to be eating food to be fair. Not that she cares. The Liberi wasn't one for taking casual breaks. She prefers to mix business, pleasure, and whatever other descriptor you'd want to add to the brazen woman. It's that or she has a problem putting things down.

"Whahf dat?" Classy, shoving down the comical bite of her deep fried salty snack and speaking around it. At least her hands were clean, though she'd be quick to put the gloves back on soon as she was finished with Noodles and whatever he had to ask her. Which was. Not something small. Neither was the amount of LMD being deposited freely on the table. Instincts try to kick in to hoard it like a beast and start snarling.

Imagine the fries you can buy with that pile!

"Whahf da fhug?!" Swallow swallow swallow. Just about chokes. That's a lot of goddamn money! She could actually, probably-- agh, one thing at a time. Even if she wanted to finish building her pet project there's a thing attached to this, obviously. Why wouldn't there be? And it's then she takes notice that Current's prosthetic looks ... not great. Yeah, try to hide it but she notices.

"Wheeeeho, guessing it's a rush job looking at that sad thing. Sheeeez, the fuck happened to you? I get jerking off puts strain on a dude but-" She sets down the cardboard pack of fries, hopping up from the swivel stool and taking an inspection at the damaged limb. It looks crunched. He's not moving it right. Like at all. Just an attempt to lift it feels like it's about to snap the thing off after the damage to the rotor cuff. But. Ops like this aren't outside of her loop. The problem will be making it look pretty. But then. There's 2 million LMD here.

"Suuuuure, I can... cook up something that oughta work for ya, Noodles. But we'll haveta talk some shop about it. Gimme like, guidelines. Wishlist. Else I might give you a shiny old peg to smack people with. Competitor- Fuck. What is this, did you put a challenge to the others too? Good thing I work better under pressure-" Spoken without comment. Just let her have this.

Trickshot grumbles, mulling how many other engineers like herself came about this landship. Her garage is back in Columbia, but she's seen the others here. Closure aside, you had people like Eunectes. Stainless. Windflit. Some were better than others but maybe, just maybe, all of that on the fly crafting on the now permanently retired Siracusan train left an impression.

The Liberi smacks the man hard on the broken arm before holding out the greasy hand she'd just been shoving fries with.

"Got yourself a deal otherwise."

#hallowleylines #hallowleylines :: current #muse :: amber #inbox :: answered ic #verse :: arknights #the more I think about it the more she could be a lot #of different classes

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sinematically · 2 years

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I watched eternals and ok I have THOUGHTS so I’m putting it here and I’m in a cab frantically typing this so it’s basically unfiltered thoughts kay thanks

- it’s different. It got a very obvious mainstream look. It is still a high budget, heavy CGI or like “comic book hero’s” movie but the more I think about it, the less I find a movie from the last few movies in the MCU to compare it to. So, it’s still very super hero movie, just not like the MCU.

- it’s felt a bit like watching Captain America Civil War. We know all of them, and we know they’ve interacted with each other.

- Something felt incomplete, I think it’s the limited amount we know about each of the eternals on their own? But it’s not really a problem

- seeing Kit Harrington and Richard Madden interact, with a sersi involved? The GoT/SOIAF fan in my has died. KINGS OF THE NORTH BABY!!!

SPOILERS-ish AHEAD

- Ikaris’s storyline was somewhat unpredictable, but also if the fate of his character is sealed, I just need to see what they do.

He’s also hilarious and Richard Madden has wonderful comedic timing

Also, seeing a super hero cry. Shed tears. Kill him self because he loves Sersi too much to kill her, but I’m not killing her is going against everything he believes in? I love Ikaris he is my favourite idiot boy.

- as a desi, everything about Kingo just… worked. PROPER HINDI BEING SPOKEN HAS SAVED ME AND I DONT EVEN LIKE HINDI!!!??? & THE dance sequence, the BHARATNATAYAM?? 12 year old me would learn that choreography in 5 min flat. 22 year old me will need an hour but I know I can do it.

HE SAID DISHOOM. DISHOOM.

- Sprite is such a fucking mood. Her relationship with Dane??? With Kingo?? Kingo and Dane need to meet now too, properly.

The illusions

Also when Kingo said he worked in the movies because he missed Sprite’s story telling

- Thena, my moon and stars and my favourite goddess of war. I want to hug u and hold ur hand and kiss ur knuckles baby you are loved. She can do no wrong and will do no wrong

- GILGAMESH DESERVES BETTER. I’ve concluded that Gilgamesh is a fun house husband who would make the best dad jokes. Also thena and Gil are my only OTP from the eternals. When he dies, the fkn crying.

- When Thena killed the Deviant, everyone in the room felt so much fkn relief. She’s so cool

- I really love Gilgamesh and thena so much. On their own and together

- Salma Hayek did such a WONDERFUL job, the mothering and the nurturing. GOD

- PHASTOS!!! Hilarious & romantic and a good father!! Dude just seeing him KISS A MAN on the big screen?? A MAN OF COLOUR!! GAY MEN KISS IS A MARVEL FILM GODDAMN IT. and the way he talks about his HUSBAND BEN? Wonderful. This is essentially the exchange between him and other eternals

“I thought u lost all hope in humanity”

“They remind me that there’s good left”

- Druig is a himbo I think. I like him. If I could control the minds of people, I too would contemplate taking over humanity to get rid of greed and violence etc etc

- Makkari and Druig are cute. I want more Makkari content because She is so fun. She is every quirky incorrect Marvel quote but in actuality. Also something about her signing her words brings in so much personality to her whole character

- HARRY STYLES IS EROS CONFIRMED

- MY BABY MANS DANE WHITMORE IS BACK

Overall? Imma need to watch it again to decide how much I love it but it’s a 3/5.

#eternals #marvel eternals #Richard madden #Gemma chan #Angelina Jolie #Kingo #kumail nanjiani #sersi #ikaris #sprite #Druig #Makkari #ajak #phastos #Gilgamesh #thena #spoilers eternals #eternals spoilers #marvel spoilers

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makeste · 3 years

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BnHA Chapter 320: Deku vs. Class 1-A

Previously on BnHA: Flashback!Kacchan was all “fuck Deku and fuck his stupid goodbye letters, I need to speak to somebody in charge.” Endeavor was all “hello, I am Somebody In Charge.” Kacchan was all “listen up asshole, you need to let us go out and collect our wayward nerd because you stupidly left him alone with All Might and that’s a fast track to disaster right there.” Endeavor was all, “[self-incriminating silence].” Rat Principal was all, “okay sure, have fun kids.” Back in the present, class 1-A was all “hi Deku” and Deku was all “I’M FINE!!!!!” and Kacchan was all “THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT YOU’D SAY YOU DUMB FUCKING NERD” and so the kids all got ready to fight, because OF COURSE they’re gonna fight. Sorry guys, but yeah it’s happening.

Today on BnHA: Kacchan is all “what’s up Deku you look like a possessed Rorschach test, so anyway how are the new quirks coming along.” Deku is all “they’re coming along like THIS” and uses Smokescreen to try and get away. Kacchan is all “PHASE ONE COMMENCE”, and Kouda, Sero, Jirou, and Ojiro leap into the fray to shower Deku with heaps of love and violence, because this is a shounen manga and kicking someone’s ass while simultaneously proclaiming your undying admiration for them is just how it’s done in these parts. The KoudaSeroOJirou squad then passes the baton to Satou, Momo, Tokoyami, Kaminari, and Shouji, who are all “fuck this mask” and do a bunch of stuff to tear Deku’s mask off because they’re the real heroes. Shouto is all “LOOK AT THE LITTLE CRYBABY, THAT’S RIGHT, GO AHEAD AND FUCKING CRY and by the way let us share your burden please,” and once again I swear this is all very deeply moving and touching within the actual context. The chapter ends with Tsuyu being all “look at me. I’m the cliffhanger now,” and damn.

lol what

I don’t think anyone was expecting that. I mean, not that I’ve got anything against Tsuyu or anything. anyways it’s a very nice cover and I love the colors and I hope this means Tsuyu’s gonna do something badass

also, “Deku vs Class A” -- pretty much the expected title, but it’s still got me hyped nonetheless fuck yeah let’s go

IIDA ANGST

Iida Tenya really said “fuck the uniform code, we’re leaving the helmet at home today.” sorry kids, prim and proper C-3PO Comic Relief Iida has left the building. can I interest you in some Serious Iida

meanwhile Kacchan is all “sup Deku, I heard you got a few more quirks, and might I just add that you look like the Snyder Cut of Detective Pikachu”

“you look like a tarred and feathered squid” okay easy there Kacchan. I mean it’s all true of course, but still

“thank you all for coming” OH EXCUSE ME SON, WERE YOU PLANNING ON GOING SOMEWHERE. LET’S JUST SEE HOW THAT PLAYS OUT

yep and there’s Smokescreen, right on cue

okay Horikoshi, I leave it in your hands. hopefully you can come up with some more interesting combos than my dumbass predictions lol

LOL THIS ISN’T A COMBO AT ALL

“explosions solve everything” -- Horikoshi Kouhei, 2021. something something shockwave, something something handwave ta-da no more smoke. lol okay then

oh, ouch

he would know, wouldn’t he. nice application of one of your many hard-earned life lessons, Kacchan

by the way you guys, just as an experiment, I’m going to try to anticipate some of the discourse this week in the hopes of preemptively addressing it and thus saving myself some time later on lol. so here’s our first test run!

ANTICIPATED DISCOURSE: “oh my god what a fucking hypocrite can you believe this fucking guy”

PREEMPTIVE REBUTTAL: it’s precisely because Kacchan has been in this exact situation himself that he’s able to recognize his past self in Deku now and call him out on it. just because it took him sixteen years to get it through his head that he can’t accomplish every single thing completely by himself doesn’t mean Deku has to go down that same path. so yeah, maybe it is a bit hypocritical, but if you insist that the only people qualified to call out stupid shit are people who have never done a single stupid thing in their own lives, then what you’re basically saying is that absolutely no one on earth is qualified lol. so yeah, I’d have to disagree

and one last unrelated note, I’m willing to bet the whole “you didn’t even say a word before you ran off” thing is possibly the first thing Kacchan’s said in this whole encounter that actually does stem from genuine hurt rather than his tough-love-harsh-truths strategy. I’M TAKING NOTES HERE HORIKOSHI. at this rate it’ll take twice as many chapters as DvK2 for them to hash out all the stuff between them, geez

anyway so I gotta say, so far Deku vs. Class A is looking an awful lot like a DvK3 wearing a hat, trenchcoat, and sunglasses lol

OH SHIT I TAKE IT BACK??

FUCK YEAH, YOU GO KOUDA. and I guess he ditched his mask as well! excellent

so far the strategy here seems to be “Kacchan says all the mean tough love shit while the rest of 1-A balances it out with warmth and kindness”, which actually works pretty well imo. Deku is one of those people that doesn’t usually need a Kacchan Translator anyway, but just in case, this is very efficient

mm but of course Deku is slingshotting himself away with Blackwhip. all right then, who’s up next!

FUCK YEAH

okay but seriously you guys, what is going on with Sero’s face in these last couple of chapters though, it’s really starting to unnerve me. is he trying to emulate Kacchan’s whole asymmetrical facial expressions thing?

in fact let me just quickly hit pause here because,

ANTICIPATED DISCOURSE: “SERO IS TOGA??!”

PREEMPTIVE REBUTTAL: no

oh snap looks like Jirou’s getting in on the action too!

poor Jirou probably spent days racking her brain trying to think of something she could bond with Deku over. is Horikoshi doing these in reverse order of the kids who have had the most interaction with him? that would explain why poor Kouda didn’t get a flashback lol

omg. well that answers that

so by my count, Satou and Hagakure are the only ones remaining in this first tier of kids who Still Appreciate Midoriya even though they’ve barely ever spoken two words to him in their lives lol. so they’ll probably be next, and then we’ll get to the next tier of kids who are pretty good friends with him but not quite besties. and then we’ll move on to the IidaRokiRaka trio, and then lastly, to the boy who is in a tier all his own

BUT FIRST, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

and by “sponsor” I mean the Dekuangst. just in case that wasn’t clear. indeed, many thanks to the Dekuangst for making this all possible

(ETA: okay so this whole “take me away” line seemed pretty weird to me, and sure enough it’s yet another one of those cases where only the verb is specified, and the object is left to the reader’s interpretation. so even though the translation says “take me away”, I’m pretty sure that what Deku’s actually saying is “take you away” -- as in, his loved ones will be taken away by AFO.

and that is literally the way he phrases it, though -- the verb used is “奪う” (ubau), meaning “to snatch away; to dispossess; to steal.” which, god, that hurts my whole goddamn heart though, because for him to say it like that?? not “AFO will kill you”, but “AFO will take you away from me.” he can’t have nice things anymore because of AFO. he can’t be around the people he loves because AFO will hurt them. he can’t have happiness because AFO will take it away from him. anyway so where the fuck is AFO right now, motherfucker I just want to talk.)

by the way can Ojiro just extend his tail to whatever fucking length he wants or what because it’s like twelve feet long in this panel lol

WOOO FUCK YEAH TOKOYAMI

YOU LOVE TO SEE IT!! BUT WHERE’S YOUR FLASHBACK? YOU’VE HAD A BUNCH OF INTERACTIONS WITH HIM, THAT’S NOT FAIR

okay so now Satou’s stepping in which is back to my anticipated order, so maybe Toko will finish his little moment afterward

dskfjfkk

“REMEMBER THAT TIME DEKU BORROWED SATOU’S FOOD COLORING” Horikoshi says, sweating. “AND REMEMBER THAT TIME HE, UM, SMILED IN HAGAKURE’S GENERAL DIRECTION”

actually I am curious about what Hagakure’s part will be because, you know, the whole traitor thing lol

(ETA: funny how we just skipped right over it huh. can we get a traitor reveal countdown started here? definitely getting close to that time.)

whoa lol wtf

MOMO??? THIS HAS MOMO WRITTEN ALL OVER IT DAMMIT

-- SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK

“SORRY MIDORIYA-SAN, I LEFT MY FUCKING CHILL AT HOME IN THE LOCKER NEXT TO IIDA’S HELMET” holy shit lmao

and here I thought she’d get a flashback to her time on the Baku Rescue Squad or something. but nope, no flashbacks from Momo, only terrifying sci-fi torture devices

poor Dark Shadow is such a trooper omg

“why am I the only one who has to make prolonged contact with his smelly disgusting self” taking one for the team there DS

FUCK YEAH KAMINARI NO JUTSU

THE PRICKLY BASTARD WHISPERER STRIKES AGAIN!! don’t suppose you brought any clean clothes you could sneakily force him into huh Kami

okay here we go, so now Shouji and Tokoyami are joining forces

um excuse me this is fucking awesome

wonder how he’ll break free? don’t think he’ll reveal Fa Jin until the end of the chapter, so maybe Air Force or something? idk

TOKO GETS AN EXTENDED MOMENT BECAUSE HE IS A TIER TWO PATREON REWARD LEVEL FRIEND YAY

WHY IS MOMO MAKING THIS FACE LOL YOUR THING WAS WAY WORSE

and Shouji just casually hitting him with what is easily the best comment from anyone yet. too bad Deku’s just gonna ignore it. you deserve better Shouji

KAMINARI OMFG

it only just occurred to me that Kami is currently trapped inside Dark Shadow right along with him lmao omg. realest one in the entirety of BnHA, right here. we will never forget your sacrifice

aaaaaaand Deku’s yeeting himself

do you really hate the thought of taking a bath that much my dude

oh shit the mask!!

-- oh shit the feels

o(TヘTo)

fuck. and I mean, we knew he was crying, that was a done deal. but still, to see him in this much pain is just...

and the acknowledgement that he knows they’re worried about him, but that it doesn’t change his mind one bit. this, right here, is why they have to be a bit harsh with him, you guys. because they’re up against the full, unbridled stubbornness of Midoriya fucking Izuku, and if they don’t match that stubbornness with an equal stubbornness of their own, they basically don’t stand a chance

(ETA: quick note that there is apparently another mistranslation here -- rather than saying that his friends are oblivious to the danger, what Deku is actually saying is that none of his friends have activated his Danger Sense once throughout this entire fight. which I had been wondering about, and it turns out Horikoshi actually confirmed it. so basically none of the kids bears any ill intent toward him, and there’s literal proof right there.

incidentally, as @class1akids pointed out, this also casts an interesting light on this chapter in terms of who hasn’t fought Deku yet. not to play the Hagakure Traitor Music for the billionth time you guys, but I’M JUST SAYING lol.)

anyway, but the good news is that they all seem to understand that. and the even better news is that we have reached the tier 3 friends!!

“OR ELSE” lol, great to see Shouto wielding his friendship just as aggressively as Deku once did towards him. I do love a good role reversal

p.s., ANTICIPATED DISCOURSE: “why is Shouto being so cruel to Deku can’t he see how hard this is on him”

PREEMPTIVE REBUTTAL: this is a callback to the classic “even heroes cry when they have to” Shouto line from chapter 137. Shouto is clearly following Kacchan’s lead here and going for the more ruthless approach, knowing that the gentle approach isn’t getting through to him (if anything it’s only making him more stubborn as we saw on the previous page). basically it’s his way of pointing out that even heroes are still only human, and so is Deku last time he checked

ah okay, and there Tsuyu is at last

okay real talk, I get why Tsuyu is included in the tier 3 friends, because she was one of the first people to team up with Deku going all the way back to USJ. but that said, this probably would have had more impact if their most recent interaction hadn’t been like 150 chapters ago

but anyway though it’s still a good speech. maybe not quite a cliffhanger-level speech, but a good speech nonetheless. in a way though, I’m glad to see that Horikoshi seemingly didn’t give a fuck whether he ended this on an actual cliffhanger or not for once

and that “headed toward the climax” part has me excited too, ngl. because if we really are getting to the so-called climax this soon, that makes me even more certain that there is indeed a DvK3 in the forecast. so I presume that next week (or I guess two weeks from now) will be the tier 3s along with the remaining tier 2s like Kirishima and Aoyama

and then after that, well... [orange and green banners being hoisted] [sound of screeching airhorns and vuvuzelas in the distance] [sound of All Might approaching in his car which I didn’t notice until I looked back at this page a second time whoops] THE PROPHECY WILL NOT BE DENIED

#bnha 320 #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #asui tsuyu #tokoyami fumikage #kaminari denki #todoroki shouto #class 1-a #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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fantasmalresplendent · 3 years

Text

Dean died at the ripe old age of 85.

In his lucid moments during the days leading up to his passing, in which Dean was just as sharp and as bright as he was fifty years ago, he remarked that people must think he’d robbed the cradle with a “hot piece” such as Castiel hanging around him.

“You don’t mind that I’m a wrinkly, senile, crotchety old bastard?” Dean had asked, more than once, but he had always said it with a smile. And Castiel would smile back, replying with the same answer the answer many times, in many ways:

“You’re not senile.”

“Old, but not a bastard.”

“I thought I was the crotchety one.”

“I don’t mind.”

Then Dean would smile, and it would light up the room, and Castiel would wonder again how he came to deserve the focus, let alone the affection, of such a man.

“It’s not about deserving, Cas,” Dean had said, half-whispered in the middle of the night a few short months after they had begun to share the bed they laid in. “It’s… fuck, well I don’t know what it’s about. But people don’t get what they deserve, not most of the time.”

Castiel frowned, furrowing his brows. “They should,” he grumbled.

“Well if people got what they deserved, they’d… I don’t know, Sam would’ve actually become a lawyer, stayed in school. Jo, Ellen, Bobby, they’d all still be here. I’d get mauled by a werewolf or something, go out with a bang, and Baby,” Dean said sternly, as though chastising the universe itself for such an injustice, “Would never get so much as a scratch on her.”

“You think that’s what you deserve?” Castiel’s voice was soft, not wanting to disturb the still of the night, but steely as he considered even the possibility of Dean’s violent end.

Dean registered that, swallowing, “I don’t know. I guess I just never thought I’d even make it this far. Hunters have the shortest lifespans of any human subspecies,” Dean cracked a smile, but his heart wasn’t in the joke. Castiel knew Dean was doing the math in his head. He knew Dean was mentally recalling how long it had been since Bobby left for heaven. Tallying up the number of people who were gone because of self-sacrifice, mistakes, pure dumb luck. Counting exactly how many years he had outlived his own mother.

Castiel had wrapped his arms around Dean then, embracing him, surrounding him, and they curled into each other completely. Burying himself in Castiel’s neck, Dean had never felt so close to him, and yet so far away. “You don’t have to follow the same patterns if you don’t want to, Dean,” Castiel stated, as if it were that easy. “Do you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Get mauled by a werewolf?”

Dean sniffed in laughter, and that was answer enough.

Castiel found himself stroking Dean’s hair, an action he felt suited him. He thought for a moment in the stillness and in the space between their breaths. “Maybe it’s idealistic of me, but I still think people should get what they deserve. Even- no, especially you.”

Dean took his time answering, opening his mouth several times before actually saying, “Sometimes I don’t think I know what I deserve.”

“I guess we’ll just have to figure that out together then. We have time,” Castiel kissed Dean’s forehead and he sighed at the touch. “We have plenty of time. Heaven will wait for you, no matter how long.”

Dean looked up at him then with a pout, “You sound pretty confident in that statement for a dude who hasn’t shown up to heavenly chorus practice in a few years.”

Castiel smiled, “I’d rather be here with you. Always have.”

The man blushed. “Well, if I go… I mean, wherever I go… Where will you end up?”

“I could go with you.”

“Where?”

Castiel closed the distance between them fully, thumbing across Dean’s cheek as they kissed. “Anywhere. If you want me there, I will be there, whether it’s here or heaven. I’ll be there.”

“For how long?”

“For however long you want me to be.”

Dean kissed back, his fingers tangling in Castiel’s hair. “Yeah. Okay.”

Sam went not long after Dean. It wasn’t a surprise; it was his time as well. His children were grown, his grandchildren almost grown, Castiel knew they’d miss him but that they’d be all right. And they knew to call on “Uncle Cas” if they weren’t, even the little ones who didn’t understand exactly how they were related, or why Great Uncle Dean's husband was only about as old as their parents.

“I mean I love the little gremlins,” Dean had said, cracking open a beer after a long few days of babysitting Sam and Eileen's girls while the expecting parents were in the hospital. He was exhausted, they both were, but beaming from meeting the newest member of the Winchester clan: a healthy baby boy named Robert. “But have you seen Sam’s house? Goddamn mess in there.”

“You… don’t want to have some of your own?” Castiel had asked carefully, taking the beer Dean held out for him.

“You’re making them sound like trading cards. I don’t know, I- I guess I never thought too hard about it.” Castiel could tell this was a lie by the way Dean didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Wouldn’t know what to do with a kid if I had one.”

“Do you think you’d be a good father?”

Castiel had met John Winchester, in Hell. Well, he hadn’t exactly met him. He had really only passed by John’s cell, stole a glance at the infamous hunter on his way to retrieve Dean’s soul. He’d never told Dean what he saw, they were not close enough at the time. He wasn’t sure if Dean would even want to know. Castiel had almost spoken about it many times, but whenever Dean talked about John, “Dad,” a look crossed over his face, sometimes for only a second. A furrowing of brows, a tight smile, a quick transition to happier subjects.

The same look crossed over Dean’s face as soon as Castiel had asked the question.

“Wow. Um, loaded question there, Cas.”

He waited for Dean to meet his eyes before continuing, “I think you would be.”

“Do- wait,” Dean shook his head, trying to understand where Castiel was going with all of this, “Do you want kids?”

“I want you to live a normal life, Dean. I want to be able to give you what you want.”

“Okay, lots of stuff to unpack here. First of all, a normal life isn’t and never was an option,” Dean leaned back against the counter, “I think we can agree on that. Second of all, you didn’t answer my question.”

“...And third of all?” Castiel prompted.

“No, second of all first. Do you want kids?”

Castiel sighed, taking a swig of his beer, considering his words. “I’m an angel, Dean-”

“Is that so!” Dean raised his eyebrows, then squinted as if in deep thought, “Weird, somehow I never noticed.”

That deserved a well-placed eyeroll, but Castiel still had a point to make. “We don’t- I’m just trying to…” he set his beer down. “I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that I would love and care for a child, if it were ours. If we decided that was something we wanted, I would be so happy to raise them, with you. I’d be terrified,” Castiel admitted, “At the enormous and important responsibility, but I would love doing it, if… if it was with you. I just want you to know that, I guess,” Castiel shrugged, “I don’t want you to think it’s not an option for us, if you want it to be.”

“Okay…” Dean was thinking, swirling the beer around his glass. He pointed the mouth at Castiel, “You’re still avoiding my question,” Castiel really rolled his eyes this time, “But I don’t really think it’s for me, all that white picket fence stuff. If you really wanted a kid, I would definitely hit the library and read all those, I don’t know, fucking parenting guides, and take the Mommy and Me classes, whatever. And I think you’d be a good father, better than me, I’d just let them eat gummy worms and shoot slingshots.”

“Children love gummy worms. They listen and will behave better when offered gummy worms,” Castiel knew this for a fact from very recent personal experience, “I don’t see how gummy worms could pose an issue. Slingshots, however-”

“Okay so maybe I’m overestimating your abilities a little,” Dean held up a hand, “But still, I… I like this,” he gestured to the space between them and around them, “I like us. I like waking up to a clean kitchen and sleeping in on weekends. I like not having to ask more than one person whether or not I can take a drive by myself or crank my music really loud at midnight. And I fucking hate Paw Patrol.”

Castiel smiled.

“Sam and Eileen always need babysitters. That’s good enough for me right now.”

“You’ll tell me though, if this is something you really want,” Castiel insisted, “If you think about it and decide something else.”

“Sure.”

“Promise.”

“Okay, fine, I promise,” Dean took a step forward and leaned in for a kiss then. Castiel could taste the beer on Dean’s tongue and sighed. Dean smiled against Castiel’s lips, lowering his voice to a comical level, “We could, uh, you know, try and make some babies,” Dean waggled his eyebrows and Castiel pushed Dean’s laughing face away, but grabbed his hand, turning towards their room.

They hadn’t spoken about it again, not seriously anyway. They got a dog. Dean opened a vintage car garage. Castiel learned how to bake. They took long road trips to the beaches in California, wandered through roadside attractions like Carhenge in Nebraska and Cadillac Ranch in Texas. They bought decidedly way too much merchandise at Oklahoma’s National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. And maybe they killed the occasional vampire, the wayward poltergeist, but the occasions became less and less. There were younger, more spry hunters on the road now, always welcome at the bunker to look through their library or ask advice on a particularly troublesome spirit. Sam even coerced Dean into holding what became a yearly “conference,” “What are we, a tech startup?” for the next generation of hunters to learn from the legendary brothers.

So maybe they spent more time at home than on the road, but home suited them. Routine suited them like Castiel never could have predicted it would. It wasn’t a white picket fence, but it wasn’t a lonely highway either. Dean would joke about how “boring” they’d become, but Castiel reveled in the repetition. The three hundredth time Dean brought Castiel coffee in bed was just as lovely as the third. The five hundredth time Castiel cooked dinner passed without fanfare, though Dean hugging him from behind, chin hooked over Castiel’s shoulder as he whisked, felt like fanfare enough. The one thousandth kiss they shared was in their bed, lazily breathing each other in as the first beams of sunlight shone through the window after a week of straight rain. Home, a thing he and Dean had never known in their youth, held the majority of their most precious, most banal memories. But still, Castiel always looked forward to those moments speeding down a desert highway when Dean would reach for his hand, turn his head to meet Castiel’s eyes, and smile.

Time took its time with them.

It seemed the opposite with Sam’s children, who grew up faster than Castiel could keep track of. And as they grew from waddling toddlers to full-fledged human beings, Castiel was fascinated, enamored, but Dean was simply proud. He attended their tournaments, their decathlons. He went to their graduations, weddings, barbecues, and Castiel went with him. They took the kids to concerts and movies, parks and shooting ranges, and Castiel never got tired of the smile on Dean’s face when they threw their small arms around Dean’s neck and called him their “Cool Uncle.” “Hear that, Cas? That means you’re the No Fun Uncle. The No-Funcle.”

And as the crowned Cool Uncle, he teased Sam mercilessly about his minivan and his “#1 Dad” mugs, but Castiel knew how proud Dean was of him too. How glad he was that Sam got the future he wanted, and how grateful he was that that future included him.

The brothers still fought. They still bickered, pranked, and glowered. Sam complained that Dean let his kids use power tools too young when they visited, and Dean complained that Sam’s kids were too old to have never heard “Stairway to Heaven.” The usual, the routine, many times over. But they never lied to each other, at least not about the important things, not anymore. And Castiel was welcome in Sam and Eileen’s house and lives, an honor he felt he didn’t deserve, but as Dean said, maybe it wasn’t about deserving.

It was Eileen who noticed Castiel first as he entered the hospital room the day he'd been informed that Sam Winchester was finally coming home. He didn't have to tell Eileen; she saw it on Castiel's face. They’d already spoken, he’d prepared her for the eventuality a few days prior. Eileen smiled, looking back at her husband, teasing him lightly, but Castiel knew she was holding back on her usual snark because Sam looked, well, tired. Turning away from Sam, Eileen signed, “Are you here for him?”

Castiel shook his head. “No, but someone will be here soon.”

“You mean they haven’t given you reaper duty yet?” Sam joked from his horizontal position, speaking and signing with his usual quick wit, but not with his usual articulation. Castiel had seen him argue with Dean for fifty years like it was his job, he was accustomed to the precision with which Sam had always wielded his words. Not today.

“I don’t think I’d be very good at it,” Castiel stepped closer so that Sam wouldn’t have to crane his head, “I’m not very persuasive.”

“No kidding,” Sam shakily clasped Castiel’s hand and grinned. “I’m surprised Dean even went with you.”

“It took less persuading than you’d think.”

“How is he?” Eileen asked, but she was smiling, so she knew the answer.

“He’s good,” Castiel smiled back, “Getting what he deserves.”

Sam smirked, but his head sunk back into his pillow as if relieved. “And I bet he’s complaining about it non-stop. Asshole never knew how to take a vacation.”

“Neither do you,” Eileen levelled her husband with a fond look.

“We’ve taken vacations!”

“You always wanted to go somewhere exotic and then you’d just end up in the library. Remember Berlin?”

“They had… well I wasn’t going to find those editions in America, and-”

Sam and Eileen bickered for a bit, and Castiel did end up backing Eileen’s points more often than not, so eventually Sam recognized that he was outnumbered on this particular case.

Castiel bid his goodbyes just in time as the nurse entered the room to check Sam’s vitals. Her tone was cheerful, but Castiel could tell that she too knew what was coming.

“Well… I’ll see you soon, buddy, huh?” Sam smiled at Castiel as confidently as he could muster for Eileen’s sake, but Castiel knew behind those laugh lines Sam wasn’t so sure of himself. Castiel supposed that worry wasn’t to be unexpected from a chosen one of Hell, Lucifer's vessel, the boy Castiel had once called an “abomination.”

But Castiel smiled, giving Sam’s shoulder one last firm squeeze. “You will.”

When Dean died, at the ripe old age of 85, he knew what to expect.

He’d visited heaven before. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Not an exciting place, but exciting wasn’t necessarily good. Hell had been exciting, and he was in no hurry to return there. Purgatory had been exciting in a different way, years later he swore the stench still lingered on his skin. Sometimes, when he would lose himself in his “senior moments,” he thought he was back in that bloody in between. Or back in hell. Or had gone to heaven. “Times and places are difficult to navigate when your brain’s turning into gummy worms,” he told Cas once. He didn’t remember saying this a few hours later, but that didn’t make it any less true.

His brain was sure full of them gummy worms now as he clung to his body and to his life. He wasn’t completely sure where he was. Bobby’s? The bunker? His childhood home? Sammy had come to see him earlier, at least the kid had looked like Sammy… No, fuck, that was his grand-nephew, Cas had reminded him of that. Sam, his brother Sam, was in the next room. That's right, he’d told the asshole to give him some space, stop smothering him. He sort of wished he was here now though. And Cas, Cas was here, he knew that, but only because the angel was right in front of him. Cas, his friend, was holding Dean’s hand, talking about what their grand-nieces and nephews were doing in school. Dean could swear he already knew these things, but they still sounded new when Cas said them.

Dean looked over at him, and Cas was smiling.

He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. Cas helped him swallow some cool water. Dean cleared his throat, “Bet you’ve been waiting for this for a while.”

Castiel cocked his head, the smile fading. Fifty some odd years and he still had that same confused look. “Waiting for what?”

“Me to beef it, finally. I know this hasn’t been easy, watching me… seeing me like…” Dean took a shallow breath. “No matter where I go next, at least I won’t be a senile senior citizen.”

“Dean,” Cas said, rubbing the back of Dean’s liver spot-covered hand, “Please listen to me very carefully.”

“Got my hearing aids in, go ahead,” Dean joked.

Cas smiled softly again. “It has been the greatest privilege of my life, my existence, to watch you grow old. I feel honored that you allowed me to experience that. Time’s different for me too,” Cas kissed Dean’s hand, “Space and time were never precious to me, not in the stretch of infinity. Not until you. Not until I was able to see you live your life and live it well.”

Tears welled in the corners of Dean’s eyes. He furiously tried to blink them away, but Cas was already there, dabbing carefully with a handkerchief. “I’m… I’m scared, Cas. I know I shouldn’t be, I’ve seen it all. I’ve beefed it a few times already. But maybe that’s why I’m scared? Because… I know what comes next. What could come next. And this is it, right? No more resets?”

Cas nodded.

Dean took a deep, shuddering breath. “If I don’t end up in heaven-”

“You will.”

“If I don’t, that’s fine, maybe it’s what I deserve, and that’s fair. But… will I see you again?”

“Dean,” Cas said sadly, but with his trademarked firmness, “You are going to paradise. And if for some reason, a completely incorrect and insane reason, you don’t? I dragged your soul out of the flames once, I will do it again. I would do it as many times as I needed to.”

Dean shook his head slightly, “Not fair.”

“It’s not about fair. It’s about the truth. Whether you believe it or not, ET goes home.”

Dean chuckled weakly. He was tired. He didn’t want to let go. He wanted to let go so badly.

He felt the bed move as Cas climbed under the covers with him. The angel curled around him, enveloping him. Dean could swear he felt the brush of feathers cradling him and pulling him closer, but he couldn’t muster the ability to reach for them, stroke them like he used to. “Sleep, Dean. I’ll be here when you wake up. Wherever, whenever here is. That’s where I’ll be. Wherever you go, I’ll go with you.”

“Swear?”

Castiel kissed his forehead. “I swear.”

Dean opened his eyes.

The phrase, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” popped into his head, but he suspected, greatly, that he was, in fact, in Kansas. The blowing fields of wheat tipped him off to that.

No, wait. That wasn’t a field, it was a… sandy beach. It looked kind of like that beach he and Cas had stumbled upon driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, what was it called? The one where they’d had to hike down from the lookout point? The one where after they’d trudged back up the trail, they’d sat in the car and looked out over the sea as the sun set? The one where Castiel had smiled at him and the light glinted in his blue eyes and Dean had kissed Cas for the first time ever because he just couldn’t stop himself?

Muir Beach, Dean remembered, blushing at the memory.

But just as soon as he’d reached the end of that thought, it wasn’t the ocean anymore. It was a lake. On the lake was a pier. He’d seen that pier before, couldn’t remember exactly where though.

Then without warning, but without alarm, Dean saw someone standing on the end of the dock. A young man with light brown hair and a sweet smile Dean would recognize anywhere.

Jack waved, walking up casually, “Hey, Dean.”

Dean grinned and pulled him into a solid hug. “Jack. I missed you buddy, how have you been? Where, uh… are we in…”

Jack chucked, “I think you know where we are.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know know, this could… I could be dreaming or some shit, and I guess even in a dream you could say whatever I wanted you to say, so-”

“Dean,” Jack stopped him, “This is heaven. You are in heaven.”

A relieved but small smile spread over Dean’s face. “Cool…”

“I’m not usually here to meet people who pass on, but we weren’t going to miss your arrival.”

“We?”

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean turned around. There was Cas, beaming at him.

“Cas…” Dean reached to embrace him too, only now noticing that the hands that reached out were not as wrinkled as they’d been when he last saw them. He hugged Cas tightly, relieved more than he wanted to admit. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Cas’s hand went to Dean’s cheek, holding him in a kiss. They separated, foreheads resting against each other. Cas’s eyes twinkled, “We had an appointment.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean took a step back, seeing Jack grinning out of the corner of his eye. “Is, uh… is anyone else coming? Or is this the welcoming party?”

“They’re all waiting for you,” Cas put his hand down, and as he did, it was stopped mid-air, as if resting on something solid. Dean blinked, and there was Baby, new as the day she was made, parked on a long, long road that stretched far out of sight. “Any time you’re ready,” Cas tossed something in Dean’s direction, “we can go.”

Dean caught the keys on instinct, they jingled on the simple ring.

Any time you’re ready, we can go.

He twirled them around the end of his finger a couple times, a thought itching at his brain. Or a couple dozen thoughts.

Cas gave him a look, then turned to Jack, “Could you give us a moment?”

“Yeah, I’ll go get everything ready,” Jack blipped out.

“Get what ready?” Dean asked.

“Dean,” he turned around to face Cas whose brows were knit in worry, bright blue eyes narrowed, “Are you okay?” Dean realized he hadn’t seen Cas clearly for a few years, not since before the cataracts. He’d never gotten completely used to that piercing gaze.

Dean blinked. “Yeah, I… I just… I’m here. Really here.”

“Yes, Dean.”

“And… you’re here.”

Cas gave him that look like he was being patient on purpose, “Yes, Dean.”

“And… fuck,” Dean stood at sudden attention, “I left Sam down there, is he okay?”

Catching Dean's hands in his own, Cas rubbed comforting circles into Dean's skin. "Sam is fine. He was there when you left. That's why I was a little late, Eileen had only just gotten home and I didn't want to leave before she could be there beside him.

"Okay," Dean took a deep breath, concentrating on the physical contact, grounding himself in Cas’s movements, "Okay. I mean I know he's gonna be fine, he was always fine without me," Dean said, almost to himself.

"And you'll see him soon."

The abrupt return of Dean’s panicked look made Cas smile a little, shake his head, "Not that soon, Dean. Don't worry."

"Right. Of course, yeah,” Dean looked around, down the road, the back to his car, out past the waving grain that had returned inexplicably. “Well,” Dean flashed what he thought was a very convincing smile, letting Cas’s hands go as he tossed the keys once and caught them, heading towards the car, “Time to hit the road, huh?”

"Wait,” the suspicious squint was back as Cas caught Dean’s arm, “Something else is bothering you."

Dean turned around, and the ocean was back. The ocean he’d taken a trip to see, had selfishly insisted Cas come along for the ride for.

He sighed. "I just…” Dean ran a hand through his hair, “I don't know, I guess it just don't sit right that I’m… I'm gonna see Mom and Bobby and Jo and Charlie and… everyone. How am I going to look them in the face and not feel guilty that I got decades that they’ll never have? And what did I do with that time, sit on my ass? Judge local car shows? Go to freaking baseball games?"

Cas nodded slowly, simply listening. He then hopped up and sat on the hood of the Impala, shoes and all. Dean shot him an offended look.

“She’s a memory of a car, Dean,” Cas rolled his eyes, “She isn’t going to dent.” He patted the spot next to him.

Dean hesitated, but under Cas’s stare, relented. When he was settled, Castiel laced their fingers together.

“I’ve been trying to convince you for all the time I’ve known you that you’re worthy. That you deserved to be saved. That you deserved to rest.” Cas looked down at their entwined hands, “I don’t think I ever really succeeded.”

“Sorry,” Dean muttered.

“You don’t have to apologize. I know you’ve been doing a thankless job ever since you carried Sam out of your burning home. Shit, even before that,” Dean cocked his head, Cas hardly ever cursed, “you were always trying to be the hero for your mother. Some people are at fault for that,” Cas’s eyebrows furrowed briefly, “but it’s human nature to be hard on ourselves and praiseworthy of others. You, in your limited experience, could not possibly know all of the things that you’ve done that have made a difference. But we’re-”

Jack suddenly blipped into existence, giving Castiel two big thumbs up, then blipped out again.

Dean turned, looking from the space Jack had stood back to Cas then back again, “What-”

Cas shook his head with a smile, “I could never tell you exactly what you’ve meant to the world. But we had a, uh, few volunteers that wanted to show you.”

“Cas, could you quit monologuing for a second and-”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw movement. The endless sea became endless plains which became endless trees, the landscape changing at a rapid rate.

Dean looked back to Cas in confusion, but he didn’t look alarmed. He gave Dean a timid smile, kissed him behind his ear, and whispered, “Just watch.”

Dean watched. For a moment, the scenery couldn’t seem to decide what it wanted to be. Then, it decided not to decide. Grains of sand took the form of towering trees, a picnic table, a bench. Green lake water formed the shape of a small boy, hunched over and scribbling on the table. Lastly the wheat twirled and spun and became an all-too-familiar-looking young man wearing a jacket too big for his frame, walking over to the bench and sitting down across from the kid.

Lucas. The name came to Dean from deep in his memory, he was that quiet kid who drew Dean pictures of the ghost in the lake. The grain animated Dean’s smile as he talked, the figure of Lucas showed Dean his sketches. Their forms dissolved as the scene changed and Dean's form was pulling Lucas out of the water, the sheriff having paid his due.

The figure of Dean left, but Lucas stayed and was joined by his mother, Dean remembered her too. They embraced, and the figure of Lucas grew, changed into a young man, a husband, a father. Soon a half dozen figures were standing there, waving to Dean, and then they disappeared, melting back into water. Lucas was the last to go as he was the first to arrive. He signed a phrase to Dean, and Dean knew the words: Thank you, Dean Winchester.

Then the sand reformed into a schoolgirl, the shapes in the green water plaguing her with images of mirrors and Bloody Marys until Dean stepped in front of her, holding a mirror of grain in front of the cruel, refracted specter. It dissolved, and Dean’s form bade goodbye, but the girl remained. She grew too just like the boy did, becoming a professor, graduating with honors, writing dozens of books, and changing dozens of lives. She smiled, and waved, and dissolved as well.

The shapeshifters appeared next, the sand in the form of Sam’s friend Zach, his sister Becky, and even Dean’s false shifter form, but the true form in the too-large jacket blew them all away, leaving Becky waving goodbye. She too welcomed a family that appeared by her side, and they all looked so happy and grateful to have each other.

Again and again the scenes changed. Green waters showed the cities he had passed through, the homes that were kept from destruction, entire communities that were healed. The water formed and reformed into smiling faces and waving hands. Some of the people, Dean had known on Earth. Many of the places, Dean had remembered driving through. Most of the people and places, however, were foreign to Dean. He lost count of the number of strangers who appeared, the cities he’d never been to. He struggled to keep track as they cycled faster and faster, as numerous as the grains of sand and droplets of water they were made of. It seemed that a whole generation of people, all over the world, would-be victims of an apocalypse they never even knew was happening, knew him. Through words and cheers and song, they retold the tales of Dean and Sam Winchester, the tales they had only learned once they had passed on.

Throughout all of this, Cas pressed his shoulder to Dean’s, his presence grounding but not distracting. Dean’s grip on Cas’s hand grew tighter and tighter. Cas did not let go.

Eventually, the images and figures departed. The sand blew away, the waters swirled and dispersed, and the landscape made its final decision. Only a simple field of golden wheat remained, waving and rippling in the wind.

Only in that newfound silence did Dean notice he was crying. He shook his head, wiping the tears away furiously.

“Dean,” Cas whispered, and Dean turned to face him, vision blurred, Cas looking at him pleadingly. “You sacrificed so much for so many for so long. You don’t have to be strong right now. You don’t have to be strong ever again if you don’t want to. You have done enough.”

Castiel wiped an errant tear from Dean’s cheek, holding his face between his hands firmly, tenderly.

“You are, and always were, enough. Your job is done. Let. Go.”

Dean did.

Cas silently pulled Dean into his shoulder as he sobbed. Dean didn’t even know why he was crying, didn’t know what for. Maybe he was happy. Maybe he was grieving. Maybe he just felt… relief. He wasn’t sure the last time he felt such relief. He wasn’t sure he ever had truly felt it.

After some time, longer than he’d like to admit, Dean sniffed, wiped one hand over his face, and raised his head. Cas was waiting for him, looking at him with care. With love.

“I, uh… I don’t gotta sign any autographs, do I?”

Cas smiled, and pulled Dean in for a kiss. They stayed like that for a bit on the hood of the car, feeling the breeze, breathing in the fresh air. Dean thought he could hear music coming from somewhere, realizing that it was the car’s radio playing softly from the cab. He knew that any time he wanted, he could hop down from the hood of his car, slide into the driver’s seat with the love of his life on the passenger’s side, and carry on his wayward way. Down the road, through the endless fields, towards the ones he had loved and lost. But not yet, not quite yet, because he had time. Maybe in the end, time was all he had ever really wanted, even if he could never allow himself to ask for it.

Infinity stretched out in front of him like the fields of grain. It wasn’t an exciting infinity, but it was his. It was a long road, a family that waited for him, a shoulder to lean on. It was, at long last, a place to lay his weary head to rest.

#destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #destiel fix it #destiel fic #like fields of grain #this is on ao3 but i know if I post an external link tumblr will nuke it so #if you can't tell #I'm taking canon hostage and forcing it to pay reparations

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romanogers-lyrics · 3 years

Text

TFAWS Ep 5: finally some good fucking ✨vindication✨

Scratch that rewind what I said- this is the best episode (maybe in comic book tv history). Closure, growth, and redemption 🙌 just when I was worried they wouldn’t be able to tie things up they fucking give me this 😩🤩👏✊🏽

Holy hell my poor heart died and ascended to the moon to hang out with Steve and Natasha. ✨Goddamn the mastery of storytelling in this episode is why I love the MCU so much ✨

The opening fight between Walker, Bucky, and Sam had me on the edge of my seat. Like in most fights you know the stakes are low because the main heroes always win but this fight... whew it was consequential and more personal than the civil war fight imo. I genuinely was worried about the outcome for Sam and Bucky physically and emotionally. Every beat was character driven! This was cathartic. 🙌 the stunt coordinators knocked it out of the park lovelovelove 💕.

“I am captain America” homie you giving me Gollum vibes. “It’s (the shield) MINE!” Like-

So many creative stunts with the wings!!!

Bucky and Sam working TOGETHER

BUCKY DROPPING THE SHIELD AT SAM’S FEET 😭

The golden light seeping into the frame at the end of the fight 🤌🏼

Sam wiping the blood off the shield. 🥲 I can’t even articulate but it makes me feel-

Sammy’s wings got snapped off and he eventually left them with Torres (passing the mantle?) which symbolizes Sam growing out of his old super hero role. It was cleansing. He’s ready to be more. He’s ready to take action rather than let things happen to him 👏

Baby boy Torres trying to talk to Mr Bucky 🥺. You have both sleeves today Mr Bucky sir 💕

I want no I NEED 😫Torres to fly in with the wings next episode.

How we feeling about Walker?? On the one hand I feel him. Us gov did him dirty but at the same time he made the choices he made. Maybe there is room for redemption? Idk... 🙃 or will he continue to get worse?

I am SO glad that Sam went back to talk to isaiah. He needed to know the full story. He needed closure. I could ramble on and on but the writers made the points so much better than I could but just-

Steve did the exact same thing as Isaiah in the first avenger. He went behind enemy lines to rescue Bucky- without permission! He was a hero for it. And Isaiah was thrown in jail? The double standard is so frustrating

I think Isiah’s point that “no self respecting black man” would use the shield makes sense with his background and story. It makes me sick what was done to him. Things really haven’t changed 😞. At this point I honestly wasn’t sure what Sam was going to do. More later on about this-

Zemo’s theme is so beautiful every time I hear it. 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼

What a beautiful scene. Cinematography 💯 Such a great moment between Bucky and Zemo. Zemo fully expects to die and then Bucky does the one thing zemo didn’t expect- the one thing he wasn’t “programmed” to do. Fuuuuuckcjfkekxn

“I crossed my name off in your book” 😭. He obviously grew to respect Bucky and wants him to have peace at last with all the civil war stuff.

Ayo back to calling Bucky white wolf 🐺 love to see it.

The kids playing with the shield and tracing the star has me CRYING. Kids are our hope and they still see something special in the shield. They still believe in it. 😭 such a small moment completely floored me.

Wholesome boat fix up 🥺. I feel like this is the montage where SamBucky fall in love 😂

When Sarah and Sam are talking about the boat- how it is their history- I think again of Isaiah. His history was erased. Sam has to preserve his history ✊🏽

Sarah is a goddamn queen and I Stan 🤌🏼✨

The montage was just a sip of cool water in the desert of trauma that is the MCU.

OKEEEE the conversation between Sam and Bucky where they’re tossing the shield is great on so many levels 😍:

Physically the shield matches the dynamic of the convo. Someone makes a point and throws it. Someone accepts what that person said and catches the shield. Bucky physically offers the shield when he says “I’m sorry” and Sam accepts the shield AND the apology.

The difference between avenging and amending. I was surprised they even used that word bc it calls out the avengers for maybe not doing the emotional work involved in being a hero. Healing is part of the hero job now. #phase4

A small detail but as a person of color I valued it; when Bucky said I’m sorry Sam did not say “it’s okay” or “no worries” because he didn’t have to, I feel like as a POC I’m always making white people feel better and for once I’d like to be confident enough to just accept someone’s apology outright and know I deserve it.

Pivotal when Sam said “it doesn’t matter what Steve thought” at first I was like biiiihhh??! 😠 but he had a point. Both Sam and Bucky have been trying to do hold onto another person who is gone. They gotta heal but more importantly they have to find their own reasons to keep fighting.

The training montage 🤌🏼🙌🤩🥲🥺😭✊🏽. Like FEED ME YEs WE ARE EATiNG. Sammy deserves it all

Sam’s cap theme music is similar to Steve’s but still different. Goddamn so beautiful 💕💕😩

Sam has been pretty passive in this show- almost wanting confirmation he did the right thing. Isaiah didn’t give Sam that comfort but neither did Bucky at first. Sam had to make his own choice 😤✊🏽

It’s a heavy burden to be cap knowing all the shit that has come before but Sam is the only one who can make that decision to be or not to be. And he’s seen the alternative now. In life taking action and taking control of our situation is empowering but always harder than doing nothing. He says it best- what’s the point of all that struggle if you’re not going keep on fighting ✊🏽🥺 I love and respect Sam so much 😭 spoken like captain America! 👏

Show me the suit you COWARDS I WANNA SEe

Goddamnit damnit to hell... I need to SEE IT

Is Sharon setting a trap for Karli???

🚨 end credit: I’m not sure if they are making an iron man comparison. What do you guys think?

Ready for the showdown throwdown next week 👀

All in all it was fucking wild ya’ll and I felt catharsis watching this and so fucking hopeful. I cry 😭

Please feel free to share any thoughts you have about this episode💕

there’s so much in this show that is world building within mcu but also in greater conversations about heroism and power. It is a moral re evaluation of the superhero. Malcom Spellman being head writer you know this shit is not happenstance it is intentional. The took the long road and it totally paid off in this episode 😭

🙇🏻‍♀️ I am emotionally manipulated by this show 🙇🏻‍♀️

Huge shout out to all the cast and crew for making something both respectful to the lore but also challenging it to be better 🙌

My ep 4 review:

Tag list: @soliloquy-of-nemo

#romanogers #mcu #captain america #marvel #avengers #black widow #natasha romanoff #steve rogers #stackie #sam wilson #sambucky #tfaws spoilers #tfaws #john walker #sharon carter #helmut zemo #marvel memes #joaquin torres

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hermannsthumb · 3 years

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I've read fics where Hermann disapproves of PDAs but what about the reverse? As in he's so stunned at winning the most amazing man in the Shatterdome (6 phds, literal rockstar, gorgeous Newt) that he deliberately provokes contact and shows of affection. Just to show off to people and send a clear back off signal. And Newt just dotes on him obliviously.

ok this one is another super old prompt and when I was writing it this week it KINDA got away from me. but I hope everyone enjoyyyys. partially inspired from conversations with @k-sci-janitor 👀 totally sfw, except for one brief reference

anyway, a fic about hermann being all affectionate with newt and also discovering what relaxation is

——————————————-------------------------------------------

The day after the world doesn’t end, Hermann brings Newt breakfast in bed.

Honestly, it surprises Newt more than the whole world not ending thing. Up until the previous evening, after all, Newt was pretty damn sure the guy absolutely hated him, and that if Hermann was gonna do something as out of character as bringing him breakfast, it surely meant he’d spat in it first. Or maybe poisoned it. If hated isn’t the right word, Newt would say Hermann at the very least barely tolerated. And then the whole sharing the neural load thing happened. And, after that, hugging, not once, but twice, and then falling asleep in bed together. And now Hermann’s perched on the edge of his bed (which they shared while they slept) and handing him a plate.

“You had quite the busy day yesterday,” Hermann says kindly. Hermann has never spoken to Newt kindly before. Atop the plate are two pieces of toast, a soft-boiled egg, and a mug of coffee. The coffee and toast (Newt notices) are exactly the shade he prefers. He wonders if Hermann picked up on it before or after the whole mind-melding thing. Before wouldn’t surprise him—Hermann has always been weird about noticing details like that. The egg, however, is something purely Hermann in taste. “I imagine you could use a nice spot of breakfast,” he adds.

Newt shoves his glasses on and blinks at Hermann groggily. He struggles to sit up, partially tangled in his sheets, and then takes the plate. A little bit of coffee sloshes down onto one of the slices of toast. “Are you wearing my sweatshirt?” he says.

Hermann smiles and looks down at the ragged old MIT sweatshirt he’s tossed on. He may have a few inches on Newt, but he’s still one skinny motherfucker, and it hangs almost comically off his frame. “I am,” he says. “I poked around in your closet, I hope you don’t mind. My clothing was in a rather sorry state.”

Sorry state is an understatement for both of them. Newt’s surprised they haven’t been formally ordered to burn the shit they wore to the bone slums yet. Blood, dirt, and kaiju guts aside, Newt’s, at least, reeks to high heaven with sweat. “No worries,” Newt says. He picks up the coffee and blows on it. He wonders where Hermann got coffee that smells this good. It’s been hard to find anything decent and non-instant on the base these days, and (thanks to limited rations) chain shops like Starbucks cost an arm and a leg for even a small. He also wonders what people thought when they saw Hermann strutting around the base with bedhead in a sweatshirt that obviously wasn’t his. Newt almost wants to blush on his behalf. Scandalous.

Before Newt can so much as take a sip of the coffee, Hermann is suddenly unbuckling and shucking off his grey slacks. “Dude!” Newt yelps, flushing bright red to the tips of his ears. Hermann blinks at him innocently. “What are you doing?”

It’s not so much that Newt is upset as it is that it’s so wildly out of character for Hermann that he feels he owes it to Hermann to act at least moderately scandalized. In all his years of knowing and working alongside Hermann, he’s never so much as seen Hermann’s bare wrist before. Now he’s in Newt’s goddamn bed flashing calves, and thighs, and neatly-pressed little white briefs… Hermann rolls his eyes and tosses the slacks (unfolded!) onto Newt’s desk chair. “Making myself comfortable,” he says. “Would you like me to stop?”

Does Hermann iron his underwear? It would be at odds with the rest of his clothing if he did, which is usually in various stages of frumpy to outright wrinkled, but Newt can’t think of how else it would look like that. He wonders if Hermann’s stitched his name on the inner waistband. It seems like the kind of thing Hermann would do. Newt suddenly realizes he’s been staring at Hermann’s briefs (and, worse still, considering how cute Hermann looks in just them and Newt’s sweatshirt) for an uncomfortably long time, so he quickly shakes his head and drags his eyes to Hermann’s face. One of Hermann’s eyebrows is quirked up. Newt hasn’t been subtle. “No,” he says. He clears his throat. “No, dude, you’re—all good.”

He chokes down a too-hot sip of coffee to have something to do with his mouth.

Hermann smirks.

The bedcovers are drawn back. Hermann slips under them and drapes an arm across Newt’s chest, his hand curling protectively over Newt’s hip. With his other hand he snags Newt’s coffee from his grasp and takes a sip. Newt watches his jaw and throat work as he swallows it, a funny feeling blooming in the pit of his stomach. The mug is handed back over, Hermann’s fingers brushing against Newt’s, which make Newt feel even funnier. “Newton,” Hermann declares. “I think we ought to have sex.”

“Oh,” Newt says. “Can I finish my breakfast first?”

“Certainly,” Hermann says.

Newt’s heart pounds as he spreads a little packet of margarine across one of the pieces of toast; he can feel Hermann’s eyes on him, never straying once. Hermann’s hand draws little circles on his hip. Newt drops his toast twice to the plate before he can successfully take a bite, and even when he does, he doesn’t taste it. Hermann’s fingers dip under the hem of his t-shirt. Newt swallows his toast. “Why?” he says.

Apparently it’s the right question. Hermann nods, like he’s pleased Newt has asked. Like they’re talking theories or something. “I came to the conclusion while I fetching your coffee,” Hermann says. “It occurred to me that I wouldn’t have gotten up at seven in the morning to get coffee for just anyone. Then, of course, there is the whole drifting business—”

“You realized you wouldn’t have done that for just anyone too, huh?” Newt says with a smile. Hermann’s hand on his hip stills, and his cheeks go pink. Newt’s relieved to have gotten some ground back here. “Hermann, that’s sooo romantic.”

“The world was at stake,” Hermann sniffs.

“It’s okay,” Newt says. “I won’t tell anyone the great Dr. Gottlieb has feelings. So, what, you realized you have a big ole crush on me?”

Hermann takes the unfinished piece of toast from him and sets it down on his plate. He pulls Newt’s glasses off, kisses him soundly, and then puts Newt’s glasses back on. His mouth tastes like toothpaste. “On the contrary, I’ve always suspected it,” he says. “It’s just that now I have the time to confirm it.” He reaches up and strokes at Newt’s hair. “We have the time for lots of things, now, Newton. Whatever we’d like.”

Newt finishes off his coffee quickly, not even caring when he burns his tongue, and then tosses the remainder of his breakfast to the floor. His egg spills onto the massacred skinny corduroys he wore yesterday. Whatever, Newt’s burning them anyway. “God, get overhere already, man,” he says, tugging at Hermann’s borrowed sweatshirt. He needs to help Hermann confirm his crush or whatever, pronto.

It’s a few days before Newt and Hermann finally drag themselves out of bed and to the lab to tackle what little work remains for them to do—cataloguing what are apparently the last kaiju samples known to man (Newt), recording and backing up their drift data (Newt’s solo drift, and then their joint data), drawing some random scribbles on the board and pretending they’re important calculations about the possibility of the Breach reopening (Hermann. Okay, whatever, maybe they are important). Unfortunately, the delay isn’t for any sexy reasons, as much as Newt would’ve liked it to have been. The events of the last day of the war caught up with them pretty quickly after that morning in Newt’s bed, and they mostly just slept, ordered out dinner, popped ibuprofen for their various aches, and avoided medical at all costs. (Rumor had it the medical staff on base were looking for him and Hermann so they could do some brain scans. Apparently drifting with a kaiju brain is potentially dangerous, who knew.)

A rancid smell washes over them the second they push the heavy lab doors open, and Newt spots several hunks of kaiju organs rotting away on his workbench. Hermann clamps a hand to his mouth. “Oops,” Newt says, turning to Hermann sheepishly. He can’t help but cower as he does. He and Hermann got along swimmingly the past couple days—it’ll be sad to see all that hard work go down the drain over this. “Guess I forgot to clean up the other day. In my defense—we were kind of busy.”

But Hermann doesn’t snap at Newt, or thump his cane on the ground, or call Newt an idiot, or even look annoyed; he lowers his hand from his mouth and laughs. Albeit a terse laugh, but still. Newt gapes at him. “We were rather busy,” Hermann concedes. “So long as you clean it up in the next ten minutes, I—what, Newton?”

“Nothing,” Newt says, quickly. “I’m gonna—um—deal with it now.”

Hermann disappears from the lab while Newt is digging around in the storage closet for extra heavy-duty trash bags. When he comes back an hour later, he’s holding a cardboard tray of small plastic cups, and Newt has just hefted his last spoiled sample into the lab’s airtight biohazard bin (a bit mournfully, if he’s being honest, since he’s sure there’s still more to learn about the kaiju from them). Newt squints at the cups in the tray while he rips his messy disposable work gloves off. “What’s that?” he says.

“Iced coffee,” Hermann declares.

The gloves slap, wetly, into the biohazard bin, and Newt lets out a low whistle. “Dude. No way. From where?” He’s not sure when he gave off the impression that the way to his heart was good coffee, but maybe it’s true. Then again, Hermann could probably win him over with a cup of lukewarm tap water. Not because Newt is desperate or anything. He just really likes Hermann.

“A little shop a bit away from the base,” Hermann says. “I took the bus.” He draws back his chair and sits down with a soft sigh, setting his cane against his desk. Then he draws out a small brown paper bag from his parka pocket. He tosses it to Newt; Newt catches it with one hand. “They had these funny little cakes on sticks. I thought you might like one.”

“Cake pops?” Newt says.

“I presume,” Hermann says. While Newt inhales the little chocolate-dipped cake pop (which is so good, oh my God, Newt hasn’t had dessert that didn’t come from a vending machine in plastic shrink wrap in years), Hermann adds, “I wasn’t sure what sort of iced coffee you liked, so I made sure to get a variety.”

“Sick,” Newt says, spewing crumbs on his shirt. “Um. But, like, why though?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hermann says. “I suppose I wanted to do something kind for you.” He carefully slides a straw out of its paper wrappings and pokes it into the lid of one of the coffees. Once he crumples up the wrapper and tosses It into his train bin, he grips his cane, and uses the handle to nudge Newt’s desk chair towards him. “You worked awfully hard cleaning the laboratory.”

Newt preens a little, even as he privately wonders why Hermann’s acting so weird. Well, nice. But nice is weird for Hermann, so they’re basically the same thing. Is this part of his whole deciding whether or not he digs Newt thing? Newt just assumed the awesome morning they spent together would be proof enough of that. Then again, Hermann’s pretty thorough. “I guess,” Newt says. “It was kind of my mess, though.”

Hermann pats at the empty chair with a smile. Hermann’s smiles are so rare—crooked, and stupid cute—that Newt’s heart gives a painful little twist at the sight of it, and he realizes he doesn’t actually give a shit about why Hermann’s being all weird, actually. “You’ve earned a break,” Hermann says. “Besides, I’d like to spend time with you.”

Newt’s too stunned to argue with that one. When he sits down, Hermann inches their chairs together until their knees are touching.

They don’t necessarily fall back into their usual habits by the next week, but the better ones they’ve picked up (being a little kinder to each other, a little more patient, a little more respectful, and also the fact that Hermann can’t seem to stop touching Newt) all but fall into the background as Newt throws himself into his work with renewed determination. Unfortunately, his desire to get it all done as soon as fucking possible speaks less to his awesome work ethic, and more to the fact that he’s just not sure what else to do with himself now, and he likes that work gives him the excuse to not think about it. Hermann said they have all the time to do whatever they like now. Well, Newt likes working. He knows working. Relaxation is a foreign concept to him, and it was a foreign concept to Hermann up until recently. While Newt is toiling away over his decaying kaiju samples in the lab, Hermann is out—

“Where?” Newt says.

Hermann gives Newt the most serene smile Newt’s ever seen cross his face. “I took a bath,” he says. “It was very nice. I bought some nice soaps, and lit some candles, and looked online to see how to do one of those mud masks. It was very relaxing. You ought to try it.”

“Try bathing?” Newt says.

“Yes. Well, no. I mean taking a bath. Is there something you’re not understanding?”

Newt tries to imagine Hermann with a mud mask on his face and cucumbers over his eyes and fails miserably. Hermann hates messes. He would never stand for mud, let alone on his skin. Where’d he even find a bathtub? Did he break into the rangers’ locker room again? Aren't candles banned on base for being a fire hazard, anyway? “Yeah,” Newt says. “Pretty much all of it.”

Hermann shakes his head with a snort, and Newt catches a whiff of something floral and fragrant—his fancy new soap or oil, he guesses. “I’m not surprised. You know, Newton, you are awfully tense.”

Hearing that from Hermann of all people, the king of having-a-massive-stick-up-your-ass, is probably the funniest thing that’s ever happened to Newt. He laughs out loud and plunges a bare hand into his kaiju sample with a gross squelching noise. “Sure, dude.”

He’s almost too engrossed in his sample to feel Hermann sidling up behind him and setting a hand at his waist. He definitely feels Hermann nose a kiss behind his ear, though, and the hot flush that spreads down across his neck from it. Newt’s hand goes sweaty around his scalpel. One thing he definitely wasn’t expecting from a post-no-apocalypse Hermann is how free he is with affection in any and all forms. “Give it a rest, love,” Hermann murmurs. He nudges at the heel of Newt’s boot with the end of his cane. Love? “Why don’t we head back to my quarters and watch a film? You can pick.”

“But.” Newt fidgets. “I have—my sample—”

Another little kiss. The soapy-oil smell is stronger now. Newt thinks it might be lavender. He wonders if the mud mask left Hermann’s skin all soft. “It won’t be going anywhere, Newton.”

Newt sets down his scalpel.

When they they pass by a group of LOCCENT staff in the hallway, Newt makes to drop Hermann’s hand (which Hermann had laced together with his own before they left the lab), but Hermann holds fast, maybe even faster than before, and looks at him with his stupidly sweet set of big eyes. Newt waits until they round the corner to say anything. “Sorry,” he says, lamely. “Um. I thought—you wouldn’t want—” Hermann continues to stare at him. His iris is still ringed red like Newt’s. “I just mean I know you’re weird about stuff like that. Public stuff.” Hermann has been a closed and tightly-bound book for as long as Newt’s known him; he can’t imagine that would suddenly change and he would start broadcasting his emotions far and wide in the course of a week just because he’s a little less stressed.

Or, you know. Maybe Newt’s totally wrong on this. “Ah,” Hermann says. He nods, very seriously. “Yes. I have been considering that as well. I see no reason to hide recent developments in our relationship.” He squeezes Newt’s hand. "In fact, I see no reason to not be quite, er, proud of them. You’re quite the catch.”

Newt remembers the stolen sweatshirt. Maybe Hermann wearing it out to get them breakfast was more calculated than he realized. “So if I made out with you against the wall right now you wouldn’t be mad?” Newt says.

“Well,” Hermann says, inclining his head to his door, "seeing as my quarters are right there, it seems a rather unnecessary inconvenience.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Newt smiles as Hermann leads him in. “Can I really pick the movie?”

“Within reason.”

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #esperata

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incorrectlumityquotes · 3 years

Text

FULL REVIEWS: “Lost In Language”

Lost in language and I don't know much. Was I thinking aloud and fell out of touch? But I'm back on my feet and eager to be what you wanted.

Seriously? Nothing? You guys have never heard Air Supply? I mean, they’re old AF but still. It’s a funny pun. Whatever.

Back in the day (like it was so long ago) I didn’t know what to expect from this episode. The only thing I caught from the description was library, but hoo boy, we got so much more!

I love the cold opens to this show. It always reminds me that Luz is a silly ass hyper fangirl who still wants life to play out like it does on TV.

“Learning about love and life through the eyes of a child.”

Spoken like a true person who have never done any actual babysitting. The Bat Queen gets her own soft intro for another episode, which I’m noticing more and more re-watching this show. She pays Eda to watch her baby in exchange for a butt-ton of money. Eda, in classic Eda fashion, would rather not split the cash with Luz and gives her an errand to run so she doesn’t have to do it.

I don’t know about you guys, but liked going to the library when I was a kid. It was the only way I could play computer games or go on the internet. Getting online is the easiest thing in the world today, but when I was a kid, it was a luxury my parents couldn’t afford. And dumb-dumb kid me didn’t know that you can borrow movies and comic for free at the library too. That’s how I saw Jaws for the first time.

The library at The Boiling Isles is almost exactly what I expected. Kinda like the Hogwarts library, but with a lot more teeth and eyes everywhere. Luz has a bunch of fun just messing around, until she stumbles upon the cutest goddamn thing ever!

Amity reading to kids at the public library in her free time. My god.

I’m with Luz here. Holy hell, I did not see that coming. I thought Amity was the rival character, the Draco Malfoy of the show, the reluctant ally, the jerk with the heart of gold DEEP in there somewhere. Instead she’s at the Kid’s Corner reading her favorite childhood classic to toddlers. I didn’t know there were angels in the demon realm.

Stop. Stop! You’re already cute.

Seriously this moment made me go “aw” and laugh at the same time. It was weird. Also how does this library have a manga section? Do they import these books from JAPAN in the HUMAN REALM? Is there a publishing company that acts as the middleman? Or are these just the books that the trash slugs ended up barfing on the beach somewhere? I’m thinking too hard about a throwaway joke in the background. Big brain hurt.

AND back to reality...

Luz tries to extend the hand of friendship to Amity and Amity rejects it. I have...thoughts.

First, they this up with another parallel to Azura in the beginning of the episode. I get it. It’s a theme that they are doing, but I would have rather have Luz try to befriend Amity because she wants to, not because Azura did it. It’s not the only reason she does it, but it does kinda bug me a bit. It kinda goes back to Luz wanting life to play out like a story.

Also, a part of me thinks that this is something Amity likes to do alone. Her way of getting away from everyone else and just do something that she enjoys and makes her feel good. We have no proof that it gives her extra credit, so she could just use that as a way to save face. She seemed so happy to do it too.

Finally, you know what this else this reminds me of? The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai. There’s a popular fan theory that has been around since the eighties that if you look at The Karate Kid from the rival’s perspective, the protagonist is the bully. I’m more than sure that’s what going on here. From Amity’s perspective, Luz just gets her into trouble. We’ll get more into that later.

Luz walks off dejected and we get the second big surprise to punch me in the face.

Holy hell, why the fuck are you two so goddamn fucking pretty? I mean, holy shit, look at these two. My god. And ERICA LINDBECK as Emira? Jesus Christ, I’m going to be feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling in places I can’t say!

Joking aside, we get one of our first full introductions that didn’t come with a soft intro from a previous episode. Enter Emira and Emira, Amity’s older siblings who in true sibling fashion like to give Amity a hard time.

“Hey, mittens!”

This seems normal at first. Siblings always rib each other. No big deal.

Amity storms off. The twins introduce themselves proper to Luz (and the audience) and they mess around for a bit.

In fact, they have so much fun messing around with Luz that they decide to invite her back afterhours to check out The Wailing Star. Luz thinks that this is a great way to get on Amity’s good side by befriending her siblings. Why she would think this I have no idea.

Meanwhile the B-plot continues its adventures in babysitting. I don’t like using the word filler (so I won’t) but this B-plot is really just for two things: setting up Escape of the Palisman and jokes. It does both. No harm, no foul.

Also the twins said for Luz to meet back at midnight and Luz was at The Owl House for like a hot second. There’s like a huge gap of time there. What did she do until midnight? Whatever. If it was important it would have been animated.

Also also, I love all of Luz’s little saying in this episode. She does it a lot but they cranked it up in this episode. Featuring great hits like:

“This sour lemon drop has a hidden sweet center.”

and

“I thought we were as cool as cucumbers but we’re as sour as pickles.”

and my favorite

“Call me a library book because they were checking me out.”

I hope they keep doing that.

Back at the literal Wailing Star (I laughed so hard), The twins and Luz discover that The Wailing Star brings the content of the books to life. Does that work for all books in The Boiling Isles or just the library? Enough. No more big brain. The three proceed to...mess around some more.

The twins discover offscreen (Really? Really.) that if you edit the contents of the book, you change what comes to life. Then the twins reveal their true objectives. Apparently, Amity has been tattling on the twins whenever they cut class or do whatever it is that they want. They’ve decided to look for her secret little hideaway (that they somehow know is in the library), find her diary and post all the pages all over school to teach her a lesson.

Um, fucking no.

And here we enter the true lesson of this episode and probably the reason why Hecate is draw with two faces. People being more than just what they appear to be at face value.

Amity appears to be the bully character of the show, and while she did bully Willow, Luz and King, there’s more to her than that. Amity is lonely. As a fellow person who grew up lonely, trust me. I can tell from a mile away. She puts pressure on herself to be the best at whatever she’s doing and to be the best. She hates that she follows the rules but people like her siblings seem to get rewarded for breaking the rules and doing whatever they want free of consequence. She sees the double standard that they live by and it angers her. But at the same time, everyone seems to give the twins a free pass so she can’t do anything about it.

Even worse, there’s no one for her to confide in. It wouldn’t make it better but it would make it easier for her to just vent and get the bullshit out of her brain. She doesn’t like her friends and the one friend she did like...that’s for another episode. Hence, the diary. Amity is a big ball of frustration and loneliness. I know because I grew up in a very similar way.

When you’re forced to keep your anger inside you, you lash out at any little thing that bothers you just to ease your frustrations. It doesn’t make it okay but it’s the only way to cope sometimes just to get by.

The twins on the other hand seem like everything you’d want in a friend. They’re fun; they like you; they’re attractive; they’re attentive. But in reality, they live in a world where they believe consequences and accountability don’t apply to them. And they’ll do anything to keep it that way. Even humiliate their sister.

Luz seems like a happy-go-lucky, friends to all things kinda person, but she can also be innocently insensitive. She just does things hoping they turn out the way they would for Azura without considering how the people around her would feel about it.

It doesn’t make any of these characters two-faced. We just are different things to different people.

Amity discovers what’s going down and Luz (being the empathic person that she is) decide to try to go talk to her.

Then I’m reminded that this is a horror-comedy.

My god, you’re ugly.

One climax later (don’t laugh), and Luz and Amity try to make amends with each other. They both have to think about how they’ve been treating the other, earning the title of bully or not. They’re not friends yet but this is...better.

FINAL SCORE: 5 - Loved it.

Damn, The Owl House is one a roll. That’s what? Three 5 scored episodes already? Hot damn. This episode was fun but it really hit hard with the character work on Amity. She quickly became one of the most interesting characters and a fan favorite. And the third act provided a good amount of horror to call this a horror comedy. The B-plot is fine but probably one of the weakest only saved by several funny jokes. This is one of those episodes I kept coming back to and a favorite to watch.

Could you two please not? I’m gonna get in trouble.

#the owl house #my works #full review #full reviews

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luminous-shifting-vibes · 3 years

Text

*sequel* to actual fucking quotes from the shiftblr coffeehouse discord server

once again, it's out of context because x1000 funnier

also x1000 longer than previous post

"ur satan is gnc af"

"Bestie I’m already having gender envy over a fucking demon please"

"O_O ODEPIJHFbavevisdpvfhzdcnjawedsidjksjdkoeirjfmkdsoeirujdksodifjndmksoidfjdksidfj ITS" NOT IN MY FRAFTS IS SPEDNT 1 hour PN THAT SHIT"

"AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"ohoho sexy"

"I am very proud of myself"

"himbo x edgy fuck"

"YOU COULD SQUISH HES CHEECKS"

"he has teefs"

"SQUASH"

"good for biting 📷"

"he's a himbo basically"

"B͂̒̄iͫ̍̈tͧ̓ͯè̄̇"

"bifth"

"i havent watched blue exorcist in years but mr okumura my beloved </3"

"MY LIFE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED"

"is it important information to mention that the person i put up for my turn is the son of satan" "I know like 1 thing about everyone who isnt ranboo lmfao"

"crimes"

"tumblr sexyman"

"idk why but my first thought was cowboy onceler"

"I vibe with him but he is very long and twisty"

"steampunk e-girl"

"steampunk tumblr sexyman"

"Canonically bi crimelord I agree!!"

"OOO FRIEND SHAPED"

"ARTIST SIGHTED"

"they look like someone i would want to be friends with but is way cooler than me so i'd never actually talk to them"

"babby..... would die for him"

"honestly i probably kin him"

"i'm sure he's lovely but he looks way too much like my ex i'm sorry-"

"i'd be down for another rotation! i have another twink to show y'all"

"Also :00 blonde friend"

"Let us all infodhmo"

"Hsjagdvbs shhh im on phone"

"Nix woukd you like to joon?

"skitters away"

"I have two braincells and they both drink dumb bitch juice"

"oof wait whats the order again i have 0 memory"

"i want to bond with him over cosplay-"

"Awkwardly watches in band kid"

"One day I'm gonna a broadway star"

"which isnt to say they were bad. they were just fortnite dancing during rehersals"

"I threw it so hard my glasses flew off and slid under the stage right divider"

"anyway heres my boi"

"emo"

"haha emo"

"virgil sanders kinnie"

"he looks like he listens to my chemical panic at the fallout boy"

"Bro I bet he'd kick my ass with his deck"

"bird man my beloved"

"fuck i had so much to say and then i forgot it all"

"Birds!!"

"guiguhuh"

"crabrave"

"She sounds like someone I would end up stealing her personality"

"yess name collector gang"

"alias glass aiden haven absinthe fish brick rice"

"But I have Cypress, Remure, Genesis, Lemres, and Comet"

"And she's named after a mars candy bar bc alien"

"Hey, if plato went by plato, you can be king thief"

"im not dissing my gramma like that shfojd"

"My dad has seven legal names" "bitches be like *looks at fictional character* *steals their name* it's us we're bithces"

"coraline lowkey traumatized me but i adore it regardless"

"mmmmmm magic man :]"

"°0° green man"

"criminal (affectionate)"

"he would shoplift a candy bar from walmart and then brag to all of his friends about the sick stealing he did"

"despite the fact he's canonically been capable of overpowering a minor deity"

"i would commit so many crimes for him"

"Very babey"

"Yes please tell green man he is very pog"

"he also keeps a lot of dumb secrets"

"but I will sorely miss the chaos and energy of this here chat until I wake again" (by request XD)

"i just say words and if they're funny then they're funny"

"* or extremly chaotic either works"

"at this point we are just taking turns rambling"

"oH--"

"bc my brain has a schedule"

"Hopefully they have gyoza there or I will lose my mind"

"hehe yes spooky man"

"my ghost glucose guardian"

"the head of the undead group that lives there, and we end up dating. (yes I date a ghost, no I will not be taking constructive criticism /lh)"

"ghosts r just inherently sexy"

"i mean im becoming a squid thing so"

"Raven quirk raven quirk!!"

"ł â m p"

"łæmp"

"mothman: ooh lamp you look very nice today! do you come here often? mothman: wait shit no"

"I'd date a ghost"

"mine is still accurate, i am still sobbing (/j)"

"p e e p e e"

""@nick wilde is a tumblr sexyman" is the best thing i have ever seen"

"im sorry im cackling like a dying hyena"

"you're all 12 year olds"

"PEENIE"

"He once caused global warming on accident so he could get a tan"

"god, what a himbo. i love him"

"that reminds me of my friends kin assigned me jesus"

"Man outside of battle be like: princely crying but then in battle hes like: "CATACLYSM! DISASTER! DEVASTATION!" Chill out man"

"Every time I talk about satan it never fails to shock people it's my favorite thing to do"

"im kin assigning him roman sanders" ""Oh yeah he caused global warming because he wanted to get girls" "he what""

"oh damn i forgot satan was straight"

"twink appreciation club"

"give us the twinks"

"my first thought was bottom-"

"so many people to try and get his dad to love him"

"daddy issued"

"OH MY GOD ITS WILBUR"

"Big boy but"

"anyways janus is swagggg"

"........................."

"gib twink"

"give twink then i will share"

"holds him gentle like hamburger"

"This dumb bitch opened a book that said "do not open" and got possessed by a little bastard"

"he is. fragile creachur"

"klug is beauty klug is grace i would let him step on my face"

"If I'm playing swap and I have to hear one more "Pwanet Powew" Im gonna lose it"

"Who is to blame? Pandora or the box?"

"Bakugo isnt my type but I respect the drip"

"i say like my type isnt long-haired pretty boys and girls that look so gnc that people have a history of confusing them for men"

"hes a gremlin and i can appreciate a pretty gremlin"

"that is to say i am attracted to VFlower vocaloid. This is a confession."

"note i am a lesbian"

"You may like Schezo wegey"

"why does he have one single expression"

"soul soul eater passes the vibe check"

"magic wand"

"I Want To Hold His Hand"

"i would commit a war crime for him any war crime idc which one"

"my favorite one is when he sounded rlly gay because he said "Muscular bodies keep me satisfied""

"p e a n u t"

"Klug is a homophobic homosexual its just facts"

"grug from the croods is peak male performance"

"jaw drops to floor, eyes pop out of sockets accompanied by trumpets, heart beats out of chest, awooga awooga sound effect, pulls chain on train whistle that has appeared next to head as steam blows out, slams fists on table, rattling any plates, bowls or silverware, whistles loudly, fireworks shoot from top of head, pants loudly as tongue hangs out of mouth, wipes comically large bead of sweat from forehead, clears throat, straightens tie, combs hair Ahem, you look very lovely."

"tag yourself im the fireworks shooting from the top of the head"

"i like essays"

"central time gang"

"11:11 pog-" (wait... is that a suprise angel number?? yes it is lovelies just for you <3)

"Then again im also a dumbass bitch who wonders what the souls in soul eater taste like. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. THEY LOOK TASTY AS HELL!!!! LIKE GODDAMN BRO YOU'RE MAKING ME FUCKING HUNGRY. Like. that shit- it's Bone Apple motherfucking Teeth. hell yea my guy. Im hongy now.... shlorp I'm seriously considering this. Like. They seem kinda like a liquid? But a solid? Are they like jello? The fuck they taste like my guy???? I keep imagining they're like sour, like sour candy maybe? Or do they taste salty? Sweet? Maybe some combo of two? Do they even have a taste or is it about the texture? The sensation? God my mouth is watering what the hell. I am starving. I think I need to go get a cookie. I'm gonna go get a cookie. Brb. I'm better. I'm still craving souls though. Which is a weird-ass cringey thing to say but I'm being dead-ass rn. They just.... look tasty???? And I wanna eat one. Thus. I am shifting to Soul Eater for the express purpose of satisfying my fucking cravings. enjoy"

"points were made"

"jello? more like helloooo schloooAHFJDSDAIDWNALDHSJKDAIDANDM"

"WAIT I THINK I HAVE AN ANIME GIRL BITING VIDEO TOO"

"anime girl voice: mmm! mm... ahhhhmp!! mmm, mmm... aaahmp!"

"i think it sounds great i'm going to start eating like that"

"several people are typing"

"do these look edible to you"

"forbidden gummies"

"when I was on lsd I couldn't eat my fruit gummies because I thought they were alive because they had little faces on them"

"oh shit yeah don't do drugs"

"anyways general consensus is puyos are edible, ty for your input everyone"

"everypony is a word so powerful it can bring nations to its knees"

"pls the self control it's taking me not to say "hewwo everypony" in gen chat when someone new joins-"

"hewwo evewrypony uwu deaw cewestia i hopwe it doewsnt wain owo"

"ive cooked up a sowution wiwth the knowwege ive acwued. they say a kitcwen time saves niwne, but im just savwing two. Ive gathewwed the inwedients to make a time sowbet. Thewe's hawdly woom fow seconds when the seconds mewt away."

"I had a ten year old sister... you know what happened to her??? very sad, very tragic... she turned eleven....."

"NIIICE"

"Guts dont say the secks word :( /j"

"watch your fucking language in front of the president"

"im so sorry lumi"

"i think you're like ehhhh 8/10 funny"

"now me???? 10/10. Hilarious"

"sometimes i have to take a step back and remember that this is the same guts i follow on tumblr /lh"

""ok every here's some good shifting advice!!! uwu have a good day" "yeah i did lsd and ate fruit gummies""

"i have one setting and it's whatever this is"

"my bitch ass cat just pushed the door open with his fuzzy face and now my sleeping dad is being lulled into dreams by Cosmo Sheldrake's 'Pliocine'."

"me on discord: nick wilde"

"me on tumblr: shifting water! haha funne! me on here: my hermit crabs are cannibals also i want to eat souls."

"im sorry yOUR VIBESA RE JUST SO DIFFERNT"

"u give off older cousin ive never spoken to but always admire at the family gatherings vibes"

"what the fuck"

"BC I HAVE LIBERTU"

"If you adopt me then yes"

"am I qualified for dad jokes???"

"we're all a lot smarter on tumblr"

"I'm like "awww... sweet... sweet little shiftlings... posting such sweet shiftling content... so pure, so wholesome... does not even know abcs....""

"can't think before you speak if you never think B)"

"I'm not responsible enough to be a mom"

"cat pet"

"show us pictures of the cat or i will do Crime"

"maybe thats me being a coward tho"

"MOTH!!!! MOTH MY BELOVED"

if y'all want I can make this a series bc shiftblr keeps giving me more content

#tw drugs #tw swearing #tw cannibalism #tw crime #tw food #tw homophobia #shitpost #out of context #out of context quotes #lumi's quotes

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sophi-s · 3 years

Text

College rant

The following post contains a lot of swear words and is the product of my summer session suffering. You've been warned.

Okay, so I am goddamn pissed and I need to spill the bucket of bile that has been gathering inside of me and festering for days now.

To give a little background, I will say that I have those two professors in my college and they suck.

One is a woman well past her retirement age who decided to stay anyway, because why the fuck not, and make us poor students miserable for shits and giggles. Taking notes on her lectures is almost impossible, she's such a bore when she talks and there's something so ominous about her.. Every time someone does something wrong you can just feel the rage emanating from this seemingly calm person as she proceeds to correct your literature interpretation to her own specific taste, all the while saying that she's "horrified and has no idea how we're going to pass the exam". Way to go, gurl, just kill the motivation straight away, why don't you.

Also, the subject of her lectures is definitely not in my taste. I don't want to judge, but old Croatian literature is.. weird. It keeps talking about romances, stereotypically beautiful women and eroticism (some of you may have an idea how bloody awkward I feel discussing these things with people I know only through computer, I feel wrong talking about it with anyone tbh). I don't like it, I don't get it and my professor doesn't give two shits about it. Instead, she decided to make my exam difficult by constantly interrupting me and being an ass in general (I failed because of that >:[).

My poetry professor on the other hand just.. won't accept the work I did FOUR times already and he says there's still something wrong with it but what? Haha, go figure out on your own and if you can't then sorry, I take that as your resignation. Like, what the fuck dude??? Just be helpful for once this year!

On top of all that and my Croatian (3) and Latin (1) exams (thankfully these went good), I had to pass THREE spoken exams (my nemesis) and failed every single one of them. I'm losing my fucking mind over here, why the hell can't I just write this stupid shit and be done with it, I can't SPEAK to people, I cannot memorize all that crap! I'm abysmal! What do they think I am, a machine that can just absorb the tonnes of information that I won't even make use of in my life?! Who tf, is eloquence???? I haven't met her!!

I'm very, very very skeptical about the whole thing, it may turn out I'll get kicked out and staying positive is extremely difficult, I just want to give up only thinking about having to talk with that sodding woman. I think it's time to get a job maybe, I don't know. I'll work in some cheap shop or something, and when we finally move house I'm gonna babysit my nieces and help my younger brother with a snake he plans on buying. If this jackass of a man doesn't accept my FIFTH attempt, I'm fucking quitting and I'm not even joking. I'm going to make a sad Bloodborne comic because I can and for no other reason. I haven't drawn in ages and right now I need to focus on something different because if I don't I'm going to go insane.

In conclusion? FUCK THAT, I'm off to destroy something, maybe play Darksiders again just to kick Abaddon's arse cuz I like this bossfight and for some reason I like to torture myself with Apocalyptic difficulty. I hope you people are having a better time than I am. Sophia out. Peace!

#rant #college exams #REEEEE

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percyinpanties · 3 years

Note

hey I'm the pipeyna anon and that's ok!!! can u do pipeyna with piper pining after hot jock Reyna which hopefully ends happy (smutty)

just a quick warm-up, i say, i won’t spend too much time on this. i really had to resist just going on and on and on with this. i miss writing this ship, damn.

anyway - this fits really well with an enemy to lovers prompt i have for jercy, so thats what im hinting at too here.

Read on Ao3

for context : i always write college aus from a UK uni perspective bc that’s all i know and i don’t care to adapt to how it might or might not work in the u.s. (sorry)

rating: teen+ (no smut in this one, but let me tell you, this TEMPTED me)

words: 2.2k

___

“An actual goddess” Piper says wistfully from where she’s leaning against the wall next to Percy, taking back the cigarette she’d just bummed of him. Her eyes are glued on the field, and more precisely on Reyna, smile on her face and water bottle in her hand as she jogs over to Jason standing at the side of the field. They greet each other with a hug, even as Reyna wrinkles her face, seemingly complaining about her own sweatiness.

It’s coincidence that the end of Reyna’s soccer practice collides conveniently with Piper’s and Percy’s late seminar on Mondays. It isn’t coincidence that Percy and her have taken to sharing a cigarette on the side of the building that looks out toward the field during their break, however.

Percy makes a non-committal noise and his eyes follow Piper’s gaze while she takes a drag of the cigarette and wrinkles her nose. She needs to quit smoking for good, she thinks, and flicks the ash to the ground. There was a brief moment in first year when Piper thought that Percy might be interested in Reyna, or she in him, but luckily, nothing ever came of that.

“You think they’re dating?” Percy asks, arms crossed over his chest now, making no move to take the cigarette back again. He’s not even pretending not to be staring, his eyes intense where they flit between Reyna and Jason. Piper on the other hand has the common decency to at least cast her eyes away every now and again before she’s caught looking for a little too long.

At the edge of the field, Reyna and Jason are standing close together now, chatting about god knows what, smiling and laughing. They’re certainly comfortable with each other, but Piper can’t say that’s much of an indication given how she’s around Percy.

“I hope not.” Piper mutters and Percy laughs at that, even though she knows he agrees. Percy wouldn’t admit it in a million years, but Piper would bet real money that he has a thing for Jason, too, as much as he claims to hate the guy. She’d have to be deaf and blind not to notice the tension between them.

It would make sense, though, in a way. Jason is captain of the men’s rugby team, Reyna of the women’s soccer team. Some of their practices collide and the two clubs do most of their weekly socials together, and Piper’s seen the two of them hanging out aside from that plenty as well. Reyna and her haven’t talked much about Jason, maybe because Piper hasn’t actually exchanged more than five words with him and never had much of an urge to change that, but she knows that Reyna and Jason have known each other before university.

Around Jason, Reyna seems to let her guard down, something Piper has only managed to achieve a handful of times since they met during their first year.

Jason laughs at something Reyna says, eyes bright and head thrown back and Piper can’t deny that he’s handsome, at the very least. He’s fairly decent, too, as far as guys go, and really, Piper knows she shouldn’t be hoping that there is nothing between Reyna and him if that is what would make Reyna happy.

“Invite her to the party.” Percy suggests then, drawing Piper’s attention back from the tangent her brain was so insistent to start on. When Piper turns her face to look at him, he’s already looking back at her, one eyebrow arched. “I was going to, anyway, but it’s different coming from you yourself.”

He’s not teasing her, it’s an honest suggestion, and technically not even a bad one. It’s Percy’s birthday this weekend, and if nothing else, it would be a good excuse to hang out again. Percy knows a ton of people, but he usually doesn’t invite too many to his party, so with any luck, it won’t be too crowded to actually spend some time with Reyna.

More than that, though, it’s another opportunity for Piper to finally get a move on. Percy, Piper knows, thinks that Piper’s pining had reached a point where it’s almost comical halfway through last year, but even so, Piper has yet to manage to actually act on her feelings.

A party is casual enough that she can always play it off as nothing serious when it ends up blowing up in her face. Piper might finally get over herself and just ask Reyna out already – although she’s tried that a few times before only to find herself tongue tied and staring at Reyna like she hung the moon in the sky. She’s been head over heels for Reyna since maybe three weeks after they met in first year, and now that they’re starting their third and final year, Piper needs to get a move on or it’ll simply be too late. Granted, she’s scared shitless at the prospect of being turned down, but at this point, even that would be better than pining forever and never finding out if she’d even stand a chance.

“Yeah… maybe.” Piper says finally, and manages a small smile towards Percy who bumps his shoulder against hers playfully. They should be heading back inside, so Piper sneaks a last glance toward Reyna and this time, finds her looking back.

They don’t share any classes this year, and Piper doesn’t usually run into Reyna on campus, so on Wednesday morning, she ends up texting Reyna on her way to class. She fumbles with her phone, almost tripping over her own two feet trying to type the words out as fast as possible, and ends up having to sidestep off the path to actually send the texts.

Hey you.

we’re having a party on Saturday, it’s Percy’s birthday.

Piper wants to add more, but instead, she bites her lip and stuffs her phone back into the pocket of her jeans. It’s almost an open invitation like this already anyway, and Piper wants to gauge Reyna’s first reaction before deciding exactly how she’s going about asking. Technically, it would be so easy to just as Reyna to go with her, specifically, to the party, but the intention might be lost over text and anyway, wouldn’t it be simpler to just invite her generally?

Piper frets throughout the entirety of her first lecture, and most of the second one, for nothing. Reyna doesn’t answer, even though the messenger app shows Piper that she’s read both texts already, and Piper tries not to be disappointed about it. She doesn’t know what Reyna’s schedule is like today, the girl might just be busy and planned on replying later. It makes sense, much more than Piper’s second thought that Reyna is not answering because Piper is annoying and Reyna doesn’t actually want to spend any time with her. She knows that thought is stupid, knowing that however does nothing to ease the anxious knot in Piper’s stomach.

Piper finds herself checking her phone more often than not. It would be funny if it wasn’t so ridiculous, and if the lecturer wasn’t so clearly catching on that Piper isn’t paying as much attention to the class as she is to her phone. She texts Percy as well, but she knows he’s in that seminar he shares with Jason, so chances are that she won’t be getting a reply on that end anytime soon either. In the end, she has to force herself to put her phone away and actually focus on the lecture up front, even though by that point, she is already lost as to what they’re even talking about in the first place. It’s no good, and Piper can’t deny being relieved when the lecturer eventually dismisses the class.

She doesn’t allow herself to check her messages until she’s across campus in the coffee shop, queuing for some much needed caffeine and fishing out her phone so she doesn’t have to make small talk with anyone while she waits in line. Reyna still hasn’t replied, but at least Percy has messaged her after his seminar.

I’m gonna strangle him, Piper. You’ll have to bust me out of prison because they are going to arrest me for goddamn murder.

All she’d asked was if his classes were as boring as hers today, and while she had expected Percy to go off about Jason in reply, this isn’t exactly what she’d thought to be reading today. She smiles at her phone, types out a quick reply and moves up in the queue.

That bad? What’s he done now?

The way Percy talks about Jason makes Piper think of a Cartoon Network villain, always plotting, provoking and scheming. The few times she’s spoken to Jason, the guy wasn’t half bad, and if Piper is honest, she doesn’t quite get the vendetta these two have with each other. She suspects though that it has something to do with how ‘infuriatingly attractive, like fucking superman or something’ Percy described Jason after their first class together.

It’s like he thinks I’m stupid or something. Got a dumb fucking project to do together and he honestly told me that he ‘needs to pass this class so iif I’m not planning to put in the work, we might as well ask for new partners right away’

Like, excuse me, bitch? My grades are better than yours, for one thing

And for another, it’s not like good-old Dodds is gonna let us switch anyway

Piper huffs audibly while she reads the texts. It’s clear Percy’s actually upset by this, and she figures it will only get worse if they actually have to do the work together in the coming weeks. Before she can shoot Percy a reply though, she’s next in line.

Piper orders her coffee, steps aside to wait once she’s paid, and rereads Percy’s texts before she types her reply to Percy.

Sounds like a dick move.

Piper’s almost inclined to defend Jason for a moment, since Percy mostly doesn’t pay much attention in class, especially in Mrs. Dodds seminars – so how is Jason meant to know how much effort Percy puts in outside of it? On the other hand, though, Piper knows how Percy is, and how personally he’s clearly taken Jason’s comment already, so trying to convince him otherwise would simply be fruitless.

Once Piper’s coffee is done, she heads back outside, finding an empty bench to enjoy the break before her next class. If nothing else, at least Percy’s ranting is distracting her from Reyna, and the party, and asking the other girl out – and in between the rapid texts Percy and her are sending back and forth Piper almost forgets about it entirely. Until she has to head back to her last class, that is, and sees that Reyna has, so far, still left her on read.

Piper hesitates for a moment, clicking on the text field without typing anything just yet. Is she going to come off as desperate if she texts again, or should she just clarify now before it gets too late and Reyna already makes different plans for the weekend?

Piper types out a few words, deletes them again and pockets her phone only to get it back out a few seconds later to try again. She shouldn’t be walking and texting, especially given that she should be going faster to actually make it to her lecture in time, but Piper knows that if she doesn’t send this text now, she’ll spend another lecture agonising over what to say.

So yeah, I wanted to invite you too ofc :)

Piper cringes at her wording, but figuring it won’t get much better, she sends the text anyway and finally tucks her phone back into her pocket to actually hurry to class.

By the time Reyna replies, it’s late and Piper is sitting on the beat-up couch in her shared flat’s living room, watching something trashy on TV without really paying much attention at all. Percy is clanking around in the kitchen, making something that smells good enough to remind Piper that she should probably be getting herself some food, too. She’s about to get up and rummage through her fridge compartment in search of something edible when her lock screen lights up with a message from Reyna, and that derails any thoughts of food immediately. Piper isn’t subtle in the way she practically lunges for her phone, but luckily, Percy can’t see and judge her from his position in the kitchen.

Sorry, long day, reads the first text, following a few seconds later by another one.

Promised Jason to hang out but I’d love to :(

Piper bites her lip, knowing before typing out the words that Percy won’t like what she’s doing in the slightest.

You could bring him? Percy won’t mind.

Except that Percy most certainly will mind, Piper thinks, and grimaces. If she hadn’t come off as desperate before, she most certainly does now – texting back within less than a minute after having been left on read all day, only to offer that Reyna can bring her friend (boyfriend?) along as well if that means she’ll be there.

There’ll be other opportunities, Piper tells herself, and scrubs a hand over her face. She needs to chill, and maybe she needs to grab a cigarette and step outside and calm down before she embarrasses herself even further.

Piper stares at the screen. How on earth is she meant to interpret this? At this rate, she won’t make it until Saturday, dying of one crisis or another before then.

if you’re sure? I’ll ask him.

haven’t seen you in a while, would be nice to hang out again ;)

I’m sure.

#will i continue this? maybe #i do kinda wanna write the party part and have it ending ~spicy~#pipeyna #piper mclean #reyna ramirez avila arellano #my stuff #my fic #prompts #teen+#pjo #Anonymous #jercy #in the bg

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atypicalacademic · 3 years

Text

Yana Levitina

Name: Yana Mikhalovna Levitina- her dads, and eventually her friends, call her Yanika

Pronouns: She/Her or They/Them

Age: 30

Orientation: Lesbian

Zodiac: Cancer Sun, Aquarius Moon, Gemini Rising

LI: Natiqa Satrinava

Occupation: Novelist

Favorite Flower, Food, and Drink: Dahlia, Macaroons, Iced Coffee

Masquerade Costume: Lovebird

Patron Arcana: The Moon

Lore Juice beneath the cut

Having migrated from Nevivon decades ago, Yana’s dads, Mikhail and Osip ran a small but vibrant cafe in the floor below their apartment in the Temple District. Though veering to reserved and quiet, Yana greatly enjoyed being in the company of people- most of whom she found fascinating in their own way. It wasn't unusual for her to spend most of the time she wasn't assisting her fathers simply observing the people who went in and out of the cafe or in the markets or the streets outside- going about their day and playing out the dramas of their lives.

Though they werent ever rich, Mikhail and Osip were loving, doting fathers. Knowing Yana's vibrant imagination, and to encourage her to learn to read in a city where literacy wasn't universally distributed, they brought her comics and serialized paperbacks from the market, also supplemented by contributions from kind-hearted patrons and neighbors, and soon enough it was unusual to find her without one of the thin, brittle-spined volumes.

It was this love for stories, combined with her fondness for people, that led her to begin writing stories of her own. Her writing was her love letter to both of these loves- handwritten and handbound and magically reproduced, they were her attempt at, despite her own reserved disposition and what she sees as her own plainness and ineptitude to conversation- through her writing she could love people, and through her writing she could reach out to them and comfort them.

They were, and are, in the same template as those serialized paperbacks- risque romances and whodunnits, ranging from the feel good and mushy to titillating and exciting. She still harbors no inclination to write anything else, either. Hallowed as the names of some artists may be, she sees herself as not an artist but a friend to her readers, though she always doubts whether she even is a worthy one at all on that front.

Despite the number of Vesuvians to whom her writing became a staple- read aloud among friends and spoken about- Yana has a hard time believing that they aren't just doing these things or saying them to be kind to her.

Her doubts, however, never put her off from writing. She does so anyway, particularly through the terrible years of the plague and its aftermath, writes almost incessantly, trying to bring even the tiniest sliver of happiness in the darkest of times. She believed that even if she weren't adequate, she could still try, and try, and try again till she could become the kind of writer, the kind of friend, who could reflect the comfort and excitement that she'd always recieved from them.

On an early summer morning, having scoured the bookstalls and the marketplace and tracked down the writer through sheer word of mouth, Natiqa Satrinava nearly misses the important diplomatic appointment she'd been in Vesuvia for because she'd binge read a series during in the time between meetings and the author had the audacity to leave her hanging at a cliffhanger.

And there was no way she was leaving this place without finding out who Yana Levitina is and asking her for how much longer she'd have to wait for the next goddamn instalment.

The rest, I guess, is history.

#once again i am offering a satrinava romancer #yana levitina #babbie #i love her sm #and definitely you can borrow her If Youd Like #all the ladies and nonbinaries Are Welcome

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aahsokaatano · 3 years

Note

King I would love that essay about Changing Channels

Fjdjshjdhdjd thanks for reading my tags Jesse you're the real VIP here.

Okay SO "Changing Channels" is the 8th episode of the 5th season of Supernatural. I give this information bc it's important in looking at the context of the episode - now I've complained a LOT about how SPN is terrible at giving us canonical timeframes within the episodes (y'all i was SHOCKED to discover the first season is supposed to cover a little over a year's worth of time, I thought it was like... 4 or 5 months) so I can't say for sure how long before and after the other episodes happen in-universe around "Changing Channels" BUT

The episode before is "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester" where Dean and Bobby bet years of their lives in a game of poker with a witch. The episode after is "The Real Ghostbusters" where Sam and Dean end up at a fan convention for the in-universe Supernatural novels.

Why am I pointing this out? Because it's important, please, no audience participation, this is like a Brian David Gilbert panel.

[under a cut bc this got...... STUPID long. Who knew I still had this many opinions about SPN in 2020?]

Okay first of all I wanna talk about the cinnamon topography of this episode - I love the way the first 5 seasons are shot because you really feel the americana gothic horror aesthetic they were going for (I have a whole ‘nother rant about the first 5 seasons vs the last 10 but thats for another time). Everything is a little washed out and grey-toned, the camera angles generally serve to make Sam and Dean appear even taller than they actually are (larger than life - again, another post for another time), and there’s honestly a LOT of shots from the ‘monster’s’ perspective, which is really neat! I’ve said it before (on another blog - YES i have a dedicated spn rant blog, don’t @ me hdjfhfjfh) but the episode that really got me hooked on spn back in the day was the second one, about the w*ndigo. Yes, it’s a racist, culturally appropriating shitstorm, but the way its SHOT is fantastic. I’m honestly not a horror fan, but that episode could have easily relied on jumpscares and they DIDN’T and it was scary as all fucking hell and just - fuck okay getting off topic.

In “Changing Channels” we get that distinctive grey-washed tone in the beginning and the very end of the episode, but the middle? When they’re in TV Land? Everything is bright. Almost comically so, I mean - okay look at these two shots of Sam (apologies about the crappy phone pics, netflix won't let me screenshot)

This one is from the start of the episode, in the "real" police station

And this is from a little later in the "TV" hospital

Ignoring that my phone is washing him out a lot in both pics, you can still see the warmer tones in the hospital shot as compared to the cold greyness in the police station one

Okay, now look at this picture

Dean inside the Impala, and those warm tones are back. Why? Because even though Sam and Dean believe that they’re back in the “real” world, they aren’t - so instead of the grey-washed shots that we’re used to, its the bright and warm shots that we see in “TV Land”! So the viewers pick up, even if its just subconsciously, that the boys aren’t out of the woods yet - everything is still too bright to be the in-universe reality we’ve come to expect from SPN by season 5

Which is also why i love this shift so much

These shots are literally SECONDS apart. The first is in "TV Land" and the second is in the "real" world. I have some red strip lights behind my bed, which are reflecting off my laptop screen - notice how much brighter they seem in the second picture? That’s because literally all of the warm colors have been drained out of the shot. As soon as Gabriel snaps them all back into “reality,” things get so much colder.

Okay, so the second thing I want to talk about is some of the very pointed dialogue choices within the “shows” the Winchesters take part in. Not between Sam and Dan and Gabriel, but from the, for lack of a better term, NPCs within the shows.

In the hospital, Dr. Piccolo tells Sam that he is “the finest cerebrovascular neurosurgeon I have ever met - and I have met plenty! So that girl died on your table; it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Sometimes people just die.” Standard cheesy soap opera dialogue - but lemme just swap some words here and -

“You are the finest hunter I have ever met - and I have met plenty! So that girl died on your hunt; it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Sometimes people just die.”

Or even -

“You are the finest hunter I have ever met - and I have met plenty! So Jessica and Mary died above you; it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault [but Azazel’s]. Sometimes people just die.”

Keeping in mind that the NPCs are basically Gabriel’s mouthpieces, its easy to see why so many people ship Sabriel. I’d actually love to see a fic that explores them talking about this moment in particular later on and the kind of gentle forgiveness that Gabriel can give Sam... getting off topic again.

In an abrupt about-face, the herpes commercial (much meme’d within the fandom) is straight up Gabriel shaming Sam. Because if you replace “genital herpes” with “demon blood” it’s.... dark. And very intentional.

So that’s what I did! (I combined all spoken lines to make the message easier to read, rather than splitting them up across 3 speakers as in the episode)

“I’ve drank demon blood. I tried to be responsible... did I try. But now, after being forcibly detoxed, I fight my addiction every day to reduce the chances of passing back into that toxic mindset. Ask your loved ones about a demon blood intervention today. [...] I am doing all I can to slightly lessen the chance of drinking demon blood again. And that’s a good thing.”

Like... the subtext throughout this episode sure is. Something.

Okay this is getting ridiculously long so I wanna wrap up by talking about The Best Scene In The Whole Goddamn Show

I’m talking, of course, about Gabriel’s Confession

“Max,” you might be saying, “there are so many better scenes out there, even within the first five seasons!” and to that i say, again, no audience participation, please. Also, you’re WRONG and here’s why!

Gabriel’s confession hits every goddamn emotional chord that the fandom begged for on this show - fear, rage, grief, pain, guilt, and even, yes, absolution.

Okay, here’s the scene again for those of you who don’t think about it at least once a week like me

youtube

Now this video is missing some of the conversation, but most of it is there, enough for you to see what I’m talking about. Gabriel up to this point has been, essentially, a nameless antagonist - this is the third episode he appeared in, and before this, we didn’t even know he was going by Loki. He was just referred to as ‘The Trickster’. But here, not only do we get a name (a real name at that), but we also get a glimpse of his backstory and a hell of a lot of character development in less than 5 minutes. I mean, Sam didn’t get this much character development throughout the entirety of season 1! There’s a good reason Gabriel has been a fan-favorite for a very long time, and I think a big part of it is this particular scene.

Because here, we get to see Gabriel being vulnerable. And we even see Dean show a little vulnerability, as he can empathize being the third party to explosive arguments between the two people who mean everything to him.

I mean... okay, it will never see the light of day, but I wrote a little bit of a Reverse ‘Verse fic (because I’m a sucker for Reverse ‘Verse) and this was the scene I started with. Not s1e1, not even the resurrection in s4e1, but this scene. Because this scene, more than any other, is critical to the way not only Gabriel’s (first) arc plays out, but also to how Sam and Dean conduct themselves for the rest of the season (and maybe a bit beyond, it’s been a hot minute since I watched s6 and later). Dean is angry but determined, he has a point to make, he is going to save Sammy and if he can’t do that, then he’s going to damn well die trying. But Sam... it’s after this episode that we start really seeing how bone-achingly tired Sam is. It’s after this conversation - where one of the other archangels, one of the few beings who can truly understand how powerful Michael and Lucifer are - says that there’s no other way around this that Sam seems to start inching towards giving in. Saying yes.

Sure, in the actual episode, he seems outraged by the idea, practically scoffs at it - “you want us to say yes to those sons of bitches?” - but it’s after this where Sam really seems run down.

I mean, look at the episodes before and after (HAH you thought I forgot about that first point I made at the very beginning of this post! I did, briefly, but I’ve circled back to it, thanks for being understanding). In “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester,” Sam behaves much as he did since the start of s4, which is to say, ‘annoying little know-it-all brother tossed into the middle of the apocalypse and just trying his best’ and it works well for the mad scramble for any scrap of information that’s happening in s4/early s5.

But in “The Real Ghostbusters” it’s different. This is another funny meta episode - except, while Sam and Dean are technically aware of the joke, they aren’t as amused by it as the audience is. And it’s not because of the ghosts. It’s because they’re just... done. Especially Sam. Dean has that nice little moment with the cosplayers at the end of the episode, but Sam... threatens to shoot Chuck. Sam ‘goes darkside’ more often than pretty much any other character in the show, but that moment is different. It’s a flat promise, not a threat. He’s not being an asshole, like he is after losing his soul. He’s just... done. And it’s obvious to see.

Gabriel’s confession is the turning point for Sam in s5, and it informs a lot of his behavior through the rest of s5, and possibly beyond! Like I said, I haven’t watched past s5 in a very long time, so I don’t feel confident enough to analyze that specific sort of character line, but I feel confident in saying that hearing one of the most powerful beings in the universe basically say “it doesn’t matter what you do - your destiny is unavoidable” and then he’s proven right (Sam says yes to Lucifer, and Dean eventually does say yes to Michael down the line!)... like, that’s really gotta fuck up your world view that was built on free will and throwing off the shackles of fate. Sam managed to avoid his ‘destiny’ in s2... but then it turns out that that wasn’t ever his destiny. Lucifer was his destiny.

Talk about an obscured view of the inner self.

#thebisexualmandalorian #jesse #max answers #spn #naturally super #changing channels #im having some THOUGHTS yall

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