#this is brought full circle in the s15 finale i think | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

windsource · 3 years

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So this was just pointed out to me but in ep 5 of season 15 Lilith says something along the lines of “I had to die for what I wanted most” which... she did. And she came back via Gods Power (which Jack now has) As well all know very well Cas died(ish? He was just kinda absorbed) for what he “... wants but can’t have” Im sorry this is hardly coherent a friend pointed this line out to me and I freaked and you wrote most of my favorite metas so I thought I’d ask a penny for your thoughts

first of all, i want to say thank you for sending this to me. this is the episode i’ve been wanting to write about for about a month or more, but never had a reason to, so i’m very happy that i can, now!

Cas’ Arc Isn’t Finished Yet

important: i should clarify that there are two storylines going on in this episode: dean’s relationship with cas (a reaction to their break up) and sam’s chuck visions of parallel universes mirrored by the two werewolf brothers in the ep. just a lot of 15x18 and 15x19 vibes in general..

the “then” section of this episode references dean and cas’ breakup from two episodes before, 15x03. this is the basis of this analysis, because in my eyes the entire lilith plot revolves around cas’ relationship with dean (and sam) and how he feels inadequate in comparison, or as though he doesn’t belong.

here’s a refresher on what was said in 15x03 (taken from the recap):

cas: something went wrong. something always goes wrong.

dean: yeah, why does that something always seem to be you?

cas: i think it’s time for me to move on.

another important quote from the “then” section of 15x05 that they included from 15x01:

sam: god’s gone. it’s just us.

dean: and about three billion ghosts.

sounds to me like 15x09:

sam: you know, with chuck not writing our story anymore, we get to write our own. just you and me, going wherever the story takes us. just us.

dean: finally free.

so let’s now get into why cas is a mirror for ashley/lilith:

ashley is set up to have two close friends that mirror sam and dean. when they’re all on a camping trip together in the beginning of the ep, she tells them she feels out of place because they both have jobs and she doesn’t. reminds me of a scene in 15x03 when cas tells dean:

(note: at this point “ashley” is actually lilith pretending to be her, but neither dean nor the audience knows that yet. which, again, is why dean is set up to be us in the s15 narrative)

'ashley’ even talks to dean about her feelings of inadequacy directly--she asks him if he likes his job, to which he responds:

even the way he’s sitting and his facial expression remind me of:

...a little (a lot) distanced from the conversation. uncomfortable. on the verge of saying something more.

then ashley/lilith further proves herself as a cas mirror. she asks dean if he thinks it would be better if everything was already planned out for them. remember, we don’t know this is lilith talking, and ashley wouldn’t know that everything was, actually, planned out by chuck. putting ourselves in fake-ashley’s mindset, we can see that she’s under the impression that she’s making it up as she goes.

you know the only character that canonically does that? that is the only one free from chuck’s script?

cas.

after that, lilith/ashley puts dean to sleep, and he wakes to find her gone, taken by the werewolf brothers, leaving sam and dean to have to rescue her from them. finally, she reveals herself as lilith, and this ensues (remember that at this point, she is a clear mirror for cas):

(side note: can we talk about her outfit, too? the white shirt, the tie...all very reminiscent of cas.)

so here we can see....even more so a parallel to cas in 15x18, when he’s taken by the empty. the only difference is that chuck didn’t bring him back. but then she talks about chuck’s plan for her, which was:

...interesting. cas mirror was supposed to be rescued by dean and seduce him. okay. i’m listening, i’m looking

then she makes a deal with dean to save sam’s life, and the two are in the car together. this is when we finally get to what you referenced in this ask (so sorry i went off) when she talks about how she died to free lucifer from the cage:

familiar, familiar...

”the one thing i want...it’s something i know i can’t have.”

let’s think about the lilith/ashley/cas similarities again...

lilith is pissed that god brought her back, because she believes she died for a good cause. cas, in my opinion, is in the same boat--dying to save dean in 15x18. so this begs the question: what would make cas want to come back?

like i said here, i think if cas is to come back, then it needs to be because of choice and it needs to be because he’s wanted back (aka, not because god thinks he could be useful. i think this is exactly why they made jack make a point of having a “hands off” approach). cas can’t keep the feelings of inadequacy that his mirror, ashley, had in this episode--these are the exact feelings he’s been battling since pretty much his introduction. which means, in order for his character arc to come full circle, he needs to break free of thinking that he’s unwanted, he needs to think that he deserves to be saved.

and we know this...

#spn #spn meta #ely answers #destiel #castiel #spn 15x20 #supernatural #rambleoncas meta #spn spec #roc original #my post

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fortheloveofwonderland · 3 years

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Under Silken Skies [Spencer Reid x fem! Reader]

A/N - just an angsty little oneshot I needed to get out of my head. Fufills my Break Up Square on my CM Bingo Card for @cmbingo . My permanent Tag List is open. Find my CM Bingo Masterlist Here. Find my full masterlist here.

My request are also Open for prompts/reqs/headcannons/aesthetics or just to say hi.

CW - major character death and lots of angst. Very vague mentions of smut and virgin! Spencer, vague mentions of Maeve and what happens to Spencer in the S15 finale (if it had ended differently). This does not have a happy ending.

WC: 4K

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He was eleven and you were thirteen. You didn’t know his name, only he was smart and awkward and got teased because of those things.

You found him tied to a flagpole as you’d left detention one night on your way across the soccer field. He was naked aside from his underwear and blindfolded.

He cried as you untied him, his skin like ice. You insisted you were there to help, whether he believed you or not you weren’t sure.

You stripped off your oversized jumper and slipped it over his head, helping him guide his arms in the holes. He didn’t thank you. He didn’t ask why. He just wrapped himself in the warmth.

He told you his name was Spencer. Spencer Reid and he’d been tricked by a girl and stripped of his clothes and tied to the flagpole.

He’d been there hours before you found him.

You sat together on the dewy grass, no more than a handful of words passed between you. He asked why you’d helped, why you’d stayed but you’d simply shrugged.

Maybe you’d felt bad for him or maybe you’d felt drawn to him. You knew all about school bullies.

He seemed so small and unsure of himself, as though the mere act of sitting with you was cause for panic.

He didn’t make eye contact. You saw him glance in your direction a few times when you weren’t looking.

He was so fragile you didn’t understand how anyone could do that to such an innocent creature. He just wanted to fit in, isn’t that all we really wanted?

He couldn’t help being smart.

There was a sadness about him that went further than what the bullies had done today. You could tell it was the kind of air that followed him around, a permanent dark cloud.

It hurt you to know someone so young could carry so much pain. It didn’t seem fair that at his tender age he already seemed defeated by the world that surely had so much more to throw at him.

What if he wasn’t strong enough to cope with the terrors of the world? You hoped maybe these formative years would make him stronger against what was to come. Maybe it was helping to build up those walls early, making him stronger for the horrors he would no doubt have to face later in life.

You weren’t sure, but one thing you were sure of was Spencer Reid had sad, sad eyes. You could tell he needed a friend and maybe you could be it. Maybe you could protect him.

So for now the two of you sat side by side on the soccer field, under the moonlit silken sky.

***

He was twelve and you fourteen and he was finally getting out of the hell hole that was high school.

It was his graduation day and his gown drowned his small frame and his cap was too big for his head and kept falling to the side.

You straightened it for him again and gave him a soft smile.

He was going to CalTech in the fall and you were so proud of him, but gosh were you going to miss him.

It had only been little over a year since the night on the soccer field but the two of you had become friends. He helped you with your homework and you kept the bullies away from him.

You’d become his protector, he looked up to you and although he would never tell anyone this, he had a crush on you. A big one.

He was excited about CalTech but he was sad to leave you.

There were a lot of mixed emotions in the air. You’d stay in touch and he’d come back and visit but it wouldn’t be the same.

Who was going to keep him safe at college? Who was going to keep an eye on him? What happened if the bullies at CalTech were even worse and you were hundreds of miles away not being able to do anything about it?

He’d told you not to worry about him, that he’d be fine but it was hard not to. He was still so tiny and fragile, like a baby bird and if truth be told you were scared for him.

“I’m proud of you Crash.” You straightened his tie.

He rolled his eyes under his thick glasses. One time you’d heard his mom call him that and you hadn’t stopped calling him it since.

“Thanks Y/N.” He smiled but it was a sad smile.

You placed your hands gently on his shoulders, knowing what he was thinking. You’d gotten really good at reading his mind.

“Me too.” You whispered. You leant close and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

His face turned crimson and he chewed his lip. His cheek felt like it was on fire where your lips had touched him.

“Come on Crash, it’s time.” You slid your hand in his and started leading him towards the stage he was going to walk over and accept his diploma.

Within a matter of weeks he would be gone and you’d be alone again just as you had been before you’d met him.

So for now the two of you walked hand in hard across towards the stage, under the sun soaked silken sky.

***

Spencer was sixteen and you were eighteen and you’d just witnessed his second graduation; this time from CalTech.

The gown fit him a lot better this time than it had at his high school graduation. Over the last year or so he had sprung up in height, now towering over you. He had grown up a lot over the last few years. He was slowly becoming a man.

“Look at you.” You nudged him in the arm. “So grown up.”

“Shut up.” He batted you away with a shy smile. “I wouldn’t have asked you to come here if I knew all you were going to do was embarrass me.”

“Sorry Crash.” you smirked. “I am so, so proud of you kid.”

You gently tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear. His cheeks burned in embarrassment.

He was coming back to Vegas and you would have been thrilled if it wasn’t for the fact in a few months you were going off to college yourself.

It seemed unfair life had brought you together only to tear you apart over and over again. There seemed like there was never a right time for the two of you.

“You ready?” you asked him softly, trying not to focus on the thought of being torn away from him again.

“Almost.” he nodded, taking a few deep breaths.

You assumed he was trying to calm his nerves before taking to the stage for his graduation ceremony but it wasn’t that.

His hands were shaking when he came close to you and placed them on your hips.

“What are you doing?” you tilted your head at him in confusion.

Before Spencer could change his mind about his next move he closed his eyes and moved in close to you. His lips were so soft as they pressed against yours, barely ghosting your lips. You could have been convinced it hadn’t even happened.

He chewed his lip bashfully when he pulled back, looking at the floor.

“Sorry.” he whispered. “I uhm...lets go.”

He walked past you, leaving you staring in his wake.

Had that really just happened?

You brushed your fingers against your lips in disbelief. But your lips were tingling, it had definitely happened.

Eventually you followed him in confusion but there was no time to ask him about it. Hopefully you’d get a chance to later.

So for now you walked behind him, watching him adjust his cap, under the Californian silken sky.

***

Spencer was now eighteen and you were twenty, in your final year at Georgetown.

Spencer now had a doctorate in mathematics and was working towards one in chemistry. He kept talking about doing another doctorate in engineering when he was through.

He had grown even more so and was really starting to grow into his looks. He’d always been cute, but recently when you looked at him you saw a handsome man looking back at you.

Hanging out in your dorm that night it was hard to say how it started. One minute you’d been engrossed in a movie, your head on Spencer’s shoulder and the next you lips were pressed together, his tongue exploring your mouth.

He hadn’t kissed you again since his CalTech graduation and you didn’t know where this had come from now. But you did know you’d been thinking more inappropriate thoughts about your friend as of late and they were seemingly materialising in front of your eyes.

Spencer was a virgin, you were not. In that moment you wished he could have been your first time.

It was slow and gentle and Spencer was a bag of nerves the whole time. He groped at your body with seemingly no purpose other than to feel every part of you.

He didn’t last long, the feeling of being inside of you was too intense, too sensational. But it was nice. It felt right. It felt like home.

Afterwards he held you in his arms in your small single bed too nervous to look you in the eye. You stroked circles on his bare chest feeling the most content you’d felt in a long time.

You both stared up at the ceiling which you’d painted midnight blue and was peppered with glow in the dark stars.

“Spence?” You whispered softly.

“Yes Y/N?”

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

He exhaled and pulled you into him closer.

“I know.” He kissed the top of your head. “And I love you.”

You didn’t know what would happen tomorrow. You didn’t know if this was a one time thing or if this meant you were together now. You suppose it didn’t much matter right now. The only thing that mattered right now was Spencer holding you in his arms.

So for now you laid there together on your dorm room bed, under a mural of the silken sky.

***

He was twenty two and you were twenty four, and he’d just been offered a job at the FBI.

In Quantico, Virginia.

You were sure you’d spent your whole relationship out of state from one another. The past three years Spencer had been away while he worked on a second BA and then his third doctorate.

Since leaving college you’d stayed put in Vegas, getting a job as a curator at a local art gallery.

You saw Spencer when you could but it never seemed to be enough. At least not for you.

And then he’d dropped the bombshell about his job offer and told you he was moving to the other side of the country.

It had been hard enough over the years to maintain your relationship but you were sure this would be the death of you. And so you’d told Spencer it was time the two of you went your separate ways.

He’d tried to argue that you could make it work but you weren’t willing to find out. The four years you’d gotten had been amazing but all good things had to come to an end.

And maybe you and Spencer had never been destined. It had always been just a little too difficult. You’d finally thought once you were in the same state it would be easier, but he was leaving again.

It was hard but he supposed he understood. He would miss you with every fibre of his being but this job was too good for him to pass up.

You told him if you were meant to be, you’d find your way back to each other one day, although you weren’t sure you believed that.

You sat on the swing set in the desolate park together, hands entwined together as you swung back and forth on your separate swings.

He was leaving tomorrow. He was packed, his flight was booked and he had an apartment to go to in DC.

He was leaving and you were staying and it broke your heart.

“I’m gonna miss you Crash.” You squeezed his hand.

“I’m going to miss you too Y/N.”

It felt like the end of an era but an era that had never really had a chance to begin.

He was supposed to be your one true love, your greatest love story. But this story didn’t get a happy ending.

You swung back and forth into the night, just revelling in being with him one last time. You couldn’t think about tomorrow. Tomorrow was a world away.

So for now you swung, hand in hand, under the midnight silken sky.

***

You were twenty nine and you loved him, you really loved him.

He had turned your whole world upside down and made you feel things you’d never thought you’d feel again.

You loved him, you really did.

But he wasn’t Spencer Reid.

Maybe you’d gotten lucky and got to have two great loves of your life. Your life with Spencer was over long ago, it was only fair you were allowed to move on.

You wondered what twenty seven year old Spencer was doing with his life. Was he still at the BAU? Did he get a fourth doctorate? Was he happy?

God you hoped he was happy.

It was a small ceremony in front of your closest friends and family. No frills, no fuss. Just you and him being joined in matrimony.

He was a good guy, a nice guy; he treated you right and he loved you. At the end of the day, that’s all that mattered right?

So you didn’t get butterflies in your stomach when he kissed you. Maybe you didn’t go weak at the knees when he looked at you or felt like you were coming home when you made love. And so what if you’d felt all those things with Spencer? That didn’t matter, did it? It didn’t mean you didn’t love your new husband.

It was just a different kind of love. You weren’t in your teens falling in love for the first time. This was the kind of love you had when you grew up and got older. It didn’t mean it meant any less; that he meant any less to you.

He led you outside by your hand as your friends and family showered you in confetti. He turned and smiled at you brightly. He looked the happiest you’d ever seen him, you didn’t know if you could match his happiness.

You smiled back at him, probably not quite meeting his enthusiasm but if he noticed he didn’t say as much. It was only now that you looked down at the ring around your finger did it suddenly feel like a noose. You couldn’t allow yourself to think about how wrong it suddenly felt.

So for now you allowed your new husband to kiss you, under the Vegas Springtime silken sky.

***

He was thirty one and she was thirty. Her voice was like honey and he yearned to be able to hold her in his arms.

Her name was Maeve Donnovan and she had a stalker which was preventing them from meeting.

It was the first time Spencer had felt anything akin to love since you. He was sure he would never love again, you were the only person that could take that place in his heart.

And then had started having headaches and sought out the help of a geneticist and he started falling in love with her. For the first time in years you weren’t the first thing on his mind when he woke up in the morning. He didn’t spend all his waking hours pining over you.

Maeve was slowly but surely replacing you in his heart. And Spencer really needed that. He needed you finally gone from his mind.

“I think the stalker’s gone Spencer.” she’d told him that Sunday on the phone.

A huge weight had been lifted from her voice, he could hear the smile in it down the payphone. He couldn’t help but smile in return.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure yeah.” she was smiling brightly. He knew she would have a beautiful smile.

“That’s great Maeve.” he smiled, gripping the phone in hands.

Did that mean what he thought it meant? Could they finally meet now? Have a normal relationship?

“I want to meet.” her words were rushed as though she weren’t sure she should be saying them. But he caught them.

She wanted to meet. She wanted to meet him.

He didn’t care what she looked like because she was already the most beautiful woman in the world to him. But what if she didn’t like him? What if he was too nerdy, what if his hair was too long and messy? What if she took one look at him and turned and ran?

He swallowed those nerves, trying to push them aside for another day.

So for now he smiled shakily down the phone, under the blustery DC silken sky.

***

You were forty and recently divorced. You knew on your wedding day it would end this way.

You loved your husband but you would never love him the way you loved Spencer. You managed ten years before you’d called it quits. He’d always known your heart didn’t fully belong to him.

You missed Spencer everyday and it was so unfair how he could still take up so much of your mind. It was a cruel world you supposed. Maybe you just weren’t supposed to be happy.

You’d had your happiness and it had been short lived. But you were thankful for the brief happiness you had been given. It was more than some people got you supposed.

He was thirty eight and home visiting his mother. He didn’t work full time at the BAU anymore since his reinstatement after he was incarcerated and lectured at Georgetown part time. It allowed him more free time to fly out to Vegas to see his mom.

Lecturing at Georgetown brought back so many memories for him. Georgetown was the place he had lost his virginity, the place he’d told you he loved you for the first time. Georgetown held so many pleasant memories for Spencer but they were all bittersweet.

After spending some time grieving Maeve after she died, his mind landed right back on you. It seemed he was always pining over someone. It wasn’t fair.

He was getting coffee on his way back to the hotel he was staying in when a familiar face materialised in front of him.

You weren’t there one moment and then suddenly you were, as though you had just appeared out of thin air.

You held your own coffee cup in your hand, your eyes wide and jaw slack. He watched you swallow a lump in your throat.

“Hi Crash.” you couldn’t help his old nickname tumble out from between your lips.

“Hi Y/N.” his voice croaked, still trying to comprehend how you could so suddenly be here in front of him after all these years of absence.

He felt like that twenty two year old swinging with you side by side in the park counting down the hours until he left you.

He felt like the sixteen year old young man who was falling hopelessly in love with you.

He felt like the eleven year old boy utterly grateful for you untying him from the flagpole.

“It’s been a long time.” you spoke, your mouth dry.

“A really long time.” he agreed with a stiff nod.

“Uhm...do you want to...coffee?” you ignored the fact you both had coffees in your hand.

“O-ok.” he nodded stiffly again.

After all these years you had so much to say to each other but no words would come out.

So for now you walked in silence down the Vegas street, under the cloud coated silken sky.

***

He was thirty nine years old when the explosion occurred. He’d thought it was just a concussion and didn’t pay it much mind.

You were forty one years old when you received the phone call from Penelope Garcia to inform you that Spencer was in the hospital.

They called it intracranial bleeding, his brain was swelling, bleeding; shutting down. They’d told you there was nothing they could do.

How cruel this life had been to you. It had stolen Spencer away from you when your relationship barely had a chance to blossom. It had brought him back into your life, for the two of you to fall back in love with each other only to have one final year together.

It had been the greatest year of your life and you had to try and focus on that as David Rossi read his eulogy.

He spoke all about Spencer’s life, the life you’d barely gotten to be a part of. Hearing it second hand and not from Spencer’s lips was tragic enough in itself.

You didn’t really feel as though you belonged here. You didn’t know him the way his team members knew him. You felt like a stranger in this place now.

You’d jumped at moving to DC when you and Spencer reunited because there was no way you were making the same mistake twice and letting him get away again. But now DC seemed like a suddenly very lonely place.

As the brilliant man you knew and loved was being lowered into the ground, his final resting place, the heavens opened. The rain cascaded down from the sky and you couldn’t help but think how apt it was on this already bleak day.

Garcia came to you at his graveside when the ceremony was over. The rain disguised your tears. She nudged you with her shoulder, her own tears falling.

“The world is going to be a very different place without boy genius in it.” she sobbed as she spoke.

“You’re telling me.” you chewed your lip, your eyes locked on his headstone as you spoke.

“He loved you know? He always loved you.”

You nodded statically not looking at the other woman. You knew he loved you, that much you were sure of. You only wished you had more time.

Maybe if you’d know what life had in store you would have come with him to DC all those years ago. Had you known you didn’t have all the time in the world, that your love only had a finite number of days you might have been more inclined to cling to them.

That was hindsight though you supposed and dwelling on it didn’t change the past. What was done was done. You didn’t go to DC with him, you stayed in Vegas. You spent years pining over him only to have the universe throw you back together again.

And then he’d been snatched from you once more in the most horrific way. And now it was over for good.

“Come on Y/N, you’ll catch a cold if you stay out here.” Garcia placed a gentle arm on your shoulder.

“I’ll be right there.” you told her, still not looking away from where the love of your life was buried beneath the dirt.

You heard her leave as more tears started to fall from your eyes. Your knees gave out and you fell to the grass in the rain.

You sobbed into your hands, cursing life for being so unyielding. But there was nothing you could do about it. The wheels had been set into motion long before you and Spencer had even met. This was always the way things were going to end up. Fate was a cruel mistress.

And so you knelt in the dirt sobbing next to the grave of the love of your life, under the grey, weeping silken sky.

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#spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #cmbingo21 #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x you

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mittensmorgul · 3 years

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hey mittens! i know you’ve written off the finale at this point (and haven’t we all), but i was just wondering: do we know whose idea it was to have kripke co-write that ep? because like, in hindsight, that was...a choice, and i’ve been thinking that might explain SOME of the weirdness of that ep (emphasis on SOME because uh. i really do think that some of the cringiest details didn’t come from writers at all). anyway—thoughts?

I don’t think Kripke had anything to do with writing the final ep. It just... felt like a Kripke ep, and I’m starting to think that Dabb did that intentionally. He’s the most meta writer the show might’ve ever had, and in refusing to allow Sam and Dean to live out past their ultimate victory, in choosing to “force an ending” on the characters instead of leaving their world “open” with no concrete ending, he succeeded at the task that Chuck- as Kripke’s avatar in the original story of Supernatural-- had failed to do.

Dabb, in a very real sense, is the one who “ended the story of Supernatural.” He wanted to bring it full circle, to “close the universe” and make it “reboot-proof.” This is something he’s talked about going back as far as SDCC 2019, and many of us had hoped that would mean something “better” than what Chuck wanted for the Winchesters, and for Cas.

I was hoping, and watching the show for the last few years under the assumption that Dabb’s in-story avatar was more a combination of different characters. At first, Billie, who started as a reaper but was elevated to the role of Death (like Dabb himself started as a writer who became more important to the telling of the tale, and eventually became the final showrunner who would eventually reap the show in the end, as it were).

After Jack’s introduction, I wondered if he was going to “grow into the role” of the Authorial Avatar. After all, he served as a mirror for all three other characters, reflecting their stories back at them and allowing them to process their own emotional and psychological issues by helping Jack through them. I wrote long ago, back in s13, how this enabled TFW to sort of graduate from student to master, in the martial arts sense of the word, because one truly only completes learning a thing through the process of teaching others.

And then the Empty became involved as an actual being that manifested through the identities of others, and didn’t really have its own identity other than “I need to sleep, stop disturbing me!” which... felt like it might’ve become relevant when Jack’s power was able to break through into its realm.

Then these three beings began plotting the final overthrow of the Original Author. One laid claim to the lives of Sam and Dean (Billie), one laid claim to Castiel (the Empty). We watched Jack-- the incarnation of “balance” and the vehicle through which the show demonstrated what the human soul’s function is, what the function of angelic grace WITHOUT a human soul’s function is, and what Jack as a whole being with both actually is, as he fully came to his own understanding of what humanity, human love, and the responsibility and function of cosmic power and balance is within himself.

I never doubted (especially after he consumed Michael’s grace and made that power his own) that Jack’s function would be as the ultimate role that Chuck had been trying to force on Dean since s11-- “the firewall between light and darkness.” That Jack would be the crucible to fully unite the power embodied in Amara and Chuck. Chuck’s ending was about as poetic as it gets, and I 100% appreciate Jack’s “end” in the narrative that isn’t really an end for him, because the story also implied that Chuck’s original “problem” stemmed from his wanting to give himself an ego and play with his own creation like so many tinkertoys, to force his will on a universe he created to be ruled by the will of others.

The ultimate act of Team Free Will left Chuck fully human and an effectively blank book, with no power to force anyone else to play his games. Excellent, right? Poetic even!

But the story wasn’t really over, because in our world, there was one more episode, a coda fic if you will. And all of the characters I’d associated with Dabb-as-avatar were... rendered mute. Billie was dead or dying in the Empty, Jack came into his full power and had already healed the universe, implying that the Empty’s conditions were fulfilled and could finally go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, Chuck’s Book, while appearing blank, still contained all the words. Only Death could read them, and as far as we know, nobody in that universe had ascended to that role. But in our universe, we know that’s Dabb’s function in the narrative. What sort of ending could he write?

Most of us hoped that it would be a “once more, with feeling” sort of “you can finally lay down your arms and make a new life for yourself” ending. Many of us were baffled first off that Jack wouldn’t have brought Cas back from the Empty to Earth. We never really had a satisfactory explanation in canon of what happened there. Was Cas actually dead? What function does he have if he’s in Heaven? Has he been relegated to a role of duty and service as punishment for daring to yearn for human things? It just... it felt like the final stab from a story that had just told us that he truly has been the one disrupting for in Chuck’s story, that he was something that Chuck could never force out of the story or control, who demonstrated free will and learned to love humanity because of Dean, and yet doomed to never have that for himself. Most of us felt that line in 15.18 deserved subversion in the aftermath, and yet we never even get concrete confirmation that he’s even really alive in the same way he was before. It’s... what Chuck always wanted for Cas, to shunt him out of the story and render him powerless and plotless.

What did Chuck want for Sam and Dean? What story did he force them into over and over again? One of them tragically dead and the other miserable and mourning. He wrote billions of iterations of this exact story, over and over throughout billions of universes created for the sole purpose of doing exactly this to every incarnation of Sam and Dean he possibly could. Most of us hoped this might be the ONE universe where that was subverted, like it was the ONE universe where Castiel refused to fall in line with Heaven’s orders and plans. But nope, Dean died tragically (almost immediately after saying in canon that the only way they could honor Cas and Jack’s sacrifices for them was to keep living), and Sam lived a rather bleak and hollow life where the only thing we know he did was to raise a son named for his dead brother.

Chuck would’ve been freaking DELIGHTED!

Which... brings us to Heaven... where we get the vague hint that Cas “helped” Jack “knock down the walls” and make it a paradise that Dean would love and feel rewarded by. We never actually find out what role Cas played in that, or if he was also there in some capacity. But how I’ve always personally understood Heaven as it was in Chuck’s creation, was as a self-sustaining and ever expanding Destiny Generator, like a power generator or a giant battery where each Heaven Cubicle functioned as a cell. The show itself has been using the soul-as-power-source for ages (it was pretty much the running theme of s6-- it’s the souls!-- and this theme was returned in force in s11, culminating in the “soul bomb” plot of (gasp!) Andrew Dabb’s season finale.

Heaven was beginning to break down as a “machine” and a power generator not for lack of human souls, but for lack of angels to maintain the structure of heaven itself. In one of his first episodes, Cas even described the function of angels as being “agents of fate.” Their sole role was to literally “hold Chuck’s narrative together.” Metaphorically in the story-- in the original Apocalypse as the guides who tried to force Sam and Dean into the roles they were destined for-- as well as metaphorically in Heaven which was the “battery” that gave the angels their power in the first place. Remember what happened to Cas when he has been “cut off from Heaven” and began to lose his powers.

So the way I’d always understood the function of Heaven in Chuck’s story was exactly that. Without Chuck’s narrative, the walls would fall and the paradise Jack’s birth heralded would come to fruition THERE. Because as long as there is life, and free will, and more than one person on EARTH, that sort of paradise is an impossible dream. We’re seeing that exemplified now in real life, actually, with people claiming their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon by being asked to wear a mask and limit their social interactions to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Does their “freedom” override the “freedom” of others who would prefer to remain alive and not infected by a virus that could kill them? It’s an impossible balance, because true freedom cannon exist in life without compromise and sacrifice.

Which brings us to Dean, and his essential humanity, which had been exemplified in his selfless love of humanity so strong that he became a cosmic disrupting force of his own by simply refusing to let Chuck’s story defeat him. He struggled with this throughout s15 as Chuck told him that his life had never truly been his own, and that he’d always been a character in a bigger story. He’d finally begun to feel at peace with who he was, with the family he’d made for himself, and everything and every experience he’d endured that had shaped him into the person he’d become, and Chuck’s revelation led him to doubt everything. In the end, he was finally able to see what truly DID matter, what really WAS real (thank you to 15.17 for confirming that Cas was one of those things that Chuck had also never intended to be part of his story, and that Cas truly had always chosen Dean freely, because his doubt of Cas was one of the main things hurting Dean in s15, epitomized in his crisis in 15.09 in Purgatory). So the fact that Cas was not “allowed” to come back to Dean afterward feels... punitive. The fact that Dean was not “allowed” to actually experience a real human life on the Earth he’d devoted his entire life to saving, the fact that Sam was never able to achieve peace and happiness in a life he’d struggled to find balance between a destiny he’d never wanted and a normalcy that had been merely performative for decades because shoving the majority of his life experience down to play at being “normal” was never truly possible, and required truly accepting all of himself to actually free himself from the half-life we saw him live after Dean’s death... all of that just... it’s exactly what Chuck would’ve wanted for all three of them.

And it’s depressing af, that when given the power to “end the story of Team Free Will,” Dabb chose to enact Chuck’s final draft, rather than handing blank books to these three to write their own lives. And it just looks like Kripke’s writing, because it kind of is his story. We just hoped it wasn’t, and that the final avatar of The Author in the story would be TFW themselves. But that was probably never meant to be. Because destiny is apparently still stronger than human free will, and isn’t that just depressing af.

#spn 15.20 #dabb vs cars #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #that's what free will is #or apparently is not... which is the main reason the finale is fucking with my head honestly #i just can't see even paradise heaven as a reward #it always felt like the final concept to be subverted by the narrative but the narrative loved itself more than life #and so it goes #skvwalkering

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confused-and-hurtzo · 5 years

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Grey’s S15

So... I pranked myself like I always do, and I decided to do a mini grey’s rewatch of seasons 12-15. To be completely honest, I didn’t watch season 13 or 14 entirely, and I wanted to understand this past season better. (I lowkey also wanted to see Deluca’s character development b/c I want to understand the man that Mer just said ‘I love you’ to). So here is a review of Grey’s S15, what I hope to see in S16, a rant on some comments I have seen on the internet about. I just need to let my thoughts out.

First of all, I am a big Grey’s Anatomy fan. Although I roll my eyes every time I say it's been running this long, this show has a special place in my heart. I started watching the show during my formative years, Cristina Yang basically raised my teenage self. I started in middle school, and now we are here, a year away from graduating my undergrad at UofT. I don’t want to discredit the amazing women that raised me, but I also don’t want to not mention Shondaland and its influence on who I am today. Overall, Grey’s is kind of like my bible, I rewatch it every time I need to feel comfortable, validated, and reasonable. Its storytelling has allowed me to understand so many things, such as addiction (s/o to Private Practice and Amelia Shepherd), family issues, loyalty, love, empowerment. Its most important lesson is that life goes on. No matter how hard it gets, it just keeps going, and that's the beauty of it. We all can take whatever it throws at us, and come on the other side, stronger and wiser. I hate it when people say that they miss the old Grey's, that they miss Derek or Cristina. It’s all very valid, I miss them too. However, that is life, people die, people move across the globe, and you just have to deal with that and move forward.

I really enjoyed this season because of its attention to detail. I know this sounds very odd, but, after watching S12, 13, and 14, I feel that this season was packed with references. It mostly stayed true to the characters' storylines and amended some plot holes from previous seasons. I love that the Mer-Tatcher storyline had a conclusion, I always wondered what happened to him after Lexie died. I also enjoyed meeting Alex’s mom, she is honestly a sweetheart. Benley’s story was so exciting, I am never concerned about them because they are perfect, but it is good to see them going through hard times. They brought back Teddy, which allowed Owen’s character to move forward. I loved that they gave Amelia a chance, we got a better explanation of why her family was not there, and her story became full-circle. There is more reference to the Mer’s kids, making us remember that she is a mom LOL. Finally, although he is a more recent character, I love Schmidt so much. He cracks me up, and his story is so underrated.

In this part, I will focus more on my favorite characters of the show and what I liked about them this season:

Meredith: I have to admit, I always thought I was Cristina Yang, but the more I reflect on this, the more I realize that I am more of a Meredith Grey. I am so proud of how far she has come, professionally and emotionally. She is a warrior. I love how happy she is this season. It's partly because of her new relationship, but also she is very stable now, with her kids, her award, her friendships. She is always working really hard to be a better person, and it takes a courageous person to admit that you need to improve and actually doing the work to be better. She understands her past and moves forward, motivating the people that love her the most to do the same thing. She has changed, for good. And, people may say that she is not the Meredith Grey she was in season 1, and I say that this is a good thing. She has grown up and learned from her mistakes (some of them, she was still afraid of I love you’s and committed insurance fraud, but some things don’t change lol). Cece was such a central character for her storyline, I loved how she allowed her to believe in herself and in life-after-love (yes, this is a Cher reference), which is why Merluca is a thing now. I high-key believe that Cece intentionally created the Link-Andrew-Meredith love triangle for Deluca to step up his game and show her how much she wants to be with her. After all, Cece was there when they talked about the kiss, she saw something, and finessed her way into making it a reality. I can’t help but smile at the fact that Mer is smiling like a teenager again, it fills my heart. I too loved Derek, but he died. That happens, it sucks. But, Mer has every right to move on and fall in love again. She deserves finding love again.

Alex: Alex as chief was my favorite thing this season. I love how he just got the job randomly, but this job allowed him to prove himself what he is capable of. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bailey as chief, but we all knew that she was going to be a great chief someday. I always root for the underdog, and in this particular situation, he was the underdog. My favorite part is when Bailey and Weber realized how good he was at the job because he understands that delegating is a thing (lol). I liked meeting his mom, that storyline just re-states how pure he is. I love how he doesn’t realize that Merluca is a thing, he is just completely oblivious. It broke my heart to see him freaking out about Jo because it made me realize how much Izzie scared him. He is the Most Improved Character of the show. Period.

Amelia: I love Amelia so much. She is often very misunderstood by some fans, but you all need to watch private practice to understand her better. I liked this season because it made justice to her and her journey. We learned a bit more about Christopher. We saw her being a mom with both Betty and Leo. We saw her helping Betty through her addiction. We saw her standing up for herself and end a relationship that had become very toxic. We saw her talk to her family and, more importantly, talk to her mom. We saw her rise above her love for Owen and let him be happy with Teddy. She has grown so much and this season allowed her to do that, which I am very grateful for. After rewatching S15, I now am a full Amelink stan. I love how they start their first significant interaction with Link word-vomiting his feeling about the overdose wave. He talks a lot, just like her, and he is willing to listen to her talking. One reason why Omelia didn’t work out was that Owen didn’t talk and Amelia felt that she shouldn’t talk either, leading to significant miscommunications. I also love that Link understands addiction a bit better than Owen, which is already a sign that this relationship has potential. I loved Omelia, they had a very awkward, sometimes funny, sometimes dark relationship and helped each other in very dark moments. They did love each other, in their own twisty way. However, I think that it kind of became an addiction for them to be together despite all the red flags, which is not healthy.

Jackson: I love Jackson, he has such a big heart. Kind of salty about Japril not being endgame, but we gotta move on. I loved how supportive he was with Catherine during the tumor surgery, their chemistry is so good. Like. It’s hard for me to believe that they are not actually mother and son. I love that he is a high-key Merluca shipper and how much he respects Richard Webber. I hope he doesn't die.

Deluca: OK... so I just going to say that I want him to be in peds so bad, he is the SOFTEST character atm, I am in love. He has also grown this season. I think its partly because the writers want us to believe he has now that he is dating THE Meredith Grey, but we stan this evolution. People always complain about how he didn’t want to date Maggie b/c she was his boss, and I would like to disagree with that to an extent. Yeah... the problem was that she was his boss, but the main issue was because he was afraid of the favoring situation, meaning that he didn’t love Maggie because was not willing to put up with what others would think about them. Sigh. Anyways... I enjoy how much depth his character is getting, learning about his family was important because we now understand the difficulties he has faced. He has shown that he is no longer an intern. I cringe every time people try to invalidate his character by pointing out how immature he was. No one on Grey’s is their intern self. Look at Alex, Mer, Bailey, SCHMIDT... everyone has grown out of their intern mistakes, so why should we just bring up Andrew’s to justify why Merluca shouldn’t be a thing? (and so what if he is not as mature as Mer? Mer wasn’t as “mature” as Derek, and no one batted an eye... double standards am I right?). The being beaten up by Alex storyline really shook him. He did say some irrational things, but how are you supposed to be 100% rational when you went through a very untenable situation? He deserves the benefit of the doubt and a second chance. Don’t tell me you all have never said impulsive things or had inappropriate crushes. Smh.

What I want to see in S16

Meredith in jail and her village supporting her.

Jo and Alex dealing with Jo’s depression in a compassionate and empowering way.

Teddy and Owen being parents and being in love.

I want a Towen wedding, just because I want everyone to look pretty AF.

Owen and Amelia being good friends. As much as I think Omelia is no longer a viable love relationship, I really like their chemistry, and I would like to see them becoming good friends.

Merluca being domestic with the kids and talking about their past. I want Mer to tell him about her losses, her feelings, her fears. I want them to talk about the age difference in a positive way. I honestly don’t see Mer getting pregnant, but like I always think about Ben and Bailey and how Ben just became Tuck’s dad and he loves him like his own son. I can see Andrew loving Mer’s kids in that way.

Andrew choosing peds and Alex mentoring him, just like Arizona. Team Peds 2.0?

I want to see Carina more, more insight into her character. She is always someone’s lover or just Andrew’s sister, but we don’t get to see her by herself.

Andrew just dealing with the sister trifecta. I want funny, light, comic relief interactions.

Knowing where the fuck Jackson is. I am ready to see him go, but I am also not prepared to see him go.

#grey's anatomy #meredith grey #alex karev #amelia shepherd #jackson avery #andrew deluca #merluca #amelink #omelia #towen #jolex

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blueberrymamba-blog · 5 years

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SPN 14x18 “Absence” spoilers ahead.

I mean before actually watching 14x17 I knew Mary will die this season, because her story run it’s full circle and there was just no any purpose of having her anymore. It was crystal clear after 14x13. I just didn’t actually expect it to happen in 14x17 and not off-screen, I thought Jack zipped her somewhere and that she would eventually die at the end of the season as a result of more much more complicated Jack vs Heaven vs Empty issues - which eventually would be the setting of S15, old SPN style.

What I din’t expect was her clumsy redemption arc regarding her lack of parenting. I was never a Mary Winchester stan but I think these cheesy noir good bye memories of her are a disgrace to her character. They showed her as a woman who couldn’t find herself in the new world and I think she always missed Heaven and actually didn’t want to be back alive, which is where her lack of interest for the boys came from. It was too much for her to handle so she was always running away from them and turned to hunting, which she despised, but which was the only thing she knew and thus could control.

I never liked the way she always spoke about being there for them if they needed her, where she in fact NEVER were there for them, but that was the purpose of her character - the dichotomy between being a mother and a hunter, a domestic family person vs a lone wolf, the perfect Mother Mary vs Flawed Mary. I didn’t like it, but that’s the way it was, they chose to show us Mary tipping to the lone hunter wolf side, because of her missing 30 years of her life. I mean, you chose to portray her that way (whether I liked it or not, that’s a fact) and you can’t just suddenly squash an image of her as a domestic loving mother, who always were by their side, when she really wasn’t, because her whole story arc in seasons 12-14 revolved around not being able to live with her boys knowing they were grown ass men. If you wanted to show us that she really was by their side when they needed her, you should have done this when she was still alive and a part of the story, ffs. I hate rushed redemption arcs, it flattens out the whole character, because what WAS the purpose of her running away then? What was the purpose of Sam and Dean being hurt because she didn’t want to be around them, if you now show me glimpses of their cute domestic shenanigans? Sure, they wanted to show a flawed female character, to destroy the image of Saint Mary and show us that she makes mistakes too, fine, but then WHY redeem her like this, in the very last minute, when they you SO MUCH screen time on useless fucking Nick? Maybe I’m missing something, I’m open for discussion (no hate), but it just doesn’t make any sense to me.

HOWEVER, as much as I hate rushed redemption arcs, these scenes brought us some real gold and I’m happy they showed them to us, I would just prefer they showed it in a different setting. Anyway, we now know that:

Mary knew Cas was always there for them and she said that out aloud,

Dean is a cuddler and he loves people cuddling to him,

Dean is also a pedant (I feel you Dean, I too would lose my shit seeing this floor)

She felt Sam’s struggle and helped him through it

Still, I just wished they would put more of THAT previously, along with everything else she’s done. It would fit her character more, especially her struggle with loving the boys but not being able to let go of her “old” life.

Anyway, moving on.

SAM WINCHESTER I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

You saw through your own bullshit, you saw through Dean’s bullshit. You knew all three of you are responsible of Jack going crazy, you knew that every three of you saw it coming and none of you did anything to stop it and called Dean out, because you knew Dean’s anger directed at Cas was unfair.

I mean I know Dean is emotional and that’s the way he deals with grief - he also told Sam he should be the one burning on the pyre instead of Charlie, but we all know he never actually meant that. It’s just what Dean does when emotions take over him, he lets anger take the lead and doesn’t THINK about what he says. We know that.

But even though it happens a lot, no one ever called him out on that and make him realize that he can’t blame someone if it’s everybody’s (or nobody’s) fault. For once Sam took the “adult” role instead of dumping it all on Dean.

He knew Jack going to the dark side hurt Cas just as much as it hurt him and he knew how much losing Mary will hurt Dean, because it hurt Sam just as much. He took the mediator role between the two of them, knew that Cas wanted to console Dean at Mary’s funeral, but stopped him because he knew Dean needed time.

I mean this scene was so beautiful because there was a very visible tension between Dean and Cas, the fighting married couple vibe was hanging HEAVILY in the air and Sam stood between them like a marriage counselor, BUT even though there are issues between them they’ll heal and they’ll stay strong as long as they’re together, all three of them.

Also the way they let Mary go in the end? How they understood she’s happy and at peace now and they don’t need to bring her back solely because of their own emotions? Because even though it hurts them right now, bringing Mary back again would hurt her even more for much longer. They finally learned that. I’m so proud of them.

And finally, Deancas. I watched the ep an hour ago and I still feel the tension. I deadass thought Dean will anger kiss Cas at some point, because it was just so unbearable, especially after Sam called Dean out on blaming Cas for not telling them. You could see Cas feeling guilty and wanting to apologize, wanting to be close to Dean and try to explain (like ACTUALLY COMMUNICATE, WE’RE SO CLOSE GUYS) and Dean still being angry at Cas, but it just didn’t feel like his usual anger. It wasn’t “you’re actually dead to me”, it felt more like “I’m really really pissed at you for not telling me but I still love you though, just gimme a minute”.

I don’t know how to put that in words, but it felt like Dean was pissed at Cas and still wanted him around despite his “don’t talk to me ever again” vibe. It’s like he wanted to say sorry for lashing out, but at the same time he didn’t, which maybe is the reason I felt he would slam Cas against a wall and angry kiss him. Because he was pissed and hurt but also still not pissed and hurt enough to actually mean that Cas was dead to him.

Anyway it seems like they’re going to “have a break” in their relationship until shit goes down in the next two episodes and one of them will fear they’ve lost the other one and they’ll make out talk it out after reuniting again. I LIVE FOR THAT.

Btw I refuse to talk about Nick and Hallucifer. Maybe if we pretend we don’t see him they’ll stop bringing him back.

#spn 14x17 #14x17 absence #spn meta #spn speculations #destiel #deancas #mary winchester #my ramblings

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calliecat93 · 5 years

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RvB17 Episode 7 Review: Limbo

Time travel sucks. That's all I've got for an intro, it sucks. It's confusing and makes my brain hurt and... let's just get into this before I give myself a migraine.

Overview

We start where we left off, Huggins in what we can now confirm is the heart of a Black Hole. But she's not alone. Remember in S16 when Huggins mentioned that her parents were killed by a Black Hole? Well... they're alive! And named Gerald and Cheryl. So how are they and Huggins alive? Simple, they are light. Light is information, and you can't destroy information. They also ask where Huggins brother is, who as it turns out is Muggins. Weird that he only called her a friend last season, but hey I'll go with it. But the parents are confused as the rest of the universe should be there, and the only thing that could prevent that is some kind of time blockage. A paradox, if you will. Huggins realizes what this means and is told by her parents to go at light-speed to reach where she needs to be.

Back in Season 5, Sister is talking to Doc about how to deal with Tucker. Essentially, she plans on fucking with him for as long as possible. Doc is not happy about this since Tucker is still recovering... and the fact that it sounds outright nuts. Back with the others, well... we still have the whole 'Donut betrayed everyone' thing to deal with. Sarge wants to outright execute him for it. Wash points out that Donut tried to fix all of it, but it does little to help with Grif pretty coldly pointing out that Donut stole The Hammer. Of course, none of them know that Donut tried to use it himself, but they aren't really giving him the chance to explain either, so... oh and Caboose figured out how to Time Travel on his own, so he's gone at this point.

Tucker wakes up, and Sister proceeds to fuck with him in several ways while Doc just goes 'fuck this' and leaves. Back with Huggins, she arrives at Blood Gulch and is surprised by how shitty it looks. But no one is there as this was before the Reds and Blues were sent there, so she goes forward some more until she sees Caboose. At first, she thinks that he doesn't know what she means when she asks about the paradox... until Caboose explains that they did it to save Wash and how she got angry at Grif before flying off. So Huggins explains that essentially black holes make time loop, like a circle... just go with it people. Like me, Huggins is overwhelmed before asking Caboose if they can talk.

Back with the others, Tucker seems to have bought Sister's story and says goodbye to Doc. He goes to apologize to Donut for making fun of him and at this point utterly agitated by everyone, Donut does the 'how do you know x if you never met x' spiel to snap Tucker back to normal. What is surprising though is that this also snaps Doc back to normal, so we can confirm that he isn't dead. He does remember the S16 finale fight, and about how awesome it was. And it is listening to Doc recount those events that cause Donut to do what we have been waiting for him to do for so long now: tell everyone off.

Donut goes and finally, finally tells off everyone for how horribly that they have treated him. Sidelining him, belittling him, left him for dead, etc. And he doesn't hold back even a little. No innuendos. He fully curses, even dropping the F-bomb. He outright tells Carolina to shut up when she apologizes for breaking the universe. Yes, just told Carolina to shut up. Nd the best part? He calls his armor color pink when he mentions them making fun of him about it. Yes, no lightish-red people. He outright said pink, and he is owning it. And now, here we are after Donut died, tried to reunite with his friends, was the only one who gave a damn about saving time while everyone else fucked around, and then after his mistakes went out of his way to fix them, and what does he get? Sarge trying to suggest killing him with Shelia.

With all of that now said, Donut says that once he's explained how to time travel so that they can deal with Genkins, he's done. Everyone is left speechless and in shock, as Donut walks off. Wash tells them to go after him and to apologize immediately, which while they mumble about it, they all go off and do right away. Well... Sarge asks if they really can time travel first before Wash sends him on his way too. Hot damn, now that is how you end an episode.

Review

Okay.. so... I liked the episode, but God it's confused me so much. Let's get that part out of the way first.

Huggins being alive? Yeah, we all knew that at this point and her being made of light/information makes sense. I think most of us expected her parents to be alive after the last episode. They're... okay. You can see where Huggins gets her quirks form, but I think it's pretty clear that they've gone insane from being in the Black Hole for so long. They're mainly here for Huggins to find out how to go through time, which tbf Huggins did speculate about that in Episode 7 when debating her options on getting out of the 6th Century, so okay nice subtle foreshadowing. Muggins being Huggins brother, again, had little to no foreshadowing and comes off as weird since Muggins never referred to her as such, not even in his eulogy when he assumed her dead. He just called her 'friend'. IDK, that's very minor in the grand scheme of things.

But honestly this and Huggins other scenes just... has me confused. So... a black hole send her back to before the Big Bang? Yet her parents haven't tried to leave even though they can go through time? It kinda sounds like they were expecting Huggins so... maybe there's a reason? But this mainly makes me question the Everwhen and time travel. So... I assumed that the Everwhen was a simulation, but I guess not. It's legit the past. And Doc was also sent into it, even though he wasn't caught in the paradox. So how did Donut retain his memory? I know they said that he got brought back through Chrovos' essence, so is that why? How can the Reds and Blues shift through time when they haven't entered the Everwhen? Why was losing the Time Gun a big deal if they can just jump back to S16 Episode 14? How does a black hole causing time to loop make any sense at all? I just... I don't know anymore.

Okay... let's talk about something else that won't hurt my brain. Sister and Tucker... there's not much to talk about. Won't lie, I got a giggle out of the bizarre stories that Sister told Tucker just to fuck with him. My only real issue is that... didn't they resolve their issues at the end of S16? Then again I can see Sister still wanting some form of payback, so meh. Otherwise, no real opinion and I'm glad that we didn't drag out Tucker being out of the loop for too long. Donut just being so done with everything and going through the spiel as quickly as possible was definitely worth it. Oh and Doc is back... yeah calling it now, it's O'Malley pretending to be Doc. We saw that he can do it before in S16's finale...and depending on when he took over in S16 Episode 6. I could be wrong, but I don't know... I feel like something big is still waiting.

But enough of all that. Let us talk about Donut and the moment that we have all been waiting for. Now, I will say that the Reds anger over the betrayal is justified... somewhat. Sarge has zero room to talk considering his own actions in S15. Yeah, he did ultimately do the right thing and regret it, but he still did it and couldn't promise that he wouldn't again, so no fuck you, Sarge. You're great at speeches, but you have shit room to talk. Grif has far more justification in his reaction (helps that he wasn't threatening to kill Donut) because.. yeah if Donut didn't take The Hammer, they could have resolved this before anything happened. Mind you if none of them treated him like shit and outright called him 'an empty suit of armor' he may not have, but still Grif handled it pretty maturely I feel. And Simmons... actually he didn't do anything wrong and even asked Donut if he did save them all, so he's off the hook. My point is, yeah what Donut did was wrong, but remember why he did it: everyone treating him like shit. Sarge outright called him an empty suit of armor. Seriously man, what the Hell?

The reason that Donut's 'The Reason You Suck' Speech was so effective, aside from the previous buildup these past few episodes, is because... well, he's right. They mocked him about his pink armor, and even the standard Red one he had when he first showed up. They've always been nothing but annoyed and belittling of him. Sometimes it was justified, like when he showed up in S11 but send the pilot off. Other times, like Tucker asking why they would ever listen to him in S16 were just harsh. And yeah, in Recollection they did leave him for dead. Sure Simmons was concerned, but that didn't last long and none of them ever mentioned him or considered getting his body during S8 or S10 before they found him alive. There is plenty of canon evidence to support this, and it's something that fans have been pointing out for years. And even with the betrayal, the paradox is entirely on them, not Donut. They still chose to cause it, knowing full well what could happen, so they are just as responsible for their shit situation.

Yeah, Donut did betray the group and that was wrong. To some degree, he deserved being called out, hence why I'm more okay with Grif's reaction that Sarge being a hypocrite. And no, they don't know about Donut ultimately changing his mind and trying to stop Chrovos then and there, but was too late. But they weren't exactly allowing him to explain, as per usual, even with Wash backing him up. Which BTW, Thank God for Wash. He was fully on Donut's side, Donut didn't tell him to shut up when he apologized for the multiple shootings, and Wash immediately told the guys to go and apologize. It's the kind of support that Donut needs and I think the push form Wash, along with his own frustration, finally got him to stand up to the others and tell them off. But back to my point, Donut is justified in his anger. Donut is justified in wanting to leave once he's explained everything. If no one will ever give him any shred of decency or even let him explain how he tried to correct his mistakes, yet people like Wash and Sarge got forgiven with little argument, why the Hell should he stand by them?

Final Thoughts

This episode gave me a headache. I think it's so far my least favorite episode. But that being said, I can't call it bad. Huggins is alive, everyone (except Lopez) is back up to speed, and Donut finally, FINALLY got to tell everyone off for treating him like shit for so long. That moment alone made this episode a winner for me. What's going to happen now? Hell if I know, but I am ready for it! Migraine over time travel bullshit be damned!

#rvb #rvb17 #rvb spoilers #rvb reviews #callie reviews

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renaroo · 7 years

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The Search (13/16)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence - Alternate S15] The Reds and Blues saved Chorus, but it has been a year and they are still missing. A motley crew has been gathered with the common goal of finding the war heroes, though the road is more troubled than anyone seems to realize.

A/N: I’m sorry for the late but we’re so close, guys! Just a few chapters left and this one... well I’d say you guys are finally going to get some satisfaction but I think you’ll find it comes at a cost ; )

Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, @analiarvb, MKDemigodZ-Warrior, DisneyFreak-Lover, zowiaki, and Yin for the comments and feedback!

The Final Countdown

Her head was splitting, but as disoriented as she was, the only real question to ask was pounding into her head. As much as she hated to have to ask it at all.

Did she really let some two-bit mercenary take her by surprise again? Did she really not see the fact that he would have enhancements as much as she did surprise her?

They might have been the type of questions that, ordinarily, would keep Carolina up at night, but in that moment they were the far of queries of a mind that really had another agenda entirely. Figuring out what the hell Kaikaina was screaming about so loudly that it was rousing Carolina from unconsciousness by sheer volume alone.

“They can’t kill us! Killing us would be the lamest thing they ever did! Do you know what kind of lame things are on their records of lame? It shouldn’t be possible for them to be more lame! This is fucking stupid! Dexter Grif, if you try to kill anybody over here I’ll personally kick your ass! If you kill me I’m going to kick your ass and punch you! Twice!”

“Private Grif, please calm down, you may trigger something,” Doctor Grey’s more soothing tone said, closer to Carolina than Kaikaina’s.

It was enough to fully bring Carolina into the moment as she opened her eyes. She was being held up, or at least her head was, in someone’s lap. There were cracks in her helmet, her HUD broken for certain, which meant that she was only seeing what her eyes could. There was no feedlot from her suit, all instinct driven.

Doctor Grey was not looking down to her but instead toward the rest of the circled up group, all of which were standing behind Washington. With his arms and legs out, Wash seemed to be trying as desperately as he could to spread himself out as a wall covering all of them. But most concerning of all was that his battle rifle was holstered against his back. He had no weapons drawn whatsoever. Which, by Carolina’s estimates, usually did not spell out well for them.

“They haven’t shot us yet,” Dylan Andrews said in a flat tone, still looking around and assessing the situation herself. “Despite the order. There may be some semblance of control for them still. They might be preventing themselves from attacking.” She then turned her head suspiciously toward Li’l Grif. “Assuming that no one else triggers some sort of response from them.”

“I don’t trigger people, I’m a fucking social justice queen, bitches!” Kai snapped back.

“Kaikaina, not now!” Washington hissed.

“Yes, now, officer! My brother has a gun trained on you! and Junior’s kidnapped by his dad. Do you know how fucking weird that sounds? But it’s what’s happening, because everything that happens to us is effing weird,” Kai continued loudly. “I shit you not, one time I got naked for Doc. That’s how weird things are. Doc saw my vagina, and he’s like the fourth last person I’d want in this room right now to see the twat!”

At first Wash seemed to have finally learned to let Kaikaina’s crudeness go by unhindered, but then he tilted his head over his shoulder just enough to look her way. “Who are the three before him?”

“Are you actually asking that question right now?” Andrews demanded.

“Completely out of line, Agent Washington!” Grey squeaked out.

“Agreed,” Carolina said groggily, finally pulling herself up into a sitting position out of Grey’s lap.

“Carolina! Are you alright?” Wash asked, still not moving.

“I got my ass kicked by a complete prick. No, Wash, I’m not okay, I’m fucking pissed!” Carolina seethed.

“Awesome! Well, we’re all about to die right now so you’re in, like, super great company. Just saying,” Kai announced, hands on her hips.

“”You never answered my question,” Wash pointed out to Kai.

“You’re such a closet pervert, it’s kinda hot. For a cop,” she answered, head tilted in amusement. “It’s Sarge, Caboose, and Grif, by the way. So watch out. The crotch is still an option for you.”

“I was hoping I was on the list, not—“ Washington began to argue before freezing up at the sound of crunching boots. He turned just as Carolina and Grey got to their feet in unison, shocked as Sarge, Caboose, and Grif stepped forward, weapons high. “Damn it, Kaikaina!”

“Dude, what the fuck, you asked me the question!” she cried out.

Barely able to breathe, Carolina searched her mind for any way out of the situation at hand and she focused on Wash’s holstered weapon once again. “Wash! Take out your gun and shoot them in the legs so they are out of commission!” she ordered.

“No!” Wash angrily snapped back. “I’m not fighting my family, are you mental? We did not come all this way for me to take a close range shot at them, possibly shatter bone or tear open an artery — just no, Carolina! I won’t do it. Not even for myself. Not anymore!”

“You overdramatic fuck, we could just take them out so they don’t kill us and stay zombies forever!” Carolina yelled in return. “Are you literally trying to tell me it’s not worth that risk at the very least?”

Before they could continue to argue, however, Carolina gaped as she saw that Caboose’s finger was on the trigger. And that was not Freckles. And it was definitely aimed directly at Washington’s head.

Without HUD guidance, all but going in blind, her body still rigid and sore from her unconsciousness, Carolina leaped between her first step and her second to go into super speed. She could feel her armor reacting, but the speedometer, the braking controls, everything she relied on for safety were gone. Only her instincts driving her with a HUD and without an Epsilon.

But instincts, apparently, were exactly what she needed because only a few steps into the run, she was already tackling Caboose to the ground and sending his gun shooting toward the ceiling.

The rest of their group began screaming in surprise but Carolina’s full attention was on wrestling the behemoth that Caboose was away from his gun.

There was a near serene sound next of what seemed like clattering glass. But as Carolina looked up she saw that it was not glass but the icicles that formed in the doorways where the remaining Reds were all standing still without orders. They were going to fall right onto them.

“Simmons! Donut! Doc! Step forward!” Washington yelled out with quick thinking.

Just in the nick of time, Donut and Simmons stepped forward before the large icicles came crashing down where they had been. Doc stood in place until the icicles hit him mainly in the helmet. He let out a cry and collapsed to the floor, helmet falling off after being severely broken.

Everyone flinched for him.

“Sorry, I didn’t know his last name,” Wash muttered in partial embarrassment.

Kaikaina, again who had known him the longest, only tilted her head in confusion. “Doc’s name isn’t Doc? What the eff.”

“Ow… what happened?” Doc groaned from the floor, reaching up and grabbing his head. “Ugh. I need some adderall so I don’t freak out again like I did in the operating room. Boy was that a difficult movie to watch in one sitting.”

“Wait what,” Dylan Andrews said, having proven the true danger of staying around their group too long. “He’s speaking like he’s his own person again. The helmets are somehow responsible for the control—“

“HYAAHHHH!” Doctor Grey screamed, just before there was a loud THUNK and Carolina jus saw Sarge’s bright red helmet flying across the floor just in front of her.

Carolina looked back and saw that Doctor Grey had managed to roundhouse kick Sarge’s helmet off of his head, making the old colonel sway in place, holding onto his forehead. “What in sam hill…” he muttered, not realizing he was standing right over Carolina with a shotgun aimed at her head.

“One of your doctorates was in mixed martial arts?” Dylan asked, impressed.

“Oh, silly, no. I just have a black belt like every other multitasking super genius,” Grey assured her.

Without wasting another moment, Carolina turned back to Caboose and grabbed onto his helmet, viciously ripping it off his head to free him from its control.

The big Blue just blinked a few times before squinting at Carolina. “Agent Caro-lady? You came to prison for us?” he asked tiredly.

“Caboose, I’d come to hell for you,” she breathed a sigh of relief.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to do that,” Caboose responded, still sounding exhausted. “Church used to say we should go there, but if you went there you wouldn’t find us there yet. So I’m glad you found us here. Wherever this… cold dark… scary wet cold dark place is. It definitely helped you find us faster than going to Hell.”

Carolina looked at Caboose in simple amazement for a moment before her shoulders began to shudder and her eyes blurred. She couldn’t help herself, she began to laugh, a real, genuine laugh, and possibly the first one she had had since the Reds and Blues had disappeared. At least, there had not been one with so much warmth and relief in her chest as she gave it. Even as the sobs came through.

She could see in her periphery as Kai ripped off Grif’s helmet and immediately pulled him into a confused hug and as Wash took the duty of removing both Donut and Simmons’ helmets.

They were all being released. They were all being brought back to them piece by piece.

“What’s going on here? Why is my sister on one of our stupid fucking adventures?” Grif shouted out, even as he hugged his sister back.

“It’s an incredibly long story and it’s not over yet,” Wash informed them all.

“Yeah, fortunately we’e got some kinda storyteller with us, right, Dylan?” Kai shouted only to turn and see what Carolina and the rest of them were only beginning to realize at the same time. “Dylan? Miss Andrews? Where’d she go?”

“To do something we’d do,” Carolina said out loud, eyes widening in concern. “Something very stupid.”

Journalistic integrity and ethics were something of the defining features in Dylan Andrews’ life. They were what made her literal bread and butter. They were what got her involved with the unraveling story of Project Freelancer and ominous Reds and Blues. It was also how Carolina and Washington came across her.

And part of being an investigative journalist happened to be objectivity. Happened to be the ability to stand down, to step back, and accept that inserting herself into the narrative was dangerous to the vitality of the report.

Dylan Andrews lived and breathed being a journalist, but in the moment, as she raced through the chilled halls of an alien temple on a planet she probably wouldn’t have been able to pronounce, she was a part of the story. She was involved. She was subjective. She was—

She was likely to be doing something very stupid, but it was most likely the the right thing to do.

Which made it all the more shocking and breathtaking when she at last reached the end of the hall and heard for herself the instruction of Malcolm Hargrove ordering the death of a child.

“No,” Andrews gasped, trying to run faster.

Only steps away from the room, Dylan had to slide into a halt, scrambling into the shadows as she saw that Siris, the man in black from before, was standing at the entrance with his gun in tow. Dylan was more than ready to tackle him, maybe wrestle his gun free from him, when he surprised her by stepping forward.

Lavernius Tucker stood with his gun coldly trained on the shuddering Junior.

“Hold it,” Siris barked at Tucker. He then looked toward Hargrove. “This is not the right move.”

“Siri, I have no idea why, compared to your colleagues, you have such a difficult time comprehending this simple fact, but I will remind you that you are not hired for your morality, you are hired for your lack of it!” Hargrove snapped angrily. “I have no need of a useless loose string, and so long as this creature is alive and refusing to cooperate then that is precisely what it is.”

“You don’t know that there’s no use for the kid yet, you just know that he’s acting like a scared kid. And even if he doesn’t turn on the towers, he still holds value to the UNSC,” Siris said plainly. “My colleagues suggested me for your employ. That doesn’t mean I take my day job any less seriously. Especially when you’re willing to do something stupid enough to restart a war and get the whole human race killed. What good is that to me? I get paid more than I’ll ever need so I can Scrooge McDuck it and die on mountain of money I’m diving into? That doesn’t sound like a deal to me.”

“Mercenaries and your paydays,” Hargrove snarled. “Very well, then. I hear your point.” The businessman turned to face a large alien construct then glanced over his shoulder toward Tucker. “Shoot him.”

Before the mercenary was able to react, there were three ringing shots and the man was sent falling backward in a grunt of pain, hitting the floor just in front Dylan. She looked at him wide eyed as he clutched at the holes in his armor beginning to bubble up crimson blood. “Fuck you, Har…” he looked at Dylan for a moment, breathing heavily. “What the…”

Not sure what else to do, Dylan tried to hold a finger up to her helmet to silence the shot man.

Hargrove, though, wasn’t done yet. “Now, Mister Tucker, I do believe you’re free to shoot your abomination.”

Realizing that staying in the observer’s seat wasn’t going to help any longer, if it ever had, Dylan lunged into the room to get between Tucker and his son. Junior let out a shocked honk before clicking his jowls together in a way that Dylan was sure the rest of their shipmates would pretend was meaningful. But for the moment her heart was pounding too hard and she was shaking in her knees. Still, she stood firm.

“Tucker, you can’t do this,” she said seriously. “You don’t know who I am, and I’m sure there’s a lot of confusion because you’re being mind controlled by a chip in your brain that’s being controlled by something weird they did to your helmet and I can’t even begin to pretend I understand the logic behind any of it. But the one thing that I do know, from all my work and all my research is that you are one thing for certain in every story, in every record, in absolutely everything I can find.”

Hargrove looked somewhere between angry and baffled. “Who the devil is this?”

Dylan ignored him, seeing that Tucker’s full attention was on her instead. “You’re a pervert, Lavernius Tucker. Ini absolutely everything I have learned about you, and judging by the very little I understand of your son’s language, you definitely are sex obsessed. Ad it’s a little bit sad. But it’s offset by all the other records that say you’re a good father. The… kind of father that would not be able to resist a chance to use a catchphrase. Which is why I knew if I came all this way, if I could get to you before you were forced to do something terrible and wrong and against your character, I could maybe have a chance to tell you something you needed to hear. That even though we have been searching on a very dangerous journey and I probably will have to file for unemployment when I get back to my life…” she took a deep, heralding breath, holding on the pause enough that even Junior was leaning in some out of curiosity.

Exhaling sharply, Dylan tilted her had back up to look Tucker in the face. “I’m glad I came.”

Tucker’s body flinched awkwardly, his head tilting as a snort came through the filters of his helmet. “Bow…Bow Chicka Bow Wow!”

His finger laid off the trigger and his shoulders rolled back into a more comfortable, natural position as he swayed on his feet, a little dazed. “What… How… Who—“

“Oh for the love of god, if you want something done!” Hargrove snarled, grabbing the gun from Tucker’s unguarded hands and immediately firing at Dylan.

She stood in shock for a moment before feeling an unnatural warmth pooling out at her side. She reached for her waist, looking down to see for herself that blood was beginning to seep through her kevlar mesh, torn through much easier than the hard, battle ready armor the mercenary had been wearing. Then she fell to her knees, feeling shaky and cold.

Junior let out a cry, grabbing Dylan’s shoulder and arm as she began to slump.

“You shot at my kid you son of a bitch!” Tucker roared just before there was a distinct, whisking sound of energy. It was odd enough to draw Dylan’s fuzzing attention toward it and she saw Tucker brandish the plasma sword she’d written about before in her articles.

“No! You idiot, don’t!” Siris roared from the hall.

But it was too late, Tucker stabbed his sword directly through the unsuspecting Hargrove, impaling him against the alien artifact behind him.

Then, just as surely as the life was draining from both Dylan and her shooter, the room began to rumble as a foreign, unnatural glow began to leak out through the inscribed words and lines of the artifact and into the room as a whole.

“It’s done,” Hargrove gasped with his last breaths. “You’ve…unlocked it…”

The man left Tucker standing in a room of injured, dead, and dying, and Dylan with so many questions — the kinds a journalist who hadn’t gotten too involved in her own story would have had time to ask.

#writing #RvB: The Search #rvb fic #Agent Washington #Dylan Andrews #Agent Wash #Kaikaina Grif #Emily Grey

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