#(sam's the one who actually gave the ''it's him or me'' ultimatum but people really don't like to remember that for some reason)

[saving-people-haunting-things]

I really don't understand where the whole "Dean is crazy and jealous and possessive" thing comes from. And literally every example that people try to use to prove that point makes literally no sense.

[s0lairee]

USUALLY i keep the incoherent rambling to @xanyiaz's dms, but y’all know how i feel about vincent. so, here: roughly 2000 words of me talking abt him and the house of solaire.

(also, all non-art, original posts that i make, whether they’re just me keysmashing or me actually dissecting a video will now be tagged as #jo speaks <3)

(possibly incomprehensible) spoilers for “questioning the king” underneath (and a bit from sam’s latest vid). this isn’t really theorising, it’s more “jo analyzes fictional characters and cries”

first of all. CAN we get a round of applause for the voicing and the thumbnail. erik did such a good job - i wasn’t actually expecting a william vid since hedral has been mia for two years, but this was INSANE. erik’s voice is much softer than hedral’s (i think it’s because erik is used to voicing younger characters?) and it really adds to the tone of the video. also, the thumbnail is so perfectly in style with the summit thumbnails. everything is wonderful i just needed a moment for that.

anyways. i did not expect the video to go like this? i mean, everyone expected vincent to call william out for everything at some point, but dude, this caught me so off-guard. and in hindsight, it shouldn’t have. obviously the fandom paints (or painted, before the summit) william as the vamp dad, but he’s a king. he’s going to be political, pragmatic, and sometimes callous. callousness is why he survived. if he was as feeling as vincent is, he wouldn’t have survived his maker.

but like. i completely expected william to stand his ground against vincent’s criticism and mention how it was the right thing to do, but i thought eventually he’d give in and (at the very least) apologise. what i DIDN’T expect was for william:

to not do that.

to pretty much only apologise for keeping vincent out of the loop

to emphasise that this was what being a vampire prince entailed - this was what politics meant

and to GIVE HIM AN ULTIMATUM. it didn’t seem like one, but “if you’re one of us, that’s part of the deal” very much implies “be a solaire and do what is expected of you, or leave.”

i’m glad that vin and william, in some way, found a middle ground. but (as much as i was on will’s side this whole time bc vin always seemed too naive for the rough politics), vincent is right. william shouldn’t have given that burden only to porter. that’s one vampire against dozens that are at least centuries old. also, not to mention, vincent would NOT have trusted porter. can you imagine the mental strength it took vincent to not only hear porter out, but hear stuff that his maker was supposed to tell him from the one person he couldn’t stand? can you imagine how porter felt to be the messenger caught between these two??? and somehow, it’s worse when william doesn’t back down and just accept that vincent was right. he can excuse everything else as politics, but he can’t excuse this. and it’s so weird that he tried so hard to brush past that. 

also. william’s favouritism is incredibly obvious. it’s insane. like, this entire audio, he’s prioritising vincent (and lovely, to some extent). his literal first lines are him choosing to speak to vincent and lovely alone, when sam is RIGHT THERE. he refers to sam as samuel, being one of the only people who does that. he also took the time to explain himself to vincent, but to sam he just says “say what you will.” it gives the vibe of the older sibling that the parent knows will understand, and i know sam doesn’t care about the house like vincent does, but GOD it really rubs it in. i know there’s that convoluted father-son dynamic between vin and william, but william put the pack, their mates, sam and darlin’ into the firing line. porter only gave vincent and lovely an alibi. none of the others. this was the pack's first summit too. if sweetheart was caught eavesdropping, they would have been in SO much trouble. it’s pure dumb luck they escaped. 

also. my brain ran away here. but porter, who isn't will's progeny but acts like his dutiful son, doing whatever is asked of his king because he saved his life - porter, who can't help but feel slighted when after everything, william still fights to justify his actions to vincent (while porter understands). porter who watches (in his mind, at least) vincent throw all of that away for what's "morally right". porter who is faultlessly loyal but so goddamn alone. are you picking up what im putting down <3

^ going off on that, the different reactions (or possible reactions) to will’s ultimatum have me frothing at the mouth.

i want to say porter is fiercely loyal to william and the house but i do think a lot of it is desperation and his own version of “morally right”? like to porter, the right thing is listening to whatever his king - the man that took him in and saved his life - says. or it could be cowardice. if he doesn’t do what will wants him to do, he would have to leave the house… and where would he go? to treasure? imagine explaining this shit to them. he literally has no choice.

to sam, it's the practical, good thing, and it's almost political. and this way of thinking is easy for sam, since he's not really as loyal to the house as vincent is. in fact, he's almost completely detached. so sam's idea of what's right is that william should've considered vincent’s opinion too, or have some kind of counsel, because they were the people who were most directly in the firing line. so when william so self-assuredly says he isn't wrong, and won't ever be wrong... he lost sam. (sam also never outright got the choice to leave like vincent did. he still made the decision. he's, like, 100% gone.)

and to vincent, it's almost completely emotional. he had this responsibility for the summit thrust onto him suddenly after william shielded him from a lot during his growing up as a vampire. he had so much information kept from him by his maker, his family, and he had to put up with the one person william knew he couldn't put up with. he also almost lost his partner, his brother and his friends in the whole mess.

+ need to add that vincent is very, very emotional. throughout the whole summit, there wasn’t one time when he was able to go with the (albeit fucked up) flow. partly, this is who he is; someone who feels everything in extremes, and partly because william had shielded him from the worst of the vampire world for so, so long. this isn’t a positive or negative character trait: it’s just a trait, and something will should have considered. then again, if not vincent, who would host the summit? not sam. certainly not alexis. and porter couldn’t. 

(also, it’s precisely how emotional he is and how much importance he places on family that makes “a prince is supposed to answer to his king, not the other way around” STING.)

now the part that GUTTED me: the ultimatum, and why sam is most certainly leaving (and vincent might consider it, but GOD i fucking hope he doesn’t.)

erik has established both sam and darlin' as being completely self sufficient. like they've both expressed that they're better with each other, and that they've grown as people, but also they're not tied down by any obligations to anyone. darlin' may be fiercely protective of their pack and their identity as a wolf, but sam is heavily disconnected from the house. he might only be sticking around because of vincent, and those two are BROTHERS your honour. but like, he doesn't really feel anything emotional to them nor does he have an obligation to them, even as a vampire.

(especially as a vampire, a status he did not want and is going to give up some time in the future.)

but vincent has both emotional (and i wanna say political?) ties to the house. one, being turned saved his life. he didn't have the choice that lovely had, but he also doesn’t completely hate it like sam did (maybe bc he was unempowered before and the loss of power didn't hit as hard.) two, he's kinda reconciled with his status as a vampire prince. he really does love william. whatever relationship they have (had.) was good - there was some amount of trust there (that will broke now). 

and also, being a vampire allowed him to save lovely. vin and lovely are COMPLETELY devoted to each other. they've had one of the most dramatic changes together.

more than that, the solaire house is family to vin. like, at least in the context of lore and the channel, it has been such a massive part of his life. he introduced his partner to his maker. he took them to the summit. he has confided in them abt princely duties. the house is, for better or for worse, his family.

(also, william bringing out all of vincent’s worst memories right in front of lovely (who was also there for those memories) is so fucking insane. wh. every argument he made in this video is so so insane.) 

somehow, for all the analysing i'm doing, i can't predict lovely's emotions. i know they're gonna be angry in their own way: very soon after mastering their powers, they had it taken away from them; and very soon after being crowned in the house of solaire, they're watching it crumble.

will giving them an ultimatum felt very final. i know erik mentioned wanting to wrap up a few plotlines, and i’m totally ok with that (not . i need vincent. but i can make my peace w things) but if this is how it ends i will cry

in conclusion, will was fighting between politics and progeny. he tried, desperately, to have both. unfortunately, you can’t have both. fortunately, you can try to rebuild the relationship the choice broke. unfortunately, will didn’t do that. he wasn’t fair to a single person here. he still sees tasks and details as a privilege given to solaires, not something that is expected of him as vincent’s family.

most of erik’s plotlines have a theme, and this one seems to surround trust and choice and how the right thing isn’t always in black and white. so yeah it would fucking suck and i would bawl my ass off if vincent and lovely decide to leave the house …… i know it would be the right thing to do but also i wish porter could knock some sense into william or something. 

i would love to see that, actually. feels shakespearean.

[ruby-whistler]

I feel like if we really want to take a closer look at the topic of c!Dream’s obsession with c!Tommy, we have to look into both his reasons for it, and the tactics he employs to achieve his goals concerning it.

[ /dsmp /roleplay I did not tag this that way but this entire analysis is hugely c!Dream critical and focuses on the various facets of his manipulation, so if you’re not in the mood to read that, you have been warned not to. ]

Interestingly enough, before the SMP was actual heavy roleplay, back during the original disc war, the reason c!Dream listed for keeping the discs was to use them as bargaining chips, because he knew c!Tommy wanted them back, as they were hard items to get at the time, and knew he could use them for that purpose.

He had just gotten mugged and repeatedly killed by c!Tommy, who had also participated in a conflict beforehand, and only gave a half-hearted apology in the end. He had also seen him cause problems on the server before that. The discs were meant to be something he would threaten to destroy if c!Tommy started acting out of line, because he didn’t trust him to keep his word and wanted a guarantee. That was the reason he insisted on keeping the discs after getting his armor back, which is why he originally stole them.

And I feel like c!Dream’s train of thought, while skewed and twisted with irrational mindsets, is rather straightforward in essence. Conflict is what he actively stands against and what stops him from having a united server, hence in his mind, he needs to destroy things that bring conflict, and control what he can’t or doesn’t want to destroy. He thinks c!Tommy brings conflict, so he feels like he needs to find ways to control him.

Sure, we all know about the systematic abuse and isolation he employed to make c!Tommy believe he was his friend, but one of his major tactics since the beginning has also been intimidation, or a particular type of manipulation that leads to people fearing him or thinking that he has more power than he actually does. In his mind, if people are scared of him, they’re much more likely to listen to him. And the most fascinating thing is that it works.

During the initial exile conflict, despite him being just a single person with no official political power, he assures victory by aggressively, and very intelligently, threatening his way through the negotiations. c!Tubbo is scared of him, and that is not a coincidence. It’s purposeful.

Seeing as he planned to give L’Manberg technical independence either way - he said that there was no real way for him to stop them from pursuing that anyways, so that wasn’t the intention - even the war seems like a very likely ploy to make the revolutionaries fear him enough so that they wouldn’t start conflict after seceding. c!Wilbur is careful not to start anything with the Greater Dream SMP after this, because c!Dream has shown that he can and will ruin them if they do. c!Tubbo also knows exactly the lengths c!Dream will go to if he promises war thanks to this, and that if he says he’ll build a wall and keep them from leaving it with force, he’s going to do it. When c!Tubbo is faced with an ultimatum, seeing as his goal is to keep New L’Manberg safe and peaceful, he knows he has no option but to give in.

Another variation of this tactic is making himself seem more dangerous and unpredictable than he actually is and obscuring his motivation. If people don’t know what he wants, they are less able to devise effective tactics to stop him from getting it. The element of surprise is something that he utilizes constantly throughout warfare, and psychological battling is no different. For instance, during Doomsday he begins talking about how the server will “be at peace now” thanks to L’Manberg being gone, before c!Tommy barges in, and begins implying he did this all because he hates him.

DREAM Tommy… Look. In all destruction *looks at the falling TNT* there is a new beginning.

TOMMY You- you did this…! To all of us! Not just to me, but to everyone here…!

DREAM Beautiful. You know… the unfinished symphony, right?

…

TOMMY Why…?

DREAM The server will be at peace now.

TOMMY Why, Dream…?

DREAM Because I didn’t-

TOMMY Couldn’t you just- couldn’t you just burn the discs…? Couldn’t you just do it to me? Why did you have to…?

DREAM This is much more fun.

[ credits to @dsmptranscripts on twitter ]

Although c!Dream’s motivation for destroying L’Manberg was actually that, much like with c!Tommy, he thought that it bred conflict and division, he picks up on this and switches to saying how he did indeed do this all to hurt c!Tommy because he finds it fun.

He talks very inconsistently plenty of times, but it’s rather easy to spot a pattern of him being honest about his motives with his allies but straight up lying to his enemies. This makes sense, and it is usually employed as a deliberate tactic.

Intimidation is something he also uses to manipulate people during his time in prison. Ever since he got locked up, it became a mental fight. If people fully realized that he was powerless to stop them from hurting or killing him, his life only hanging by a thin strand on the concept of the revive book, he would’ve lost the control he needed to assure his survival.

The difference is that before then, c!Dream had actual physical power, however the manipulation gets harder to pull off when he has none, even with people he finds naive enough to fall for it. He still risks it because he’s desperate, and has nothing but his own life to lose, which is something he believes to be protected by his possession of the revival book. He had never been big on self-preservation besides staying alive to reach his goals.

He first tries this on c!Sam, who, rather unpredictably, begins to get morally corrupted by the power he has over c!Dream, on top of other factors. c!Dream talks to c!Sam about exile and about c!Tommy because logically, if he’s afraid of him, he’s less likely to try to hurt or kill him. This backfires because this new, unexpected version of c!Sam begins to fiercely hate c!Dream instead, hurting him further.

The same thing happens with c!Tommy - when he realizes that he can’t influence him through repeated visits anymore, he attempts to scare him into obedience again. He establishes himself as someone dangerous who has the power to escape and hurt c!Tommy as well as his friends, which he hopes will subconsciously sway him to not do things that he would disagree with. We can see him pretending to be the one in control throughout the stream after c!Tommy first got revived.

He also tells him that he can bring back the person who he’s afraid of the most and get him on his side, which is precisely the bit that ends up backfiring, but it doesn’t really matter, and trying was still the best thing he could’ve logically done.

If he hadn’t, at some point people would realize he actually has no power at all, and pay back the fear he’d instilled in them previously. This happens with c!Quackity, who began to take advantage of c!Dream’s lack of control as soon as he realized how easy it was to strip away the last bit of power he has, which is also keeping him alive.

Getting back on track, c!Dream essentially tries to control c!Tommy first by manipulating him into believing he is his friend, then believing he is a threat to him when that fails. We can see this from the way the Finale is prepared to be somewhat of a final showdown between the two, and also by him actually revealing the tactics he used to employ during exile, for example talking about taking away the invites to the party and not actually being his friend. This also proves he knew exactly what he was doing during that time, and he could easily switch between tactics because the end goal of controlling c!Tommy was more important to him than what c!Tommy thought of him.

And that’s it.

It’s all just a ploy to control him because he finds him one of the hardest people to stop from causing conflict.

Controlling him is as important to c!Dream as destroying L’Manberg and dethroning c!George and collecting people’s attachments, because what is important to him is achieving his goals through whatever means necessary, not the means themselves.

As for people, while he has no desire to actually kill them - or feels he cannot, because they could still be useful to his plans in the future - he treats them as either tools or obstacles he needs to deal with, especially if they ever get in the way of his plans, and he isn’t particularly attached to them. He does this to himself as well, and doesn’t seem to care about his own well-being or reputation as long as he achieves what he wants. While he’s focused on the ends to his means, that is the only thing that is important to him.

You could argue this does stem from thinking of the people he wants the server to be united for as important, since cc!Dream said his goals are for “everyone to get along”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ways in which he works towards that goal doesn’t treat others’ or his own feelings as consequential at all. In the case of people who stand against him, their entire well-being is put to the side until what needs to be done in his mind gets done.

c!Dream isn’t “scared” of c!Tommy per se, nor does he seem to be obsessed with the guy himself, but he finds him something necessary to get out of the way to accomplish his goals, and he does so, ruthlessly as ever.

And even though the goal of eradicating conflict and uniting the server is something that he is so focused on that it could definitely be called an obsession, c!Tommy really isn’t that important within the equation at all.

This wasn’t a post to excuse or downplay any of his actions, nor do I agree with the “logical” thoughts I mentioned. There is a reason why I used phrases like “he finds” “in his eyes” “he thinks” “in his mind” “he feels like” a whole lot throughout this essay.

The character has an extremely flawed worldview that I in no way agree with (and although that should probably be pretty obvious, you really don’t know with this fandom). All this post is for is to analyse certain traits that are assigned to him, and figure out through logical reasoning whether they’re a mischaracterization or not.

And as far as the evidence goes; c!Dream isn't obsessed with c!Tommy, he is obsessed with his goal, and he sees Tommy as a big obstacle to achieving it, which makes him focus on him. These feelings he puts on display are an illusion to distract people from his real goal so they don't know how to get in his way - because, just like cc!Dream said, he “likes to withhold information; withhold plans; and withhold feelings” from everyone else.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (March 8/2021) - Michelle

While Foolish is kept busy with Tubbo and Ranboo’s mansion commission, Ponk prepares for the attack. A mysterious friend has given him supplies.

Puffy attempts to bring Michael a friend with Sam and Bad and the situation turns sour.

---

VOD LINKS:

Ponk

Foolish

Tubbo

Ranboo

Connor’s LORE and DRAMA

Captain Puffy

Eret

---

- Ponk logs in at Jack’s estate

- He assures chat he doesn’t plan to kill Michael

- As he walks through the mainland to L’manhole, he gives a monologue:

“Now chat...listen here...the Egg? It’s told me to do all these things, and you know what? It’s right! It’s right. And people like to say ‘oh, you keep doing this, you won’t have any friends!’ you know? But I have friends...I have friends in high places, okay? I’ve had long-lasting friendships formed. Long-lasting friendships...”

- He looks down at the birthday area in the river by what used to be L’manburg, reminiscing.

- Ponk has formulated a plan..he makes his way to the Oogway Shrine.

“I have lost so much. But you know what I haven’t lost? A friend. And he’s left me a gift.”

- Ponk digs underneath the furnaces to find a chest just beneath the ground.

“They have left me a present...and you know what that present’s gonna be?”

“The cries of another person as they lose something special to them, as I have lost.”

“People need to learn about pain. About losing things. About losing things that they’ve spent so hard building...”

- He opens the chest to find two stacks of TNT, blaze rods and glass.

- He says he’s been preparing for the attack on March 10th, the ultimatum he gave Foolish. Foolish is to join the Egg or else.

“I will be known as fear from now on, okay?"

- In light of Interational Women’s Day, he creates a celebratory board by the Community House.

- Foolish continues work on the mansion

- Connor comes online with the intention to kill someone for LORE and DRAMA.

- He heads over to Snowchester, asking HBomb to hang out with no armor (platonically)

- Foolish fires H from being his manager

- He gets into negotiations over the mansion and asks if Snowchester wants a nuclear arsenal. They say they already have one.

- Connor plots with HBomb. H distracts the others while Connor steals Foolish’s mansion beacon and starts running with the speed of Sonic.

- Ranboo kills him. Canon?

- Connor curses the mansion’s land with his necromancy powers and walks out

(Connor has necromancy powers and he revived Jschlatt)

- Connor walks back home

- Ranboo reveals his Syndicate codename: Lethe

- Puffy reveals her new skin!

- She goes to see Michael with Bad, planning on giving Michael a piglin friend since, when Tubbo and Ranboo aren’t on, Michael is lonely in his rom. Ranboo joins, appearing in the room, and tells her to leave. Michael is fragile.

- Puffy tells Ranboo that she’s bringing Michael a gift. Tubbo joins as well. They tell them to leave and disappear.

- Sam tells them to stay and mentions that he almost killed Michael that one time.

- Puffy goes into the Nether to look for a baby piglin with Sam. Sam suggests they name it Michael and kill it to pretend they killed the real Michael, or get both of them in the same room and have Tubbo and Ranboo kill one of them, not knowing which is which.

- Instead, they name it Michelle and transport the piglin to Snowchester.

- Ranboo joins and tells them to leave. Sam plots on how they can drop Michelle through the roof. Bad, Puffy and Sam try to negotiate with Ranboo to bring Michelle to Michael but Ranboo says no.

Ranboo: I am being nice

Ranboo: If I wasn’t nice you would be gone already

Ranboo: Now leave

Sam: What does that mean?

Ranboo: Nothing.

- Puffy and Bad try to hide behind rose bushes. Sam is offended by the threat.

Sam: I will come in there. And I will slaughter that piglin. I want an apology

Ranboo: Sam you know this is all I have

Sam: You threatened me

Ranboo: You know what I have to go through. You threatened them.

Sam: I wouldn’t actually kill Michael you know that.

- Bad and Puffy attempt to back away from the situation. 

- Sam and Ranboo tell each other that they forgive them

- Bad proposes they try and get Michelle onto the roof.

Sam: What if we are extra careful

Ranboo: You should know about not taking risks for the greater good sam

- Sam tells Ranboo the story of a man in Capernaum who was lowered through a roof as well. Ranboo insists that they can’t take any risks.

- Sam and the others start trying to fling the boat onto the roof. Ranboo starts attacking. They try to insist that the piglin will make people happy.

Ranboo: Sam what will make me happy is everything staying as it is. No risks. I am finally happy. 

Ranboo: Let me have something stay the same.

Sam: Change is the only constant.

Ranboo: Please.

Ranboo: Sam. You know what I had to go through.

- Sam suggests they just kill Michelle. He points out that they abducted a child and brought it all the way here so that Michael could have a friend, but now this piglin is alone as well.

Ranboo: How can you preach about protecting the children of this server yet disrespect their wishes.

- Sam and the others say they’ll leave Michelle on the roof, where she and Michael can communicate. Whether to kill Michelle is up to Ranboo. Ranboo tells them to just take Michelle.

Sam: There is only one way for Michelle to leave, and I think you know what that is Ranboo. If you REALLY want that, I will do it.

- Ranboo tells them to take her back in the boat, but Sam says they can’t.

Ranboo: You are just the same as the people you preached against. And I don’t think you are willing to see that. Because everyone is right in their own view.

- Ranboo asks them to take Michelle away. Puffy asks if Michelle could stay in her Snowchester house.

Ranboo: I can’t have another thing used against me. Just like Michael is right now.

- Puffy, Bad, Sam and Eret transport Michelle into Puffy’s house. Michelle now has a new home in Snowchester.

---

Upcoming events remain the same.

[introvertguide]

High Noon (1952); AFI #27

Our next film up for review is the not-so-standard western, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards and took home four trophies for Best Actor, Best Editing, Best Music, and Best Song. Westerns at the time were generally focused on the flawless hero who everybody loves and the citizens that band together to fight the bad guy. The good guys were all good and the bad guys were all bad. This is not the case with current film and it was one of the few Westerns nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing (although these were the awards that the movie did not win). It is a genre film that completely went against type. I really want to continue but I realize that now is the time to go through the plot, so let us first give the warning...

SPOILER ALERT!!! I AM GOING TO SPOIL THE WHOLE MOVIE AND IT IS WELL WORTH SEEING SO DON’T READ FURTHER UNTIL YOU WATCH ON YOUR OWN!!! IT IS ONLY 85 MINUTES LONG SO GIVE IT A CHANCE!!! IT IS VERY WORTH YOUR TIME TO SEE WITHOUT IT BEING SPOILED!!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Remember that the film has a run time of 85 minutes and this is the amount of time that passes in the movie. With this in mind, there will be no “meanwhile” or “while that was happening...” in this review. Everything is shown that matters and assume that time is passing for everyone in town whether or not they are on screen.

Three men meet outside Hadleyville, a small town in the New Mexico Territory, are gathered and ride over to the train station to wait for a train. The scene switches to the retirement and wedding of Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper), newly married to Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly), as he kisses his bride and turns in his badge and gun. The happy couple will soon depart for a new life to raise a family and run a store in another town. However, word arrives that Frank Miller, a vicious outlaw whom Kane sent to jail, has been released and will arrive on the noon train. Miller's gang—his younger brother Ben (Sheb Wooley), Jack Colby (Lee Van Cleef), and Jim Pierce (Robert Wilke)—are the three men awaiting his arrival at the train station. It is not directly stated by the three men, but it is clear that Miller intends to exact revenge since Kane put him in jail previously. A glance at the clock shows it is 10:45. This is especially a problem since the new marshal won’t arrive until the next day and Kane doesn’t want to leave the town with no protection.

Amy is a devout Quaker and pacifist so the solution is simple—leave town before Miller arrives. They actually start out in their buggy, but Kane turns around and takes them both back to the jailhouse because Kane insists on facing Miller and his men. "They're making me run", he tells her. "I've never run from anybody before." At this point, it is assumed that Kane will get his deputies and form a posse to face Miller. He is the beloved retiring lawman and the town had banded together before to put the man in jail in the first place. Amy gives Kane an ultimatum saying she is leaving on the noon train whether he joins her or not. Kane says he has to stay so they basically split up literally minutes after being married by the Justice of the Peace. 

Kane finds one man that immediately volunteers and then goes to the deputy Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges). Pell won’t help unless Kane puts in a good word and actually quits because he believes that Kane didn’t promote him to Marshall because of some old grudge over a woman. Kane denies even knowing about the relationship and Pell turns in his star and quits. Another person that Kane thought would help is Judge Percy Mettrick (Otto Kruger), who he finds packing up to get out of town because he doesn’t believe he will survive. The judge is the one who actually sentenced Miller, and believes the outlaw will want him dead.

Further dialogue reveals that Will Kane had stolen the lover of Frank Miller, a Mexican women named Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), and this was what prompted Miller to go wild and convinced the town to have him arrested. Kane is no longer with Ramirez and was not aware that she had been sleeping with the deputy. All together, it seems like Kane is not that great of a guy and that Miller has a legitimate grudge with him. The whole town knows this and some of them want Miller to kill Kane, so nobody will help him and he is again encouraged to leave. One friend named Sam Fuller hides in his house and has his wife cover for him. The old marshal is played by freaking Lon Chaney and he won’t help because he notes that members of law enforcement die and nobody really cares. Nobody at the church will help and even the one guy who volunteered backs out because he realizes it will be a slaughter. The only person who openly offers to help is a young boy, but Kane rejects that help and tells the boy to go home.

All this happens and is taking up the time before the noon train. Helen realizes that one of the men she loved will die and the lack of town support upsets her. Amy goes up to meet Helen and the two decide that they will go on the noon train together. Ramirez says she would stay with Kane and not abandon him, but Amy tells her own story of tragedy (she watched her father and brother die in a shoot out). 

Deputy Pell again expresses his anger at not being named the new marshal and so he corners Kane in the horse stables and demands that he be made made the marshal and Kane ride out of town. Their conversation becomes an argument, and then a fist fight. Kane finally knocks his former deputy senseless. Forlorn, Kane returns to his office to write out his will as the clock hits high noon.

Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) arrives on the noon train and his group of men are waiting for him with a gun belt. Helen and Amy get on the train as the outlaws ride into town. There is a very famous overhead shot which shows Kane all alone in the streets with a genuine look of fear, assuming that all of his friends have deserted him and he is about to die. The gang walks into town and starts shooting at Kane, which Amy hears from the train and she decides to go back and help. Kane is able to gun down Ben Miller and Colby but is wounded and hides in the stable. He escapes by hanging on to a fleeing horse but is again cornered by the outlaws at the jailhouse. Amy runs into town and takes a gun from one of the bodies and hides. She is able to sneak up and shoot Pierce from behind. Frank Miller sees this and takes her hostage to call out Kane. The marshal comes out and Amy scratches at Miller to let her go and Kane gets the opportunity to gun down Frank Miller.

Kane helps his bride to her feet and they embrace. As the townspeople emerge and cluster around him, Kane throws his marshal's star in the dirt, glares at the crowd, and departs with Amy on their wagon.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I keep harping on about how this was not like any standard western of the time and I should probably explain more clearly now that the plot is known. Movies at the time focused on the American marshal as a pseudo superhero. They were honest and always on the side of good, they could ride horses and outshoot any outlaw, everybody loved them except bad guys, and women swooned in their wake. They also tended to be ruggedly handsome, tough as nails, and fearless. The antagonist, on the other hand, was completely wrong and had bad moral character. These bad guys mistreated women, disobeyed the law on purpose, stole, robbed, cheated, and had ugly scars. They traveled in groups in an attempt to intimidate people, but they were no match for the single good guy. But this movie changed everything.

An old marshal who just retired to marry a much younger woman sticks around town to fight a man whom he convicted to die. This villain had an issue with the old marshal because the lawman had stolen his woman. The deputy won’t stand with the retired marshal after being passed over for the job opening and many of the town members won’t help because they think the marshal should leave and let the new marshal deal with the problem. The marshal is scared and alone when he takes on the villains and it is his young bride who actually comes to his aid while he cowers in the jailhouse. At the end, the marshal throws his star on the ground and leaves without saying anything else. 

All members of the cast need to be commend on acting against character type because the general sense of fear at what was coming explained the realistic choice of most of the town running away. It is almost comical when all of the villains are dead and the entire town comes pouring into the streets and it is obvious that there were more than enough men to make a posse and easily protect the town. But the only person that came to help when it counted was a female 20-year-old pacifist Quaker. 

It has been noted by directors and film critics that this was not a very strong performance by Grace Kelly, especially when next to veteran Mexican actress Katy Jurado. Alfred Hitchcock later noted that she played a very meek part for such a strong role, but saw something in her (likely her blond hair and good looks) and gave her a much more fitting part when he cast her for Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. 

I could not find the film on any of the subscription services when I was looking to watch it so I had the DVD shipped through Netflix. This is a good way to go because I got to watch some DVD extras and learned that everybody and their dad was attached to the making of this film. The cinematographer was Floyd Crosby, the father of rock/folk singer David Crosby. The Deputy was played by Lloyd Bridges, who had two young children on set, Beau and Jeff Bridges. According to the extras, Beau was actually in the barn loft watching during the fight between Kane and his deputy. The singer of the theme song was country musician Tex Ritter, father of actor John Ritter. A very rich history of Hollywood royalty in this single movie.

Many of the actors and writers involved in the film were concerned that they were going to get black listed for being part of this production. It was the early 50s and the Red Scare was at its height in the United States. Many actors and screenwriters were being publicly prosecuted for committing acts against America, and any movie that did not actively promote patriotism was in danger of being accused of being communist. It was a bad time for Westerns that were innovative or went against the norm, which partially explains complaints that many films in the genre during the 50s were the same. This film that depicted a lawman sticking to what he believed in and finding all his friends shunning him was interpreted by some as promoting communism or attacking McCarthyism. Director Zinnemann did say he had all this on his mind during the filming and would consider it an allegory for the Hollywood blacklisting, but that was not necessarily the point from the start.

So should this movie be on the AFI 100? Absolutely! It is part of the most American of genres at a focal point in the country’s history, yet flies in the face of all the standards of that genre. Despite this, it still was nominated for a bunch of awards and highly acclaimed by liberal and conservative leaning viewers alike. The movie is full of Old Hollywood greatness as far as the stars and the crew. The AFI list was created for innovative Americana like this. Would I recommend it? Absolutely! Just the innovate shots and the use of real time alone makes for a great watch. The story is great and the acting is great. There are few movies on the AFI list with pacing this good and it is a very easy film to watch and enjoy. Highly recommend.

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Verboten 7 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary:   AU. When Danny was five years old, he went missing for 2 weeks. In the years that follow, his family tried to make sense of what happened, only for the truth to be discovered years later.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, language. Be prepared for some very weird things

Chapter warning: Mentions of blood

Parings: Danny/Sam

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr. This fic is very heavily inspired by folklore surrounding mysterious wilderness disappearances

Chapter 7

Danny was unnerved by the turn of events. After his ultimatum, Plasmius somehow pulled him through the floor and sat him back at the same table as before. If he had to describe the experience, it was a mix of having his stomach drop while his body went entirely numb, and if he was honest, for a brief moment, it felt like his body didn't exist. It left him chilled to the core, although he wasn't certain if that chill was mental, physical, or a mixture of the two.

Plasmius didn't seem bothered by the action, which would make sense if he really was a ghost. However, it was clear he wasn't in the same cordial mood as before. Instead, he seemed both impatient and distracted at the same time. He didn't speak. He just stared at Danny as if he was waiting for something.

"You're creeping me out," Danny told him when the staring got too much to handle. "Look, you wanted to talk to me, and it's not like I can go anywhere." Like before, he was once again stuck to the chair, but this time he noticed there seemed to be a faintly glowing green substance. If he had to guess, that was what was keeping him in place. "How about you explain how we originally met? You said you helped me when I got lost before, right?"

"That I did," Plasmius replied as his posture relaxed. "It's not every day a young boy appears at the door steps of my castle. While I'm not exactly sure what lured you to this realm first, I do know you appeared frightened and asked for my assistance. Normally, I would have turned a child away, but something about you caught my interest so I provided you with food, shelter, and entertainment until a weak spot, a portal so to speak, between the realms once again formed."

"You had piqued my interest so much that I kept a watch on you over the years," he continued as watched Danny closely. "I believe you may have caught glimpses of me, but we didn't meet face to face again until you wandered into the woods behind your house one particular day. Once again, I entertained you until you could make it back on your own."

Plasmius' story seemed plausible, but there was something about it that was bothering Danny. Something important was being omitted, but he was at a loss to understand what that might be. What would make this ghost so interested in him of all people? "Are you sure you have the right person? I mean, I'm pretty average."

The ghost gave him an incredulous look. "You are the only son of doctors Madeline and Jack Fenton, are you not? Aren't you the same boy who went missing for a week when you were out berry picking with your aunt and sister?"

"I am, but…"

"But you do not understand why you're here, correct?" When Danny hesitantly nodded, Plasmius gave him a chilling grin. "Simple, I've been looking for an heir. Over the years, I've had plenty of workers and servants, but none of them have met the criteria. You, on the other hand, have the potential that only a handful ever have."

"I still don't understand…" Danny was sure Plasmius was now playing with him, and it was giving him a headache. Actually, was it a headache? Or did he still feel off from going through the floor earlier? He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.

"You'll understand in due time." There was a strange pause. When Plasmius spoke again, he seemed concerned. "Daniel? Daniel, what's wrong? Butter biscuits. You appeared to be responding so well previously… Is this a backlash?"

Danny felt his body suddenly lurk forward. He barely registered that his back was no longer stuck to the chair as his vision swam. In an attempt to calm his head, he rested his head in his hands and breathed steadily. His body shuddered every so often as chills started, and a groan escaped him. This was the worst timing for him to get sick.

He could vaguely sense that Plasmius was now beside him. The ghost carefully touched his shoulder and then forehead before unexpectedly lifting him. When he tried to protest, Plasmius ignored him and plunged them both through the floor.

….

"How else? I'm the one who took him."

A creeping fear gripped Sam. Although she had known the specter should not be trusted, she hadn't quite expected him to be forthcoming regarding deaths. Although, she did had to acknowledge that death might not be as big of a taboo to a ghost, it did nothing to ease her concerns.

"I find it best to test my plans ahead of time," Plasmius continued. He seemed to be enjoying her and Tucker's fear. "And with such a varied success rate, it was better to use as many test subjects as possible. Hmm… I forgot it is possible for Daniel to lose part, if not all of his memory. Should I wait to act until after the process finishes?" He continued to mutter to himself for a few moments before he grew very still.

"Is it just me," she whispered, making Tucker jump, "or does it seem like he's distracted?"

"I think you're right," he agreed as he gave her a searching look, "and, that's going to help us how?"

"He might have keys or something. I mean, he locked us in here somehow."

"Sam, he didn't use the door, and I don't think attempting to tackle someone who openly admitted to murder will end up going too well for us."

"Do you have any better ideas?"

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds before Tucker sighed. "On three?"

Normally, Sam would say something smart regarding her victory, but this wasn't the time for it. "On three," she agreed.

Instead of their normal verbal countdown, Sam used her fingers to count. When she reached three, the two of them lunged at Plasmius. Instead of hitting something solid, Sam felt like she had been plunged into a bucket of ice water before she and Tucker crashed into the ground. She was stunned for a second before she glanced towards the ghost. He was still there. How…?

As if he read her mind, the ghost sneered at her. "Such a pity. That may have worked on a human, but if you didn't know, most ghosts can become intangible. But enough of these games, I have need of your assistance. It appears Daniel isn't doing quite as well as I hoped."

"What did you do to him?" Sam demanded as she scrambled to her feet.

"I haven't done a thing!" Plasmius pinched the bridge of his nose before sighing. "I don't have time for this. Come here." Sam and Tucker barely had time to react before Plasmius lunged forward, grabbed them by the arm, and pulled them through the floor.

After the freezing sensation subsided, Sam glanced around and gasped. She and Tucker were now in what appeared to be a modern lab, and in the middle of it was what appeared to be an examination table. After a double take, she realized there was a second Plasmius hovering over it.

The Plasmius who brought them to the room moved to the other one as disappeared into it. The now singular Plasmius turned to look at them, and by doing so, she had a better view of the examination table and who was on it.

"Danny!" she and Tucker shouted. She tried to run towards him, but Plasmius blocked their way.

"Don't shout," he snapped at them. "Daniel is in a precarious situation."

"Oh, so now you show concern?"

"I told you, I don't wish any harm on him. However," he glanced behind him at the unconscious boy. He was very still, but his shuddering breaths indicated he was still alive. However, his appearance seemed to ripple. His hair was still white, but it would momentarily flicker to black. His skin now seemed to have turned a strange tan, almost the same color as very old paper, but it would fade back to the healthy and pale skin tone Danny naturally had, "his body can't figure out which form it needs to take, and I can't have him completely dying on me."

Sam shared a look with Tucker. That statement didn't make any sense. If he was a ghost and wanted Danny to stay with him, why wouldn't he want Danny to die?

"What exactly do you need us for?" Tucker hesitantly questioned.

"Right now, I simply need you to watch him. There is research I must do before I take further action." A strange, almost smug grin appeared on his face which gave Sam the creeps. "Perhaps it was an unexpected blessing you ended up coming as well. If Daniel's condition continues going south, then I might be able to use your blood to strengthen him."

"Our… our what?"

"You have no idea how much power the essence of life holds for the dead. Putting that aside, that is not something I would consider unless it becomes absolutely necessary as Daniel would not appreciate it, no matter how noble the cause." He regarded them carefully for a moment. "I will return shortly." Plasmius took a few floating steps forward before he faded out of sight.

Sam let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. That… that think was seriously considering using their blood? As sick as it sounded, she had a nagging feeling she had come across that same concept before. Something about providing clarity? She quickly brushed the idea aside. She was probably just remembering something that came out of one of her gothic horror stories, and fiction was not what she needed at that moment.

Now that Plasmius was gone, she carefully approached Danny. His brows were furrowed, and he wore a slight frown as he rested, but there was a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. If it wasn't for the weird thing his skin and hair was doing, she would have guessed he was just fighting off a fever. Maybe that's what was wrong. Maybe his body was fighting off some ghostly bug. It was as just as plausible as anything else this world had to offer.

"Danny?" she hesitantly whispered as she gently shook his shoulder. When he didn't respond, she began a little more forceful as she tried to ignore how cold he felt.

"Wha…?" Danny's voice was incredibly sleepy as he finally stirred. He tried to sit up, but immediately fell back to laying flat. "What happened? Did someone catch… urgh… the license plate on that truck?"

Despite herself, she let out a weak chuckle. "I think that's one thing ghosts might not have. How are you feeling?"

"I dunno… I've heard of ghost trucks before." Now that he was more awake, it was obvious Danny was not doing well. Even though he was still trying to joke, his voice was weak and soft. When his eyes opened and flickered towards her, she noticed they were now a dull green. "Sam? When did you…?" His eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to sit up. Worried, she tried to help him. "Where's Tucker? Where did Plasmius… ugh…"

As Danny held his head, Tucker came over to him. "You might want to take it easy. We're perfectly fine, but you look like Dash got a hold of you that one time when he was nearly suspended after breaking that freshman's leg."

"That bad? Plasmius didn't do anything to you?"

"I mean, he did lock us in a room and kinda threatened us."

Danny's eyes momentarily became a brighter green at Tucker's statement. "That asshole! I thought he was just interested in me." He tried to inch towards the edge of the table but stopped as he swayed. "Woah…"

"Dude, I mean it, you should take it easy right now. We're fine. He didn't actually hurt us, yet."

"Tucker! What he means is that Plasmius was debating what to do with us, but since he seems to want to stay on your good side, he's not interested in hurting us." Sam deliberately left out Plasmius' mention about them possibly becoming like him and whatever Danny might be. Did Danny even know what was happening to him? Biting her lip, she hesitantly asked, "Err, what happened to you?"

"I… I really don't know. I think Plasmius just talked to me, but I don't know what happened between that weird forest… and… and waking up at that table. I started feeling sick after he phased me through the floor after he showed me you two were okay." He glanced around. "Where are we exactly? Is this a lab?"

"It is," Tucker responded. Sam looked over to see he was fiddling with one of the computers. "I finally figured out that this is where that signal from earlier was coming from, but I don't understand why a ghost would have computers like this." He tapped a few buttons which caused the screen in front of him to change. "Well, that was easy. Let's see what he's up to?" After a few more taps, a folder opened. "Oh? Oh my god….!"

Concerned by the tone of his voice, Sam went over to investigate. It was a decision she was fairly certain she was going to regret for the rest of her life. The images on the screen… they had to be some of Plasmius' failed experiments. "I'm going to be sick. Tucker! Change it!"

"What? What is it?" Danny called from the table.

"It… it's nothing. Don't worry about it." Tucker quickly minimized the folder. Catching he didn't completely log out of it, she sent him a questioning glance. He just pointed towards his PDA, which looked like it was downloading something. With a start, she realized he was downloading the files onto his PDA. "In case we make it out of here," he explained as he opened a second folder.

This time, it just appeared to be a bunch of employee profiles. However, there were two major company logos that kept appearing on the profiles: VladCo and DALV. "Wait, are these Vlad's employees? Why would a ghost have files on them?"

"Sam, I think these are most of the victims," Tucker whispered to her. "If… if I didn't know better, it almost seems like he's been specifically targeting them."

A strange idea crossed Sam's mind. It was so incredulous, but that the same time, she couldn't shake it. "Do… do you think Vlad is working for or with Plasmius?"

Tucker gave her a long hard look. "I really hope that's not the case, but how else would Plasmius get technology like this?"

"And didn't Plasmius say he arranged this meeting with Danny? And we saw Vlad at camp. Was he there to double check things?"

"Guys?" Danny's hesitant and distressed question brought Sam and Tucker's attention back to him. He was staring at his hand, or where his hand was supposed to be. It was gone, but there was no sign of blood or trauma. It was just gone. After a moment, it faded back into visibility. "Guys, what's happening to me?"

"I… I really don't know Danny," Sam truthfully replied. "It might have something to do with us being here. I mean, Plasmius did say this was the land of the dead." She tried not to wince as she fibbed. If Danny was in the dark regarding what happened to him, she really didn't want to alarm him, especially when she didn't know to fix it.

Tucker seemed to catch her reasoning as he added, "It might stop when we get out of here."

Danny tried to glare at them but was unable to muster much of one as he swayed again. "Guys, I know you're hiding something. What's… hey, what was that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Shh! Listen!"

A grinding sound slowly filled the room. The three looked around to try to find a source, but it seemed to come from thin air. After a moment, Sam caught movement. One of the floor's large flagstones was beginning to shift.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note:

Drawing back into mythology/legends for the blood thing. If you travel all the way back to ancient Greece, there was a belief that the way for a ghost or shade to recover its senses and sense of self was to provide it with blood. This can be human or animal, and this is actually referenced in The Odyssey. This is because the Greeks believed the spirit and blood were closely tied together, which is also seen in Vampiric lore.

This concept of providing some form of essence to other realms continued, but as time passed, it became more associated with food offerings. Those of the other realms did not 'eat' the food, but instead they took what is best phrased as the vitality, essence, or energy of it. This force, for lack of a better term, is sometimes referred to as foyson or toradh. The food offering varies from culture to culture. And interestingly, if food was not offered, then the otherworldly forces took revenge and/or brought misfortune.

So, for this story, "food" is very important… and I don't think I originally set out to do that. From what I understand, most of you have guessed Danny is still a 'halfa' for this story, and since, like previously mentioned for this AU, food is the easiest to acquire, use, and understand, Plasmius is using the duality between what's found in the realm of the dead and the world of the living to try to keep Danny's two halves balanced during his transition. Human blood is a more potent carrier of this essence, so as things go south, he's considering it.

Also, per this story, the blood thing is yet another reason humans are sometimes taken by ghosts. There are a lot of possible reasons for abductions in this story.

[katsidhe]

15.09 vs. 11.10: Chuck, Lucifer, and the Art of Persuading Sam Winchester

15.09 gave me strong 11.10 vibes, for obvious reasons. And so, because I had 11.10 in my mind while watching 15.09, I immediately started thinking about why Sam capitulated relatively easily in 15.09, while in 11.10, facing worse circumstances and a more convincing argument, Sam did not.

Here are my lengthy thoughts about that comparison . This is also a thinly veiled excuse for me to compare and contrast Lucifer and Chuck. (What a great family.)

Let’s start out with the observation that Chuck and Lucifer both care a lot about their respective images.

Lucifer’s wanted to be regarded as plenty of different things—a wronged son, a martyr, a terrifying power, a teller of harsh truths, king of all evil, a good father. He plays an active role in his own mythos; he wants to be the center of attention. He’s the hero of his own story, and no one else gets a say.  

Chuck, instead, takes a behind-the-scenes role. While he cares just as much as or more about PR than his son does, he wants to be viewed as both lofty and benevolent. He wants to be so removed from mortal affairs that moral codes don’t apply to him, and yet also, paradoxically, be seen as magnanimous and kind. He’s not the hero; he’s the Wizard of Oz offering gracious intervention, and he’s the bard recording tales with a spin of poetic untruthfulness.

Chuck is less personally cruel—he doesn’t do his own dirty work, he hangs his righteousness on small rescues and insignificant kindnesses; he shrugs and points out his creations are free to make their own choices in the death mazes he designs. He pretends to think he can take honest feedback. He’s even squeamish about hurting Sam.

Chuck, like his son, likes to think he’s not the bad guy. Lucifer will try to persuade people to do what he wants, but failing that, he won’t hesitate to coerce them. Chuck usually likes to think he doesn’t do the same thing, but his snapping point is just as perilously close to the surface. In 15.09, Chuck tries force before he tries psychology, the opposite of Lucifer in 11.10. And this isn’t so surprising. Chuck is unaccustomed to being defied—every significant time it’s happened historically, it ends with the offending party stewing in cosmic lockup rather than seeing the error of their ways—whereas Lucifer, who whipped up a full-on rebellion back in the day, is extremely accustomed to using persuasion.

Unlike Chuck, Lucifer doesn’t care about whether people think he’s nice, or generous. He commits all sorts of cruelties that he views as either deserved, minor, or morally irrelevant, because he thinks his higher objectives are justification for pretty much anything. He hurts people who’ve hurt him before, or he hurts people whose lives he considers insignificant, or he hurts people in service to a ~philosophical point~ that he thinks is important.

So, when it comes time to persuade Sam, Lucifer is focused on himself. He makes explicit the case that what he can bring to the table is the most important part of the deal: he can beat Amara. He’s selling himself as the hero, as a power that Sam cannot deny.

Chuck isn’t selling himself. Nor is he offering a wizard’s solution, some kind of deus ex machina that’s surely within his power. Instead, he’s just trying to demoralize Sam, and frankly he’s kinda bad at it. His torture is subpar and he knows it. His threats are all ones Sam’s heard or even lived before. But it’s still important to him that he be perceived as not just a storyteller, but the storyteller. His sale, like Lucifer’s, is still predicated on power—an ill-defined power over the narrative that Sam doesn’t understand.

Chuck doesn’t understand Sam half so well as Lucifer does. Chuck’s pitch is a threat against Sam’s future, and it’s one that might have been a lot more devastating ten years ago for Sam—the “your family will die hunting” and even the “you’ll become a MONSTER, Sam” ultimatums are much better tailored for early seasons Sam than late. It smacks of the same slavishness to traditional Winchester Tropes (tm) that had Chuck trying unsuccessfully to get Lilith in a 20-something vessel to seduce Dean: he doesn’t really get that his characters have changed and aged.

In fairness, Sam doesn’t understand Chuck terribly well either. The one bit of insight Sam manages is realizing that Chuck doesn’t like getting his own hands bloody, but he’s wrong-footed by Chuck’s insistence that, actually, the vamp!chesters ending isn’t one of his favorites. Sam’s obviously uncomfortable with being unable to assess the scope of Chuck’s knowledge and plans. He can’t tell what’s a story draft and what isn’t, or which kinds of suffering Chuck wants for him and which he doesn’t. Neither does Sam have the same personal spite for Chuck that he has for Lucifer—and this more than anything else is the reason he allows himself to capitulate to Chuck’s threat.

Lucifer’s pitch in 11.10 was based on the past. He uses a litany of Sam’s accomplishments and weaknesses to lean heavily on Sam’s guilt complex. His arguments boil down to this: You can’t trust yourself to make decisions. Your only real reason to say no is your selfish fear of me. You’d doom the planet just to spite me, you’d make a choice thinking only of your own discomfort and everyone in the world will suffer for it.

And because he knows Sam so well, these hits land immediately. It’s a good pitch, well-calculated—Sam doesn’t trust himself, Sam is afraid, and Sam knows he’s not capable of a rational decision under these extreme circumstances.  

But it doesn’t work. Because frankly, it all lands a little TOO well, well enough that Sam’s able to throw out the whole thing out of, basically, sheer spite. Instead of being swayed by these arguments that he can’t refute, Sam finds himself willing to admit that, yeah, Lucifer’s right, Sam IS willing to risk the Darkness to spite him; he hates and fears him enough that he’s willing to rely on faith in some other option, ANY other option, as long as Lucifer doesn’t get another shot at the world. Sam says, more or less, “okay, fine, you’re right, but have you considered FUCK YOU.”

No matter the logic, no matter the emotions, no matter the carrots or sticks, Sam can always rely on the core principle that “Lucifer should not be allowed to get what he wants, because screw that guy.”

But Chuck’s not Lucifer. Sam doesn’t have the same bone-deep conviction that whatever Chuck wants will inevitably make everything worse. And that’s why Chuck’s pitch, though it gets a C+ from me compared to Lucifer’s solid A, works.

It’s not even clear whether Chuck’s forecast is a threat or a prediction—is he saying without narrative interference, chaos will inevitably win out? Or is he claiming that he will cause this monster outbreak intentionally? Either way, Sam supposes, it doesn’t really matter. He believes the threat, as much as he ever believed the doom of the Darkness. And while he knows he might be able to survive it or find a way around it, he really, really doesn’t want to be forced to, not if he can avoid it. Defying Chuck is neither as necessary nor as clear-cut as defying Lucifer.

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of Marvel: Week of February 5th, 2020

Best of this Week: Miles Morales: Spider-Man #15 (Legacy #255) - Saladin Ahmed, Javier Garrón, David Curiel and Cory Petit 

I had a really difficult time choosing between this and X-Men/Fantastic Four #1.

Both stories were great this week and I was tempted to choose the latter because up to this point, I hadn't really been enjoying this Spider-Man run very much. Of course, here we are though. There was just something about how this issue pulled everything together that made me appreciate the story that Saladin Ahmed set out to tell and how Miles is finally growing into the hero that fans always knew he was. Everything just felt so right amidst this roller coaster of an “Ultimatum” arc.  Even in the face of tremendous adversity Miles overcomes.

Throughout this series, Ahmed has been sprinkling small bits of an arc to readers with Miles constantly being late for class, tired and even being placed on academic probation by his Principal, Mr. Dutcher. Of course it's easy to paint Dutcher as potentially a racist due to how much he's had it in for Miles throughout the story, almost to very ludicrous points in his attempts to kick Miles out of the school. Things seek to finally take a turn when we find out that Dutcher found the notebook that Miles had been writing in with all of his Spider-Man adventure thoughts.

Garrón makes sure to draw Dutcher with the worst, "I've got your ass now" looks I've ever seen with one hand placed in his underarm while he taunts Miles with his journal. Curiel colors things ominously with light shadows going over most of his face as he prepares to ream Miles, but suddenly Brooklyn Visions, Miles' school, is attacked by a horde of new Green Goblins. Garrón makes them look threatening as hell as they terrorize the student body and the teachers with destroyed cars and fire in the background.

Without hesitation, Miles tries to swoop in and save them, but the Goblins find him and Dutcher, rounding them up with the rest of the hostages. The leader Goblin demands that the school hand over Spider-Man while threatening the staff. Garrón and Curiel sell this by portraying the Goblin as a towering beast with one green foot planted on the head of one of the teachers, his grey toenails curling over him. They’re certainly not as intimidating as the Main Green Goblin of the Ultimate Universe, but their numbers and power do cast as at least mildly formidable foes, at least for this issue.

One of the black teachers steps up and offers to remain the only hostage if they let the kids and other teachers go. I really like this character as I think he's the one that assigned the journal project and he's been acting as something of a mentor to Miles throughout. He really cares about his students and colleagues even though he's terrified and he's the first of many to inspire courage in this issue.

Just as the Goblin is about to absolutely RIP the teacher's head off, Dutcher steps up and says that his colleague doesn't know where Spider-Man is and says that he does. Everyone remembers that moment in the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie where J. Jonah Jameson risks his life for Peter so that he can escape - well, after giving a telling look to Miles, Dutcher claims that he himself Spider-Man before getting smacked into a wall. This is an amazing turning point for the character as we’ve only seen him be annoying and antagonistic to Miles the entire time that we’ve known him. With one small act of courage, he kinda reverses it all when he could have just given into his worse thoughts.

Garrón and Curiel frame this scene excellently with one shot of Miles looking at Dutcher, with a light shining on his face, almost wondering what the right decision is. He may not like Miles too much, but he couldn't forgive himself if he gave the boy up. We get another shot over Dutcher's shoulder, shadows covering the other side of his face and Miles looking at him, afraid that he could have his identity exposed and die right there. With no dialogue these two panels say more than any word balloons could.

Ganke, Miles' best friend, decides to launch another distraction for Miles to suit up and our hero swings in with an amazing splash page by Garrón and Curiel. The students cheer, the Goblins grit their teeth in anger and Miles takes a dynamic pose as his webs make an excellent line for the our eyes to follow from Miles arms, his heroic symbol and his gymnast legs getting ready to kick the crap out of evil. The black and red suit stands out amongst the mostly greens and browns of the page, putting the focus mainly on him.

For the most part, the rest of the issue is Garrón and Curiel showcasing Spider-Man's Goblin Slaying skill while they try to take him down. He crashes through the wall of the school and Garrón emphasizes the weight and speed of the fight with debris and skid marks as Miles knocks two of the Goblins out, making them revert to human form. There's also a really good shot of the leader Goblin chucking dumbbells and gymnast posts at Spider-Man.

Curiel does an amazing job of coloring the action as things move from the brown of the basketball court, to the blues of the indoor pool in which Garrón draws an amazing few panels of them fighting in the water. As per Curiel's coloring style the water is fluid and beautiful and then gets excellent lighting as Spider-Man Venom Blasts the Goblin in the middle of it all. 

Cory Petit deserves heaps of credit for giving this entire book life with his incredible lettering and even more so this fight sequence. His transparent CRASHes and ZZZZZTs sell both the intensity of Miles and the Goblin going through walls and the power of Spider-Man’s Venom Blasts respectively. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the SPLASH as the Goblin falls into the pool or the transparent SLOSH that curves down the villain’s arm as he tries to punch at Miles in the water. 

The fight reaches its conclusion after Miles repeatedly kicks the Goblin in the face and finishes with an uppercut (Shoryuken!) over a red, pop-art background that could only have been made better with a POW sound effect. The Goblin, knowing he’s been defeated, jumps away and leaves Spider-Man until their next confrontation. Later on Miles and Mr. Dutcher resume their conversation from earlier and it is a far more tense situation, especially after all of the damage that occured to the school.

Surrounded by Curiel’s dim oranges from the fires raging in the background, Miles tries to explain all the things that he says in his Journal, but Mr. Dutcher calmly hands his student his journal back. Dutcher tells Miles that he “should report students engaging in dangerous activities to the administration,” but all that he read was a “fictional story.” For a moment, Dutcher gives Miles a look like he sees the fear on the young man’s face, but he rationalizes that if Miles hadn’t done what he did, there’s no telling if any of them would be alive.

Mr. Dutcher proves himself to be a trustworthy person because of the bravery that Miles showed him. Miles has saved Brooklyn, if not the whole of the world, many a time and he’s actually one of the more well liked Spider-People. Miles serves as an inspiration to the rest of Brooklyn Visions and the borough as a whole, but there’s also the downside of his presence. Somehow the Goblins were able to find out what school Spider-Man attended and that puts everyone in grave danger, so the question is… what will Miles do now? He did save the day and got taken off of academic probation, but the school is mostly in ruin. Much like Peter’s best victories, this one is pyrrhic.

Saladin Ahmed really knocked it out of the park with this issue. He does a really good job at scripting Miles and his supporting cast, making each of them seem courageous and sympathetic. Javier Garron and David Curiel’s art and colors have been some of the best parts of this run and they continue to stun with amazing visuals, making sure readers get really invested in the art and the story it tells along with the script.

I do also wonder if this story will play into the upcoming “Outlawed” event which sees teenaged superheroes getting banned from active operation after something terrible happens to Spider-Man friend, Kamala Khan aka. Ms. Marvel. The destruction of Brooklyn Visions could act as more fuel to the fire following this issue and it would be interesting to see how this could possibly contribute to that event. Maybe we’ll even see Miles unmask to the world? (Nah, it’s probably gonna be her, but who knows?) But I am excited at the very least for the rest of Ahmed’s run if the issues continue being this awesome.

[mittensmorgul]

So I have a question about 9x14. Bart talks to Cas about leading "an incursion against Raphael and his loyalists." So we can assume he's talking about season 6 stuff. But later, Bart also talks about how Cas was called back to the battlefield because "our leaders wanted those captives killed, and they knew you'd stand in the way of their order." I thought Cas was the main commander in season 6, since he led the rebellion. Why were there other "leaders" that acted against Cas's wishes?

(9x14 Anon here, I know these kind of questions are kind of inconsequential to the overall story but I still like to understand these small things, especially when it comes to Cas. Sorry if that’s not your thing, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to 🙃)

Hi there! I’ll start by saying that this is EXACTLY the sort of detail I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THE MOST. :’D I love picking at things like this and attempting to find the truth, as much as we can in a work of fiction.

I’ll start by saying I have already asked myself this question, even if I didn’t give myself a fully satisfying answer, back the week before 13.03 first aired, in October 2017.

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166754538920/rewatching-914-i-love-this-episode-so-much

The series of thoughts I posed in this rewatch are:

Who ordered Bartholomew to kill those captives, if Castiel had been the one to leave them in his care? Who other than Castiel had the right to give that order? Just like the demon Crowley left in charge of his own captives, who tortured and killed Crowley’s captives without Crowley’s orders to do so.

It is sort of hand-wavey of s6 as a whole, isn’t it? Then again, s6 sort of handwaved itself in 6.20… Or at least dropped the curtain on all the secrecy surrounding the war in heaven that we’d only heard hints and whispers of until that point. But it also leaves out the entire previous year of events between 5.22 and 6.01, which we only saw in a few occasional flashbacks.

6.20 does kind of give us a vague timeline for events post 5.22, but not really. We don’t know how much time passed between Dean showing up at Lisa’s and Cas watching him rake leaves, for example. Cas only describes the time span as “those first weeks back in Heaven,” so it could be two weeks, or it could be twelve weeks, or more, before Raphael pulled him over and gave him his ultimatum.

We know Cas was building alliances with other angels at that time. They sort of hastily tried to show us the extent of that with Rachel, that Cas had other trusted angels working with him, but we also have been shown since s4 that… angels are difficult to keep in line. Uriel, Balthazar, and of course Cas himself. And a lot of others. We’re left to wonder just how “in charge” of the “rebel faction” Cas actually was in s6, especially when TWO of his closest generals? Commanders? Whatever, the terminology isn’t important here, but their PERCEIVED position of power is. But Cas was BETRAYED TWICE in s6 by angels he was supposedly “in charge” of– Rachel and Balthazar.

But what was the perception of all the other angels that were being told they needed to choose a side in this war? The angels who didn’t WANT to choose a side? Maybe they were fine with the status quo. Maybe they just didn’t want to fight. Maybe they wanted nothing to do with an apocalypse, but Raphael was demanding it, and Cas and his cohorts were trying to stop it. But when Raphael began laying down ultimatums, like the one he issued Cas to basically fall in line or die, I think Cas and a LOT of his cohorts were likely able to win the loyalty of angels who’d otherwise have had nothing to do with Cas, you know?

How many of Cas’s legions were converted to his side, to his cause, by angels loyal to Rachel, or to Balthazar, or to any of the other angels Cas had gathered to his cause? How many of them thought Rachel’s ideas were more compelling that Cas’s? How many of them actually knew about Cas’s ACTUAL plans to take down Raphael, and how many thought this was really a fight between the “foot soldiers” in each faction?

We know, for example, that Rachel was supposed to be one of his closest Lieutenants (THAT’S the word I was looking for earlier… >.>). Rachel… had no real idea what Cas was up to until she began to uncover his larger schemes in 6.18 (i.e. the episode we both meet her for the first time, and Cas kills her for challenging his plan once she begins to understand the reality of it).

But Carver era spent a LOT of time showing us just how little we actually understood s6. I mean, three episodes before 9.14, we hear it from Cas’s own mouth:

SAM [slaps his hand away]: You’re a terrible liar.CASTIEL: That is not true. I once deceived and betrayed both you and your brother.

He’s talking about s6. That season where he spent very little time in Heaven, despite constantly telling the Winchesters that it was Heaven and his troubles there that had been keeping him away from them all season. It sounds very much like his strategy in Purgatory, you know? At least on the surface, how he ran away from Dean to draw off the Leviathan… because that’s what he was doing in the Raking Leaves scene in 6.20, too… everything to keep Dean safe, to keep him out of it.

(meanwhile he’d unleashed soulless!Sam on the world, and didn’t seem to have any qualms getting Sam tangentially involved in his side quest with Crowley… which was his ACTUAL mission during s6.)

Back to the point, which was that Cas was deceiving BOTH his angel comrades in Heaven AND the Winchesters throughout s6. He wasn’t spending most of his time in the nitty-gritty fights in Heaven. In fact, we know very little about what those fights entailed, and really DIDN’T know there were “prisoners” involved on either side of that battle until s9. Well, we knew Cas-as-Godstiel intended to destroy Raphael’s followers, who refused to side with him during the war, but that’s ALL we knew until Bart told us about “prisoners” that had been taken, and apparently executed.

Because what Bartholomew’s little comments to Cas tell me is that Bart… really didn’t know what Cas’s real mission, his real plan, had been all along. The little scrums in heaven were a distraction for him, that he left to play out while he raced to find the power to kill Raphael and end the war himself.

But he apparently did occasionally peek in and lead a “mission,” or a “fight” or a “skirmish” in heaven, but then was sent away– or possibly not SENT away, but went back to his main quest for the Purgatory souls. Perception is everything here, and if Cas just.. left the fight, might Bart PERCEIVE him as having been sent away, right before “alternate orders” to kill the prisoners came from someone else?

Either that, or Cas did take himself out of the direct leadership of the rebel army in Heaven, and DID take orders from someone else while on that battlefield? We honestly do not know, and I don’t know if it’s even relevant now, because it’s all a game of perception.

Now that we know the full extent of Chuck’s involvement in arranging troubles all over creation, could Bart’s description and “recollection” of those events have even been “edited” after the fact? Heck, we don’t even need Chuck to explain this one… how about Naomi? The narrative has honestly never fully addressed it, and I don’t think it will be. Which is part of what makes it so interesting to think about, to me anyway.

Because what really was Cas’s role in the war in Heaven? Was he merely a figurehead who dared to challenge Raphael and then left most of the day-to-day running of the war to his lieutenants? Because that’s how his conversations with Rachel made it seem. And how s6 seems to make the most sense to me overall. Almost as if the war in heaven and those battles that had consumed Bartholomew’s entire perspective of that time… were barely even on Cas’s radar at all. He had so many other more important things to think about.

This is one reason why I found the whole “Cas as Commander” toward the end of s9 so fascinating. Because that was a role he was FORCED into by Metatron, and not something he was comfortable with. He took the responsibility seriously though, but I had seen it at least partly as more of his eternal penance for s6, and a chance to get a do-over on a lot of the things he always felt he screwed up during that time. And Heaven is near the top of that list– not because he directed the wars there, but because he’d neglected them.

The image of Cas as some great Leader Of Heaven’s Armies is just… not and never has been the reality of his character, despite being an incredibly popular fanon interpretation of his character. Even back in early s4, when he seemed to have Authority, he seemed so confident in the Plans of Heaven, seemed so in charge, the reality of that began to crack through by 4.07, and had completely shaken apart by the end of the season. I’ve applied that thematic to essentially everything having to do with Heaven and the organizational system up there ever since.

We like to think of Heaven as a military organization, and angels as soldiers with well-defined ranks and positions within a hierarchy. I think the reality is far more like Heaven is a bureaucracy, and half the people in the organization are scheming to overthrow the other half at any given time, there’s no clear leadership level by level and no clearly delineated pecking order or chain of command. More like a conglomerate of different divisions who each think their group is the one in charge, while getting very little input or guidance from the supposed leadership of the whole organization. A bunch of petty middle-managers scrambling for as much power and control as they could amass.

Heaven was made up of Zachariahs and Metatrons and Naomis, after all. 

eta: after I read the whole thing again :’D

Bart was just another low-level bureaucrat attempting to seize power for himself where he saw an opportunity. And like the vast majority of other angels, he died for it. And there’s now so few of them left and they’re STILL behaving this same exact way-- with Dumah having schemed her way into getting Naomi locked up in s14. I mean, nothing ever changes, right? Even when there’s only a handful of angels left, they can’t let go and work together. They’ll be the death of themselves.

(Except the few that seem to have realized there’s a better way-- like Cas, like Naomi who was at least trying to learn a better way, like Anael who would rather live a sham life on Earth helping people than return to Heaven even after seeing more sides of the bureaucracy than most other angels, and like Metatron who only learned better after he lost his grace and still ended up dying for trying to do the right thing... Chuck really is a jerk, you know?)

[canumoveurseatup-no]

Outlaws

Summary: It's easy for a good girl to go bad. But once they're gone, best believe they're gone forever.

Pairing: Loki x Black!Witch!Reader; Avengers x Black!Witch!Reader

Requested by: @blackreaders-assemble

WC: 3.1K

Warnings: mentions of black magic, witchcraft, blood, transition of good to evil, homicide, nerve gas, angst, major character(s) death, slight smut, Bonnie and Clyde kinda deal.

A/N: I have classes everyday starting Monday (Jan 28) (obviously other than Saturday and Sunday) so I will try to upload as much as I can. If you like this, please comment. Feedback means a lot!<3 I also don't know much about witchcraft, I wrote it based off tv.

“See our faces on the posters by the roadside?,” you pointed. You knew you were the wanted ones long before the ink dried.

Loki smiled at you, hand gripping yours as he looked at the road ahead, “We’ll be fugitives running from the mundane,”

Bringing your hand up to his lips, kissing it.

“You and I... we were just born to live in this lane,”

————

You’d been on the team for years yet they still treated you like the red-headed stepchild. It irritated you to the core and you begged your ancestors to give you the strength to keep pushing or to send you a better opportunity where you’re wanted and can thrive.

They accepted Wanda so why not you? They had more that one guy with the bird gig, more than one person with the fucking bug gimmick and pretty much two different Iron Men. No one’s ability or power was that different anymore.

Maybe it was because your magic was a birth given right, passed down from generation to generation and it was black magic. They didn’t understand that black magic is fine as long as the person knows how to properly use it and you obviously did. You learned it all from the time you were born to now. Two decades you practiced, learned and read. It was all trial and error but you were exceptional with your abilities now.

The more they underestimated you and pushed you to the side lines, the more you felt your grip on your powers loosen as you would just want to shut them up and prove them what bad you could really do since they wanted to believe it so bad in the first place without being open-minded. The only ones who actually cared about you was Sam, Tony and Wanda.

“Y/N, we need you on the East wing,” Steve spoke into the com.

You ignored his orders as you saw Natasha and Clint needed your help more right now. Running West, you saw the two trapped in a shit storm of agents from the opposite side. Helping them in the fight you heard Steve still yelling for you but you were too busy to reply. The agents kept swarming and you saw only one solution. Kill them before they even get close enough to try and kill you. With a wave of your hand, you pushed Clint and Nat out of the room shutting the door leaving them completely lost at what you were doing.

“Hello, boys,” you winked, “Now, I knooow you kinda hate us but I’m sick of fighting so I’m just gonna burn you to crisps is that okay?,”

The men raised their guns at you and started shooting, you put up an invisible force field and looked at your nails and yawning, “Aalllright. I’m a bit bored, goodbye,”

Your palms facing to them, raising your arms back you let the power of your ancestors flow through you and push your arms forward, a wall of fire standing before you as your eyes went blank.

Once the smell of burnt flesh passed, you dropped your hands to your sides before sighing, “This all could have been avoided has you just surrendered. But now I’m gonna get a never ending lecture,” you spoke to the skeletons laying before you.

You strolled nonchalantly out of the room and saw no one in he hallway.

“Y/L/N, quinjet now!,”

Steve’s stern voice boomed in your ear and you rolled your eyes knowing what would happen. You’d get yelled at and removed from the next couple of missions. It’s happened before. You saved the people that needed more help than him and he took it as you disobeying him, what a crock of shit honestly.

—————

“What about go East do you NOT understand?!” Steve was seething and you couldn’t see why. You just sat there uninterested.

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m dumb. I went West because Natasha and Clint were getting swarmed. If I could fuse the two places together and make ‘Weast’ so I could help you all at the same time then I would. But I saved them from being mauled to death,”

Surprisingly Clint had admitted they did need the help and he was thankful you did help but Steve wasn’t hearing it.

“Why not use that magic of yours to make two of you then?,”

You sat back in your chair and glared at him and his stupidity.

“Not how it works, dumbass,” you tried to keep your cool but the more he ran his mouth the more you just couldn’t take it.

“Why am I even getting yelled at by you?! Who the hell made you leader and why? If I need to be getting yelled at by anyone it’s Tony. He’s the real leader here,” you tried to walk away but Steve grabbed your arm which was a really bad idea. Your ancestors always looked after you and flowed in your veins so when it felt like you were being threatened, they took it into their own hands.

When Steve grabbed your arm he ended up getting thrown back, hitting the door of the the quinjet, knocking the wind out of him. This action did not sit well with Steve at all.

“I’ll be contacting Fury to discuss your termination,”

Anyone else would be upset, but after all the unnecessary pressure he placed on you, it was a relief honestly.

—————-

“You blasted Rogers into the door of the quinjet?,” Nick scolded. He had so much faith in you since day one but Steve and his unnecessary complaining put a bad taste in Nick’s mouth. On all the reports Steve would score everyone else well but you, you wondered how you weren’t terminated sooner.

“I don’t know why he’s out for me! I haven’t done a single fucking thing to that peewee baby,” you rolled your eyes in frustration.

“I won’t terminate you but you are on probation. I’m placing you on a babysitting job,”

“Nick, you know I despise children,” you stomp your foot and whine just like a child.

“Though he can act like one... he’s not exactly a kid,”

——

“Out of all people... you want me to watch Loki? it’s LOKI!,” waving your hand at the cuffed man.

“Oh please, you’ll be just fine. You just have toooo... keep him under control until Steve feels you’re worthy enough to come back,”

“Steve can shove it!,” you crossed your arms as Nick shook his head and paced.

“Does he need to be fed?,”

“I am not a dog,” Loki’s tone was laced with offense.

You’d honestly rather just be kicked off the damn team than sit and watch him for however long they want you to.

“Nick I don’t wannaaaaa,” you whines but he wasn’t having any of it. He gave your shoulder a pat and smirked before walking to the door.

“I’ll be checking in Ms. Y/L/N. I’m sure you two will get along just fine,”

You two and everyone else were in for quite the awakening.

——-

Two month. TWO WHOLE MONTHS you two had been around each other and though you two bumped heads a lot. You couldn’t deny you two were a good pair. You were similar in so many ways, always misunderstood, pushed to the side lines.

Every morning at two o’clock you’d come to his cell and sit with him just talking about nothing. You realized he wasn’t so bad. Under his hard exterior it was just someone who needed to be heard and you heard him just like he heard you. Most nights you wouldn’t even return to your room, you’d stay with him so he didn’t feel lonely. He hated being alone and you wouldn’t let that happen as long as you could help it.

You’d bring your dinner down to eat with him. You brought your TV so you could watch sitcoms and have something to judge together.

You guys were like two peas in a pod but instead you were two cynics in a cell.

“Let’s run away.” You huffed. You sat with him in his room. You figured you’d never get the chance to get back on the team and the more you spent time with Loki the more you realized it just wasn’t worth it.

“I beg your pardon?,” out of all the people, you wouldn’t peg Loki to be hesitant.

“Let’s run away. I’ll take your cuffs off, we take a car and run and never look back. This hero life is not for me,” you were certain. You were forced into this, you had been on SHIELD’s radar far before they even approached you. They didn’t want to risk you becoming a threat so they gave you an ultimatum. Join or stay locked away into confinement forever where you can’t put anyone at risk. You didn’t want to live in a forced cage anymore.

Loki looked straight into your eyes looking for any doubt before raising his cuffed wrists to you.

“Once we leave... we can’t come back. We have to go off the grid,”

“Loki, I’m sure of it. You know the life you and I were meant to live. Let’s live it,”

———-

“Loki they’re gaining on us!!!!,” opening the sun roof of the SUV you placed your sniper on the roof, kneeling on the dash as you looked through the scope.

You and Loki had be wreaking havoc on New York and SHIELD was not too happy about that. News stations referred to you two as the modern day Bonnie and Clyde.

“Bingooo,” you whistled when the bullet shot through the agents windshield hitting them right in the shoulder, making them steer off the road. The next car came and you easily shot the front tire making it flip over and over like a tumbleweed.

“Alright, sweetheart. Time for the real show,” Loki called up at you. You smirked and climbed out of the roof. Bullets from the agents not even touching you. All the time you spent with Loki had helped you reach your peak in your magic. You were practically unstoppable and the Avengers’ worse nightmare.

Loki open ya side door and pulled the grenade pin. With you jumping off the roof and him jumping out of the car, you teleported him and yourself to the roof of a skyscraper to watch it all unfold. The agents skid to a stop when your car blew up, some of the others sliding right into the blast. Some civilians getting caught in the shit storm as well.

You felt Loki's hand wrap around your waist and he pulled you into a strong kiss. You never would have expected your life to turn out like this. You're not complaining about it. You'd rather live like this... putting your life on the line, living risky and taking chances of your freedom being taken away from you rather than to live inside a box with a boring cliché life.

But with Loki by your side it makes this whole adventure even better. You both were once trapped souls and now you were are free. It's fun when the adrenaline courses through your veins and your heart pumps faster when you get away with another crime. You love laughing at the TV when the authorities think they're so close to catching the modern day "Bonnie & Clyde". You're precise with your work. No one is quite sure who they're looking for yet as you guys change your appearance but SHIELD and the team know, they're the ones leading the searches, but they're not disclosing any information until they catch you.

They've been trying to catch you for months now. You call Tony from a payphone and he always tells you to stop before you get caught but you wear a big smile on your face every time-

"We're too good to get caught,"

-------

"Fury, they're pretty much causing Armageddon. What can we do?," Steve was in distress, pacing the room.

"Have we traced her calls? Thor you can't find Loki?," Bruce was pacing as well, he knew if it came down to it, he'd have to bring out the other guy and he wanted to diffuse the situation quickly before it got to that point.

"Loki and Y/N have fused their magic to disguise themselves. Not even Heimdall can see them and that is unheard of," Thor sat with a scowl, thinking hard.

"Their attacks... they're strictly twelve days apart at the twelfth hour and they're always at an important land mark that is specific to New Your. What place haven't they attacked yet?," Clint read over the case file and discovered the pattern.

Everyone thought about his words when realization hit them.

Tony took in a deep breath and his eyes widened in horror, "Here. Their next attack is here. The tower,"

-------

You walked inside the tower with a delivery uniform and a cart full of boxes. You've been tracking their deliveries and you knew they were expecting something. You had disguised yourself as the original delivery girl.

"Delivery for Mr. Stark, Mr. Rogers aaaand Ms. Romanoff," you smiled and showed her the clipboard even though it was a bunch of nonsense. She buzzed you win and let you go through to the elevators. While in the elevators, you used your power to distort the frame. You went into the boxes and set the timer. You don't even need these. You could always just use your power but you'd rather watch a domino effect. Setting it all off and then attacking. Loki was waiting for you in the delivery truck.

You went all the way up to Tony's floor and knocked on the door. You did hate doing this to him as he was one of the few that actually cared about you. But you didn't want to leave any room for liabilities. Knocking on the conference door where they all sat, you knew they were discussing you and your now husband as you two eloped. They were expecting you, but didn't know how you'd come in with attacking.

"Hello, Mr. Stark, I have a few packages for you,"

"O-oh you can leave them by the door," he waved his hand, fully engrossed in the file.

"Okie dokie," you said happily.

Tony paused, looking up at you as you placed the boxes down. No one else that he knows just says "okie dokie" no one except for you. He's interacted with the delivery girl, she never says that. Though it was simple, it was a crucial hint.

"Y/N." he deadpanned.

The team stopped and followed Tony's gaze to you.

"Pardon?," you smiled. Tony noticed the glint in your eye and he knew for sure it was you.

"Y/N, don't do this," he raised from his seat slowly. You frowned and tilted your head at him.

"I'm not quite sure I understand,"

They all stood, ready to attack and you sighed, rolling your eyes and letting your disguise falter pressing your ear piece so Loki could listen in on the conversation.

"Y/N, stop whatever you and my brother have planned," Thor pleaded, It was honestly adorable.

"It is too late for that Odinson," you smiled and Steve sent his shield flying toward you but you didn't flinch as it went straight through you, you looked down and tsked as they all looked surprised and confused.

"It turns out, Steve... that I can be in more than one place at one time," you pointed out the window and they saw the original you standing there on the roof of another building, waving.

"Why are you doing this?," Natasha questioned, hand on her gun on her hip.

"You can shoot me if you want, I am at my peak and I can not come down. My ancestors have blessed me and I now know the full extent of what I can do. So go ahead and try. You will regret it," you looked at the boxes and knew time was winding down, "In these boxes are a nerve gas that not even your god status can protect you from. It is efficient and to those who cared, you have your leader to blame," turning to look at Steve.

"Y/N, I am so sorry. I should have been a better Captain to you. There's no excuse,"

"Of course there isn't," you smile was sick and evil, "Now that I finally have my hands on the wheel you're begging for your life," you laughter sent a chill through them

"Sweetheart, they're sending reinforcements," you heard Loki state through your earpiece.

"By the time they get up here, you will have already been knocked out. First, the gas will paralyze you, then it will feel like all your nerve endings are on fire. Then is my favorite part," you smirked at the ground, "You'll start crying blood from all the pain. The opaque red covering your eyes in a film and you can't even blink it away. Your lungs will collapse, suffocating, then finally, you'll just choke on your own vomit,"

The real you had already gotten in the delivery truck and you guys drove off but the apparition was still standing there,

"Y/N, Stop it!," Thor sent Mjolnir flying into the boxes and then the pretty magenta colored gas started seeping across the floor.

"That was a bad idea, Thor," you waved a finger at him, "You still had a few extra minutes but look at what ya done did. It's sad that such a pretty thing can be so deadly," you laughed hysterically like you did at those stupid sitcoms.

Hulk came through and tried to break out of the glass to save him and Banner, "Black magic. You can't break out, bud,"

Hulk came over and tried to attacked you but his fists just kept going through you. Wanda started coughing and you watched it begin, "I better get going, as much as this would be a wonderful sight to see... my husband is waiting for me. Thanks for trying to make me good. But you pushed me to the edge and there is no coming back from this. Goodbye,"

"Y/N NO STOP THIS!,"

-------

Loki kissed up and down your neck as he thrusted deep inside you.

"You did so well, baby,"

After every successful attack he fucked your brains out. He slow stroked hard and deep bringing you closer to cumming. He kissed all over your neck, making sure to love you all over.

"Fuck, Loki," you whimpered as you came around him, setting off his orgasm as well. Staying still for a few, you two just gently kissed as the news played in the background notifying the world that Earth's greatest defenders are now dead.

You know how people fuck to slow jams or whatever? The news broadcast was the music to your ears instead

"Did you ever imagine this happening? Starting off having to babysit me like a sick child to us causing hell like this?," Loki asked as he held you in his arms.

"At first no.. But I wouldn't have it any other way,"

----

I AM SORRY THIS IS SO BAD? PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN'T THAT BAD?! This is not my best work.

I WANNA CRY UGH, I hope you guys liked this though. I'll do better with my upcoming pieces

Please leave feedback <3

Tags- @sideeffectsofyou​ @chonisberonica​ @majikmelanin​ @babybubastis @scarletlingeries​ @mirajanestrauss1999

[occasionalfics]

worth my while // p. 2

main masterlist | thor masterlist | ko-fi | p. 1 | p. 3

Summary: After being banished from his home, Thor Odinson has stopped at nothing to prove himself worthy of his throne, title, and power.

After losing the love of your life, you turned to a power you didn’t understand.You know you shouldn’t get involved.

But how could you not?

Pairing: Thor x Reader (Hercules au…kind of…)

A/N: Me: *uses the same gif two chapters in a row*

also me: *sees a new pretty one* OOH YES LET’S CHANGE THINGS UP A BIT

Aaaaand here I go, stealing whole ideas straight outta Hercules. Oops ;) Let me know what y’all think, as usual 💖💖💖

Warnings: Violence, lots of angst, borderline abuse and definite manipulation, eventual smut, way too many feels, major character death (eventually). A little more harassment on Hades’ part this time around.

Words: 3,641

“You do understand how powerful Von Doom is, don’t you?” Hades asks the next day.

Just like you had at Captain America, you roll your eyes. “Listen, it’s not my fault, okay?” You watch as he paces the room, and think about the night before. “The Avengers showed up to bust the place for...God only knows what. Captain America gave me an ultimatum, I couldn’t refuse, so I walked out.”

Hades sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Babe,” he says, using the nickname you absolutely hate, “our hostile takeover isn’t proving to be very...ya know, hostile.” When he looks at you, you can see the flames behind his navy irises.

You’re in trouble.

You sit back against the couch and cross your arms. “We can use this,” you offer. You try not to imagine the lighting-laced eyes of the other Avenger as you go over your exact process from the night before. “You want to take out the Avengers. The Avengers attack Victor Von Doom, who you want to help take out the Avengers. Now he has a personal reason to do it.”

Hades pauses. He faces you, fingers on his chin as he scratches his stubble. And he stares long enough that you know you’re not totally off the hook - Hades isn’t known for his patience, after all - but he’s at least considering what you’ve said.

Then he chuckles once and shakes his head. “Oh, you sweet summer child,” he mutters, giving off gruff and insulting sounds as his brows raise. “You’ve got so much to learn. But you’re not wrong - we can use this.”

Just as Cerberus - one of them, anyway - comes marching into the room, straight to your lap, Hades picks up a remote from the table that serves as the only thing separating your bodies. He turns around and powers up the mounted television, and just like magic, there’s a news segment on discussing an upcoming Avengers celebration.

Celebration? You think. They destroy everything they touch. What are we supposed to be celebrating, exactly?

You’re one of those who had once sided with the U.N. and Tony Stark. You didn’t care for the billionaire - after working for Hades, you more or less hated every billionaire - but you did think that the so-called heroes needed to be held accountable for the destruction they left wherever they went.

This party, though, seems to be a celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Battle in Manhattan, which seems...so ridiculous to you. Why would you - or anyone - want to celebrate that? So what if six people saved the world from imminent danger? They’d still nearly let millions of people die or be injured in their messy attempt to kick alien ass.

Also, wasn’t the man behind that plan that Thunder Guy’s cousin or something?

More personally, however, the drunk driver that had killed Rick was drunk because his wife had perished in that battle. He’d been drunk every night since her funeral. The jury had taken his grief into account when they sentenced him to prison, giving him a light sentence instead of life behind bars.

You’re so busy letting your cold heart grow colder that you miss the point of the segment. Stark is interviewed, but you don’t listen. You almost know what’s going to happen anyway, so why bother giving it your attention now?

Hades waits until the segment ends, then puts the television on mute. He turns to you, puts the remote down, and actually comes around to sit on the table.

You lean even further back against the couch. Hades never gets this close unless he’s got a mission for you. Cerberus watches you both, head lifted from your lap as he whines.

A second Cerberus pads into the room, sitting politely on the floor between you.

“Sending me to that thing isn’t gonna get us Von Doom,” you tell Hades. You’ve gotten quite good at reading him since he’d cashed in his price for Rick’s life. You had to - the only other alternative was to let the formidable Lord of the Dead control your every move. Which he kind of did anyway, but at least you could keep up with him this way.

He shrugs, like that’s part of his plan. “Maybe not. But we can stir up some trouble.” His smirk is undeniably mischievous. But you know that’s the only way he operates.

You stare at him like a frustrated parent might at an indignant child. “And what good will that do us?”

Us you think, like I have any say in the matter. Like he’ll actually listen to me.

“If we can scatter them, cause a real scene at their own event, we might be able to attract more than just Von Doom. Better than Von Doom.” Hades nods at his own assumption, but you don’t like where this is going. Not one bit.

“Like who?” you counter. Von Doom is another billionaire. He has money, technology, and apparently, superhuman abilities of his own.

“Norman Osborn,” he replies without hesitation. “Otto Octavius. Wilson Fisk. The list goes on.”

You don’t even know who the last guy is. Still, you groan. “Osborn is an actual goblin, and Octavius is just a scientist. Plus, they can’t even handle themselves against that Spider-kid. You think they’ll be a match for the Avengers?”

You know you’re right, but either Hades doesn’t care or has deluded himself beyond the point of return.

Or, you dare think, that he can see beyond what you can. He is immortal, after all. He has to be right at least some of the time, you figure.

Maybe he sees this as a calculated risk he’s willing to take for the endgame.

Hades stands and starts to leave the room. He only stops to tell you, “United we stand…”

--

The event is really lovely, actually. Central Park is full of festivities from one corner to the next. There’s no way to do all of this in a day, you think, but as you watch people actually enjoy their existences again, you know no one cares.

So you stop caring about that, too.

You hear, about midday, that the Avengers will make an appearance in Sheep Meadow at some point later, so you decide to stick around that area for the day.

There are food vendors everywhere. All kinds of different food, too. Smells and sounds rule over the lawn, and for once, New York doesn’t feel like a death sentence. It feels like a place where people live - real people, civilians that have normal, superhero-free lives. It’s not really a place where aliens fall out of portals in the sky and threaten the status quo.

But sometime around 3, the Avengers show up, and suddenly New York is that place. Lightning Guy is living proof of that.

Your eyes find him just as easily as if you actually knew his name. You remember hearing...something about him, a few years back. Before the Manhattan attack.

He’d shown up somewhere West, claiming to be a Space Prince while he paraded around after an astrophysicist and her little team. Something had attacked there, too, but he’d defeated it. He had to, otherwise, he wouldn’t be standing across the lawn from you with his dangerous friends surrounding him.

Why he hadn’t gone home then, you couldn’t say. But he’s still here, on Earth, causing more and more damage to buildings and people and a way of life he only just acquainted himself with.

Tony Stark signs autographs. You only notice because you force yourself to stop looking at Lightning Guy. You watch Captain America, now without his stupid winged helmet, pose for a Charlie’s Angels picture with two women he probably doesn’t know. But they fawn over him once the picture is taken, and you roll your eyes.

Falcon and...the other birdman stand off behind the more well-known members of the team. You decide to go in for them, first.

“Some crowd,” you say as you sidle up next to Falcon.

He smiles down at you - a playful look, clearly intrigued by your approach - and nods. The other birdman doesn’t seem to care much, which works just as well for you.

“One of the bigger ones, believe it or not,” Falcon says to you, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“And yet, you’re unattended to,” you say, attempting polite banter like you know Hades is expecting out of you. “‘S a shame. You’re one of my favorites.”

To be fair, he kind of is. He wasn’t around for the Battle of Manhattan. He did help take out that government facility in D.C. a while back, but you’d heard it’d been infiltrated by Nazis. So, for that, you forgive him.

Generally, he’s one of the lesser-known, newer members of the team. He seems much more approachable, much more amenable. And when he asks, his smirk growing by the second, “Oh, am I, now?” you can’t help but laugh a little at his enthusiasm.

It’s genuine laughter you’re feeling, for the first time since...everything. You know it because your stomach already hurts from just this little muscle contraction. The feeling is foreign and that is...somehow unfair.

But you manage to nod. “Those other guys are overstated,” you say with a shrug. “I like the ones that feel more like...us, you know?”

And he nods, too. “I do,” he says, and you believe him. You appreciate the gap in between his front teeth - it’s kind of adorable, truthfully - as he holds his hand out to you. “Sam Wilson.”

You place your hand in his, and he lifts it to his lips to place a chaste kiss on your knuckles. He’s quite the charmer.

“(Y/N),” you say back, forgoing the your surname because, really, does an Avenger need to know that? Even if he is one of the only ones you like? “And thank you for your service.” You’d read somewhere that he used to be in some branch of the military, so you let him take the compliment however he wants.

“‘Course,” he says. And then, after a beat, “I hope you’re enjoying such a lovely day.”

You know Hades would say to lay it on thick, here, to distract at least some part of the team. You try not to be too thick as you respond, “It’s much better now.”

But, of course, that’s when another person joins your group. You might be okay if it was just another fan asking Sam for an autograph or a picture or something, but no. You don’t have that kind of luck.

Lightning Guy steps up, clad in a plain shirt beneath an open plaid button-down and a pair of light jeans. Sans-armor, the guy is still huge and still looks like he’d be an absolute boulder in a fight. Formidable - that’s the best word you can come up with.

But there is something...a little more personable about his smile. You don’t let yourself fall for it, but you at least acknowledge it.

“Ah, (Y/N),” Sam says, “you know Thor, of course.”

Right you think. He’s the Norse God. You used to think he just borrowed the name, but then you’d seen an interview on the Today show one morning where he’d confirmed that he and the legend are one and the same. Now you remember.

“We’ve met, haven’t we?” Thor says, giving you a curious glance.

You wonder if you should tell him. You don’t really blame him for not recognizing you immediately - you’d only met the once, only for a few minutes, and under very different circumstances. You are now sans golden dress, sans glowing skin, and sans uncomfortable sandals.

But he is unforgettable. For more than one reason, more than just the fact that he’s an Avenger and a Space Prince.

It’s those eyes. Lightning Eyes, to match his power.

Working with Hades for so long has left the impression that you can tell a lot about people by their eyes. And Thor’s are...a dreamy, warm shade of blue that reminds of you storms.

“We have,” is all you say. You think giving too much away right now might cause problems down the line, and you have a distraction to be the cause of.

He holds his hand out, just like Sam did. You shake it, but he doesn’t kiss your knuckles like Sam did. His kind of charm is different - not showy in the same way, but still a little over the top. Everything about him is over the top, though.

Thor sizes you up as you pull your hand back. You ignore the pang of something that crawls up your fingers, passes your elbow, and stings your shoulder at the lack of contact.

“Oh, you have?” Sam asks, his smirk turning cocky as he raises a brow and turns to Thor.

It takes him a moment, but he must find something remarkably memorable in your face. His eyes widen and he almost takes a step closer before stopping himself. Then his brows drop and his expression turns colder, clouds filling his blue eyes with gray.

“You were the woman with Doom the other night,” he says.

Sam turns back to you, the glee on his face slowly fading. He was there that night - you saw him, briefly, on your way out, but he hadn’t thought to look in your direction then.

“I was.” You cross your arms and lean back a bit. “And I’ve been wondering why you and your friends burst in on my business.” You say it seriously, but not without tipping your head a little flirtatiously. You’re not angry - just curious, and, again, a distraction.

Briefly, you wonder when Hades is gonna put whatever his plan is into action.

“Saving the city, as we do,” Thor answers. He’s still a little put off, but now he’s just as coy as you are. You ignore the fact that you kind of like going toe-to-toe with someone that looks as intimidating as he does. “We were wondering what a lady, such as yourself, was doing with him.”

“I’m sure you were,” you say.

And now neither of you have given anything away. You almost know what the Avengers were called in for - it’s not like Victor Von Doom is known for being a safe man. But you’ve been trying to figure out exactly what was going on at that party that would require Captain America’s presence.

You’ve almost forgotten Sam is still beside you. Sam Wilson, Falcon, an actual hero and celebrity, and you’ve more or less pushed his existence into the back of your mind.

That is, until he clears his throat and steps between you and Thor, muttering, “I’m gonna let y’all have your moment I guess,” before moving on to stand with the rest of the team.

Thor won’t take his eyes off you, and you won’t take yours off him. You can feel your chest and neck heat up, but you don’t do anything to signify it’s happening to Thor. He can’t know. You won’t even admit to yourself that he’s the cause of the flush.

“You could’ve been hurt,” he says, unaffected. Not like someone that would actually care if you had been hurt, but just as a matter of fact.

You shrug. “I wasn’t. Like I said, I knew what I was doing.”

You can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe you. They never do you think. But that’s why you’ve sworn off men.

Well, that and the whole Rick situation. But now’s not the time to dig that mess out of its grave.

Thor gives you a not-at-all-inconspicuous once-over, but his eyes settle on yours again. That’s new you think.

“You’re not quite like many Midgardian women I’ve met, I must admit.”

You lean on one hip, absolutely hating that kind of line. But because he’s still looking you in the eyes, and because you’re now too enthralled in this tête-à-tête, you let him explain himself.

One more thought for you to ignore: you’re breaking every single rule you’ve given yourself over the last few years in regards to attractive men.

“Most are far more forthcoming.”

At that, you laugh. Not because Thor’s wrong, but because he’s probably right. You can’t speak for everyone, but you know you’ve become a secretive, manipulative person. It’s not like you’ve had much of a choice, post-Rick’s Resurrection.

“Good for them,” you respond.

Something in his face changes - his expression flattens into confusion, but it doesn’t seem to be pointed at you anymore. It’s like he can hear something far off, that he knows something isn’t right.

You know it, too. And, truth be told, you’re glad Hades is finally barging in.

But just like your body craved Thor’s touch after he shook your hand, you need him to look at you again. The second his lightning eyes are focused on the shaking ground, on the direction from which the vibrations are coming from, you want to pull him back to you. Not as a distraction, but for you.

Instead, he lifts an arm and holds his palm outstretched, as if he’s waiting for something. The sky darkens, and the distant vibrations get closer as screams are heard from blocks away.

A blast of air shoots past you, cut off only when Thor’s meaty fist wraps around the handle of a large, heavy-looking hammer. It’s edges are slanted and the markings look Scandinavian if you have to guess.

A flash of lightning, and Thor is no longer in civilian clothes. Scaled armor shines down his arms. His chest is covered in a dark chestplate that match dark pants that do nothing to hide the curves of his calves. Not that you’re looking or anything. A long red cape billows as the wind picks up around the park and the skies fill with heavy, burdened clouds.

You don’t even have time to move. Thor is off, flying through the air toward whatever Monster Hades has conjured. You don’t want to see the fight - not really - but you can’t force yourself to turn away.

Sam shoots you a look as you stand, stoic and observant, but ultimately chooses his team over some weird chick he only met moments ago.

People all around you are running. A huge purple beast peaks through the park, shaking everything in its wake that it does not automatically destroy. It’s claws are as long as your body, it’s teeth as sharp as broken glass. It yells in a terrible, metallic noise that rings in your ears.

The Avengers go after it. Most of them do, anyway. War Machine, to your surprise, stays on the ground and helps corral people away. Black Widow does, too, especially when she gets a look at War Machine falling behind.

You take in the running, the screaming, the looks of utter terror. For a second only, you let yourself feel guilt.

Because in the next second, you back up. You turn around and walk right into a black suit with a silk navy pocket square sticking out of the blazer. Your thoughts automatically shut off as Hades put his arm around your shoulders, despite you having told him time and time again how much you hate him touching you.

He steps lightly but quickly, zooming past the crowd, around screaming people that you have to block out. You need to.

Hades lives for the Dead. He loves the sound of screaming humans. Loves the idea of disaster, because disaster almost always means more bodies to fill up his dark, twisted world.

But you are not a God of the Underworld. You are not a being of the Underworld at all - not in theory or practice. Even if the God of the Underworld owns your soul, even if he’s tethered you to his kingdom, you are still a human, and you cannot live with yourself if you idly watch people die, knowing it’s your fault.

You’re just about to head into another section of the park when Hades stops. He looks over his shoulder as you try to regain your footing - transporting via God isn’t always the easiest thing to put a human body through.

A crash of thunder. A roar louder than the rest - much more easily recognizable as a person, rather than a monster. Raindrops pelt at you, slowly but heavily.

Then, silence.

It lasts a beat before the murmuring. You turn around, too, and realize that Thor is no longer around. Every human being has stopped moving - even the purple Monster has stopped moving, though it looks much more satisfied than anyone else around you.

A woman screams. A child cries. Hades chuckles.

His favorite kind of soul is the immortal kind. You still have trouble grappling with that idea.

Lightning breaks out across the sky. The storm is suddenly furious, the wind coming so fast it could knock you down if you weren’t being held up by Hades.

And then the lightning springs from inside the Monster. Its yelling is cut off, as is its elongated neck from its head.

You step away from Hades to get a better look.

Thor stands on the decapitated corpse, hammer raised, innards hanging off of his limbs and armor. Even from your distance, you can see he’s breathing is labored.

The crowd cheers. You take another step forward, unable to help the smile that comes over you. There’s a warmth in your chest that you can only deny because you’re wearing a jacket over your t-shirt.

But before you can rush over to the Avengers, before you can celebrate with the other humans around you, Hades catches up to you. His hot hand rests on your shoulder, and just as quickly, he brings you back to the Underworld.

[dulharpa]

this is for hayley! @whistlingwillows a dear friend <3333

it’s meant to be a birthday present haha. i just want to shower you in love;;; so thought maybe i could go through as many of your fics and comment on them :^)))

(TO EVERYONE ELSE: please go to @whistlingwillows blog and read her fics!!! they are SO FCKIN GOOD AND AMAZING AND UGH HER MIND (it’s a lot of mcu and her bucky and steve fics are a*. i DEFINITELY RECOMMEND))

i wish you a VERY happy birthday and i hope we stay friends for many more years <3333333333 

i’m going through your masterlist heehee ;)))

ah first off, nice theme! i never could rlly see it before because i’m always on mobile heehee. also sorry for not reviewing them before??? i don’t usually read fics on tumblr as you’ve probably guessed;;

anyways, IM GON REVIEW THE SHIT OUT OF THESE >:DDDD

far from home -  bucky x stark sister!reader

firstly, i like how youre introducing the reader from buckys pov, like you can sort of already gather what shes like from them

‘Bucky can hear Tony’s soft inhale, feel the intensity of the man’s glare directed at Steve. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but a twitch of muscle would be enough to alert both men that he’s here. With the amount of tension crackling in the air, a brush against the wall would be equivalent to a thousand cymbals crashing in cacophony.’

IM CRYING ALREADY. the imagery in here is GLORIOUS. your tone here is so fitting! oo and the alliteration here is perfecto

ooooooo!! the backstory coming in  👀👀

‘despite what some people think that Steve and Captain America are two different personas, there will always be parts of Steve in the Avenger, and parts of the Avenger in Steve. They both want to believe in something good. They are, after all, one in the same.// Just as how Bucky and the Winter Soldier are the same man despite everything. HYDRA simply amplified the hate, fertilized the seeds of rage, curated the quiet thunder within his soul, within James Buchanan Barnes so that the Winter Soldier could thrive.’

yIKES! lol this is very character study like! nICE. it hurts tho, my poor children, i love you both 

oo ‘starlight eyes’ that is a very nice way of describing them

‘“Then what was London?” The protesters. “São Paulo?” The earthquake. “Vancouver?” Freezing cold water.//“Look, I care if Stark’s gonna run us over trying to find her. I care enough because she’s part of our team. Come off it, Steve. I know she can take care of herself. I’m gonna take a nap. Dr. Cho said no partying post-Singapore and what do you know, we throw the biggest party ever.’

ooo singapore uwu and london? (coincidence? haha jkjk) and the hints abt reader and buckys background are so good?? but so annoying??? like i just wanna KNOW yknow?? 

‘The water runs copper and the sting bites at his palm as he tries not to think. Tries to focus on the numbing cold that runs over his skin.’ 

your imagery is so vivid?? im actually in awe??? i am so regretful i havent kept reading your fics. like i know they are amazing, i just keep putting them off??? idk man. hopefully this makes up for it (gd tho, im still not done with commenting on one fic. this is what im doing with my motivation teehee ;)

‘ He feels weak. Tired. He wants to go back to bed but he also wants to stay out in the sun for a few hours more. The sun kisses his skin through the windows and he squints against the blue sky, wondering ‘

mood during this quarantine lol

‘“Oh, right.” Your voice is flat, uninterested, cold, as you stare at him. “You killed my parents.”Shit.‘

 OUCH LMAO THATS C O L D, O GOT +100 PHYSIC DAMAGE FROM JUST READING THAT

ooo robin as a nickname noice. very much gives me batman vibes lol

oh! and the way of doing the ‘flashback’ is neat! very original. it both tells us what happened AND buckys reaction to it again. he can re-analyse himself and reader. very cool

‘If you walk away now, don’t bother coming back!” Silence. Bucky can hear his own strained breathing, your soft sigh as you soaked in his ultimatum.’

👀👀 yikes that ultimatum. :// not good bucky. tbf theyre both trying to hurt each other but Yikes

eyy!!! readers pov!! finally! and the switch after we find out the outsiders pov? brilliant

oh no :(( more angst

‘When’s the last time you saw your therapist?”“Don’t have one. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”’ they BOTH need therapists;;;;

very good fic!!! :DD they rlly do hate each other! i definitely like how you went back and forth with the timeline! it gave me a v strong idea on what yn was like even before we rlly got introduced. i am now very curious on where reader is? i love your characterisations! 

i will read the 10k+ fics but heck the last one took me ages lolol (i will comment in the future tho!! i promise <3 ) (that took me over an hour jjhghgdjh)

slipping away- amnesiac modern bucky x reader

omg,,, AMNESIA! >:DDDDDD

‘ Put your fucking seatbelt on’

oh no, istg theyre going to have a car crash arent they (’ doesn’t put the seatbelt on to spite you.’ NO PLEASE PUT IT ON U DUMBASS)

ok,,,,, at LEAST he put it on before he got hit, thank heck. but still. youre so cruel to your poor characters lmaoo

oh gosh

‘You fall apart slowly, like pieces of you peeling away until you’re nothing more than your broken heart. The sobs that wrack your body are relentless and you shove your forearm into your mouth to muffle your cries. You want to bite into your skin. You want to distract yourself from the agony tearing you to shreds. You want to feel anything but the pain.///Tears sweep into your hair, cloud your vision and your whole face floods with heat as you try to breathe through the pain. You’re cleaved into pieces on that bed, eyes squeezed shut as the tears keep flowing, and your throat burns’

this hurts damn, it is so vivid?? i can really feel it 

i am so glad you got into writing yk?? so glad

NO PLS, TELL HIM. TELL HIM :((( ‘shes nice once you get to know her?? shes known nat for years now!! years!!

oh god ‘he looks younger without the burden of your time together’ this is so angsty omg

‘Well, he was stumbling through his apology and I just let him finish.” Your body fills with warmth as you remember his embarrassed smile, the way he shoved his baseball cap farther down his head, chin tucked to his chest, trying to hide that face. “When he was done, I opened my mouth to say something polite but what came out was ‘You look like someone I’d very much like to kiss’.”

this is so soft i stg im crying in the club

OH SHITTTTTTTTTTT , you left it off like that!!! thats so cruel!!!! i can’t!!! how dare you!!!! :””””””((( im typing this with tears in my eyes ill have u know!!

anyway!!! very good fic!! you could honestly make that into a longfic very easily lol. i felt too many emotions :(( 

i was just about to say where is the fluff!! where is it!! when i saw the next one and yay :))) pls i cant have more angsty stuff rn

.

cookies and rings and things bucky and reader

‘how much do you love me?’ ‘count the snowflakes, multiply by a million’

did you have to start the fic off with such a SOFT line? its so soft! so TENDER 

‘He wonders what kinda insane person wears socks without any clothes on, but then decides that it’s the kind of person who’s fallen in love with him.’  jesus, the soft moments filled with love are the greatest <3

you can write fluff so well, whyd you have to pain me with all that angst ;””””) (1/10 hurt, 9/10 comfort is the way to go lolol) (jkjk ill read the angsty ones too when i have the spoons) (gonna reread that hydra steve one and ik thatll fuck me UP)

‘ Then, he can feel the cold metal of the ring she slid onto her own finger less than twenty-four hours ago and realizes that he had thought a lot of things shouldn’t be possible, and yet they still are. ‘

you literally brought me to tears reading this softness, you have truly found my weakness

‘ She’s so damn gorgeous with flour on her face and eye bags beneath her eyes that he’s sure she will inevitably make his heart burst ‘

he already likes her so much! i can’t believe this is affecting me so much :’)

‘Bucky is quite sure Sam is in love with his girlfriend in the fact that he’s in love with the fact that his girlfriend is possibly in love with Bucky’

this is so soft??? sam loves reader bc reader loves bucky sm. pls my hear <3333

you do fluff SO WELL DAMN 

‘F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice echoes in his small little perch and he still thinks it’s weird without having the side effect of Stark in his suit chasing after him to hear the A.I. but he shoves that uncomfortable feeling of the dead man out of his head. That is too much regret to unpack right now on a mission. ‘

yike bringing back that reminder oof

but thats so soft??? (i am def overusing soft but,,,,, i love it and the vibe) she sent him cookies! god i can feel the love  

‘She expresses her feelings through cooking, which Bucky has learnt the hard way. One time, they got into an argument over something stupid—he can’t even remember what started it—and came to the kitchen at 2AM to see her sitting at the kitchen island crying her eyes out and surrounded by baskets of muffins.’

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 my hEART

you show how much they love each other in so many ways??? i am dying

“Alright, I like it.” Rolling his eyes, he pecks her forehead and she smiles victoriously. It’s so adorable that Bucky, with less than three hours of sleep, adds, “God, I want to marry you.//”“What?”//Oh.Shit.

oh my god! i am literally tearing up!!! AGAIN!!!!!!!!

oh shit o am literally crying

your fluff got me crying harder than your angst i hope youre happy

I really hope you enjoy reading this?? i keep forgetting to like text you but i wanted to do something for your birthday. especially in quarantine when everythings gone crazy. one year i swear ill do something REALLY good for you. not making promises bc i hate if i dont. but ill like, learn how to podfic because you D E S E R V E  I T 

ive spent like three hours doing this lolol 

thank you so much for everything hayley!

[bi-lullaby]

I loved your last rankings so much that I'm sending you another fun (?!) challenge! How would you rate all these male GA characters from your favorite to least favorite, no ties allowed? :) Alex, Derek, Richard, Mark, Owen, Jackson, Burke, George, Andrew, Linc and Ben? Good luck, and as always, feel free to include your reasons why because I love your answers!

Ohhh boy you give me life with those asks! Here we go:

1 - As no surprise to anyone: Alex. My baby had the best character development I’ve ever seen, really, brcaus ewhile it was huge, it was also paced and believable and stabilished and non-linear. He was a huge asshole with a concealed heart of gold in season one. In season 15, he’s a golden boy with a concealed asshole side, and the growth/diminishment of those sides weren’t always inversely proportionate, but adjusted to what each characteristic was brought out more by his surroundings/worked more on by himself. Also, he’s the person that has stuck with mer for the longest and through the most, which would put him in a high place in this list even if he wasn’t my favorite on his own. I also adore how, thematically, he’s so moved by the women in his life (bot just the romantic i terests while we are at it) for the betterment of himself and hsi ways. It’s not like Owen’s “I’ll need her to take care of me emptionally and shape herself to my desires so I can be in a good place, it’s recognizing those positive influences in his life and trying to emulate them/work with them/learn from them. Also about his theme, itms less the worn-out “guy is validated in being an asshole bc he had a tough life” and more “guy learns that his tough life doesn’t mean he gotta act like an asshole”. I love this character so much, ugh.

2 - Ben. A freaking Disney prince would be a sleeazy douche in comparison. I was so weirded out when Shobda decided to give so much focus to this random-ass character, then I was really turned off by his storyline with the cutting people open and all that (not necessarily because I thought he was wrong, I just felt the storyline was handled awkwardly and made him sound pelutant and irresponsible instead of a promissing, if stubborn, future surgeon. I’ve yet to watch Station 19, but this angel with a scalpel and a fire hose for wings deserves his own goddamn spin-off, for sure.

3 - My baby Andrew. Yeah, he is not that developed, has been inconsistent, his change from “freaking out over Maggie being his boss” to “marvellung at Meredith’s every movie even though she’s kinda even more his boss because she owns the hospital” was... A B R U P T. But I really enjoy this new Andrew - as a side note: I could not care less for him during the whole Sam storyline, he seemed like a toned down Jonhy Bravo - He’s smart and sweet and funny and worships Mer like the Wonder Woman she is. His relationships with Arizona, Amelia, Jo, Carina and now Alex need more screentime because they’re great (or have the potential to be so). He’s competent and brilliant and selfless (dropping the charges on Alex even if he was completely in the right, taking the blame for mer now) and so tender (his absolute gentleness in peds, taking care of Amy after the operation, being a moody, emotive boy because he lost his love instead of a macho men...). The future holds great things for him, and I’m excited to watch them unfold!

4 - Not on your list but I love: Tom. Boy is he nice. As I was figuring out this order, I realized he reminds me a lot of my favorite character (Dean Winchester) - or at least what I think Dean would be if he was older, richer and lived without the Supernatural World and so many traumas. His talk to April was so moving and I felt it really helped. He doesn’t stand on a moral high horse: He does what he thinks is right and damned be judgment. He’s empathetic, he’s romantic, he treats Teddy RIGHT. He deserves to have his own storyline and be more developed and show us kore of his awesomeness.

5 - Jackson. As I said in my ships rating answer, I’ve only started to care for him recently, but I really do care. He’s not a character I’d, like, write fic about, or long rants and meta, but I love his sibling-esque relationship with Mer and his relationship with Maggie and the way he connects with his mom and how this spoiled, immature transfer with something to prove became a respected, innovative surgeon and father who’s secure of himself and ready to explore different paths and ways and worldviews. I just wish him, and the Grey’s fandom, would be less defensive about the callout of his privileged life. Like. I’ve seen people write paragraphs upon paragraphs about how Maggie was a bitch for calling him privileged. And he is (for his hoards upon hoards of money growing up). That’s not too hard a concept to grasp. Plus, it’d be nice if he could treat Maggie as less of a consolation prize/second chance. Just because faith (or lack thereof) was a source of tension in his previous marriage, and he feels like changing that would have made everything better, doesn’t mean the same applies to his current relationship, or that Maggie is the one who should change -he learned, learned, and is back in square one seeing only his side of it - I really hope this season treats him more kindly and gives him happiness and peace!

6 - Richard. I love him for his parental-and-ish relationships, specially to Maggie, Mer and Jackson, but to Bailey and Callie too. That’s my favorite aspect of him, watching those gives me a nice, warm feeling in my tummy and puts a smile on my face. There’s some aspects of him I find either boring or unpleasant, and I think it’s kinda annoying how him retiring has been a theme/conflict since, like, season one, and fast-foward ten years and he’s basically an entity at the hospital. Like? What? Was the point? You’ve waisted my time? For nothing? But he’s a solid, reliable character you can’t really hate and who brings more good than bad to the show by far. As a side note: one day I will yell at him for his treatment of Maggie after she talked about HER OWN HISTORY and he basically called her a mistake (although he apologized pretty soon and she forgave him so so will I).

7 - Mark. He was great and all that, but never sparked that love some characters did. I was sad when he died, I loved his scenes and relationships, I just am not invested in him. Plus the immaturity in his relationship with Lexie pisses me off a bit, as does his “man whore” personality.

8 - Link. Genuinely love him, he’s been nothing but sweet and kind and fun and helpful this entire time! I cheered for Merlink sooooo much imat first, and I really wish their friendship will be developed! Him and Jo are everything I never knew I needed. He has no arguable flaws besides being so sculped it freaks me out a little bit, but he isn’t higher up in my rank because there isn’t much material for that yet, but expect a climb as he becomes more and more regular.

9 - Burke. He was kinda sweet and did a good thing for Cristina (the hospital). He was also manipulative and arrogant and voundary-crossing in their relationship. I might like him better if it was bot for Burktina, but we will never know.

10 - Owen. Toxic as fuck, annoying, controlling, disgusting. Those are all things that very much apply to Owen in a lot of situations. Screaming at Cristina for “murdering their baby”? YIKES. Big no no. He was not suited for romantic relationships at all and I wish the show would realize that and allow him that space and breathing time without being stuck in a complicated relationship with loads of baggage or a love triangle. Because that’s my whole thing about him: I believe he has room for growth. His relationship with April is pretty amazing, he was always so considerate and gentle with her, all the time, and I want to see more of that bond. He loves kids and can be really good with them, he has a lot of things to work out with the traumas of his father’s death + war + his sister’s story. Why not focus on that? Why not show him growing and processing and bettering himself and living up to the potential he has? I feel like they gave the all the wrong romantic storylines to the character who’s otherwise really good and that’s such a shame because I really enjoyed him at first. Lets see what happens from now on, and if he gets a dose of tv’s “heterosexual love and a nuclear biological family solve everything!” medicine or if this is a turning point for him.

11 - Derek. He never really had any appeal to me. Not his face, not his personality, not his storylines or plot points pr the actor. That’s reason enough for him to rank low, but I also think he had some really bad traits. He was arrogant and condescending and had a God complex and was sexist and pushy and just not great for the people around him. Exploiting Amy’s addiction being outed to steal surgeries? Refusing to give Mer credit on their clinic trial? Putting ultimatums on his girlfriend that she either has to be ready for a full, committed relationship or end things, then call her a slut when she sleeps with other guys after they broke up? Cheating on Addison after deciding to work things out? Stringing mer and addie along? Not saying he was married in the first place? Pushing Mer’s boundaries after she was clearly uncomfortable with having slept with her boss? Refusing to have an inch of empathy for Mer’s action regarding the trial despite her complicated history with the people she was trying to help (who were her friends, actually?)? Telling his depressed girlfriend that she should be concerned the happiest part of his day was flirting with another girl from the bar? Ratting out on Richard to the board because he wanted the spot? Not acknowledging Mer’s trauma after the shooting? Kissing nurse Rose while building the dream house? Kissing his student while being married in NY? Pushing his wife to move and saying his career was more important than his after he had compromised on letting her shine? All things that, isolated, can even be understood on context and “everyone makes mistakes”, but that when put together, make it pretty clear it’s a pattern of someone with very little regard to the people around him. Was he a good surgeon? Yeah. Great father as well. He also had some interesting relationships and iconic scenes, truly, I can recognize that. I hurt for the people he loved and left behind (and I genuinely think he loved them and meant well), but he himself I don’t miss at all.

12 - I think George is the clearest contrast between how old greys handled matters of sexism and gender and sexuality and how it does now. He was such a sleazy nice guy at times, it is unbearable to me. And he ranks lower than Derek because A) His relationships also bored me while Derek’s could pique my interest at times, B) There’s no talk about his mistakes. Remember when he (in his own words) took advantage of Meredith being on a terrible, delicate, vulnerable place (still hiding her mother’s Alzheimer’s and seeing a person be blown to pieces and being dumped by who she thought was the one and being rejected by her father for the second time after seeing him for the first time in tweenty years) and, knowing that she was not interested in him, pursued her, then after she started crying because of the literal pile of shit she was having to carry around (and still trying to preserve his feelings), got mad at her and everyone sided with him? It baffled younger me to bits that what Mer had “done” was so terrible, it has not stoped bafflinn me in the years that have passed since. Can you imagine any of the girls crying during sex because they’re so overwhelmed and feel like that’s a mistake, and the guy freaks out on them and they’re instantly ostracized by the narrative and characters? That’s essentially criticizing her for the right of saying no, of stopping when she doesn’t want to continue, of not giving away her time and feels just because a goofy guy who is her friend feels entitled to them. That’s the word: entitled. He literally says he “saw her first”. How’s that not Nice Guy 101? I would understand his ego being bruised, but the guilt tripping and the bitching and the fact none of that is treated as a fucking creepy thing? Yikes. Also how he treated Callie, who deserved so, so much better. And even Olivia who was perfectly lovely and did nothing wrong besides having sex with more than one guy without breaking either of their trusts because she wasn’t in a relationship with any of them. Did he do some good things? Sure did! Joey’s surgery costs being cut, helping Bailey give birth, some of his interactions with patients were really sweet, and he died giving his life for someone else. It’s just that consequence-less sexism and entitlement that never gets adressed and gets treated as not only valid, but right, that makes him go rom unappealing to downright hated for me. Better left in the past where people can misplacedly idolize him!

Thank you so much for asking, I love those thought-inspiring asks! <3

[blue-mint-winter]

BSG 4x10 Revelations rewatch

And so I reached the midpoint of S4 with the most memorable ending.

D’Anna’s calling the shots on the baseship now. Because of Roslin’s double dealing in last episode and the NC experiences, she’s got no trust in humans. She gives them ultimatum - give me the Four you have in the Fleet or I’ll kill hostages on the baseship.

Adama who only just got Roslin back, has to go back to being the Admiral. And she gives him her presidential order to nuke the baseship if the Cylons get the Four. With her still onboard. Why are you so cruel to this poor man who loves you, Laura? She’s putting him in the unenviable situation, so he has Kara start planning the rescue mission, which has low chances of success.

The Four know what’s up, their time of hiding is at an end. D’Anna knows who they are.

After D’Anna kills the first hostage, Tigh finally comes clean to Adama, who doesn’t want to believe him at first. Tigh proposes a plan to threaten D’Anna with his execution, so she’d release the hostages. With Roslin’s life at risk, Tigh’s Cylon identity reveal and his probable death is the last straw and Adama has a breakdown. He can’t handle losing those two at once. Thankfully, President Lee is there to take care of things for his old Dadmiral. That was a nice scene between father and son :)

Tory smartly uses her position as Roslin’s aide to get on the baseship under the excuse of bringing her the medicine. The fallout they have there is sad and bitter. After Roslin ended their friendship over Baltar and now with Tory’s identity coming out in the open, she’s given up on trying to get Roslin’s trust and approval anymore. Now she’s the one who shuts Roslin out. I can’t help but notice there was always this asymmetry in their relationship - it was always about Tory catering to Roslin’s needs, not just professional but emotional too, but Roslin didn’t return it. Like Tory only mattered to her when she needed something from her. This time it’s the same, Roslin asks Tory to convince D’Anna to release the hostages. And Tory’s just done with Roslin being nice to her only when she wants something from her.

Sam and Tyrol - they didn’t give up themselves but when the Four hear music again, it leads them to the Viper Kara brought from Earth. Something activated in it. Sam gets Kara to look at it and find out what’s there, but the marines come to arrest him and Tyrol because Tigh gave them up. I like how shocked Kara is by Sam being a Cylon. He’s really the last person she’d suspect. And I think it changed something in the way she sees Cylons, despite her words from the beginning of S4 that she’d kill him if he was a Cylon.

Gaeta’s back in CIC and he’s got a hard time with lacking a foot and the crutches. Dee’s there to help :) I love their friendship :)

Gaius has a nice scene thanking Roslin for not killing him in the last episode. Then he goes to D’Anna and convinces her to resolve the standoff with Lee peacefully, because violence never worked out well for her before. At the same time, Kara finds the signal from Earth in her Viper and stops Lee from making good on his threat and airlocking Tigh.

I love that soundtrack when Kara runs through ship.

In the end, Cylons and humans reach the agreement, the Four are granted amnesty by Lee, the hostages are back and Adama’s recovered from his breakdown. They agree to all go to Earth together.

And this is when the brilliance of this show’s writing comes. They’re all celebrating finding Earth, Adama announces it to the Fleet. They think it’s the end of their journey... but you can see the Four and they are not jubilant, Tigh’s drinking grimly in his quarters, Tyrol’s sitting alone with his son, pensive... It’s like they can feel something’s wrong. The planet they find, despite being settled by the space-faring Thirteenth Tribe, has no ships in orbit. No radio communications. But the constellations from Tomb of Athena check out, so this has to be Earth. However, visually this is not the planet we were shown in S3 finale. It’s similar, blue with white clouds, but there’s no continent outline shown.

And then, those jubilant people go down to the surface and find bombed, burned ruins of great cities. Everything’s gray. There’s no life there, no Thirteenth Tribe. It actually looks even worse than New Caprica.

So, yes they find Earth, the Thirteenth Colony, but this is not the promised land they’re searching for. All their faith, all their endurance was not rewarded. Humanity now faces its hardest test and that’s why next episodes are going to be exciting, because they will all have to cope with this kind of a soul-crushing disappointment and despair. This is going to be fun.

Every piece of the puzzle falling together so neatly really made finding Earth look a little too easy in this episode. The uninhabitable planet they found marks the end of this phase of the humanity’s journey. The status quo has changed - the Four are revealed and there’s a real truce with some of the Cylons. But I think without solving the mystery of the Fifth Cylon and resolving the Cylon split somehow, them finding the real Earth would have been premature. So the show must go on to the real conclusion.

[huntertales]

Part One: Don’t Say Something You’ll Regret. (Torn and Frayed S08E10)

Episode Summary: Castiel turns to Dean and the reader for help when an angel is being held captive and must rescue him. Meanwhile, Sam is given an ultimatum from Amelia; stay with her or leave and never make contact again. The decision grows complicated when Sam learns a secret the reader has been keeping from him, making him choose between the woman he loves or the family and lifestyle he’s only known. Word Count: 6,474. Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

You knocked on the motel door of room number one-eighteen that was booked for the night by a man that matched the description of someone who was six-foot four, neck length brown hair and was probably wearing plaid. The person behind the desk instantly knew who you were talking about, he said something about how he used to work here a year or so ago and helped fix up the place with a dog that he accidentally hit. You helped fill in the gaps when he tried to think of the dog's name, you knew Sam had mentioned it was Riot. An Australian Shepard he left in Kermit, along with the woman he loved and a bit of happiness he spent his entire life trying to get. Only to come back when he thought his real life had caught up with the other one he spent such a short time enjoying, in a way that forced him back into all of this the first time he tried a go at leaving it.

You were honestly surprised that Sam opened up the door and only half attempted to slam it on your face when he saw it was you and his brother. You didn't smile, you didn't apologize right away for what you did. Instead you let Sam decide how he wanted things to go. Sam stood in the motel doorway for a moment, his infamous bitch face directed towards his older brother to show off how much he was pissed off at how things ended up here. Dean didn’t take much offense to it as he stepped inside the room, brushing past the both of you as he looked around to see if it had just been Sam. You walked into the room a second later with your arms crossed over your chest.

“Who did you expect?” Dean asked his little brother.

Sam didn’t responded to the question, he slammed the door behind you when he saw that it was the only two people he didn’t want to see. You wondered if he had seen Amelia being able to live a life without him. Maybe the both of them had met up again, and you reopened old wounds for the past couple. Sam stood where he was as Dean walked across the room. “Long drive?”

“Well, I wouldn’t had to make it if you hadn’t have hung up on me.” Dean responded.

“Yeah, well,” Sam said, defending himself for the actions he chose in the spur of the moment. “I heard all I needed to hear.”

“No, you heard what you wanted to hear.” Dean said, feeling the need to take it upon himself to correct his brother’s way of thinking and feeling. It was almost as if he could justify his choices to make them seem like it was the right thing to do. “I told you Benny wasn’t killing. Hell, Y/N watched him end the fangbanger that was.”

“How about Martin?” Sam questioned his brother. “How did he end that?”

“Stupid—just like I said it would. Crazy son of a bitch didn’t give Benny a choice.” Dean said. “It was self defense.”

"Seriously, Dean? That's the story you're going with?" Sam asked in almost a mocking tone from the excuse he was hearing and how ridiculous it sounded. "That the victim was the real victim here?"

"Hey, like it or not, that's the truth, okay?” You couldn’t help yourself but speak up, trying to help guide some direction into this conversation before it turned into an argument. But you knew that it was impossible with the two brothers when they were worked up like this there was no way of talking them down like you hoped for.

“And there was a time when that actually meant something.” Dean said, feeling the need to add that in. As if that was going to change his little brother’s mind.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam agreed for the most part with that line of thinking. “No kidding.”

Dean stared at his brother with a slightly confused expression at the muttered remark, knowing it meant something more. "What does that mean?"

"You think this is just about Benny?" Sam asked his brother.  

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"What the hell do you think I'm talking about?"

"Amelia?" Dean asked, suddenly catching onto the reason why his brother was so pissed off at him. It wasn't just because of the whole Benny situation, but because of a cheap trick he used to get him out of the way. "Oh, come on, man. I sent you that text 'cause I needed you to—"

“You needed me to what? To tear ass to Texas? To be afraid that what happened to Jessica, what happened to…” Sam trailed off for a second as he started to slowly pace around the room, telling you about his worst fear that haunted him like a bad dream for so many years and came right back after he read that text. “Everybody that we care about might have happened to her?”

"You were gonna kill Benny." Dean said. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Is that what we are?" Sam asked. He knew him and his brother were still on rocky terms, but he thought the man was better than to do something so low like this. It seemed that he was wrong to think so highly of his brother, because it seemed the man didn’t feel the same way about him. “You save a vampire by making me believe that the woman I love might be dead?"

“What do you want to hear, Sam? That I was wrong? Fine. I was wrong.” Dean said, apologizing in his own way that he thought was going to fix everything. But it didn’t take an idiot to hear how insincere the words sounded. You gave him a look of disbelief, Sam did everything in his power not to start punching his older brother. Because he really didn’t mean it. “But if you had just heard me out, if you had trusted me, all of this could have been avoided.”

“You didn’t want me to trust you. You wanted me to trust Benny, and I can’t do that.” Sam said, sticking to his morals of how he felt about monsters from his own past experience with them. “Not the way you got Y/N thinking he’s a good guy. Because I know what he is, and what he’s capable of.”

Every part of you wanted to speak up and defend yourself against what Sam said, but you remained silent, because it meant you sided with Dean. And if you mentioned the dangers that Benny brought along, it meant you were siding with Sam. So you remained silent. Because you saw no improvements for the near future. The both of them were so caught up in the past or trying so hard to be a good friend to the person who saved them from the afterlife, they forgot who really mattered the most here. You wandered over to the bed when you felt a dizzy spell hit you out of nowhere, but it went unnoticed by the brothers.

"Okay, well, then," Dean said, knowing for himself that this conversation was getting nowhere productive. Both of them had stated the grounds of how they felt, now it was time to figure out where they went from here. "What the hell do we do now?"

"That depends. It depends on you." Sam said. "On whether or not you're done with him."

“Well, honestly, I don’t know.” Dean mumbled, having the audacity to say such a thing after all that was said and done. Sam seemed genuinely surprised at his brother's decision, and even the slightest bit hurt that he was trying to hide. You couldn't take anymore of this argument if this was where it was going to lead.

Dean knew that Benny was the one person that was tearing the both of them apart, but he was still holding on, trying to be more of a brother to a vampire he spent one year with and saved his life from purgatory. Yes, you agreed to a certain point that Benny was a good guy who didn’t deserve to die again. But you wouldn’t choose him over Sam. And Dean should have known better. Sam was the only family he had left, his own flesh and blood who saved his life countless times on hunts. Who threw himself into the pit and suffered psychological damage and went a year soulless, who had been there pulling him back up to the surface every single time he dragged his feet, wanting to take the easy way out.

None of it mattered anymore to Dean because of what Sam had decided to do last year while you were gone. The younger man was overwhelmed with grief after seeing you die and then Bobby just a short time later, then seeing his brother and Cas disappear into thin air. All of his family he’s ever known was gone...just like that. But then he found Amelia by accident. Two broken people running from their past meet each other after he hit a dog and spend a year together, happy. But it was time to go back to the way things were. Sam made his selfish decisions by not looking for Dean, and the older Winchester had every right to be upset for a short while. But it was time to move on.

You wanted Sam to forget about Amelia, and you never wanted to see Benny’s face again for long as you lived. Because you realized the mistakes you made by feeding into the situation like you always did to make them happy. This was like Sam and Ruby being friends, and Dean wanting to run away to have a normal life. Now they were making the same mistakes both of them made in the past. And they never learned. You could take anymore of this argument.

“So, this is where we’ve ended up? Fighting over vampires and girls?” You asked the two brothers, even though you weren’t looking for an answer. You pushed yourself up to your feet as you stared at the both of them with a look of anger, and even the slightest bit of disappointment at how things were turning out. “After everything. You don’t learn. And you still won’t let it go.”

Sam let out a sigh as Dean rolled his eyes when you spoke up, putting yourself into an argument that he thought didn’t concern you. “Here we go.” “Yeah. Here we go again, Dean. Here we go again with the same freaking argument I’ve been having to hear for the past five months straight! Sammy’s stuck in the past and Dean trusts a vampire over his own brother.” You said, finally speaking the brutal truth that had been lingering between all of you since you got back. Neither one of the boys responded or tried to defend themselves, and it wasn’t like you were going to give them a chance if they tried. They spoke what they felt, now it was your turn.

“I’m not gonna sit around anymore and watch you two rip each other’s throats out for the same crap the both of you did. You want to know the problem is? It’s Amelia and Benny. Both of you need to cut ties with them. Or else we’re never going to see eye to eye anymore.” You said, trying to find some sort of solution that they would have to agree on eventually. "I'm not taking sides anymore. You two need to realize that there's two ways to fix this. Keep doing what you're doing...or realize that this—the three of us—is all we have left. If you want to destroy that for your own personal reasons. Fine. Just think about the future."

You knew it was a bit harsh for being so blunt like this and not giving them much of a choice in the matter of how you wanted them to handle things. But it was just your opinion, and at the end of it all, the boys were the one who were going to have to make the decisions on their own. You could only hope they were going to make the right one. Every part of you wanted to open your mouth and tell them the secret you had been keeping for the past two weeks, hoping it might somehow think about someone other than themselves. But it was always fear that held you back about how they were going to handle it. And you couldn't take anymore stress right now.

"Glad I made the drive." Dean muttered underneath his breath, responding to your advice by brushing it off like he didn't even hear it.

You scoffed from how unreasonable he could be when he got worked up like this, which meant it was going to be an awkward drive. You stood where you were, flinching only the slightest when you heard the door slam behind Dean, leaving you and Sam alone. You bit the inside of your cheek as you looked around the room, all before your gaze fell on the younger Winchester and his sullen expression from what you had done. And the actions you took part in that lead the three of you here.

“I thought you had my back, Y/N.” Sam said, speaking up now that it was the both of you. “How could you do this to me?”

"If it's worth anything, I'm sorry. I really am. I was angry at the time from what you said to me. I...I just don't like people thinking that I'm not capable of taking care of myself. You know what it's like for people to put you down." You said. You apologize to him for what you did, but you weren't going to tell him what he wanted to hear or walk on eggshells in order to make him feel better. Sam’s expression changed slightly. His shifting look of anger told you he thought your apology wasn't good enough. You rolled your eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. "What do you want me to do, Sam? Support you?”

“Well, it’s a start.” Sam said. You found yourself staring at him like he just grew a second head, making you wonder if you heard him correctly. “I told you how I felt about her and how much she means to be. And you want me to just walk away from her? You know I love Amelia—”

"I know. And I've supported you with every decision that you ever made. Right or wrong, I was right there beside you cheering you on. But...I can’t do it, Sammy. Not anymore.” You said, your voice growing quieter as you told him the truth about why you were forcing yourself not to agree with this. You crossed your arms over your chest as you stared at the man for a moment. In that moment you realized that you might not see Sam again, not in the way you were so used to. In a way that you had grew dependent on. "Because you were right about one thing."

Sam furrowed his brow slightly as his expression changed into confusion from what you meant by that. "Right about what?”

You opened your mouth to finally let out the secret you had been keeping from everyone that you were close to and try to give him some context to why you had been acting so off. But before the two words could slip out of your mouth, they were replaced with the honking of a horn right outside of the motel room. You shut your eyes as you winced, knowing that it was Dean, and he was growing impatient from how long you were taking. You thought that maybe it was the universe telling you to keep the secret you had just a little bit longer.

You started walking until you were at the motel room door with your grip on the handle about ready to open it u and head out, but Sam called out your name, making you stop and look over at him. Eventually he could catch on from what you were trying to say. If he didn't, then you had a feeling he made up on his mind on who he thought was more important to him. "Nevermind. It's not like it matters, anyway."

You opened up the door and headed out of the motel room alone to leave Sam in Texas so he could have his personal space to be with his thoughts. He needed some time to think about the future and what was important. So did Dean. You made your way to the Impala and slid yourself into the passenger seat again, a new arrangement that felt off each time you got into the car. You missed the backseat and its space, the obstructed view of two ginormous bodies occupying the front. Everything about this felt off. But you might have to get used to this. Everything felt like it was coming into perspective. You stared at the motel room door for a moment, resisting the urge to go back in there and drag Sam out of there.

Your concentration to the door was broken when you heard the Impala’s engine turn on, making you turn your head to now stare straight ahead, Dean’s outline in the corner of your eye. You watched as he shifted gears and got ready to pull out of the parking lot, but not before mumbling something underneath his breath he thought would go unnoticed. “About time.”

"I'll take as much time as I damn well please." You responded back to his remark in a cool tone. You turned your head to look at him and give him a dirty glare at his attitude he was projecting onto you. "Don't ever tell me what to do."

"I didn't tell you to do anything. I said it was 'about time.'" Dean corrected you. You responded to him by rolling your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest, moving your gaze back to the window to distract yourself for the long car ride. "Besides, it’s not like you listen to anyone half the time. You’re too busy talking over people and butting yourself in conversations where it doesn't concern you."

“I'm sorry, Dean. Next time you have anything to say I'll make sure to shut right up and listen to you.” You said to him in the most sarcastic voice you could give him to prove how annoyed you were starting to get with him. “Because your opinion is clearly the only one that matters.”

“What the hell is your problem?” Dean asked you, finding none of this amusing.

You narrowed your eyes on him from his question that only grew you more agitated. “If you took your head out of your ass for one second maybe you’d realize I’m a little stressed out.”

"We're all stressed out at the moment, Y/N." Dean said. You rolled your eyes again from his response that wasn’t exactly helpful, and he didn’t find your behavior all that amusing. “Are you capable of anything other than rolling your eyes?”

“I don’t know. Are you capable of anything other than being a dick and thinking about yourself?” You responded to his question with another. Dean fell silent for a moment as he stopped himself from lashing back at you from anger. You shook your head and adjusted yourself in your seat to get more comfortable for the long and silent drive ahead of you. “Lets just go.”

Dean was more than happy to listen to your command without backlash or another remark he tried to mutter underneath his breath. He switched gears and began pulling out of the parking spot, making you look at the motel room door one more time. You crossed your arms tighter around your body as you watched it soon become nothing more than a small object in the rear view mirror, making you wonder if this was how things were going to be. And if there was really no way of stopping the boys from making the biggest mistake of their lives.

+ + +

The both of you managed to spend most of the car ride in complete silence, the radio helping try and stop the awkward tension forming the farther you got away from Texas. Dean decided it was best to head to Rufus’ cabin to lay low for a while and for Sam to cool off. You didn't care where you ended up at this point, all you wanted to do was take a hot shower and get some rest that wasn't in the Impala. You still had every intention of not saying another word to Dean as you got out and started heading to the cabin so you could fulfill your need to unwind. But it seemed Dean had a few words lingering in the back of his mind on the drive back.

You made it halfway across the living room until Dean spoke up, the conversation starter he chose made you stop dead in your tracks. “If you were so against Benny this entire time, why did you help me out?”

“I never said I was against him.” You said, turning around to face the older Winchester to tell him how you felt. Even though you knew he wasn’t going to like it. “For the sake of everyone and my sanity, I think you should cut ties with him. The both of you are topside, go back to your lives.”

“Great idea. I’ll call Benny up right now and say never to talk to me again. Thanks for saving my life and pulling my ass out of purgatory, but my brother doesn’t like you. So we gotta end things.” Dean said. You clenched your jaw as you refrained from rolling your eyes again from how he was acting. “If Sam doesn’t like Benny, well, then that’s his problem. He never had good taste in friends. Like I’m gonna listen to him.”

You rubbed your face with your hands from how he was acting. “Do you ever sit down and think about the near future, Dean? About the possibility our family might not have Sam in it anymore because of your personal selfishness?”

“I’ll be lucky if I can even get to tomorrow, Y/N.” Dean said. “It’s not my problem if Sam doesn’t like Benny. That’s his choice he made. And I'm sure as hell not gonna change my life around to make him stick around."

You forced yourself to try and inhale a deep breath to refrain yourself from snapping at him and saying something you might regret. But it was at this point you couldn't take it anymore. Weeks and weeks of the pent up frustration you had been trying to keep at bay was too much for you to handle. You heard the boys argue and bicker over things that were small to end of the world big, but you weren't going to let them break this family up because of who they spent some time with while you were gone. Not with so much resting on your shoulders and things you had still yet to tell him. You turned around to face Dean, and without thinking, you suddenly snapped at him.

"Why are you so selfish?!" You questioned the man standing in front of you, feeling another mood swing hit you. You knew there was no breathing technique or self restraint from stopping you at this point. "What did Benny ever do that Sam never did to save your whiny ass?"

"Benny was there for me when I needed him the most! He never let me down the year I knew him, never gave up on trying to get us out of that hellhole!" Dean argued back with you, his voice rising to match yours. "Benny has been more of a brother to me than Sam had been in a long time. That's not family I want in my life, Y/N. It's on Sam if he doesn't want to be apart of it."

In that moment you were suddenly overcome with the urge to tell him the news you had been harboring in the back of your mind since you found out. You wanted to scream on the top of your lungs that the Winchester family wasn't going to be just the two of them anymore, it was going to have a new member in the next several months. You wanted to shake him and get Sam on the phone to tell the both of them to cut the crap and to forgive and forget. Much as you wanted to get this weight off your shoulders, the reality of things tugged at the back of your mind, making the scenarios you played out in your head come to haunt you.

The idea of Dean finding out that he was going to be a father always ended up tragic as it had for the Braden family when you thought about it. Maybe even worse. You thought about telling him, hoping that it might bring some happiness to him, a chance for him to realize that he could love someone and be a good father John never could for him. But he couldn’t. He dismissed all of it, because he was too scared to face reality. You pictured him storming out and leaving you, never to be seen again. Blaming it on how he wanted to keep you "safe." Maybe even having Cas erase him from your mind so you could live a normal life, as if all the years you spent together with him weren't good enough. His own self doubt and pity stopped him from facing responsibility he once would do anything to get.

Those thoughts and scenarios was when you were up late at night, lost in your own personal doubts about the future. And then there was the times you were in a conversation or doing some research for a hunt when your mind started drifting to a cute daydream of everyday life with the baby. Things that made you think that things might work out. But...then your mind started to drift to a dark place about what might happen in the upcoming hours during what you were doing. You were on the hunt, arrogant at the thought nothing could hurt you. But then the inevitable happens. You got hurt, you lost the baby. Dean hating your guts for what you had done.

You weren't sure if you would even make it to full term. You knew your own mother had complications getting pregnant with you. She had miscarriage after miscarriage until she got desperate and got down on her knees and begged for a child from a demon. And while you were human, the fear lingered in the back of your head of what might happen. What if the child came out like you had? What if you did something and it ended up with demon blood in its system like Sam had? You hoped that Dean wasn’t going to raise this child like he had. There were so many worst case scenarios running through your mind, you grew scared that all of this was going to end up badly like it had for your parents.

So you kept the secret buried in the back of your mind, deciding that it was better to store in there for a little longer until you were ready and things were looking a little less gloomy. You were barely at eight weeks. There was still so much going on from the boys to closing the gates of hell. And that's how you ended the argument, too. You just left Dean standing in the middle of the cabin, deciding you were too tired to fight anymore about this. If Dean wanted to make that decision, so be it. You walked into the bedroom and slammed the door shut, making sure to lock it when he realized what he had done. And how pissed off you still were at him.

+ + +

You remembered reading somewhere in a woman’s magazine that you should never go to bed feeling angry at your partner. You should try to resolve the problem and work out whatever was bothering you. But you brushed it off as some sort of cra that might work out for another couple that was facing issues that were more on a normal scale. You didn't think it necessarily applied to your situation. You were fighting about asking your boyfriend to stop being friends with a vampire and your best friend to abandon the life he spent a year ago being happy.

The next morning you woke up feeling worse as you had when you went to bed, only to toss and turn, hating how lumpy and empty it felt without Dean. You had no new texts from Sam after you sent one, hoping he might give you a chance to put out the fire burning the bridge between him and his brother. You rolled out of bed a short time after waking up and staring up at the ceiling, waiting to hear any sort of movement from outside in the cabin. When you deemed the place quiet, you unlocked the door and slipped yourself out to fix yourself a warm cup of tea and some breakfast if you could find any in the cabin. If not, you'd just make a run into town.

You expected Dean to be around here somewhere when you noticed the Impala was still parked out front before you made your way out into the other part of the cabin. You made your way to the kitchen and fixed yourself some hot water and fetched out a tea bag. And while you were waiting for the water to boil, you wandered over to the beat up couch when you heard soft snoring coming from there. You found Dean lying on the couch with a beer bottle tucked into his side as he peacefully slept. You crossed your arms over your chest as you found yourself standing over him, watching the man sleep without him realizing.

You suddenly found yourself growing agitated at him. Dean wasn’t doing anything and he still pissed you off...at how freaking handsome he looked at the moment. You were always a sucker for his way of looking good no matter the occasion. Sometimes all it took was one look and you were wondering why you were arguing with him in the first place, a wink or a smile to make you feel like your cheeks were on fire. You had been with him for almost five years and he still made you feel like you falling in love with him at times, like everything was still new. It was something so simple as watching him sleep made you realize all over again about how much you loved him. Switch out the beer bottle for a sleeping baby resting on his chest and that would be your future...if you only told him without chickening out.

You let out a sigh and walked away from the sleeping man and to the kettle whistling for your attention. You fixed yourself the cup of tea and had every intention of going back to the bedroom, however as you turned around, the sound of your shuffling around must have made Dean stir awake. You looked straight ahead to see a familiar face standing in the middle of the living room, making you jump slightly, only it was Dean who got a rude awakening.

Dean jumped a few inches off the couch at the sight of Cas standing over him, watching him sleep. He accidentally let go of the beer he was cradling, making some of the drink spill out onto the couch before he grabbed it. “Damn it, Cas! How many times I got to tell you,” Dean slammed the beer bottle down onto the coffee table as he started to calm down from the jump scare the angel made a habit out of. “It’s just creepy.”

"Good morning, Cas." You greeted the angel in a more friendlier tone as you approached the couch. You turned your head slightly to look at Dean from the corner of your eye before turning your attention back to Cas. "What are you doing here?"

"Dean, Y/N. I need your help." Cas said, giving you the reason why he was here. You raised your brow slightly in curiosity as you took a sip of your drink, watching as Dean tried to wipe away whatever beer might have spilled on him. "The angel Samandriel, he's been taken."

Your face scrunched up slightly at who the angel was talking about, but then you were reminded of the one you had seen Dean talking to at the auction in attempt to get the tablet back. He took the vessel of some kid, and bet almost everything valuable to get the word of God back. "You mean Alfie, the wiener-on-a-stick kid?"

“Yes. I heard his distress call this morning.” Cas informed the both of you.

“On, what angel radio?” You asked him, trying to keep your attention to Cas. You refrained from giving Dean an annoyed look as you watched him wipe away the sleep from his eyes. Either you were more hormonal than you realized, or he was doing everything in his power to make himself appear more...adorable.  “I thought you shut that down.”

"Well, my penance, it's going well, and I thought it was time to turn it back on." Cas said. You nodded your head slowly, not sure if that was a good idea, considering what he told you in secrecy. However if he felt it was time to make peace with his fellow siblings, so be it. "I've been helping people."

“Well, good for you.” Dean muttered underneath his breath. He got himself up from the couch to suddenly regret the decision when he felt his neck and back start to feel sore. He let out a sigh and attempted to relieve some of the pain to a bare minimum.

“Have fun sleeping on the couch?” You curiously asked the man, hiding your smirk behind the cup as you took another sip of your drink. He turned his gaze to you and replied with a tight smile, refraining from saying anything to piss you off even more to end up in the same predicament as last night. "So, who snatched Heaven's most adorable angel?"

The angel replied with a name that made you cringe, “Crowley.”

You and Dean looked over at one another for a moment, the feelings of last night faded away, knowing that it was time to get serious. Whenever the king of hell was involved, it always meant trouble for whoever was in the hot seat. “We’re listening.”

“Samandriel is being held in the general vicinity of Hastings, Nebraska.” Cas said.

“”The general vicinity’? That’s all you got?” You asked the angel. “It’s not much to go on.”

"Yes, which is why I need your help. It seems this is gonna involve..." Cas said, trailing off for a second as he spoke of the dreaded human interaction that he wasn't ever good with. "talking to people."

"Come on, Cas." You teased the angel as you walked over to the table where you had left your laptop last night for safekeeping. “I thought you were a hunter now."

“Well, I thought so, too,” Cas said. “but it seems I lack a certain—”

“Skill?” You finished the angel’s thought as you innocently opened up your laptop, expecting to be greeted by the black screen and the reflection of your disheveled appearance you made no effort in taming. However it seemed someone was on it and made no attempted to hide what they were doing. on the internet browser. “What the hell?

You made the realization that it was the infamous website of bustyasianbeauties, and someone had been enjoying the sight late last night. Before you could say anything else, Dean quickly slammed the laptop shut, managing to miss your fingers. You turned your head to look up at the man, your expression turning into a glare. He ignored your daggers as he turned the laptop around to try and cover his tracks like he should have last night.

You crossed your arms over your chest as you raised your brow, he fumbled to come up with an excuse that didn't sound terrible. He opened the laptop back up, and quick as possible, exited out of the browser while covering the screen with his hand, trying to shield you and the angel from the young woman on the screen greeting the visitors with her dazzling smile and nothing else. You rolled your eyes when he finished up and pushed the laptop back over to you.

"All right." You said, clearing your throat as you pulled up a new browser to get started on a bit of research to track this angel down. "What am I looking for?"

“Well, when you torture an angel, it screams, and that kind of pain, it creates a ripple effect of strange incidents.” Cas explained. You began typing in something into the search bar and waited for a moment until the results came up. While the angel patiently for you to do your own research, he noticed that something was off about the dynamics. "Where's Sam?"

"Sam's gone." Dean informed the angel about the change. You for a moment when you heard him deliver the news, which was only half of it. You refrained yourself from adding more to the story, knowing you had a feeling Cas would be able to pick up more along the way. This wasn't the first time the brothers went their separate ways. "It's all right. We'll find Alfie ourselves."

"Right." You mumbled. “Because the last time the three of us worked together it ended so well."

You decided that it wouldn't hurt to give the brothers some space to work out their differences and realize what kind of horrible mistake they were about to make. It worked like a charm last time. But it took you and Dean to be hurled five years into the future and the impending doom of the apocalypse to realize the three of you were a family that needed to stick together. You felt a wave of morning sickness hit you like it always did after you woke up. It made you wonder if the secret you were still keeping from them would help put their differences aside. Or tear the family apart for good.

[Next Part]

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[thymeheals]

Stories in the Sunshine

Summary: Friendships form with Sam and Dean

POV: first person reader insert and Sam Winchester

Warnings: implied past abuse; past abusive spouse; injuries briefly mentioned;

Royal AU with the characters of Supernatural

Word Count: 1208

Part 3/? (7 so far) in process

The next several days went by filled with shared meals in Sams bed chamber where jokes and stories of their childhood made me laugh. Actually laugh. Out loud. I can’t remember the last time I genuinely found something this funny. Probably before I began trying to impress people at court. I got to know the two princes well. These men were wonderful company, and their brotherhood was beyond beautiful. I began to feel comfortable with them quickly as if I’d known them for years.

We spent many afternoons walking through the gardens and mingling with others at court or riding through the forest to the hills and field just beyond it on horseback. We’d dismount and lay around each other on a blanket drinking celebration wine. They seemed to take much joy in doing things their father would frown upon. I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve never felt so free, with my head leaned back against Deans chest as he propped himself with his elbow on some pillows, we listed to Sam read stories from a book of dragons and demons versus the kingdom with three lone knights at its defense. It was a sunny afternoon and the aroma of grass and tree sap wafted around us. I could just picture the battle, as a matter of fact I began imagining it happening right before me.

I had almost dozed off when I heard Sam quietly ask, “So what happened earlier with father? You’ve hardly said a word since we got here.”

“Same old argument Sammy, only this time he gave me a time limit and ultimatum. And invited every unwed noble girl he knows of.”

“How long did he give you?”

“Six months. And get this, I have to schedule a date every Saturday from next week until the times up. Basically choose six of the women he’s invited tomorrow night to court.”

“Why is he in such hurry? You’re only thirty-five and its not like we’re at war or that he’s sick with one foot in the grave.”

“I don’t know Sam, I just know that there’s no chance of me enjoying the ball anymore. Even if I tried drinking my way through it. He always manages to ruin my birthday. Somehow he finds a way.”

“Maybe they won’t be so bad, Donna seemed really sweet at Christmas and Meg was a lot of fun a few years ago. Oh and that Ruby, man was she unforgettable. Maybe she’ll wear that slinky red dress again”

“Heh yeah. But I just can’t picture living with any of them forever - and when I try to think of who’s the best queen material, who could actually help me rule - I definitely draw a blank. I’m going to be stuck with whoever he chooses for me because sure a dance, hell a night with any of them sure I’m there, but more than that? I mean marriage? No thanks.”

“What about y/n? You could dance the night away with her. Forget about it all. Just to spite him.” I could hear the smirk on Sams face in his voice.

“Sam.”

“What? The two of you have obviously gotten cozy over the last few weeks.”

“Father has ordered her death for next Saturday. I’m sure he’d love to find out we’ve released and been housing his fugitive thief.”

Sam sighed, “what if he didn’t recognize her? I mean under all that mud she turned out to be absolutely beautiful.”

“Sam,“ he sighed, "just forget it. Maybe you should dance with her, make sure she enjoys her last few days with you.” Dean shifted out from under me to stand.

They both smiled when I groaned at the loss of contact.

When I stirred from my dozing Dean and his horse were nowhere to be seen. I stretched, and looked around until I found Sam.

“How long did I sleep?” I yawned.

“Haha long enough for Dean to give up on you and go to the armory.” Sam grinned at my sleepy state. “No really maybe half an hour,” he extended his hand to help me to my feet, “here, let’s head back to the castle. We’ve gotta formulate a plan for tomorrow night.”

“A plan? Why do we need a plan for a grand birthday ball?” I asked as he whisked me up behind him on his horse. Clinging to Sam as we rode back to the castle, I began to worry about the next day’s circumstances to come. My mind and dreams were fitful and interrupted by anxiety and fear.