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earbuds-and-hightops · 4 years

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An Open Letter to Supernatural

[ Spoiler warning for 15x20, obviously ]

I understand that a well-contemplated complaint about this ending cannot be made without first reading the original, pre-COVID, script of 15x20, but in the long run, the initial plan is not what will be remembered.

What will be remembered is what this show created. What it became beyond two brothers driving around the country, hunting monsters. Characters were introduced and developed, and in that, Sam and Dean Winchester become so much more than two kids living on the road. In the past 15 years, the cast, and thus the family, grew to something that would be unimaginable to those who started this project back in 2005. Not only did the characters and their stories become meaningful, but the show itself grew into, well, a family. The fans who have kept this show alive since Day 1 have come together to form what I believe is the greatest community in pop culture.

What hurts the most is that this finale did not do any of that development justice.

The finale (and consequently the episodes leading up to it) reverts back to the story between only Sam and Dean. While some see this as an ode to who they are--their brotherhood and familial bond being the heart of their values and the root of their characters--I cannot help but see this as a rejection of their experiences this past decade and a half.

What’s worse, episode 15x18 confirmed one of the most pure and powerful and goddamn beautiful romances that television will ever see. This story of an angel who abandoned his family and the only beings he’s known for thousands of years, all for one person. I knew from the instant the screen faded to black on November 5 that the story of Castiel will always be remembered, even if his feelings were unrequited. Castiel will always be remembered.

And then there’s Destiel. I was genuinely impressed that this show would even grow to include a queer angel, more importantly, a queer character in a leading role. The queer-baiting and the “bury your gays” trope both make this confession and its lack of acknowledgement that much worse (and is worthy of an entirely separate open letter for another night). It matters less if Dean does or doesn’t reciprocate these feelings and more that it’s wrong that he completely ignores it. Cas’s love confession, this beautifully tragic and tragically beautiful emotion coming from a being who wasn’t supposed to feel emotions at all, is something that, unfortunately, will become a secret that dies with Dean Winchester.

It’s truly a shame that the writers of this show let that happen.

We haven’t even touched the fact that Castiel’s death was an act of sacrifice to save Dean. Dean’s limited reaction and lack of mourning* tears apart this phrase that has become pivotal to the entire show and fanbase: “Family don’t end in blood.” While it would be a lot to ask that Dean rescue Cas from the Empty and resume their cycle of rescue and resurrection, I think it’s only fair that Dean take the time to fully accept Castiel’s actions and words for what they mean instead of simply moving forward as if they never happened.

What’s more, Misha Collins is one of the greatest and kindest people in this world, and he’s poured his heart and soul into Supernatural, just like everybody else. He’s spent 12 years on this project, and the final two episodes hardly mentioned his character. He didn’t deserve this. It’s heartbreaking that his last credit on this show will be a prank call from someone trying to impersonate him, and not something that pays tribute to such an important character and important actor**

The most devastating part of this ending is what happened in 15x19. Pardon my French when I say that that episode, the ultimate climax of the season and latter half of the series, was a piece of dog shit. It’s incredibly frustrating to invest in 15 years worth of television and look forward to this ultimate battle between two average boys and God the Almighty Himself and to instead watch a 6-minute long fist fight on the beach with the only dialogue being variations of “seriously guys, stay down.”

My issues with 15x19 lie less in the storyline that was chosen and more in how they were presented. I am completely on board with Jack taking God’s power and eventually becoming the new God, but the episode was far too quick to have any real meaning, and, as stated before, Castiel’s sacrifice, which allows Sam, Dean, and Jack to do what they do in 15x19, is hardly mentioned.

Most fans agree that 15x19 was far too quickly paced. The plot with Michael and Lucifer was questionable to begin with, but should have been an episode on its own if it were to be perused at all. Michael’s story in particular could have been fleshed out to reiterate this theme of overly loyal sons and their fathers, as well as their relationships with less loyal siblings, but was instead reduced to about 20 minutes of screen time.

Though this is less important, Lucifer’s plan to make a new Death felt like a cheap cop-out just to close the storyline with Death’s book, but we can finish that discussion another day.

The general fan reaction to this atrocity of an episode was that this was meta, and according to Becky, the ending was supposed to be dog shit. This, along with the untouched storyline started when Cas died, gave fans so much hope that the finale would be this amazing piece of art that puts Supernatural in the history books.

While it’s obvious that an hour cannot perfectly tie up every single event and arc with a pretty little bow, it can at least...try. Any finale should, at minimum, pay tribute to what the show started as (which 15x20 did well) and what it became (which 15x20 failed to do miserably).

In addition, a reference to character back in season 1 is incredibly frustrating when recurring characters with actual, well, character go unnoticed. I mostly reference Eileen here, but this also applies to Jody and Donna. Nobody even mentions the other wonderful friends who have helped Sam and Dean along their journey to Heaven. If family doesn’t end in blood, then why doesn’t it extend to include Castiel, Jack, Mary, Rowena, Charlie, Kevin, Jody and her girls, Donna, and so many others?

Dean’s death was sad, I’ll give them that (and honestly, I was expecting it). However, considering that this man has defeated apocalypses, killed Death, and taken down God, his death via nail in the wall was incredibly anticlimactic, and something that could literally have happened at any point over the 15 seasons. While Dean’s death was obviously not my ideal ending, I think it could have worked if it were done properly, and in this case, it was not. That said, I do appreciate that Sam did not try to bring Dean back, as that would indicate literally no growth at all.

Dean’s funeral was...pathetic, to say the least. Sam being the only person there was depressing considering that Dean had lots of other close friends (and you’d think that Jack would pay his respects, but apparently not), however, this is likely a scene that was impacted by COVID and the availability of some of the cast, so I will not dwell on that scene.

Dean’s time in Heaven complicates matters even more. Firstly, Bobby confirms that Castiel is no longer in the Empty and has been in contact with Jack. I would have loved to see this reunion; Cas is essentially Jack’s father, and I would have loved to see how their upgrading/remodeling of Heaven brought them closer together. I understand that the writers were trying to focus this finale story on the brothers, this goes back to my earlier point that you cannot simply ignore everything that that this show has grown to include. Bobby’s explanation also begs the question of why Dean had no intention of seeing Cas (or Jack, for that matter) again now that he has the opportunity.

Secondly, Dean’s instinct to go directly for the Impala was very in-character, however, the editing implied that driving was all Dean did until Sam died. As we know, Sam dies of old age, likely (completely guessing here) upwards of 40-50 years from Dean’s death, and that is a very, very long time for Dean to simply driving around the mountains. It would have been nice to see Dean reunite with other family and friends who are also in Heaven, however, again, COVID restraints.

Sam’s ending was similar to what I and a lot of other fans imagined (not necessarily wanted, but predicted) it to be: kids and a wife, living a normal, monster-free, life. I hate to believe that he doesn’t end up with Eileen (to my recollection, his wife was a blur in the background, and it is unclear if she was meant to be Eileen) however that might just be my bias and appreciation of Shoshannah Stern. While I’m glad that this storyline gave Sam the room to grow and develop without his brother, it also completely ignores everything that he’s been through this past decade and a half, and that is something that should not happen. Sam grew and changed so much since he left Stanford and leaving that life, the life of a hunter, behind feels very counterintuitive.

Let’s not even discuss the wig that Jared wore. It reminded me of the Cain wig that Rob wore in the Hillywood parody.

What shocked me the most at the beginning of this episode was the lack of a “The Road So Far” compilation. I hoped for the full song with a recap of all 15 seasons, or, at minimum, the typical single-season recap. “Carry On My Wayward Son” is such an important part of the show and the culture of the fan base, that it seems almost sacrilegious that the season finale not begin with this song and a memorial to the events in the past season (or series).*** I’m very happy that it was included at all, but I was shocked when Neoni’s cover took over.

No disrespect to Neoni; those girls are incredibly talented and I love their music, however, a series finale of a 15 season long show does not feel like the place for a cover when they already have the rights to the original, and the original is so iconic.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge Jensen Ackles’s reaction to this conclusion. At a con panel about a year ago, he said that he needed to be talked into agreeing to this script by Erik Kripke himself, because the ending just wasn’t sitting right with him. So many fans took this to believe that he was homophobic and afraid that of Destiel becoming fully canon, and he got so much more hate than he deserved, because ultimately, he was right in his first opinion. This isn’t the way this story should have ended. Jensen explained that he had been “too close” to the story, and that it took a more holistic view from a step backwards (the audience’s perspective, as he puts it) to agree on this ending, but honestly, nobody knows Dean Winchester better than Jensen, and he knows what’s best and what would be the best way to finish this character’s arc. I think fans and Jensen alike agree that this wasn’t it.

I sympathize with all of the cast and crew members who disagree with how this show ended but are bounded by contract to support this show no matter what. Especially Misha and Jensen.

Over all, I believe that Supernatural will go down in history (in internet communities, at least) as one of the greatest shows ever. While I do agree that the writing quality in terms of both dialogue and plot declined as years passed, the community, the family, that this show created cannot be ignored because of a poorly written/planned ending. I think that the fandom will collectively let go of this disaster of an ending that we were given and will, just like Sam and Dean, write our own stories. I have full faith and confidence that Supernatural will not be represented by this finale episode, but by the beautiful stories, amazing characters, and the family that this show created and what the fans have chosen to do with it.

Sincerely,

A Fiercely Frustrated but Fiercely Loyal Fan

* I do not count that last clip of Dean crying on the floor as mourning. In my mind, that was a reaction, not an emotional healing and overcoming, if that makes sense. I argue that if Dean were to fully mourn and process everything (like Sam did in 15x20) we would have seen at least a bit of that on screen.

** This is where I would have loved to see some of the original scripts. I hope that the writers initial intentions were to have Misha more involved in these last two episodes than what was likely a voice memo created in 10 minutes tops at Misha’s house.

*** The strange montage at the end of 15x19 makes so much more sense. I still would have preferred that montage at the beginning of 15x20. This also shines light on the video that Misha posted. What would we do without him :)

#supernatural #spn #spn season 15 #spn finale #spn 15x20 #an open letter #no beta we die as men #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #jack kline #erik kripke #robert singer #andrew dabb #that god awful finale #i spent 4 hours drafting this

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 6 years

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A Place To Call Home: Vacation

Summary: The Ackles and Padaleckis are heading to the beach for a two week long family vacation. The reader invites TJ along and is surprised to learn someone else may have beat her to the punch…

Masterlist

Pairing: Jensen x foster daughter!reader (with TJ)

Word Count: 10,300ish (whoops)

Warnings: language, little implied smut

A/N: Takes place approximately 2 years after the end of A Place To Call Home and after the reader has finished college...

“Hey guys,” asked your dad quietly, skirting back from first class squatting down in the aisle, looking at both you and TJ. “How’s it going back here?”

“Arrow stole my window seat and Zeppelin insisted TJ watch Transformers with him so...lovely,” you said, shaking your head at TJ who was sandwiched between Zepp and Shep across the aisle.

“Mom and I and the other guys really appreciate you two watching the little guys on the flights for us,” said Jensen, giving you a smile. “So much so we figure before you two go insane back here, we’d let you know that the villa we’re staying in has a separate cottage. We thought maybe you and TJ would want to maybe take that for-”

“Yup,” you said nodding your head. “This is the best flight ever. We’ll even watch ‘em on the way home, won’t we TJ?”

“Yes. A million times yes,” he said with a fast nod, your dad chuckling.

“Didn’t think you two would mind a little privacy,” he said, giving you a smile and raising an eyebrow at TJ. “Appropriate privacy.”

“Of course,” he said. You shook your head, scratching the back of it when your dad looked back to you. He rolled his eyes and smiled as he stood up.

“Alright, we’ll see you guys in a few hours,” he said. “Have fun sibling sitting.”

“Do we have all of ‘em?” asked Jared, yawning as your parents grabbed the rental cars at the airport. “How many kids are there? I forget.”

“Six small, two large,” said Gen. “So, eight total.”

“We’re graduated from college and we still fall in the kids category?” you asked, waving you to you and TJ.

“I think one of the large children is acting up again,” teased Jared.

“I put Jared and Jensen in the large children category, hun,” said Gen, giving Jared a smirk. “Still debating on TJ at the moment although he’s more mature than those two put together.”

“Come to the dark side, TJ. It’s fun here,” said Jared with a nod, watching you scowl at him.

“Yeah but Jensen…you know...” said TJ.

“Fair point,” said Jared, corralling Odette when she started to wander off. “Everyone under 6’ 5” must stay in a ten foot vicinity at all times at the airport, Ms. Odette.”

“Dad, it’s pretty outside,” she grumbled, waving her arms around. “I wanna play. Please?”

“As soon as Uncle Jensen and Aunt De get the cars, we are going to the resort and we can play,” he said. “Promise.”

“So, right now,” said your dad, handing a set of keys to Jared and one to TJ. “Small kids with your parents, luggage goes with the big kids.”

You saw Tom and JJ look at one another, Jensen rolling his eyes.

“Over twenty is a big kid today, kiddos,” he said.

“But I’m ten and Tom’s eleven,” said JJ. “Double digits.”

“It’s cool if they ride with us,” said TJ. “Really.”

“Alright, alright. Let’s just get there so we can relax for minute,” he said.

“Awesome,” you said, TJ smirking the whole time as you put your luggage into the back of the open top jeep, JJ and Tom practically bouncing out of their seats.

“Alright, buckle up and we will be there in about half an hour,” said TJ.

“You two good back there?” you asked. You got hums and a pair of thumbs up, TJ laughing as he pulled your sunglasses down over your face. “Well let’s get going. I am so driving this next time we go out by the way.”

“Might have to fight me for it,” teased TJ. It didn’t take long to get away from the airport and start to smell the ocean in the air and feel the sun on your skin. It hadn’t been hard for your dad to convince you to take this year’s big vacation to the caribbean after last year’s fiasco. It had been his choice to try camping and after one night of roughing it with three bouts of stomach bugs later, you packed up and checked into a hotel not too far down the road and spent the rest of the two weeks relaxing with a nice room to come back to at the end of the day.

Unfortunately TJ hadn’t been able to get the time off with his internship to come with you but now he was working at the firm under the guy that had ironically designed your parents house, and they were very flexible with time off.

“I’m so glad my parents said yes that you could come this year,” you said, glancing over at him as he drove, his left arm hanging on the edge of doorsill, a warm breeze in the air carrying a pretty scent through it.

“I’m glad they invited me,” he said with a smile.

“They invited you?” you asked. “I invited you.”

“Oh. I remember your dad asking me if I wanted to come like a week before you did. I was away for spring break at my parents and he called me up,” he said. “I figured you were excited and wanted to talk about it in person was all.”

“I talked to them about it after...they invited you...now I’m suspicious,” you said, peering over your shoulder at the SUV behind you your dad was driving.

“I’m sure they just wanted to know for planning rooms and stuff,” he said.

“Or he could like...be planning to murder you in foreign country,” you said.

“Seriously?” said TJ. “Your little sister and like cousin are in the car.”

“We watch lifetime movies when Y/N babysits,” said Tom.

“She’s got a point, TJ. The perfect crime,” said JJ.

“These children are going to be vandals when they grow up thanks to you,” said TJ, shaking his head with a smile. “What else does Y/N have you guys watch?”

“I let ‘em watch Supernatural sometimes,” you said, TJ’s jaw dropping. “So what if the rule was like thirteen? They can watch some stuff. Like bloody mary. Ain’t that right JJ? You loved that one.”

You spun around with a smirk, JJ shaking her head, Tom rolling his eyes.

“Or like hookman,” you said, his head dropping back. You laughed and TJ started to giggle.

“Vandals and traumatizing them. Best big sister ever there,” he teased.

“Dude, that stuff’s in the handbook,” you said, reaching back and ruffling both their heads. “They know I love ‘em. It’s our little secret.”

“What about like...the stuff that’s a little more...grown up?” asked TJ.

“No. No. That’s why you watch the show ahead of me now. I can not have another Jared and Gen season 4 couch incident,” you said, shaking yourself out. “Seeing dad was bad enough but that was full on…”

“What?” asked Tom.

“It’s an episode you’ll never see and for good reason,” you said. “You’ll thank me someday.”

“Hey, you know what? You guys are pretty lucky to have Y/N. I’m an only kid. I would have loved having a big brother or sister around. It can get pretty lonely,” said TJ.

“But now you got us!” said JJ. TJ laughed and agreed with her but you only bit your bottom lip. You didn’t realize you were still smiling when you got to the resort, your dad grinning at you when he saw your face.

“Somebody looks like they’re in love,” he said, Arrow taking off with your mom ahead of him.

“Yeah,” you said, grabbing you bag from the back, helping JJ with hers before you gave her a hug. “Pretty awesome little sis right here.”

He was quick to take a picture of you two, nudging you to hold back once everyone started heading inside.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. We were just talking in the car and TJ was talking about siblings and how the kids are lucky to have them and she made a comment like TJ’s part of our family so he’s got ‘em too. I don’t know. I’m…” you said. “Why’d you invite him on vacation?”

“It was a family vacation,” he said. “He’s part of the family.”

“Really?” you asked, your dad nodding with a smile.

“You’ve been best friends with the guy for four years, you’ve been dating for two and he comes over for dinner like six days a week. I think it’s okay if we call him part of the family at this point,” he said. You smiled, getting one in return. “I assumed you wanted him to come.”

“Oh, I did,” you said. “S’nice that you invited him is all.”

“I know. I’m also not going to murder him because yes, I watched that lifetime movie too,” he said.

“Well good cause then it’d be a whole thing to deal with..” you said, getting a chuckle from him.

“It’s why we act and make beer in this family. Whole lot easier,” he teased, tilting his head at you. “Speaking of making beer, mom says she’s creating a new position at the brewery. Full time, Monday to Friday. Someone to help with the business and design side of things, run social media. It comes with benefits, pretty kick ass salary, very flexible time off…”

“I told mom I’m taking it,” you said. “A big part of my duties will also be designing the farmhouse for the new restaurant and getting that up to code. I get to use that degree for something after all looks like.”

“You’re going to be a boss, not just a beer server anymore. You want that?” he asked. “You’ll be making decisions with all the owners.”

“It’s sort of called The Family Business so it makes sense that family runs it,” you said. “I want this.”

“Oh my...it only took you like five years to get that the plan was for the kids to run it someday,” he said with a laugh. “Whew. We were getting nervous for a minute there.”

“You guys were waiting for me to ask about a job?” you said. He shrugged, giving you a smirk.

“There’s always been a job there for you. Duh. Of course we were waiting for you to ask,” he said.

“You two are partially evil you know,” you said.

“But we’re nice evil, kiddo,” he said, giving you a hug, getting a strange look from a guy walking by. “Come on, let’s go be weird inside.”

“I don’t know if it’s possible for you to not be weird that long. You might actually combust from restraining yourself,” you said, smiling at him.

“I learned it from watching you, tall munchkin,” he said. You rolled your eyes and headed inside, handing over your bags to someone before everyone was being led off to your own private corner of the resort.

You parents and the Padaleckis thanked the people that brought your bags, you and TJ watching the kids take off to explore the villa.

“Guys, guys,” said your mom, Gen whistling before they got too far. “You three boys are sharing a room on the right. You three girls are right next door to them. Tom, JJ, us adults will be upstairs, Pads on the left, Ackles on the right. Any problems, come get any one of us, okay?”

“Where are TJ and Y/N going to sleep?” asked Arrow.

“Backyard,” said your dad. The kids scrunched up their faces, Jared nodding. “I know, sucks for them. But they’ll just be sleeping out there so during the day, those guys are still in charge too. Okay now take off you scoundrels. And no going near the pool or the beach without an adult out there.”

All six pairs of heads nodded before they were gone to their rooms and you were tugging TJ outside. You hummed as you both spotted the short path to the cottage off to the side.

“It looks beautiful,” you said, both of you wide eyed as you entered. There was a small kitchen and sitting room in the front of the house, and a huge bathroom and bedroom with a perfect oceanfront view in the back, your bags already inside. “Wow.”

You stepped outside onto the small deck out there, looking around and seeing nothing but beach.

“This is so private. Isn’t it gorgeous?” you asked, looking back over your shoulder.

“It is,” he said, a hint of pink on his cheeks.

“Are you blushing TJ?” you teased.

“You should see how beautiful you are,” he said, smirking as he stepped out beside you. “That’s a very pretty sundress for a girl that doesn’t like dresses.”

“It’s the caribbean,” you shrugged, TJ humming as he wrapped his arms around you, resting his head on your shoulder as you both stared out. “Want to go swimming?”

“Mmm, for sure,” he said, kissing your cheek before he pulled back. You went inside, digging through your bags for your swim gear, TJ with swim trunks in hand when there was a knock at the door. “Come in.”

“Hey,” said your dad, raising an eyebrow when he walked inside to the bedroom. “Wow, this place is nice. Just wanted to let you guys know we were thinking be ready to go for dinner at six? Little formal, not too formal. You probably need a dress shirt or polo TJ, a dress or nice shirt for you, honey.”

“Sounds good. We were going to go for a quick swim,” you said.

“Alright. Be safe. I think that’s the plan for us too. Oh and try not to spend all your time tucked away in here,” he teased, glancing at you and then your open suitcase. You kicked it shut, turning and looking at a picture on the wall when you saw him realize what he’d seen.

“Isn’t that a great picture?” you said. “That’s a great-”

“It’s a box of condoms. Guess what? You’re not the only one to pack some,” he said. You closed your eyes and shook your head, a loud laughing echoing from him. “Well I know where to come if I run out.”

“Sorry, I think...nope I definitely hear mom calling me right now,” you said, grabbing your phone. “I should totally take this and get away from here asap.”

“Oh so you don’t want to hear that you guys can order whatever you want for room service from here? Like we're paying for everything?” he teased.

“...Continue,” you said.

“Don’t blow our retirement fund but you guys want some wine, late night dinner, go for it. You’re both responsible,” he said. “Okay? Have fun on your swim guys.”

“Alright,” you said, your dad pausing on his way out, turning to TJ before he shook his head, biting back his comment.

“I need a beer,” he sighed. “Six sharp for dinner you two.”

“Gotcha,” you said, groaning when he left. “Oh my god. Never answer the door again.”

“I’m okay with that,” he said, peeling off of his short sleeve henley and shorts, shimmying out of his boxer briefs as he started to pull on his swim trunks.

“Remember the first time we were naked in front of each other?” you asked, leaning against the wall as he pulled up the shorts.

“Yes. I remember a whole lot of avoided eye contact and awkwardness and then I actually looked at you and thought, fuck she is smokin’ hot and beautiful? How’d I land this girl?” he said, walking over, peeling the straps off your dress until it slid off your body.

“You were always hot...then you got all muscly,” you said, patting his arm with a smirk as you grabbed your bikini and started to change.

“Well you do have a thing for big arms apparently,” he teased.

“True. I got a thing for sweet boys too,” you said, spinning around and showing your back to him. “Tie me up?”

“Y/N, you scoundrel,” he fake scoffed as you smacked his chest. He tied the strings together across your back and behind your neck, brushing your hair behind your ear when you spun around. “I love you, dork.”

“I love you, dork,” you said, giving him a peck on the nose.

“No nightmares last night?” he asked. You shook your head, TJ smiling wide. “S’been awhile since you had one. Must be a new record.”

“It is,” you said, resting your head on his chest. “Been feeling pretty good since that meltdown at finals week. I feel...safe.”

“I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you,” he said. You giggled and looked up at him. “S’why I got big and strong you know.”

You raised an eyebrow, TJ shrugging.

“Seriously? I thought you were trying to impress my dad or something which you totally don’t have to. He loves you,” you said.

“I like knowing I make you feel safe,” he said. “I like knowing I can keep you safe if I have to and are you blushing Y/N Ackles?”

“Shut up,” you laughed, grabbing his hand. “Come on, let’s go check out that pool.”

“Honey?” asked your mom from her chair by the pool, TJ showing Zepp how to flip into the water along with your dad at the other end. “Did TJ start working out more recently?”

“Your boyfriend’s like hot, Y/N,” said Gen, your mom whacking her arm. “What? He is! I remember him being smaller.”

“He joined crossfit about six months ago,” you said. “I tease him about being a jock now.”

“I guess we’ll have to see if JJ follows in tradition of choosing a man that goes smaller to strong,” joked Gen. “Always sweet though.”

“She probably will,” said your mom. “I think we got a few more years before boys come into the picture. Let ‘em enjoy being kids.”

Gen hummed and stood up with a stretch.

“True. So glad I got a while before Odette’s dealing with that. It’s getting late. We better get ready,” she said.

“Why don’t you wear that white dress with the little bowtie front?” asked your mom as she stood up. “That’s plenty pretty for the restaurant. I think TJ will like it.”

“He likes everything I wear,” you said. “Like everything.”

“They normally do,” she said. “We’ll meet you out front, okay?”

“Okay. We’ll be there.”

You gave TJ a smile at the table, looking him up and down in his white dress shirt and khaki shorts. You were vaguely listening to the conversation your parents were having, the kids seemingly passed out for the most part after the day of travel.

“I don’t think they’re listening to us,” you heard, your head whipping around, TJ’s doing the same. You saw four pairs of smiles as they were standing up. “We’re going to head back to the house guys.”

“Alright,” you said, some of the kids getting treated to rides back on the walk, Arrow walking over to TJ with a smile.

“You want a ride, pipsqueak?” he asked, bending down and scooping her up. “Did you like dinner?”

“Yeah,” she yawned. “You smell good.”

“It’s cologne,” he said.

“Daddy wears that sometimes,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder as you took his other hand and started the walk back. “TJ?”

“Mhm?”

“Can we build a sandcastle tomorrow?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. She nodded and started to snore after a minute, TJ chuckling quietly.

“It seems you have a way with the Ackles women,” you said.

“Oh yes. You all fall asleep on me,” he said. “It was a long day for a seven year old.”

“Thanks for carrying her,” you said.

“S’no problem.”

“Thanks guys,” said your dad after you dropped off Arrow in her room. “We were going to have a drink by the pool if you want to join us.”

“Sure,” you said when TJ nodded. “I want to put on something warmer first.”

“No rush,” he said.

The second you sat down on the bed to take off your sandals though, you groaned, TJ doing the same.

“Sleep?” you asked.

“Sleep,” he said.

You grabbed your phone and texted your dad, tucking yourself into TJ’s side before he could even respond.

“Morning,” hummed TJ when you stirred awake. You stretched out, sighing into the sheets. “This bed is amazing.”

“I know,” you said, rolling over to catch the clock. “It’s already ten. We should probably get up.”

“Tomorrow we should get breakfast in bed,” he said.

“I like that plan,” you said. “Let’s go grab something from the resort and then we can head down to the beach.”

“Alright, alright,” said your dad, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. “Dad needs a break.”

“What are you, old, Ackles?” teased Jared, kicking around the soccer ball more with you and JJ.

“Yes and I’m not twisting my ankle two days into this thing,” he said with a huff. “Beer break.”

“I’ll take one of those,” you said.

“Beer, beer, lemonade,” said Jared, pointing at JJ, getting a nod. “Hey, Gen, De! What do you guys want for drinks?”

“We’re a delivery service now?” said your dad.

“Can I get a mojito?” asked your mom.

“I’ll have one too!” said Gen, Odette asking for grape juice.

“Let’s go find a waiter,” asked your dad. You headed more towards the resort area and eventually found one, getting everyone’s orders in as they said they’d send them over for you. You and your dad took a break at the resort bar in the air conditioning, glad to be out of the sun for a minute.

“JJ’s getting good at her dribbling, better than me now,” you said.

“I know. I could handle when you were better but the ten year old kicking my ass makes me question the old man comments,” he said.

“You’re barely 46, dad,” you said.

“Hot 46,” said a pair of women that walked past, giving him a wave.

“I think I threw up in my mouth a little,” you said.

“Hey, I’m hot 46,” he said with a smirk, puffing his chest out.

“You’re something alright,” you said, laughing when the fruitiest and brightest pink drink you’d ever seen was sat down in front of your dad.

“Courtesy Mr. Hanover,” said a waiter appearing from nowhere, a double of whiskey set down in front of you. The waiter questioned himself but you took the whiskey, smiling at your dad as the waiter left.

“Careful. I think TJ might like you,” you teased.

“Hey, mine came with a little umbrella,” he said, plucking it out and sticking it in your hair. “You guys crashed before us last night.”

“We were tired. Mom mentioned bonfire tonight?” you asked.

“Mhm,” he hummed, sucking on the straw until you saw half of it gone in ten seconds. You grabbed it away and asked for some water for him. “Hey, I’m thirsty.”

“What are you? Freshman on her first spring break? That thing has so much alcohol in it,” you said.

“Tastes like kool aid to me,” he said, taking a sip of the water, reaching for his drink again when you pulled it away.

“Do I have to have the talk with you?” you asked. “Pace yourself?”

“To use your words from that conversation, I won’t let the boys take advantage of me,” he deadpanned, cocking his head as wiped the sweat off your face. “So how’s Mr. TJ enjoying himself?”

“He’s good. I think he’s a little awestruck. He forgets we…” you shrugged.

“Have money? Well that’s because we don’t give you guys everything you want,” he said. “And you hate shopping thank god.”

“You gave me what I wanted,” you said, taking a sip of the pink drink, catching the soft smile on his face.

“We could live in a cardboard box and you’d be happy kiddo. You got different wants than most well off twenty somethings,” he said.

“I know,” you said, swinging your feet off the end of the bar stool, one of your flip flops falling off.

“Proud of you,” he said with a smile.

“What’d I do?”

“Just proud of you is all,” he said with a shrug. “You’re getting all grown up.”

“Yeah. Still feel like JJ’s older than me sometimes,” you said, his head cocking. “She doesn’t hesitate. She goes for stuff and I still overthink things so much.”

“Well...first off she’s ten so her problems consist of who sat next to who at lunch and the fact she can’t braid her hair,” he said. “You had slightly different priorities at ten. You missed that phase.”

“I can’t even braid my own hair good,” you mumbled.

“Y/N,” he grumbled.

“I know,” you said.

“Honey. Why do you think we go on big family vacations? We want you to get to have those chances to be a kid. We’re all just big kids. Case and point, you know what we get up to when the little kids aren’t around and someday they’ll get in on the secret too,” he said.

“Just feels funny sometimes,” you said. “I feel like a fake grown up, you know?”

“Yup. One hundred percent yup,” he said, taking his pink drink back. “Fake it til you make it.”

“Okay, I think we get you back to the beach before I have to divulge this new beverage of choice information to Uncle Jared,” you said.

“I will disown you,” he said

“No you won’t,” you said with a smirk, grabbing the drink and chugging the rest of it down.

“Got me there,” he said. “This time, you’re on my team.”

“Hey, Y/N?” asked JJ while you walked up to the house from the fire you were having on the beach that night.

“Mhm,” you hummed, holding open the door for her before she took off to the bathroom. You headed to the kitchen and started to grab some snacks and drinks to bring back down. You were nearly packed up when she came back.

“Can I ask a question about being brave?” she asked. You spun around, giving her a smile.

“Being brave? Isn’t that more dad’s department?” you teased. “Yeah, shoot. Everything okay?”

“Um...well...I didn’t want to come up to the house by myself,” she said. You tilted your head as you headed out the backdoor, JJ a little close as you walked across the deck area. “I don’t like the dark.”

“I don’t like the dark either,” you said. “But I do like nighttime.”

“Isn’t that kind of funny?” she asked.

“A little,” you said, slowing your walk back, stopping when you were halfway between the house and the beach, taking a seat on the step. She sat next to you, lifting her head up when you looked up. “S’quiet at night. Peaceful.”

“Stars are pretty,” she said.

“Yeah, they are,” you said, buming her shoulder. “You know, it’s okay to be scared of the dark, especially places you don’t know. This place is safe though. You don’t have to be scared here.”

“I know. I keep waiting to get older so I’m not scared of stuff, like how mom and dad let you do stuff by yourself and you don’t have to ask permission to sleepover TJ’s,” she said.

“I’m a lot older, JJ,” you said. “It’s part of growing up...and part of that is learning you don’t ever stop being completely scared of stuff. You learn more though so it doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Yeah but how are you brave?” she asked.

“Only time you can be brave is when you’re afraid,” you said. “It’s like how dad used to be afraid of public speaking.”

“No he didn’t,” she scoffed.

“Yeah, he did. But he did it, even though he was scared, and now he has so much fun at conventions. Sometimes it’s just something that takes time, like not being afraid of the dark,” you said, looking around. “Like how it’s pretty dark right now but you don’t seem scared.”

“I guess...I’m not,” she said, looking around, giving you a smile when she turned back.

“See? Nighttime ain’t so bad,” you said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty,” she said with a nod, staring at you, that same look she’d been giving you more and more lately.

“JJ, if you want to ask a question, go ahead,” you said softly.

“If something ever happened to mom and dad...would me and Ro and Zepp go to a foster home like you did?” she asked. You smiled and shook your head, glancing down at the beach.

“No. No. Mom and dad...they have it all squared away so grandma and grandpa would take care of you guys and I would be a guardian along with them,” you said.

“A guardian?” she asked.

“Yeah. It means I’m an adult, not your parent, but I’ll take care of you like a parent would. Before I was adopted, mom and dad were like guardians for me,” you said. “You’d stay at home, same school, all that.”

“You’d take care of us?” she asked.

“I’m your big sister. I’d do anything for you guys,” you said, giving her a hug.

“Why’d your mom and dad not do that for you so you didn’t have to go to foster care?” she asked.

“I didn’t have much for blood relatives. My parents were only kids and my other grandparents were all gone before I was born. But they had a plan, some of their friends said sure if something ever happened to them they would take care of me,” you said.

“They lied?”

“No, I don’t think they lied,” you said, leaning back against the step behind you, propping your elbows up. “They just...weren’t prepared to take care of a kid.”

“So you went to a foster home?” she asked.

“After I got out of the hospital, yeah,” you said with a nod.

“Was it scary?” she asked quietly. “The car crash?”

“I don’t really remember a lot from that night. I hit my head in the accident so stuff is fuzzy. But I remember glimpses from inside the car and yeah, it was scary. It was really scary,” you said.

“Who took care of you?” she asked.

“There was this police officer. Dougie. He was probably Uncle Jared’s age. Big strong guy but super friendly. I crawled out of the car around the time he got there. It was pitch black and raining and I was crying and everything hurt...and he just picked me up, sat me down in the backseat of his car with him and he was just quiet. He put a blanket around me and sat there and held my hand and he never left my side until we got to the hospital and the doctor’s had to look at me. He even came to visit me the next day,” you said. “Other people were there and stitched me up but Dougie took care of me that night. I can remember Dougie.”

“What happened when you got better?” she asked.

“Well I met with some people when I was in the hospital, including Cole,” you said. “They went over some stuff with me. Cole went out of his way to help with all my parents stuff and arrangements and all that. A week after the accident, he took me to my first foster home. There were about eight other kids there,” you said. “I had to share a room with three other girls. All I wanted to do was cry so that’s what I did.”

“But then you got happier?”

“No,” you said, shaking your head. “I didn’t get happier until I came to our house. I didn’t want to admit it but that first day, I knew mom and dad were different and they were good, all you guys were.”

“I remember when I got in trouble that time, when I told you to go away around Christmas?” she said. “Dad said you had mean mom and dads before.”

“You know he wasn’t talking about no hugs and kisses, now, huh,” you said. She nodded, looking over at you. “Someday I’ll tell you more but you’re too young right now for that.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “Promise.”

“No, kiddo. I get that. I want you to-”

“Mom and dad are good so I’m not afraid,” she said, blinking at you a few times. “Just a little. Please?”

“...I used to be very afraid of touch, from guys, like dad. My first birthday party, when I’d been here a week, he held my hand to try and walk with me to the kitchen and I ripped right out of it because I was afraid...because that’s what I learned in foster care. Not all of them were like that and I do not want you to have the wrong impression. It helps a lot of kids. It helped me with finding mom and dad. But some places are bad and someday you can learn why I ended up in those ones but-”

“If you were in bad ones, why’d you come to us?” she asked.

“Because Cole helped me and when they tried to make me leave, stuff happened and I got to stay home,” you said.

“You were afraid of dad?”

“That was a long, long time ago,” you said, smiling as you heard a whistle from the beach. “But he was slow and gentle when I’d forgotten that’s how you’re supposed to be treated. We have really amazing parents, JJ. Even you helped me way back then.”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Just know I love you, squirt,” you said, giving the top of her head a kiss. “You want a piggyback ride?”

She hopped on your back and you nearly stumbled forward, picking up the basket and carrying it down to the beach with a grunt.

“I forgot how heavy she is now,” you breathed out when she climbed off and took a seat. You handed out the drinks, your mom grabbing you when you walked past.

“Everything okay?” she whispered.

“Mhm. Just a little bonding time,” you said. “We’re all good.”

“Never have I ever?” asked Jared, your mom shaking her head. “Oh, they know you guys get up to stuff. We all heard about the couch make out session. Oh, I got it...first time you snuck out and got caught.”

You’d heard both your parents stories before as they told them, Gen patting herself on the shoulder for technically only getting caught by the family dog.

“What about the youngin’s? TJ?” asked Jared.

“Oh come on. It’s TJ. He probably never even snuck out,” said your dad.

“Junior year of high school. Went to the end of year party. Asked out Hallie Knicks. I got completely rejected but I did manage to get drunk and walk home straight through the front door. My parents thought I was playing a prank on ‘em,” said TJ.

“Wait you snuck out, came home drunk, admitted it yourself and got off scot free?” asked Jared.

“Yup,” said TJ.

“Shit. I want your parents,” said Jared. TJ chuckled, everyone turning to you, your parents wearing big smirks. “Out with it, kiddo. When’d you ditch these dorks?”

“No, the game is first time you snuck out and got caught,” said your dad, raising an eyebrow. “Which we never did…”

“I never snuck out at their house,” you said with a shrug. “First time I was ten.”

“Ten? Whoa, don’t be telling JJ that,” said your dad.

“What’d you do? Go to a friends house?” asked Jared.

“Tried to runaway. Didn’t get far. Cop brought me back twenty minutes later,” you said, digging your feet into the sand, letting it fall through your toes. “Not a good night.”

You glanced up, the conversation dying out, your dad squeezing his beer bottle as he narrowed his eyes at the fire.

“Hey mom? How’d you fall in love with dad?” you asked.

“Jensen stole her from the mental ward,” teased Jared.

“At least mine’s not a demon,” he said.

“Demons have more fun,” said Gen.

“Yeah, yeah,” said your dad, your mom rolling he eyes with a smile. “So dad and I got a job on the same movie…”

“Wha?” you mumbled, lifting your head off TJ’s shoulder.

“Come here,” he said quietly, lifting you out of the beach chair, your arms going around the back of his neck. The fire was still going, your dad and Jared sitting there, laughing about something. “Let’s put you to bed.”

“Night, Jared,” you mumbled.

“Night, Y/N.”

“Night, dad,” you breathed into TJ’s neck, half asleep already. “Breakfast.”

“I remember. Breakfast in bed tomorrow,” said TJ. “Let’s get you put away, sweetie.”

He carried you all the way back to the cottage, helping you wash off the sand from your feet before he plucked off your clothes, threw one of his tees on you and threw the covers over you.

“You’re not coming to bed?” you said when he headed back for the door.

“In a little while. I was going to stay up a little more if that’s okay,” he said.

“Mhm. Love you.”

“Love you too, Y/N.”

The next two weeks flew by and you were seriously considering begging that you come back the next year.

“Sucks that we have to fly home tomorrow,” you said, moving slowly to some sweet music after dinner, TJ a far better dancer than he gave himself credit for.

“Yeah,” he said. “This has been nice. More than nice.”

“Want to cross something off the bucket list tonight?” you asked.

“Last time you said that, I was swimming in the ocean butt naked in the middle of the night when a piece of seaweed about gave me a heart attack,” he teased.

“Ah but we have the memory of you squealing like a little girl forever now,” you said, biting your bottom lip to hide your smile.

“What do you got in mind troublemaker?”

“Firewalking? Are you insane?” asked TJ.

“You’ve met my family so it’s quite possible,” you said, pulling him over with you. “It’ll be fun.”

“You are insane, woman,” he said, waving you to go first. You stepped up and put down your foot, feeling the heat but you walked across normally and hopped off into the sand, TJ blinking slowly at you.

“Your turn babe,” you said with a wink.

“Okay, okay, okay,” said TJ, walking a little faster, a bit more of a wince on his face but he made it through, a big huff of air escaping him. “The things you do for love.”

“Loser.”

“Loser,” he said, throwing his arm over your shoulders. “I had a dance to finish with you if I recall correctly.”

“Mind if I cut in?” you heard from behind you an hour later, TJ smiling as he stepped away and headed for your mom across the way. “Having fun tonight?”

“Yes, dad,” you said, moving a bit slower with him. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I haven’t had a nightmare in over two months,” you said, a big smile on his face. “Well...one of those ones. I keep having this weird cat one though...”

“We’ll take it,” he said, spinning you around. “I’m glad to hear it. You seem happy lately.”

“After that epic meltdown I had finals week a few months ago, I tried to think about what you said and...I’m happy. Maybe not everyday and I know I’m just in this nice sweet spot right now but I’m not so scared of the rest of my life I guess. I got a pretty good one, you know?” you said.

“Yeah. Nice to hear you say it though,” he said as he moved around. “Mom’s already making plans to come back.”

“Oh we are so coming back,” you said.

“Figured you wouldn’t have a problem with that,” he said, looking across the way. “Think TJ will want to come with?”

“Yeah,” you said. “He seems less nervous around you. You guys talk or something?”

“Just guy stuff,” he said. He looked up at the dark sky above you, humming to himself. “I told mom I’m taking the rest of the year off.”

“Really? You’ve been busy since the show ended,” you said.

“I did 15 seasons of the show and then been busy with movies...I think I deserve a little time off,” he said with a smile. “Maybe mom and I’ll take a little time just for us if you wouldn’t mind watching the kids for a little while?”

“Never,” you said.

“Thanks, kiddo,” he said, kissing the top of your head before he broke off. “Go dance with your boyfriend. This is one of those moments you remember when you’re my age.”

“You’re not old dad,” you said.

“Yes! She finally said it!” he said with a fist pump.

“TJ? There’s a senile old man over here I need to get away from,” you said.

“I’ll take him,” said your mom, skirting over to your dad.

“Of course you will,” you said, grabbing TJ’s hand. “Want to head back to the cottage?’

“Yes please.”

“Alright,” said your dad, plopping down on the couch back in Austin the next night. “Kids are finally down.”

“TJ, where’s your sweatshirt?” you asked, rubbing your arms in the ice cold house. “Someone left the AC on.”

“I left it on the couch,” he said, munching on some pizza from the kitchen. The flight home had been long and it was late, everyone in bed and you were secretly just waiting for TJ to get his butt in bed so you could go to sleep too.

You grabbed the sweatshirt and tossed it on, shoving your hands in the pockets to get warm. You felt something odd though and pulled it out, holding up the square object for a few seconds before it clicked what it was.

You spun wide eyed towards the kitchen but TJ was already in front of you, snatching it out of your hands.

“Is that…” you said, swallowing as you looked up at him. He smiled and nodded, starting to bend down when you jumped up and threw your arms around him.

“Not even gonna let me ask, huh?” he teased.

“Sorry,” you said, peeling away for a moment as he got down.

“So...I was totally going to do this down there…” he said, glancing at your sweatshirt. “But I forgot my sweatshirt here.”

“You dork,” you said, smiling hard.

“Your dork for as long as you’ll have me. Would you marry me?” he asked.

“Yes,” you said, TJ standing up and opening the box, slipping on the ring. “Did that really just happen?”

“I think so,” he said. You gave him a big kiss, his hands cupping your cheeks before you were laughing too hard and had to pull back. “Hey now, no take backs.”

“No. Never,” you said, grabbing his hands. “Never.”

“Good,” he said, kissing you again. “Love you.”

“Love you,” you said, biting your bottom lip, getting another hug before you realized your dad was poking his head around the stairs to the TV room, whipping it back around when he saw you. “You can stop hiding dad.”

“Just giving you two your moment,” he said, giving you a smile when he came back in. He smiled and nodded at you both, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll uh...well I’ll see you two in the morning, hm?”

He hummed as he walked past, his smile turning to a smirk as he glanced around the corner back at you.

“He knew, didn’t he,” you said, looking to TJ.

“I asked,” said TJ. “He’s known about two weeks.”

“I’m going to guess it was a yes?” you asked.

“Well-” started TJ, your dad shaking his head. “Just guy stuff really.”

“Yup. Night, kids. We’ll go out to breakfast or something,” said your dad, looking you up and down and then at TJ. “I think you’re in good hands now.”

“Yeah. I am,” you said, grinning back at TJ. “Night dad.”

“Night kiddo.”

Jensen’s POV

“The kids finally going to bed?” asked De when I walked in our room. I hummed and sat on the edge of the mattress, crawling under the covers and hitting off the light. She rolled over and pulled my arm around her shoulders, nuzzling into my right side. She was warm and soft and there was still that little flutter there. “Jensen?”

“Yeah. Everyone’s heading to bed,” I said, giving her a light squeeze. “I love you.”

“I love you, hun,” she said, nestling her head on the pillow, taking a few deep breaths. “He finally did it, didn’t he. You got that look.”

“Yup. We got a son-in-law on the way,” I said, smiling at her.

“What was her reaction? You see it?” she asked.

“I think some of that weight she carries just went away for good. Not all of it but...she was happy. She’s happy,” I said, closing my eyes. “She’s happy.”

“You can cry, Jens,” she said gently.

“I’m happy too,” I said.

“Not every day your oldest girl gets engaged,” she said. “To one of the arguably sweetest men on Earth.”

“He’ll take care of her,” I said. “He already takes care of her.”

“We did good. You did good,” she said. “Set an example of what she deserves.”

“I guess we did, huh? Not too bad for two people who had no idea what they were doing,” I said.

“Eh, we figured it out eventually,” she said. “Let’s sleep. I have to wake up early and make some celebration cupcakes or something now before breakfast burritos.”

“You excited? You got a wedding to plan,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just wish we got her sooner.”

“You always say that,” I said.

“Still true,” she yawned. “Night. Wake me up if any other life changing developments happen.”

“Eh...maybe,” I teased, earning a playful whack on the chest. “You know I do that on purpose right?”

“Tease me? No. I haven’t figure it out yet,” she deadpanned, leaning up for a moment.

“Night, De,” I said, pecking her lips. She smiled and slid back into bed. Her breath evened out quickly and I started to drift, running over the conversation that’d been playing over and over for weeks now.

“Hey,” I said when TJ came back down to the beach after carrying Y/N to the cottage. “Someone forget a phone?”

“No, wanted to stay and hang out a while longer if that’s cool,” he said. I hummed, Jared looking back and forth between us.

“I’ll uh, give you guys some privacy,” said Jared, patting my shoulder. I almost stopped him but he smirked. “I got some of my own fun to be had.”

“Don’t whine too much for Gen,” I shot back, Jared giving a light punch to my arm as he stood up. TJ stood up and took a seat closer, grabbing another beer and cracking it open, drinking down about half of it before he peeled his eyes away from the fire. “Something wrong?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. I’ve been having this conversation in my head for...a year and I still don’t know how to start.”

Oh.

He…

“You want to marry her, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding and giving me a smile. “Yeah, I do. I really fucking do.”

“Well...get to the asking permission part. Worst that could happen is I say no,” I said. He looked like he forgot how to blink.

“If you say no?” he asked.

“Why don’t you ask and find out?” I said. I knew I sounded like an ass but this was important. I knew he didn’t want to screw it up but-

“I’m not asking permission to marry, Y/N, Jensen,” he said. I raised an eyebrow, leaning forward in my seat.

“Well what are you asking?” I said, tilting my head at him.

“Am I good enough for her?” he asked. I scrunched up my face, closing my eyes before I held up a hand. “Am I? I know she can do better but do you think I’m good enough? She would say yes to me?”

“TJ,” I said, sitting back in my seat, running my hand over my mouth. “You know her. I mean really know her. You have her trust and unconditional love. She doesn’t give those out to just anybody. She doesn’t tell just anyone about everything she’s been through. You’re in a very elite club.”

“I don’t...I am asking you, her dad, on this but am I a good enough man for her?” he asked. “Please. Yes or no. That’s all I want.”

“I don’t think you’re good enough,” I said, his gaze dropping to the sand. “I think you’re better. You’re pretty close to perfect for her, probably the most perfect for her if it exists.”

He lifted his eyes up, a little wide, a little hesitant but he quickly gave a short nod.

“TJ...I know I mess with you sometimes. It’s one of the joys of being a father to girls. But...if you wanted to marry Y/N, I’d be pretty happy with that,” I said.

“Okay,” he said quietly, leaning back in his chair. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I said, taking a sip of my beer. “I guess that just happened.”

He let out a quiet laugh, glancing over almost shy like now.

“What?” I asked.

“You know you set a pretty high standard,” he said. “When it comes to Y/N.”

“Ready to keep it up the rest of her life?” I asked.

“If she let’s me,” he said, sitting back in his chair.

“You’re gonna get the hang of this real easy,” I said with a chuckle.

“Jensen,” he said.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Is it normal to fall in love fast?” he asked.

“How fast?”

“Second week of freshman year,” he said. “She wore this yellow tank top and faded shorts and her hair was in this pretty side braid and she was going on about making a study group for Biology and I just thought, fuck me. I love this girl. What the hell are you doing, TJ?”

“Still feel that way?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” he said.

“It don’t go away either,” I said. He smiled and nodded, looking up at the stars for a few minutes. “Ask all your burning questions. Secrets safe with me.”

“Why’d you adopt her?” he asked.

“Cause we loved her,” I said.

“Yeah but...I don’t know,” he said.

“A piece of paper doesn’t make someone family,” I said. “I think you know that.”

“Then why?” he asked.

“A couple reasons. It makes things easier legal wise. It helps for medical reasons, if De and I were ever in an accident, if Y/N was, stuff like that. But we knew what it meant to her and to us,” I said.

“What’s it mean to you? I know her side,” he said.

“She told me for her it meant she couldn’t be thrown away. For me, it meant she couldn’t be taken away,” I said.

“I don’t follow,” said TJ.

“Say you had a kid, a daughter. Best day ever, right? She comes home and you spend the next seven months or so watching her grow, loving her, being a dad to her. That’s your baby girl. You’d do anything for her. I know you know what I mean because of Y/N but kids...kids are even more special. So you got this girl you’d give the world for and she loves you even if she can’t quite say it yet. But she does and you know she does. How do you think you would you feel if someone came to your front door and said they were taking away your baby girl and there was nothing you could do to stop it?”

“I’d say that’s my kid and I’m calling the cops,” he said.

“What if a cop was one of the people there to take her?” I said.

“But it’s my kid and I didn’t do anything wrong. Isn’t that kidnapping?” he asked.

“Felt like it. I never felt more helpless in my life than the day we almost lost her. I was pissed. More than pissed. But technically, they could take her and I had no right to make her stay,” I said.

“That was the stuff with the chick at the office,” he said.

“I hope you never have to know what that feels like, TJ. For a split second, it was even worse because for one little second-“

“She thought you asked them to take her back. I know. She feels guilty about thinking that sometimes,” he said. I gave him a long look, shaking my head when he shrugged. “You know how she is.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“So you adopted her so no one could take her away again?” he asked.

“It shouldn’t have been on her to be the smart one and figure out what had been going on. I got lucky she’s smart and the fact she was ready to get some closure on the accident. If she hadn’t saved her own ass, we wouldn’t be talking right now,” I said.

“Maybe it wasn’t. But she’s not a damsel in distress either,” said TJ.

“No. She’s certainly not one of those,” I said with a smirk. “Still though. I’m her dad. It doesn’t matter how old you get. Your parents still want to protect you.”

“I get that. I get the whole adopting so she’s yours thing too. But I just feel like, say Y/N didn’t know that stuff and she did get taken away...I have a feeling you still would have wound up as her dad,” he said.

“I guess I’m not following now,” I said.

“You’re joking, right?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said.

“Alright. Say your kid gets taken away and you can’t do anything about it. Say you wait until that kid turns eighteen and becomes an adult, you know, has more rights about who they want to speak to and hang out with. You’re telling me that you, super dad over here, wouldn’t try to get in touch with her again?”

“I think I would have fought for her to stay. But even if I lost, doesn’t mean I’m not her dad,” I said. “All that matters is what she thinks and she wanted me so she’s got me. Again, I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that. All it did was make things a little easier for me. For her, it eased some worries so she can have it.”

“I know there’s this big packet in her closet in this duffel bag she keeps in there. Only thing in it. You gave that to her on her adoption day. Adopting her means more to you than you’re saying,” he said.

“TJ. I love her to death. She’s my daughter and you’re gonna be my son in law so I know you love her to death too. What are you trying to get at?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Just...I guess I wanted to hear that you adopted her not just for her but for you too,” he said.

“Why is that important to you?” I asked.

“Isn’t the point of having kids because you want them? Isn’t that like the selfish part of it?”

“TJ. If we had wanted another kid, there was a far easier and cheaper way to go about it. Being a foster parent and adopting her? Yeah, that’s one of the most selfish things I’ve ever done. I did it for her but I did it for me and our family too,” I said.

“Good,” he said, taking a drink.

“Oh, well glad I got your permission on it,” I laughed. “I got a question for you, Mr. TJ. You gonna take a year to ask her?”

“Shut up,” he said, biting down a smile. “No. I wanted to ask her while we were here. Packed the ring up in my sweatshirt and had it all ready to go cause I was going to put that in my carry on, not risk losing that. Guess who remembered he left his sweatshirt on the back of the couch at your place when we were on the runway?” he said.

“Wow. I bet you had it all planned out, super romantic down here,” I said.

“Yup,” he said, shaking his head. “So there goes that plan.”

“Word of advice. If she loves you, I mean really loves you, it doesn’t really matter how you do it. Try to put in a little effort you know but this is Y/N we’re talking about,” I said.

“I want it to be special. She deserves that,” he said.

“It will be, no matter how it happens. TJ. Since we’re having a moment and all that, can I ask why you went after a girl like Y/N?” I asked.

“She’s my best friend,” he said.

“I mean once you knew about stuff, why didn’t you ever treat her differently?” I asked.

“Because it didn’t matter, it doesn’t,” he said.

“You’re gonna do just fine,” I said, giving him a smile.

“Fine?”

“She asks stuff like that sometimes. Normally at three in the morning but just to be aware,” I said.

“I know. When she stays over-“

“Don’t need to know,” I said.

“Sometimes we talk or just sit in bed and don’t say anything,” he said.

“Good. PG rated cuddling is awesome,” I said with a nod. “Anything else?”

“No. Just can’t wait to ask her,” said TJ. “You tip her off though and you’re dead to me.”

“Hurt her and they’ll never find your body,” I said with a smile.

“That goes for you too,” you said.

“I can agree to that,” I said as I stood up, giving him a smile. “Grab that cooler for me when you head up.”

“I ought to head to bed actually. I got a date in the morning,” he said.

“Well enjoy it,” I said, patting him on the back when he got up. “Night, kiddo.”

“Jensen?” he asked. I hummed, TJ looking down for a moment. “Thanks. For you know...I’ll be good to her, if she lets me.”

“You already are,” I said, giving you a smile. “Goodnight, TJ.”

“We did good,” I said, closing my eyes, rolling over to face Danneel. “We did real good.”

A/N: Check out The Video & The House timestamp here!

#spn #supernatural #jensen x daughter!reader #rpf #au #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #series #foster daughter!reader #timestamp

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natsubeatsrock · 4 years

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So, I watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and...

The Endless Eight arc is one of my favorite arcs in anime.

No, I'm serious.

It's legitimately one of my favorite arcs.

It's not a particularly fun arc to go through on the first watch. I wouldn't be shocked if you went through this arc and felt like something wasn't wrong. Many people have decided not to watch this season or even the series because of this arc.

But I think that this arc very accurately shows how frustrating being stuck in a time loop would be. It also shows a taste of how Yuki Nagato must have felt simply observing the whole thing going down. Not to mention, it's one of the reasons the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of my favorite anime movies, ranking as the best among movies related to a television series.

Now that I've checked off MAL and r/anime's Endless Eight praise checklist in one paragraph, onto what I want to talk about.

I find the big criticism for this story arc to be hilarious and worth talking about more than any of the other things I've talked about. The big criticism with this arc is that it's basically the same episode done over eight times. Certain things are different, but it's essentially the same thing over again.

And you know, they're right.

But that's not as bad as they'd have you believe. After all, as King Solomon once said, there is nothing new under the sun. Essentially everything that has ever been done is a version of some other thing.

For example, Kyon from Haruhi has basically the same personality as Tomoya Okazaki at the start of Clannad, Hotaru Oreki for most of Hyouka and Hachiman Hikkigaya for a large portion of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. All four of these characters learn to see the world differently after joining a club which includes a female character they have to learn to like throughout their respective series.

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking: those guys aren't all the same. Sure they may seem similar, but they're not the same character.

And, you're right.

I would be seeling those characters and their series short by saying that because they share similarities. And I would be lying if I said that I like these characters exactly the same for the same reasons. I understand that might seem like a weird example, so let me give another.

As far as the European system goes, music is written using any combination of the same twelve notes spelled in any number of strange ways, and entire genres of music are built on repeating and reusing the same patterns over and over. If this sounds familiar, you may have heard of the infamous I-V-vi-IV (1-5-6-4) chord progression. To be fair, the reason this pattern exists is that each chord naturally leads to the next one. (A gross oversimplification, I know) However, you'll still find iterations of this in every key in music from Bach to Bieber and everywhere in between. And that's just one chord progression. There are plenty of other popular chord progressions, song structures, musical forms, lyrical topics, and instrumentation combinations that have been done time and time again. This has gotten to the point that one could almost be forgiven for thinking all music is the same.

Except it's not all just the same thing. Many are similar within a specific genre and many genres often feel like they're similar to each other. However, they're each doing something different enough to be called a new thing. As the famous musical theorist, Heinrich Schenker put it "Always the same, never the same way." A quote that means a lot more the more you know about his thoughts on music.

And the Endless Eight arc understands this amazingly well. Each episode shares a similar line of events. However, each episode handles these events differently. It would be one thing if each episode were only animated differently. The things that get fixated on are different each time. The musical score implies different tones in each episode. Some events get less time in some episodes than others. Certain small events don't even happen in some of the episodes like the trip to the movies, the trip to the store to get yukatas, the batting cage, the test of courage, or Kyon talking to Yuki after the SOS Brigade shares lunch the first day.

On my second time going through it, I decided to make note of my favorite versions of each moment in each episode. The idea that you only need to watch the first two episodes and the last to get the idea of the arc is fine if you want the gist of it. But doing that means you would miss the cold open in episode four where Kyon finished Haruhi's request and only realized afterward. You'd miss Kyon saying what Haruhi's introduction to the kids in episodes four and seven. You'd miss Kyon answering his phone as if he were an answering machine in episode five. You'd miss Kyon doing the math for how much time the loop lasted on a calculator in episode six.

Now, let me be fair. Does the fact that these episodes aren't exactly the same, but only slightly different mean that there is no reason to be frustrated by the fact that you've basically seen the same things happening already? No.

And that's totally fine.

While some people find the repetition of aspects a reason to be a fan of those aspects, the same repetition can cause others to be turned off to it. If you didn't like something once or twice, you're probably not going to enjoy seeing it again and again. There might be a version you'll like, but that will probably be an exception to the rule. Of course, this is part of the reason this arc is so hated. After one or two times through the time loop. Many feel like the point was gotten and this arc had overstayed its welcome.

But, in the defense of Endless Eight, the characters are also sick of this arc. Why else would you get cold opens where Kyon says something feels wrong, even before learning what was the issue? Why else would there be scenes where Kyon thinks it's strange that he remembers things that haven't happened yet for him? Why else would Kyon try to understand what Yuki's reasoning for letting the loop happen after learning about it? Why else would every episode after the first have an ending where Kyon clearly recognizes that he has to stop the loop predicated on a strong feeling similar to the ones before? What's more, whenever he fails, why would it matter to him to do his homework?

I think it's fair to say that one of the best moments in the arc for most people is in its final episode. You've seen this scene already seven times. Haruhi is heading out the door. After the first episode, Kyon is hit with a wave of anguish, similar to what he's felt throughout the past two weeks. And every time, he wants to stop her but can't think of the right thing to say or do to stop her. This last time, Kyon figures he ought to do something different than normal if he's going to stop the loop.

Now, I can imagine that the fact that the thing that was missing was a last-minute cram session could be annoying. I got to that moment the first time and felt as much. "Really? This is how the loop stops?"

However, this didn't come out of nowhere. The idea that homework was a looming certainly was brought up during every episode, unlike many smaller events. This was something you were supposed to have in the back of your head as the episode would play out. At the end of the first episode, it's a matter of how all the homework Kyon put off will get done. Starting from the second episode on, it becomes a matter of why Kyon doing homework matter at all. Either way, Kyon decides that he isn't able to completely address the issue in one night by himself.

The last episode deals with both issues with a single scene. He gets all the homework done by working with the rest of the SOS Brigade. And by hosting them, he stops them from looping any more times. He was right to assume that he couldn't handle all of the homework by himself. He was wrong to assume that he was the only one who would end up fixing the issue.

Of course, a great thing about this moment is that it also marks a great difference in the episodes in the arc. As previously mentioned, there were smaller changes to and differences in episodes which are all good and interesting. However, since the second episode revealed the time loop, there wasn't a major change to the formula of the episodes. By actually trying something different, Kyon effectively changes the pattern of the episodes in the arc.

This moment changed the way the rest of the arc is to be interpreted. A lot of people complaining about Endless Eight seem to talk about this arc as if it's just another supernatural set of events. A weird shift from what we'd expect to happen and not much else. While that isn't untrue, I don't think that's all that's happening or the correct way to view the arc.

With this change, the arc continues in the vein of mystery. If you've gotten to Endless Eight, you've definitely seen the Remote Island Syndrome episodes and Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya VI. Mystery isn't something that this show hasn't dealt with before. In fact, depending on how you see it, Disappearance was also one big mystery regarding the nature of the drastic world change.

In a mystery, there's one important rule regarding the solution to the problem. It should be something that makes sense within the world but wouldn't be easily guessed on by the audience. The breaking of the cycle fits that bill amazingly well. We know that Kyon has homework to finish, especially considering every episode ends with him unable or resigned not to complete it. Haruhi says each episode that she was quick to get through the work to enjoy the rest of break.

It took Kyon 15,532 times, but he sure cracked the mystery and gave us an amazing arc to boot.

To wrap this up, I took note of my favorite versions of scenes the last time I watched this show. Fun fact: another big thing that helped me get through this is my love for Season 2′s OP, sung by Aya Hirano, Haruhi’s Japanese voice actor who’d later go on to voice Lucy Heartfilia.

Intro: 4, 6 & 7 (especially 7)

"You're Late!": 2, 5 & 7

By The Pool: 2, 3, 7 & 8

Introduction: 4 & 7

List: 2,4 & 5

Yukatas: 1, 2, 6 & 7 (no yukata picking scene in 5)

Festival: 3 & 8

Fireworks: 1, 5 & 7

Homework?: 3

S.O.S.C.C.C. : 1 & 5

Part-Time Job: 3, 5 & 8

"Ah! Kyon!": 3, 4 & 5 (especially 5)

Explanation: 2, 3, 6 & 8

Stargazing: 2, 5 & 6

Batting Cage: 2 (no batting cage scene in 3 or 5)

Test of Courage

Other Stuff: 1 & 4-8 (obviously especially 8)

Homework...: 3, 5 & 8

#not fairy tail month: crisis on infinite fandoms #the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya #endless eight arc #kyon-kun denwa #you're phone is ringing kyon #this one's an easy one to start with #some will be similarly popular #others are not #one is definitely a wild card pick #you probably couldn't guess it #as for this post #i had it almost ready two years ago #now that it's done #i have a few more from that time #this show was awesome

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fearfearer · 4 years

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more thoughts about the magnus archives as i reread the transcripts

i was thinking about how gertrude robinson was really an extraordinary person (not extraordinarily Morally Sound, but extraordinary) just because of who she was, whereas the only extraordinary things about jonathan sims are things that have been arranged for him (i.e. his role). i don't mean this as a diss for jonathan, as i'm not extraordinary either. it's just striking that gertrude was so driven and confident compared to jon. of course, now we know that basically everything she did was in the pursuit of a moot goal (i.e. killing people in order to stop rituals that were already doomed to fail) so maybe my point is somewhat moot as well.

i've been doing some rereading of episodes on my phone (i.e. away from this text document on my computer) and i'll have a realization like "right, i should note that down when i get back to my computer" and i have forgotten all of them now that i am back at my computer. suffice it to say there are quite a few things i misheard/misunderstood on the first listen, unsurprisingly.

reading through the first 20 or so episodes i'm surprised by how well i remember each of them, considering i was listening like 4 episodes a day when i started. then again, it was only a month or two ago that i even listened to them, so one should hope my memory is at least this good. anyway the first episode i'm re-listening instead of rereading is 22 bc that's the first one where we hear martin's voice, i'm pretty sure

i've also noticed some errors in the official transcripts, which aren't a big deal because obviously what matters most is the audio, but still... some of them have been simple typos. magnus archives hire me as your official transcriptionist and i'll make all your transcripts 100% error-free bc im smatr

(reading through the rest of the transcripts and my standards went way down in terms of grammar/stylistic consistency, as most of the later ones are fan transcripts by several different people. i found quite a few mistakes, but obviously i have no particular way to help fix them short of sending an email to the tma transcripts fansite person like “hey there’s all these mistakes. upload my good version instead?” bc i’m not that much of a dick)

the whole reason martin went to the spider guy's building was because he didn't want jon to be disappointed in him for not doing Due Diligence. he says so twice. then he went back for the same reason. it seems the fandom joke is "jon asks his assistants to do crimes for him" but in this case martin is like "oh no maybe i didn't do enough crimes to satisfy jon"

jon was doing his archivist voice HEAVILY in season 1, huh?

tim's first appearance is so jovial compared to how he ends up...

if this boat lady is speaking spanish in brazil, then it doesn't matter if it was "bad spanish" or not. anyway now i understand why we already knew peter lukas was serving the lonely by the time jon mentioned offhand that peter lukas was serving the lonely. it was my whole “let’s not bother noting down any FREQUENTLY RECURRING names”

well i guess robert smirke was a real person. should i feel dumb about this? idk. it’s such a fictional-sounding name, to be fair. but i guess that set the precedent of using a real person as an important historical figure in the fiction that we see happening again when edmund halley is referenced later on. also episode 35 has foreshadowing for the separation of 14 powers, and people thought it was 13 because they mention 13 halls PLUS the one they came through.

totally forgot about tim goofing around in episode 39... he was really not having the worst time at this job before bad things started happening and he realized he was trapped, huh

the worms were trying to make a doorway into the Worm Wealm

ep 40 jon's like "I need to hear it. I need to record it. Or else I can't finish." (lightly abridged)

listening to the season 1 Q&A for the first time and EARL BIGMAC

also good to know there's only going to be 5 seasons. very good to know. this seems like a good kind of series to write with a fixed endpoint in mind, as it's very easy to do an episode that has effectively no bearing on the MetaPlot but which is still a short story in itself and therefore doesn't count as "filler"

jonathan sims performs with a mythical space pirate music cabaret. so he IS a ham

jonny says, "no rude words. i could say bums, maybe..." (alexander j newall does a laugh while i do the exact same laugh irl) "...but i won't."

some dumbass writing into the Q&A to ask if the background music is diegetic... get a podcast brain, ya fool. though for my part, i have to say that one of the most striking things about this podcast when i first started listening (though i never made a note of it before) was the Too Spooky Music, and i didn't like it at all. the reason was that i am, and have been, vulnerable to Getting Spooked about irrational things at night, such that it becomes really hard to fall asleep... and one of the things that has an outsize effect on my level of Spookédness is spooky audio. so if i was watching a video at night and i was worried it would Get Me Spooked, i would just turn the sound off, and it would turn out fine. but obviously you can't turn the sound off on a podcast. and i've been listening to podcasts after work, i.e. after 5pm, and i go to bed at like 8 or 9pm because i'm old. so the way it turned out was that even if the actual subject of the podcast wasn't that scary to me, the music would amplify it in an unpleasant way and make me more likely to have trouble sleeping. also i think most of the episodes would have been fine without the music, or maybe with some less intentionally-disconcerting background music.

this just in: i seem to have totally missed episode 50 on my first listen-through, despite having gone in linear order. bc i'm listening to it now and i've definitely never heard this before. fortunately it doesn't seem to have much of a bearing on the rest of the series, so it's not like i missed any crucial information. tbh the only worthwhile bit was a brief moment of tim being a ham, which was good. i hope i didn't miss any other episodes the first time... still don't know how i managed to miss this one.

the official transcript said [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER] ...

so gertrude and leitner WERE played by jonny's parents <:3c i'd thought as much when i saw the cast names but i like that it's confirmed. his mom is a really good actress too. i always find the gertrude episodes to be striking in a certain way

"it's Fine working with your parents. it's Fine." as someone who worked with my mom for like a year i can confirm this

i'm tickled to find that the official transcripts have a sense of humor. i wonder who is behind them. i also wonder, what is the excuse for not having a full set of official transcripts when it is a script-based show? surely you know what is going to be said beforehand, and you have it written down, and if someone ends up saying something different in the final recording, surely it wouldn’t be too hard to give the original script a little edit, and bam! that’s a transcript. i wonder if this approach is not feasible for some reason.

whenever martin reads statements, he says something about jon... whenever he talks to someone, he says something about jon

i think episode 110 is an instance of the tape recorder turning ITSELF off... at the end of the episode. because they walk away, and they say something distantly, and then it turns off. lots of other times, there had to be a diegetic reason for the tape recorder to turn off at the end.

i noticed something which i missed last time, which was that there is a rumor between melanie and georgie and basira that implies that jonathan is asexual. worth noting, i think. [side note added in later: yeah it’s canon. cool]

also i listened to episode 103 again and yes. i had thought-- i had been SURE-- that the person interrogating the traffic cop (using the asky ability) was martin. but it was actually jon. how did i possibly manage that mistake? i'm not great at distinguishing voices, but i'm not THAT bad. the only possible answer: when i was listening to the episode for the first time... i must have been eating a crunchy snack.

"it doesn't have to make sense! alex has to make it sense." (jonny sims re: writing the spiral)

glad to know that jonny sims regrets using his own name for the protagonist. doesn't make a difference either way at this point but yeah

YES i knew episode 100 was improvised. and i see, all the statementers had actually had supernatural experiences, but because the archivist was absent, their statements didn't have the coherence and clarity normally lent to them by the eye (in exchange for becoming cursed). i think melanie or basira actually said pretty much that in the episode itself, but i still couldn't be sure that all of those people had something real to talk about.

"in the same way that tim is dead, michael is helen." good shit

the archivist is canon a bit of a drama queen. the first bullet point in my first tma notes document is vindicated

jonny sims mentions another podcast (apocrypals) that sounds 100% up my alley, so that is appreciated, i will add that to my list i think. (listened to episodes 0 and 1 of apocrypals and i'm heavily struck by how VERY clearly i can hear the smiles in chris sims's voice. i did not know smiling could be so audible, truly.) (listened to quite a few more episodes of apocrypals and it’s certainly entertaining at times. i should’ve been reading along though. maybe some other time)

I DIDN'T LISTEN TO THE SEASON 4 TEASER THE FIRST TIME AROUND.........................................

i must confess something that people who know me well may already know: i hate when stories have a bad ending. an unhappy ending. a painful ending. a hopeless ending. bittersweet is the furthest in that direction i can tolerate. my perspective, which is pretty deep-seated, is that there's no point in getting to know and love characters if you're only going to be hurt by that connection to them when the end turns out to be bad. if i have even a mild inkling that a story is heading toward a bad ending, i make a conscious effort to regard all characters from afar and not develop any strong attachments. this is not so much "how i think all stories need to be," but rather, "the characteristics a story needs to have to appeal to me personally." so i understand that my view is very subjective and mostly based on my own mental weakness. but i can't help but apply it to the media i consume. and the idea that someone would do something like "make characters very human and strongly developed" IN COMBINATION WITH "heading toward a bad end" makes me upset. like, picture a horror movie. think about the characters in a horror movie. with the exception of a main character, if there is one, there's no guarantee that anyone is going to survive to the end of the film... BUT... the characters generally aren't fleshed out and very sympathetic. i wouldn't go so far as to say they're disposable, but you're not SUPPOSED to cry when they die; you're just supposed to get scared. their purpose is as objects of fear, and you never expect or even hope for a happy ending. but in the magnus archives... all i'm saying... is that i would cry if any of the remaining members of the main cast died. and it seems clear that we're not heading to a happy ending. so i'm somewhat afraid, and not in a good way. i don't know how much i can trust jonny sims to give me the story i want, and obviously, i'm not entitled to it.

if your name is jonathan and you want to shorten it, the short form is jon. it ain't john, no matter what the official transcripts say. where'd you get that h, huh? stole it from someone else's name? are you shortening it like JOnatHaN? you can’t just be that sneaky!

i listened to scrutiny again and it hits so hard. now, in heart of darkness, when manuela begs jon not to force her statement, it's really heavy given the direct context of the previous two episodes where we see how compulsion works and how it hurts.

also when jon was talking about how to destroy the dark sun and he was like "i just need to see it," when i first heard it, i assumed he meant something along the lines of, "by seeing it, i will learn how to destroy it." but now i understand that the mere act of the eye seeing it destroys it, because being known is what the darkness is weakest to.

the magnus employees who work in the library probably at least have a LITTLE BIT of a feeling that they work in an almost normal place, given that jon and all his assistants were able to have that impression before transferring to the archives. so i wonder how the magnus library people feel about their institute's director getting arrested for double murder and now the big boss is a completely unrelated ship captain who seems to want nothing to do with the place but simultaneously is trying to continue business as usual

on second listen, listening to jon ask helen when the guilt stops (wrt hurting people in order to feed one's patron fear) is pretty chilling. because it seems like he's definitely accepting that he will have to hurt people, and what he's concerned about is how bad it makes HIM feel. of course, helen then answers with precisely what i just wrote, so...

i should've read the transcript for episode 159 instead of relistening because i forgot that peter lukas's actor got so gravelly and hard to listen to in this one. anyway, time to re-listen to the season 4 finale... then i'll listen to the season 4 Q&As and stuff... and then the new episode. (DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI)

i heard in the Q&A that the voice of peter lukas did multiple takes for episode 159?! but it was because of technical difficulties. right. because i can’t imagine the way it turned out being deemed the best take. sorry

ok, things i missed last time i listened to 160: daisy and the other two hunters are missing. also jon mentioned "magnus's body" and martin mentioned "an old man's corpse" and at the time i took this to mean (somewhat unthinkingly) that when jon and martin returned from the lonely, they killed elias/jonah's body. which would be a weird thing to happen "off-camera," so to speak. so i think i must have been wrong? slightly confused. ok, no, i'm now sure that elias survived, so i must have misunderstood. definitely alive.

as martin leaves and jon is about to begin the statement, he sounds so peaceful and satisfied. that's good acting.

by the way, in one of the previous few episodes, i noticed that jonah seems to have body-swapped by switching out his eyes into his preferred body, which i'm pretty sure i missed the first time.

i like that jonny sims checks reddit to see whether people have solved the mystery. that's just a really funny way to do things, sneaking a peek like "hmm how mysterious is my mystery? let's see who has figured it out..." and for the record, i wasn't even close to figuring it out. but to be fair to myself, i didn't try. like i said from the beginning, i started listening with the intent of going along for the ride. plus the mystery had already been solved before i started listening to the series, so it's not like i had a lot of time in between updates to contemplate whether elias was jonah, etc.

JON'S AMERICAN ACCENT FOR THE IONIZED YEAST AD

ALEX WAS THE VOICE OF JARED HOPWORTH?! i mean it was so messed up it could have been anybody but god

ALEX DIDN'T LET GERTUDE CACKLE

i've listened to the bloopers (including a gertrude cackle?) and the season 5 trailer (martin seems slightly cavalier about the end of the world but maybe he's just trying to keep his shit together for jon) and i'm going to listen to the new episode Soon.

final conclusion on rereads/relistens: i had pretty poor comprehension of some important happenings. i’m realizing just how easy it is to mishear/fail to hear exactly what is happening in a podcast when you’re doing other stuff at the same time. there are still a couple things i don’t quite understand, but i think i’ll have a look around the wiki one of these days.

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yeet-me-into-oblivion-please · 6 years

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Well, Supernatural is actually ending and I don't know what I'll do

[ Brevity is not a strong suit of mine since I've included personal details but there's stuff I feel everyone in the SPN family needs to read]

You might be expecting another post about how Supernatural saved someone's life and how devastated they will be when it ends because they've watched it for so long as well as how the actors have impacted their lives. This is probably one of those but please hear me out.

Supernatural premiered in 2005 and I was in preparatory class (aged 5 years and was before I began 1st grade). I heard of it because my aunt would watch it time to time so I'd also tried to get some peeks myself but I wasn't allowed to because it was "too scary".

Then our local cable began to show seasons 1-5 and that was when everyone in class started watching and quoting it. This was in 6th grade and I was frustrated because I knew about it before most of them yet they acted like it was a new show. I had a fair idea about the story but once I began watching it, I fell in love with it and loved it like a part of my soul.

Yes, Jensen Ackles was my first crush but I still thought (and do think) that both he and Jared are super hot. So I was sucked into this vortex, this Neverland which I never thought I would end.

I joined Tumblr for this show in 2013 because I saw the jokes about there being a Supernatural gif everywhere and wanted to be a part of the fandom/community. This was also the year I actually became interested what other fans felt though I never used this site properly until 2016 I would read the IMDb discussion boards because I hated scurrying through Destiel-infested posts.

(Fun fact:I wasn't using any social media of my own but on my mother's Facebook I liked a Supernatural fan page asking people's opinions on Destiel. This is was around the time season 8 was just finishing or had already finished so I read the comments--- people talked about Dean and Castiel being gay and didn't approve of it as there was this one girl who was conservative and didn't believe in homosexuality while others went on how Dean was always a ladies man which I agreed with. Not that I commented but I thought there was something I missed and I thought Castiel used Dean as a vessel, thus Destiel.)

But I digress. I was in deep by the time season 9 premiered and majority of the people I knew stopped watching the show except for this girl who bullied me throughout preschool who put up this update that Dean had become a demon. I doubt she watches the show now but it was hard seeing her put pictures of "I heart Dean Winchester" and pictures of Jensen when my mom asked me why I don't do the same.

Supernatural, I feel, has become that embarrassing thing you are into in middle school but suddenly drop when you're older, looking back and thinking, "Yeesh, I can't believe I used to watch this show."

I'll be a grown woman at 30 or 40 and probably eventually in my 70s and 80s but I will still look back fondly, the good, the bad and the ugly because I have like many teenagers have undergone many changes (friends, family, emotions, hobbies etc) but Supernatural has always been this constant in my life.

Because let me tell you, I'm seeing these posts saying stuff like how people are glad that it's finally over with its "bullshit" and that's it's dying. That is extremely disrespectful and insensitive to those people who literally live for it, who have invested time and money into it: gif makers, artists, meta writers (I may not agree with you guys but even you count). They don't know what to do once the show ends because it has helped them in ways others will never ever be able to fathom.

I saw the video put up by the guys. I saw and I could tell that Jared, Jensen and Misha had probably cried their guts out before the announcement because their eyes were red and puffy. Jared was controlling himself by talking less as Jensen was clearly on the verge as well but yes they said that they should save the angst for next year.

I love the guys; I love Jared being a goofball and Jensen being equally goofy as well and I'll say this too, I used to enjoy some of Misha's crass jokes (not the highlight ) as well which was why I looked forward to the gag reel every summer (because of J2) because it was cathartic after a traumatic season finale. I love the witty banter and the pranks the cast would do and I will miss it tremendously.

I have some issues with my aunt but everything would be okay when we would fawn over the guys and bingewatch the entire season the summer after it finished airing. We'd quote quotes back and forth and even spiritually killed ourselves watching short clips of "Sammy, close your eyes", "I'm proud of us" etc. Hell, she even promised me that when we go visit my uncle in the States we'd attend a con together.

If, and whenever we do go, it'll be different because the show won't be on air anymore and I know for a fact that I won't feel the anticipation of an episode.

So don't say disrespectful and callous things like "fucking finally". You can dislike the cast/plotline/show but don't ridicule and mock those who invested in the show,some of you are most probably speculating and have barely seen it.

I'm not some dumb, blind fan. I can see some stupid mistakes and don't always eat up what the writers show. For example, everyone must have figured that I dislike Destiel because it's based on groundless assumptions. I thought the Bloodlines was a crap idea that had nothing to do with the main plot and knew it was destined to fail.

As for Wayward Daughters/Sisters or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be called, I was not looking forward to it at all because it was one of those "forced diversity" shows, y'know gender bent stuff.

I felt that they were bastardising everything that Supernatural has and will (always) stand for because some people had a hair up their backsides. Yeah, I loathed Claire and that Kaia mourning thing was bullshit. Thank goodness I was sick that day and couldn't keep my eyes open for that episode.

If we were told that there would be a Men of Letters(with Henry Winchester) or even a Bobby-Rufus spinoff I would be okay with that but for now since the show will finish next year let's the wounds heal first, shall we?

I hope that Jared and Jensen get some offers once the show is done and I will pay good money to see movies, TV shows of them etc but for now I will keep quiet since I hope we get an ending we (and the boys) deserve.

Yes, the writer situation scares me and I think they should call Eric Kripke for a last hurrah. I mean, it is his baby and he should get to have a say in the series finale as well as J2.

Will one of the brothers die and the other will live (I'm worried we'll get a reverse Swan Song)? Will they both die leaving Cas behind and Jack as some sort legacy who trains future hunters? That would be a possibility since the sheriff in 14.16 asked the Winchesters why they don't tell people about monsters. What happens to Baby?

I seriously doubt the ending will be happy(maybe not 100%) but the best thing would be if they go driving with Baby into the sunset...

Dean at the steering wheel with Sam riding shotgun, where they should be ---- where they will always be, home. Dean plays his "mullet rock" as Sam would playfully mock his brother's musical choices. No chick flick moments. Just the Winchesters.

The boys need to lay their weary heads to rest, so they can cry no more. Because they are the legendary Winchesters, the hunters who saved the world countless times unbeknownst to many. I don't think their work will ever be done but there will be peace when they are done and how they will reach that point we'll never know till 2020.

Everyone will hear "Carry on wayward son" for the last time ever in Supernatural over a painful montage of "Dad's gone on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days" and "Saving people, hunting things, the family business". Now who in this fandom wouldn't be wracked with pain?

This is the show we all joked about that made a deal with the devil to never go off air but I did expect this a long time ago. Only thing was that I didn't know how I'd treat the news. I was that person who would go, "pfft, of course Supernatural would get renewed". Then again, this was the show that an ending was imminent and the whole season 4 debacle about Misha and the angel storyline saving the show blah blah blah.

So next year, everyone will flock to see the finale and epic conclusion to the Winchester saga whether they stopped at season 5,6,7 or 10,12. Diss it all you want for the shit show it may have become but wherever you left off, you may still want to know what happens to Sam and Dean Winchester in the end.

Once Supernatural ends, I'll turn 20 next summer and I would like to think of it being poetic that I end my adolescence with a show I have loved when I brave the cold, ruthless world of adulthood. I'm a picky person and can't say what's my favorite xyz is but you know what I'll say about my favorite TV show.

We will have completed 327 episodes which is the highest for a scifi TV show so I do hope the boys get some sort of recognition. It was us crazy bitches and jerks that gave the show the mileage and it was us that gave Jared and Jensen faith that they could carry on so for the remainder of season 14 and for 15,support these guys. Support these annoyingly sexy and ridiculously hilarious dudes for this show. I'm sure Jared and Jensen love the show like it's their kid practically but I wish everyone would just shut up, tinhatters, bronlies, stans, destihellers because we are all fans of the one show so let's ease the time we have left.

But seriously imagine Sam and Dean on a desert highway, the orange and yellow rays of the setting sun make Baby shine in all her splendor which makes Dean swell with pride. He starts the engine with a low rumble and they're off. They might to California to feel the sand beneath their feet or to Disneyland. They're living the "apple pie life" and this is their personal heaven : with each other.

I wouldn't mind this playing in the background if the ending is the inevitable and unspeakable you know what :

It's wishful thinking, since I wish they'd actually play some Zeppelin instead of song titles being used as episode titles but I wish they could use some Queen or Guns n Roses and stuff before 1979 because everything sucked ass afterwards according to Dean.

I want the classic rock resurgence in the show as well but I know they'll end up using the cash elsewhere. I wouldn't mind a body swap episode but if wishes were horses, right?

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thegeminisage · 5 years

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alright im about to watch 5.03 of merlin for the 2nd time ever

because if i dont do it now i may NEVER GET ANOTHER CHANCE

but first i wanna get out of the way that i thought merlin convincing arthur to keep the ban on magic in 5.05 because he was trying to thwart ~*~destiny~*~ or whatever is the laziest writing ever, it’s unsatisfying for the audience, it renders the rest of the last season utterly pointless, it’s unfair to merlin and arthur, and the tonal shift of the show from farting trolls in season 2 to full greek tragedy in season 5 was completely unwarranted and i feel TRICKED as a human person because i expected the end to be bittersweet and make me sad, not table-flipping angry, and i do not at all have high hopes for the finale

but i can ignore something having a “bad last five minutes” i did it for life is strange and final fantasy 13-2 i will do it for merlin but honestly

speaking on 5.03, after it was over the first time i was like “i can never write my fanfic now because nothing i ever do will be as good as that” but i’m really relieved in that way that that was apparently the last good episode of merlin because now i can continue my work in peace and maybe hopefully even actually finish it

okay commence the liveblog:

love that arthur and merlin are down to just jump off their horses whenever random women start screaming in the distance. season 5 could have been so good, they’re so much more grown up and in sync with one another, i absolutely LOVE their #vibe

it was interesting to me also that arthur DEMANDED a fair trial for this woman despite her being accused of sorcery. god, he was SO CLOSE?? that hatred of magic just can’t really take root in him especially with uther gone...arthur may be an asshole in the early seasons, and he may be quick to anger and quick to lash out in that anger, but it’s just not in him to be cruel, especially needlessly

EVEN THIS LADY IS LIKE “u showed kindness and compassion” arthur is a Good Boy deep down he is he IS he didn’t care a bit about that horn she gave him but still politely said it was beautiful

although lmao the way his face changed when she said it was magic...that’s the STUFF

lowkey losing it at athony head in the credits. i was looking to see if he’d be in the s5 ones since he’s dead and didn’t see him in 5.01 or 5.02 so when i DID see him in 5.03 i was like haha no way did they pay to put him in here i guess i just missed him the first couple of times BUT I WAS WRONG

like, in buffy, they spend an entire episode trying to decide whether or not to necromance their mom or whatever and she doesnt actually APPEAR IN THE EP they never SEE her i thought this would be an episode ABOUT uther i didn’t think uther would be IN it

love that from the get-go arthur’s face screams “i am thinking about making a terrible mistake” and merlin’s face is like “he is thinking about making a terrible mistake”

i’m quite proud of merlin in s5 actually. bad writing aside he uses multiple braincells many times per episode. it’s a vast improvement. same energy as clary from shadowhunters right down to getting shafted in his final season

ive said it before and ill say it again gwen looks SOOO GOOOOD as queen

if this is the anniversary of uther’s death then (if you go by 1 season = 1 year) arthur just turned 30...it’s been nine years and change since merlin met him, and by the end of season 5 it will have been an entire decade

in an otherwise increddibly heavy episode arthur panicking and throwing all the apples out of the bowl so he could cover the horn with it is absolutely priceless. season 5 if nothing else has really hammered home for me what a TERRIBLE liar arthur is - merlin got good at it fast out of necessity but arthur can’t hold a poker face to save his LIFE. “leave it.” “why??” “because i’m telling you to and i’m the king of camelot” buddy......

we were ROBBED. if there had ever been a day where arthur came to accept merlin’s magic but still had to help merlin hide it there could have been an entire episode of arthur nearly blowing merlin’s cover because he’s a nervous nelly and at the end he goes “i cant believe you have had to do this 24/7 for YEARS without a single friend to help you” and merlin goes “well now i have you” anyway.

i love also that repeatedly when arthur goes to do something scary by himself he also brings merlin. they LITERALLY are two halves of a whole

“you’re threatening me with a spoon??” i can’t tell you about the unfortunate fanfics i have seen involving The Spoon. i shall also not mention the ones involving The Glove. we will not speak of it

I CANNOT BELIEVE STONEHENGE IS IIN MERLIN. i got so agitated i did not pay one bit of attention to the conversation following its reveal and me and cathy and had to rewind so i could listen properly

my hate-on for stonehenge goes thusly: stonehenge apocalypse, starring misha collins, is @callowyn‘s favorite movie. i have seen it 45 times. i hate it nearly as much as she loves it. it’s an age-old battle

merlin is so intense when he looks for signs in arthur that he DOESN’T totally hate magic...arthur using magic to see his dad again is one of those signs. he’s willing to turn to it in desperation - maybe he’d be willing in less desperate times too

“my father was taken from me before his time” i mean...he was practically in a coma. so like. he wasn’t

love that when arthur mentions merlins dad ONCE he immediately looks like he’s about to cry. mood. i also want to cry every time i think about merlins dad

up until the moment i laid eyes on uther i was SURE they werent actually gonna do it. i came into this thinking it was a FLASHBACK EP

for the record (and believe me i NEVER thought i’d say this) even though i waited and waited for his demise and cheered when he was gona for good...i really missed uther in season 4. at least with uther you know what you’re getting. agravaine (his replacement as “evil guy who keeps us from being able to solve our problems too easily”) was a slimy cowardly CREEP. and in season 5 i WISH things were as simple as “work around uther’s pigheaded unreasonableness”

for a hot second i really thought uther and arthur would have a nice conversation where they reconciled or said something heartwarming. i was worried about an uther redemption arc - this guy is responsible for the genocide of magic users, he doesn’t deserve redemption - but this show said NOT TODAY and they said it QUICK

ARE

BLESSED

i have A LOT of issues with season 5 but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS WAS DADDY ISSUES 2.0 BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD

repressed trauma returns: harder better faster stronger!! that’s the STUFF

was i not just speaking the other day on my fanfic ask meme about how i love emotionally intense stuff? this is IT babey

uther’s such a bad father! he’s with his only child again for the last time in ever and all he does is tear him a new one! this is why arthur’s such a fucked-up human being (morgana too)

i’m THRILLED we got to revisit this. his eyes get bigger and bigger and he starts fucking stammering and by the time uther’s done calling him weak and a failure he looks ready to CRY. i was HOLLERING. i still couldnt believe uther was even HERE and not only is he HERE he’s a WRECKING BALL

“this CAN’T be the last time i’ll ever see you” oh buddy you’re gonna wish it was

and he looks back, as he leaves. of COURSE he does. just like lot’s wife. so it goes.

you know how at the end of every supernatural episode sam and dean debrief and talk about their feelings in the car? for merlin and arthur it’s almost always done around a campfire at night - sometimes in arthur’s chambers or other places, but usually out here in the wilderness where it’s just the two of them. i’m...really going to miss it, when it’s gone.

“my father doesn’t approve of the way i’ve chosen to rule his kingdom” “you mean YOUR kingdom”

you know i don’t think i really got...like, fundamentally, on a deep level...that merlin fucking HATES uther

i’ve seen him save uther’s miserable life so many fucking times that i thought for merlin it was kind of the way it was with gwen - he feels nothing for him, but he looks after him for arthur’s sake (or as i came to understand later because he’s professor x about the whole thing)

but the way his expression got SO UGLY when arthur revealed that uther just shit-talked him the entire time...holy fuck

between that & some other stuff that happens later it really paints a clearer picture of like...uther’s dead so merlin doesn't have to hold back anymore and he FUCKING HATES HIM?? like obviously he SHOULD bu i just never SAW it before this. merlin LOATHES him. it’s INCREDIBLE to witness when he bore it so silently for so long. maybe even merlin didn’t realize just how much he hated him until now

and not to get too real here but if youve ever been friends with someone who had an abusive/toxic parent or was in an abusive/toxic relationship and you watch them feeling like shit after and they start making excuses for that asshole like “oh yeah he’s right about x” and you just want to find this horrible person and THROTTLE THEM that emotion is like ALL OVER merlin’s face rn. i didn’t actually seriously "”ship”” merlin and arthur until late season 4/early season 5 (i didnt like dislike it i just wasnt actively bothered by a lack of it) and what changed was this vibe. merlin wants to kill uther all over again just because he made arthur feel this way. he’s so fuckijng PROTECTIVE

and he still almost manages to drag a smile out of him via roasting, god bless these 2

ok so i didnt believe this show would actually DO THAT re: putting uther himself in this ep but i was doubly shocked by the fact that he HITCHED A RIDE AND GOT OUT

me shrieking during this entire poltergeist sequence: OH MY GOD OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY HIM?? HOLY FUCK HE IS LITERALLY HAUNTING ARTHUR I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE DOING THIS I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE GIVING US THIS etc etc etc

actually most of that was probably muffled nonsense because i was yelling with both hands over my mouth

percival’s the realest motherfucker on this whole show. dude survives a murder attempt in which he got an AXE lobbed at him by the fucking GHOST of a power-mad genocidal king and he’s like: yeah idk i guess it fell

there was thunder in the bg for this WHOLE ep and i’m Big into it

absolutely CACKLING at the bit where merlin has to ask arthur if he looked back at uther’s spirit. it’s one of those nice big heavy questions - so heavy, in fact, that arthur can’t answer, can’t even LOOK at merlin, either because he’s ashamed or because he’s bugging out or both. you thought this shit was over? it’s never over! daddy issues are a lifelong ride, pal! arthur’s just get to haunt him literally this time. god it’s so fucking good

can i just say? merlin reads that damning silence reeeal well. and it’s a big, heavy thing to know about arthur - but then again he knows all the big heavy things about arthur

the score for this episode is really good too...very suspenseful and good, adds a lot to the atmosphere, keeps it from getting too slow

there’s a hint of merlin’s absolute HATRED of uther in this conversation again - the way his face tightens when he says “uther would do anything to protect his legacy and that makes him dangerous, who knows what he’s capable of now”

and arthur dismisses him because he can’t hear this but merlin almost refuses to leave - and when he DOES leave, he doesn’t take his eyes off arthur for one fucking second. he stares him down all the way out of the room. i don’t think it’s because he’s angry with arthur, per se - he’s angry with uther, and he knows uther in a way arthur never can or will, as someone ruthless who will kill without warning or remorse. he’s afraid of uther and he’s trying to get arthur to be afraid of uther too before it’s too late and LSDKFJGHSLDFJH

if you’re thinking “thats a lot to interpret from one look” yes it is but i’m right. IT’S A BIG, HEAVY LOOK. NICE AND LOADED. love unpacking all of that

i cant believe this dude tried to KILL GWEN like he really is coming after everything that makes arthur happy. im so glad it was merlin that saved her. i really do think merlin is her best friend

multiple times in this serious arthur fidgets when he’s nervous or thinking, usually with his hands near his mouth. i am endeared to him. my poor boy

“i always knew my father could be cruel but why would he do this to gwen when he knows i love her” BECAUSE HE’S CRUEL

merlin knows. merlin knows his cruelty much better than arthur. boy does he know. i’m dying. it’s fine

love that at this part of the ep we slide seamlessly into the “merlin and arthur are both scared shitless” section which was truly one of my favorite things about the s4 opener. they’re both so fucking jumpy and giving each other shit about being frightened and continuing to be frightened anyway. the DELICIOUS IRONY of arthur finally being scared of uther in the way merlin has been scared of uther for Y E A R S oh my god it’s so GOOD

do also love the entire silent conversation they have when deciding what to do about the door. this is what i mean by their upgraded vibe.l in the early seasons merlin wouldn’t have understood and his lack of understanding would have been played for laughs. now they’re totally in sync

here’s the thing, gaius could have made this magic “able to see uther’s ghost” potion for just arthur and he didn’t. he made it for both of them. everything arthur does merlin does. they’re partners in all things. they’re COMPANIONS. and this is why i finally now Ship It. tragic.

you know this is a kind of weird comparison but late seasons arthur reminds me JUST a bit of gwaine. he complains so much less that he sort of has that same “roll with whatever” vibe to him. pretend to faint so you can steal some guy’s dagger? why not. take this foul potion that may kill us? sure, let’s do it. come what may he’s not really fussed. much more unflappable

until he starts getting spooked again LMFAO

we do love a good pair of spooked dumbasses. this is charming and entertaining.

leon HAD to know they were lying about poetry. he probably thought they were having.......a tryst,

love also that even in this very dire moment merlin does NOT miss the chance to have some fun at arthur’s expense. that’s true friendship

i got jumpscared three separate times during this ep and one of them was when uther was glaring down merlin and arthur in the hallway after leon left

arthur didn’t jump but he did go hunting after him and to his credit he does not look scared. he looks like a man who is trying to deal with his business and get his shit together

merlin made that FACE again when arthur expressed sadness at hunting his own father because all he ever wanted to DO was make him proud

honestly it’s like since he can’t shit-talk uther he just sings arthur’s praises instead like this here is a guy who is just barely holding his tongue about how fuckin pissed he is. i cant believe it

splitting up was the WORST idea. have they not seen scooby doo??

love that when merlin gets cornered by uther’s ghost and gets scared he yells for arthur and when arthur gets scared because his torch blows out he yells for merlin. you fools, why did you SPLIT UP

uther locks arthur in the room with him, which is already some top tier content, but doubly good? it’s the same room in which arthur nearly ran him through in 2.08. don’t think i didn’t notice. i did notice. i was shrieking into my hands.

seriously this is a pretty calm liveblog but the first time i watched this ep my face was like this the whole time: O O

just kept going “HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK OH MY GOD” over and over. it was greeat

“arthur your fatal flaw is that you put too much trust in other people” do you think arthur, who now has a complex about people betraying him, ever forgot that for one second in his entire life afterward? me neither

speaking of 2.08 arthur dropped some FACTS “your hatred comes from fear” i'm sure they didn’t do it on purpose but #throwbacks

i’m fully experiencing human emotion. “i’m not you, i can’t rule like you did” he’s trying SO HARD to fight his way out of that bullshit

also lmao arthur like “then you’ll have to kill me” and uther like “yeah okay” arthur didn’t KNOW how this man was this could have been SUCH a good awakening

AND NOW IT’S TIME

FOR MY FAVORITE PART OF THIS EPISODE

when i say merlin hates uther. WHEN I SAY MERLIN H A T E S UTHER

HIS LINE HERE. ok. “get away from him, uther. you’ve caused enough harm” he’s furious! he’s GROWLING!

“you are just a serving boy” “i am much more than that” listen. human words cannot express the emotion that ran through me. when they said “we’re gonna bring back anthony head as uther” i doubted. when they said “he’s gonna be the bad guy and reopen all of arthur’s old wounds” i doubted. when they said “he’s still here LITERALLY haunting arthur who now has to HUNT HIM” I DOUBTED. i didn’t believe they’d do any of it until it was happening on my screen. but ONE LOOK at merlins face made a MOTHERFUCKING BELIEVER out of me. i knew exactly what he was about to do. pretty sure i gasped “NO” in astonishment

AND HE DID THAT

HE👏

DID👏

THAT👏

NOT ONLY. DID I SHRIEK ALOUD. FULL SCREAM. WHEN IT HAPPENED THE FIRST TIME. BUT JUST NOW. WHEN I WATCHED HIM DO IT AGAIN. MORE SCREAMING.

how LONG do you think merlin had ACHED to do that

to show himself to uther for what he was, what he REALLY WAS, someone to be reckoned with instead of someone to be overlookedd, without fear of consequences

i can’t even like

like just imagine the triple rush of 1. satisfaction 2. rage 3. lingering habitual terror

i think at this moment merlin was closer to and more like morgana than he had ever been and maybe ever will be again. because the two of them have so much in common but one thing i didn’t really clock until now is how much they both hate uther

it’s so good. uther is SHOCKED and DISMAYED and this is like merlin’s old fear come back from death too (getting found out by uther) while at the same time being a dream come true (getting to tell uther what he really thinks, who he really is - “i was BORN with it!”) he’s so ANGRY! he is LIVID!)

he’s also really SATISFIED like “even while you were king there was magic at the heart of camelot” GOD how long has he been WAITING for this and not even realized it

and like then uther starts spewing his hateful bullshit and stalking forward with the intent to kill and my guy merlin who should be terrified STANDS HIS MOTHERFUCKING GROUND and says right over him “you’re wrong, you’re wrong” for thirty beautiful seconds merlin really got to be free. i know i will keep comparing things to 2.08 until i die but it’s just like when arthur was almost ready to kill uther in cold blood because for one perfect, brilliant moment he really and truly saw clearly the world as it was. i really love these moments...the strength of their respective convictions is so gratifying

merlin yeeting uther through a door is also gratifying although i have no idea what he hoped to accomplish by following without waking arthur first

i. LOVE. that the camera lingered a little on the spears or whatever after merlin walked by them. nice little foreshadowing moment

THOSE SPEARS GOT AWFULLY CLOSE BUT IM PRETTY SURE UTHER MISSED ON PURPOSE BECAUSE HE WANTED TO TAKE HIS TIME. HIS MISTAKE

okay merlin spent the better part of a lifetime dreading uther’s death sentence and here’s uther stalking down a hallway sword pointed at his chest and certain death is IMMINENT and what does merlin’s face look like?

arthur comes in with the rescue and INSTANTLY his expression changes to?

IT’S BETTER IN MOTION BUT HE LOOKS READY TO CRY

my immediate thought: oh jesus what if uther outs him

i knew he wouldnt bc of spoilers but i would bet a benjamin that that was merlin’s first thought too

tbh. i wish he had.

i kind of wonder if merlin doesn’t wish the same thing. like yes being outed like that is terribly violating and he’s terrified of telling arthur obviously or he would have already but at the same time there would be so much relief once it was finally out. no more secret-keeping. no more burden

i mean, if you go back and watch it, dude’s straight up shaking. he’s trembling all over. he’s losing it. that last teary glance they exchanged.......

uther was two SYLLABLES away from blowing the whole thing

and in a better happier canon where arthur knows and was waiting for merlin to tell him this is like double angst because uther wouldve ben blowing something for them both

i like arthurs followup of realizing that he’ll never be able to please uther (step 1 of breaking away from the cycle of abuse) but for the LIFE OF ME

i will NEVER be able to understand why they segued into this GLOVE THING

i’m not talking about the glove thing

i will say however that by the end of this episode i was so hysterical i had to get up and get water and pace around my kitchen for ten minutes fanning my own face

and that’s it. that’s the second-best episode of merlin and the last good episode there ever was

#personal #merlin blogging #it took me three and a half hours to rewatch this episode because i kept pausing to scream #MERLIN DESERVES TO BE OUT TO EVERYONE ALL THE TIME it's not FAIR #that episode deserved to be 20 minutes longer it ended too soon #in a happier world arthur found out about the magic and immediately took merlin's side and defended him against the genocidal maniac but app #apparently this show is a greek tragedy now

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paulwesleychronicles · 6 years

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EW Interview with Paul about Directing "Legacies & Roswell" - https://paulwesleychronicles.com/ew-interview-with-paul-about-directing-legacies-roswell/ #PaulWesley

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EW Interview with Paul about Directing "Legacies & Roswell"

Paul Wesley directed his first episode of television in 2014. It was a season 5 episode of The Vampire Diaries, the show in which he starred as the noble Stefan Salvatore for what would go on to be eight seasons. He’d add four more episodes to his director’s resume by the time the show ended in 2017. Since then, his television directing career has included Freeform’s hit series Shadowhunters and with this week, he adds Roswell, New Mexico and Legacies — the latest show in the Vampire Diaries universe — to the list.

EW talked to Wesley about his latest projects and his overall experience as a director.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did the experiences of directing Roswell, New Mexico and Legacies compare to each other, but also to your other directing experiences? PAUL WESLEY: One of the things that I welcomed the most with Legacies was the humor. For years on Vampire Diaries we all wanted to flex our satirical muscles a little bit. I think it’s nice to be able to make fun of not yourself but I suppose of the genre and make it a little more of a wink to the audience. I really enjoyed that aspect of Legacies. And then Roswell is obviously a whole different tone and it’s a completely different set of actors, and it’s New Mexico. I’d never shot in New Mexico. It’s very beautiful; there’s big wide vistas and mountains. It feels almost like a western in a weird way. Those were the two big differentiations between the things that I’ve done already.

Do you have a preference between directing something where you’re familiar with the universe or something that’s completely new to you? I think sometimes being too comfortable is not necessarily a good thing but then at the same time, I completely understand why someone like Cary Fukunaga would want to direct every episode of Maniac for Netflix. Because it’s kind of like one long movie. I think it depends on the show. Obviously if you’re doing six years of a show that’s 22 episodes a year, that’s not sustainable. The same person can’t do it. It’d be great to do something from beginning to end, and I think that is probably the most satisfying because you get to create the world and then you get to complete the world. I do think it’s difficult for directors to come in and step into someone else’s vision, but that’s part of the challenge. It’s a little more mathematical and logic-based, directing television. I mean that in a good way: you need to understand how the puzzle fits together. You need to have the tone, you need to understand what the pacing is like, and then you can add your own individual touches to it I suppose.

With Roswell, you’re coming in after a monster of an episode where the Rosa mystery was laid out in full. What are we dealing with in the aftermath? My episode had less stunts and was more character-based, which I prefer. I’ve certainly done my fair share of stunts and green screens and all kinds of VFX but my episode of Roswell was a little more grounded, which was nice. I also think a big part of this is that it’s a season one show. That’s very important. I was very flattered when [showrunner] Carina [MacKenzie] asked me to direct because that’s a lot of responsibility. It’s a season one show, you need to find your audience, you obviously you want to impress executives and the networks and the studios and I think to give me the reins for an episode, it’s flattering. Because I’m still a fairly new director.

What has been your greatest challenge thus far as a director? When it comes to television, the greatest challenge is time. Sometimes things aren’t working in your favor, whether it’s weather or if it’s an actor needs more time because they can’t find the moment. The biggest challenge is making sure you’re on time. You can’t go over a certain amount of hours and I’ll tell you, I’m super proud of Legacies, everyone loves it, but man there were times when I was like, “I’m not going to be able to finish my day.” I ended up finishing all my days and didn’t go over but it’s not easy when you have six, seven people in a scene, stunts, and fight sequences. Listen, I can shoot anything but in order to make it good you need some time and making something good on a short amount of time, that’s the greatest challenge.

Is there a scene or episode you’re most proud of that you’ve directed? I think the ending of Legacies is very powerful. I really like the way it ends. As far as in general as a director, I’m not so sure. There’s a handful of scenes that I’m really proud of. There’s a few on the Vampire Diaries that I thought were probably some of my favorites. But I can’t quite recall at this point. It’s all blended in into one giant supernatural CW mix-up in my mind.

Credit

#CW Roswell New Mexico #Legacies #Paul Wesley #Paul Wesley Directing

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Riverdale Season 5 Episode 1 Review – Chapter 77: Climax

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This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 1

“Clearly our last two weeks of high school are going to be fraught…”

Friends, on this day we find this country starting a new chapter, one that is full of hope and excitement for the future.

I am of course referring to the airing of Riverdale‘s season premiere, a somewhat wheel-spinning, melodramatic affair that feels more like the closing pages of a book than the start of another story.

And that’s because it is precisely that. This episode was a leftover from last year, filmed but not completed production until the pandemic lockdown was over. As such it thrusts us into the start of the endgame of last season’s storylines — namely the fallout of the Betty and Archie kiss, Mr. Lodge’s illness and how he is using vigilantism to cope with it, the mysterious (and suitably anachronistic videotapes) arriving at the doorsteps of Riverdale residents, and the gang prepping for their imminent post-high school lives.

There’s a lot to be told here until the show finishes telling this specific story. Writers Ace Hasan and Greg Murray handle this arguably thankless task with aplomb, squeezing out the necessary exposition needed to push the plot points towards their approaching conclusion while shoehorning in a (now unfortunate) Katy Keene tie-in. To be fair, it’s a solid episode. Just one that, through no fault of its own, doesn’t really work as a season premiere.

That minor gripe aside, there’s a lot to enjoy here. First and foremost are Archie’s struggles. It was wise for the showrunners to make the character realize that he is a bit of a rudderless dolt. Addressing this most obvious of character flaws makes our oft-shirtless protagonist that much more of a likable guy. He’s discovered that while he has some options — running the gym is his best bet — he also needs to clear his head, and getting out of Riverdale would help with that greatly.

Now that the Navy isn’t an option, and he’s questioning his whole life. This results in his destroying his relationship with Veronica by telling her about his illicit kiss with Betty. One, it should be mentioned, that made Betty feel super uncomfortable…although that could’ve just been the terrible song Archie wrote for her.

The deception is enough to blow apart the pair’s “endgame” status…at least until after the upcoming time jump and their old flame is inevitably rekindled. (Even though we know that Veronica will be married to the jerky Chad Gekko, another Katy Keene character climbing aboard the Riverdale express). Much drama will ensue, but in the show’s now, they are done. What’s the over/under until we see Veronica performing “Bittersweet Symphony” at La Bonne Nuit?

Elsewhere, the Choni ship (I am in my forties and just wrote those words!) is threaten by the ghost of the greatest thing to ever happen on Riverdale: The Blossom family’s Maple Syrup Blood Feud. It’s not that Toni’s Nana has an issue with her granddaughter’s sexuality — although she kinda does — but more that Toni is dating a sworn enemy of the Lopez family. As much as I love me some Shakespeareian motifs, these characters regularly deal with serial killers and cult members. So the family drama here isn’t really very compelling, you know?

The most interesting thing happening on Riverdale right now is also its most frustrating, the saga of The Auteur. Betty didn’t tell Jughead about Archie’s shitty song or the kiss because in her mind, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Just a sort of awkward thing that happened in the moment that isn’t worth blowing up her life over. Adult decision making at its finest! Whether or not this choice impacts her relationship with Jughead, and I bet it does, will be revealed soon. Right now though they are doing what they love the most, investigating a mystery. One that really needs to ramp up the excitement and fast.

David seems to be too obvious of a choice to be the identity of the Auteur. It also goes against the show’s habit of making the protagonist someone we already know. Episodes from last season have shown us Charles and Chip plotting together for a yet to be revealed reason. To a lesser degree, Evelyn Evernever is a possibility too. But this episode raises the most intriguing potential suspect yet.

Jellybean Jones.

Think about it. She is a cipher of a character, one who would have had access to Jughead’s stories and knows about almost every aspect of his life. Perhaps she is making these videos because she is scared about him going away to school. Maybe they are some sort of bizarre revenge plot cooked up by Jellybean and Gladys Jones against Jughead and FP? By making Jellybean the auteur this creates more drama for the ever-complicated Jughead and gives him a personal tragedy that mirrors what Betty experienced with her father. I truly feel that Jellybean being at David’s film fest/rave by herself (we never see her friends she is supposedly with) is much more than a red herring. Time will tell. But we need to see some clarity on what the motives behind these tapes are, ASAP.

And so Riverdale is back. While we are watching the blending of the programs fourth and fifth seasons unfold due to real-life production concerns, it remains the most welcome of escapes.

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Riverdale Rundown

• This episode was filmed before production on the series was shut down due to Covid-19. As such, the next few installments will cover the gang’s final weeks at Riverdale High before jumping ahead seven years — which will occur in what was originally intended to be last year’s season finale. And you thought Doctor Who was timey wimey.

• The above explanation also explains why a character from a cancelled CW series — K.O. Kelly from Katy Keene — plays such a crucial role in tonight’s proceedings.

• Speaking of Katy Keene, that show took place during the time period that Riverdale is about to jump ahead to — one in which Hiram Lodge has completely recovered from his mystery disease.

• Did anyone else find Archie’s constant referring to K.O. as bro endearing? And OF COURSE these two characters were given a shirtless workout montage/steam room scene. Besides, what’s an episode of Riverdale without plenty of gratuitous objectification?

• Archie really did himself no favors by neglecting to mention to Veronica how Betty shut him down after his attempt to woo her. Communication is the key to a solid, healthy relationship, fam!

• Ashleigh Murray’s Josie McCoy was a main character on Katy Keene, yet as of this writing it is unclear if she will return to Riverdale or not this season. (And for the record, Archieverse showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa hasn’t permanently shut the door on some sort of Katy Keene revival either).

• The cancelled fifth season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina would have been a major crossover with Riverdale. Although we were denied that magic, if the above official key art is to be believed, it does seem that we will be getting some major supernatural happenings is season. Afterlife with Archie anyone?

• Archie’s scars from his bear attack really come and go, don’t they?

• Kett Turton returns tonight as David, the owner of the Blue Velvet video store. His perfect recreation of David Lynch’s cadence and mannerisms combined with the costume department seemingly raiding the Twin Peaks mastermind’s wardrobe is a perfect illustration of how Riverdale commits to its goofiness 100%.

• I’m not sure, but I think the Black Hood movie being shown in room 317 is a very subtle reference to the Miss Saigon song that also takes place in that location.

• In a nice callback, some of the tickling videos like the ones Kevin and Fangs made are being shown at the film party/rave. (Along with snippets of exploitation/art flicks clearly inspired by the works of Kenneth Anger and Herschell Gordon Lewis).

• “You had me at snuff film.” Here’s hoping Kevin Keller never changes.

• Cheryl is at her most Cheryl tonight, melodramatically spewing lines like “perhaps your camera will capture the sublime tragedy of my life” with an effortlessness that would make Bette Davis proud.

• Putting Fizzle Rocks in the punchbowl, classic Reggie Mantle.

• Further evidence of how this show is, to quote The Tragically Hip, chronologically fucked up, the songs played at the prom were Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me,” BoDeans’ “Closer to Free” (itself the theme song to another popular teen show, Party of Five), Collective Soul’s “The World I Know,” Mazzy Star’s timeless “Fade Into You,” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” Would any of these songs actually be played at a prom taking place in whatever year in the 2010’s this series is set in? Your guess is as good as mine.

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codependentsoulmates · 7 years

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RANKING EVERY SEASON OF SUPERNATURAL

Let’s a-freakin’-go, Mario.

12. Season 7. Leviathans. And Sam’s god-awful wolverine sideburns. ‘Nuff said.

11. Season 6. Soulless Sam was hilariously, sarcastically endearing for a little while, but towards the end of the Soulless Sam arc, just, ugh. I wanted to fast forward so bad. Samuel coming back was unnecessary and anticlimactic, “evil Cas” was an eye roller, I didn’t give a shit about Lisa and Ben, um... EVE??? What the actual fuck was that. She was possibly the single most wasted, ultra-super-anticlimactic use of a story arc that I’ve ever seen. There were a few redeeming episodes (i.e. Clap Your Hands If You Believe).

10. Season 9. Okay, this could be biased just based on how much I truly cannot stand God!Metatron. S10/11 Metatron is great; he’s such a little jerk that you cant help but find him funny. But S9 Metatron... holy shit. It was like being subjected to hours upon hours of having to watch only the Umbridge scenes from Harry Potter on repeat. It felt like legitimate torture trying to force myself to finish the season. Plus, yes, I ended up liking Gadreel later (much later) on, but Gadreel!Sam felt like it went on forever. I was over it and it was like the end of it would never come. Also, I’m just gonna say it: Abaddon was boring and annoying, and the only reason she was even an issue was because Sam and Dean thought, “Hey, wow, let’s experiment on the most powerful demon we know of roaming the Earth right now. We cut off her hands, nothing will go wrong!” Riiiight... okay. Also, Kevin’s death was seriously messed up and unnecessary and I still haven’t forgiven them for it, so. But uh, human!Cas was super endearing though, and even though I really don’t ever want actual human Cas to become a thing, it was cute for awhile.

9. Season 12. Alright. I don’t share the exact same sentiment or level of hatred that a lot of other people seem to for this season, but it had... a lot of issues. So, uh. Buckle up. First of all... Lucifer. While I don’t... hate the idea of him coming back as a villain, just so many things about this were... sigh. Rockstar!Lucifer was - and I’m gonna fucking say it - truly awful. So, so awful. Maybe he could’ve worked on another show, but with Lucifer’s character/personality having already been so established and defined on Supernatural, it just felt out of place. He was not the same character - which is something I often complain about with the Rubys. We had just come from Casifer - which was brilliant and so, so in character - and then we get this... weird, unsnarky, not sarcastic or playful at all version of Lucifer and... pass. Moving on... they finally get to put Luci back in his cage and... then Crowley decides to keep him as a pet? And believe Lucifer - fucking LUCIFER - now bows to him and won’t get away? And assume the demons who have time and time again always helped Lucifer, will now follow him instead? What??? Crowley isn’t that dumb, and he could’ve achieved ruling Hell again with no problems if Lucifer was in the cage. It made no sense to me. And um. Lucifer having a child? Seriously? So much reaching going on. Now to the second issue: The British Men of Letters. Okay. They started off as the enemy this season. The title sequence was the MoL symbol. And yet... they weren’t that relevant or threatening until the last couple of episodes (and those were, well, in nicer terms... questionable.) They either should’ve saved a Lucifer-returning-as-the-enemy storyline for later or saved the BMoL. Together, it was just too much and not enough expansion. Side note: I loathe the BMoL like I loathe God!Metatron. Which brings me to the third - and maybe biggest - issue I had with this season: Mary fucking Winchester. What the fuck. What the actual fuck, were the writers thinking. They legitimately ruined her. Throughout the series you have this wonderful idea built up about her: she was a badass hunter and she sacrificed things for John and she loved her boys so, so much and she gave up hunting for good because that was never the life she wanted and just. Then she’s here and you’re like finally Sam and Dean get to have a fucking parent who is there for them and can nurture them for once in their goddamn lives, and then. Then she’s a different Mary and she’s back to only caring about hunting even though she never liked hunting in the first place and she’s working for the people who tortured her son and she’s leaving her boys who just got her back, who she just got back, and she was going to let them die or get hurt for the goddamn Colt that she didn’t even know was the Colt. And I just. I couldn’t get with it, I’m sorry. Oh, and also everyone fucking DIES this season, so that was just fucking great, too.

8. Season 10. This is an unpopular opinion, I’m sure, but I hated Deanmon and I was glad we didn’t have to see him that long and suffer like we did with Soulless Sam. That being said, they did way overhype Deanmon, which was pretty uncool and unfair. But I honestly hated the Mark of Cain - it went on waaaaay too long - and I really, really dislike seeing Dean be... not Dean... so... Also, I am still pissed the fuck off at Charlie’s death, so I refuse to rank this any higher out of spite, too. But um. They killed fucking DEATH this season. And while I was actually really unhappy about it because Death was cool as hell, that scene with Sam like, just wrecked, and Dean’s “Close your eyes, Sammy” kinda made it really, really almost worth it. (You’ll soon realize I really only care a lot about Sam and Dean’s relationship and their Absolute Best Moments™ that wrench my heart.)

7. Season 8. Unfortunately, the writers decided hey, let’s ruin Sam’s character a little fucking more and write him as OOC as possible by having him not actually give a shit where the fuck Dean was for an entire year because he was too busy fucking some piece of shit girl! Seriously, I didn’t think I could dislike anyone more than I hated Ruby 2.0 or Gordon... and then came Amelia. I have yet to encounter a person in the Spn-verse that is worse than her. No joke. This season ranks above the others though because it was less “meh” or all over the place. And because Mrs. Tran being a complete baller for just a single episode was more entertaining that any of the main story arcs for any of those seasons below. Also, more importantly, it had more of a return to what Supernatural is supposed to be - I’m looking at you S6/7 - and even though trying to close the gates of Hell was pointless and we knew it was never gonna happen, I have a sick love for suffering!Sam at any given time because then Dean goes into overprotective big bro mode and they stop fighting and being jerks to each other for a lil’ while and we get Seasons 1-5 (eh, minus 4) bro’ lovin’ and protectin’ again. Plus, this season holds my favorite quote/speech Dean has ever said to Sam (you know what I’m talking about) and I already said I’m a sucker for heart-wrenching moments between them, so.

6. Season 4. Probably yet another unpopular opinion, but oh well. Ruby 2.0... gag me. Way to ruin a good character. Plus, as much as I love Gen, I loved nothing about her portrayal of Ruby. It wasn’t the same character. That’s the bottom line. Also Sam’s demon blood addiction and him so far up Ruby’s ass all season??? Vomit. Skip. Next. Literally if Sam listened to Dean for legit two seconds, the Apocalypse could’ve been avoided. But Castiel! And the angel arc! The actual saving graces (hah, literally) of the season.

5. Season 1. I feel really weird about placing this season this low because it’s really just as good as the two I’ve ranked above it, but. I suppose that’s cheating. Season 1 holds a very, very special place in my heart, is all. It’s the OG season, monster-of-the-week episodes (which, side note: makes no sense to me when people rank S1 super low because there were “too many monster-of-the-week episodes.” Um, yeah.. that’s kinda... what the show is fucking about? Sam and Dean... hunting monsters? But okay, anyway...) Baby Sam and Dean!!! The world wasn’t fucked yet! Lil’ skulky Sam!! Okay, real talk, S1-3 (and 5) Sam was fucking BALLER. He was the best Sam, and then the writers trashed his character, so. Cool. This season is really only this low because I had to fully rank this and because John was kinda a dick. But I loved Sam fighting with him and Dean getting in between them to protect Sam. (Also, on another note: John was a piece of work but he was a better parent than S12 Mary, jussayin’.) (Also, also, it irritates the shit out of me just how much they ruined John’s character and who they made him out to be post-season 5. He was truly something else and he did some really shitty things, but I don’t think it was fair to do and I don’t think that was ever what Kripke intended for his character, but. Oh well. I digress.)

4. Season 11. Once again, I don’t necessarily rank this fully above S1 or below the next ranking, but. There was a lot of good things going on this season. Casifer was brilliant and delivered some of my favorite one-liners of the series. His interactions with God!Chuck were great. Him helping instead of being a villain, but still being a ridiculous child. God!Chuck was wonderful and handled really, really well. Also, his World’s Best Dad mug? I heart. Freakin’... Baby? Brilliant, incredible, amazing, wonderful, spectacular. Rowena was also bitchin’ this season, the whole flippin’ demons, angels, witches working together (even though it was just one episode) was suh-weeeet, Sam and Dean were vibin’ like early seasons Sam and Dean. I really wasn’t here for the forced Dean/Amara weird as hell relationship/attraction, though. It was... no. Just. No. Also like, Amara was okay and they did mostly show how powerful she was but like. Azazel, Lucifer, the Leviathans, Gordon, or basically... anyone felt like more of a threat than her, even though she was the only actual unstoppable force ever on the show. And while it was kinda nice for the finale to be her and Chuck working it out, it was also... kinda lame. Here’s this dark force that is the most powerful thing in existence, and it’s stopped by God... apologizing and hugging it out with her? Um... okay, I guess.

3. Season 3. Even though this season was short and waiting for Dean to die kinda sucked and put a damper on the whole season, it still is by far one of the best ones, hands down. Not only did we get Katie Cassidy’s badass, savage, cool as hell Ruby 1.0, we got Bela (who had so much wasted potential, sigh) and return of the Trickster, Bobby really becoming the boys’ father figure, and Sam finally getting to kill Actual Piece of Shit™ Gordon Walker. Season 3 also has some of the best episodes of the whole series - Bad Day At Black Rock, Mystery Spot, Ghostfacers - and we got A Very Supernatural Christmas, which gave us the birth of the Samulet, and I swear to god that scene made me actually cry a little bit. (A lotta bit.)

2. Season 2. This is like. THE Supernatural season. All the cool kids are introduced: Ellen, Jo, Ash, the Trickster, Tessa. Bobby becomes more involved, brotherly bonding up the wazoo, total badass, pure monster hunting. Episodes like Tall Tales and Hollywood Babylon. And episodes like Croatoan and Heart (which had one of the best endings to an episode in the series just in terms of emotion and how well it was set up with the song and ugh), and had debatably the best season finale of the whole show with All Hell Breaks Loose Parts 1 & 2. (It killed me.) Great monsters are introduced like shape shifters and djinns. Azazel was annoying but was an actual villain (unlike some of the later big “villains”) and he was that start and end of everything. He was the Winchesters’ reason for hunting, he catapulted everything. And everything was so simple and pure and made fucking sense.

1. Season 5. I mean, there’s really no surprise here. It baffles me when S5 isn’t at the top of everyone’s list. While I don’t necessarily wanna go back and watch S5 episodes like I do with most other seasons, it was just the most well-rounded, well-thought out, well-executed season. No competition. Everything had a purpose and a meaning. Everything was tied up. Ellen and Jo die, which is a downer, but at least they were badass. Lucifer is a total tool, and you love it. It’s also Mark Pellegrino’s Lucifer, which is - quite obviously - the best Lucifer. Death is rad as hell. Cas is in his fucking prime this season. Sam and Dean love each other so fucking much this season. The Trickster/Gabriel is revealed as an archangel!! Crowley!! Bobby in his prime as Sam and Dean’s father figure!! Dark Side of the Moon A.K.A. one of my all-time favorite episodes and also one of the most beautifully shot episodes!! (And Ash in heaven! “Some people share, like soulmates”!!!!!!) The fucking END!!! I honestly would probably rank S5 at the top of this list solely for the scene where Lucifer is beating the crap out of Dean while Dean just keeps saying, “Sammy, it’s okay, I’m here” and then Sam’s montage of memories of him and Dean as he takes back control, and jeez holy shit is that montage beautiful and brilliant. That scene alone is probably the best scene in the whole show and I will defend that opinion until I die. The only bad things really in S5 were how unbelievably annoying Zachariah was and how I still think throwing their random half-brother in there just so Dean didn’t have to be Michael’s vessel was ridiculous and absurd. But really, this is the season. I’m glad the show didn’t end after this season, but holy fucking shit would it have been one of the sickest, best, most baller series finales of all time, and no matter what they do for the series finale now, this finale is so untouchable that it will never even come close to living up to it.

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revwinchester · 7 years

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Useful

Summary: After being taken by the British Men of Letters, the reader is made to run their technology. She is in the bunker when the American hunters come to reclaim their territory and get rid of the Brits.

Characters: Reader, Mr. Ketch, Jody Mills, Sam Winchester, other BMoL, other hunters

Word Count: 2200 (on the nose!)

Warnings: Season 12 BMoL canon typical violence (no witnesses and all that), death threats, lots of shooting of non-monster people, angst - but not the rip your heart out and cry kind, more suspense, maybe?, Season 12 spoilers

A/N: This is for the fifth week of the Hiatus Writing Challenge being hosted by @thing-you-do-with-that-thing. The prompt I used was the phrase “please refrain from shooting her, we need her for later.” I’ve barely gotten this done in time to post for the deadline so it’ll get tagged and maybe some edits a little later in the day.

Gunfire was raining down all around you. You were huddled under a desk waiting, listening as the stomping feet of the shooters got closer and closer to where you were hiding. The boots stopped every few feet to check beneath each desk and you had already heard it twice: the sound of someone being pulled from their hiding spot, then a gunshot followed by something heavy hitting the ground. You braced yourself for the inevitable; you were going to die.

When the feet stopped in front of your desk you held your breath, hoping against hope that they would just press on but of course they didn’t. A man yanked you out from under your desk and dragged you to your feet. As a gun was pressed against your head, you screwed your eyes shut and resolved not to beg. Begging hadn’t done either of your coworkers any good. But the gunman hesitated and you peeked your eyes open.

A second man was standing beside him, now. “Please refrain from shooting her, we need her for later,” the new man said. Your savior had a posh British accent and was wearing a well tailored suit. He didn’t speak another word to or about you until you were loaded into a big, black SUV and taken back to what you would later learn was the Men of Letters High Command.

From the outside, the Men of Letters headquarters wasn’t all that impressive. In fact, it looked like a series of shipping crates cobbled together. Inside, though, it was much more imposing. There were rooms of screens and computers, what looked like more than one library, and even a door labeled “armory.” You, however, were herded into a small room with nothing but a chair and left to wait, the noise of a lock sliding into place sounding clear in the quiet space once the door was shut.

Hours passed, or maybe minutes, you really weren’t sure - you didn’t wear a watch and your phone had been taken from you in the car - before someone entered the room with you. It was the posh man from earlier.

“Who are you and why am I here?” you asked, your voice wavering between your gratitude and fear.

The man smiled at you and it was almost predatory. “My name is Mr. Ketch and you are here because we have use for you.”

Mr. Ketch went on to explain that the company you had worked for had been run by werewolves. You didn’t believe him at first but he was able to produce some rather convincing video footage. His organization, he told you, had systematically dealt with each of the wolves and when they found you, they were finishing up their job, tying up loose ends.

That didn’t sit right with you. Those loose ends were people and you told him as much but Mr. Ketch just laughed off your concern. “Aren’t I a loose end, then? Why spare me?”

“I told you, my dear, we have use for you,” he reminded you. “As you can see, we’ve newly set up this particular base of operations. You’re the brightest, most promising technical mind in the immediate area and we have need of your skills.” The Men of Letters needed someone to set up and run their IT. That’s why they had spared you. Mr. Ketch told you what the job would entail and what was expected of you. He never questioned whether or not you might want to do the job.

“So I’m your prisoner, then. Your slave, really.” It wasn’t a question. Mr. Ketch had taken you from your life, killed most of the people you knew, locked you in a tiny room, and just told you what your new job responsibilities were. From your perspective, there was no choice on the table.

His words surprised you, though. “On the contrary, Y/N, you’re free to leave whenever you please.”

You looked at him suspiciously, “I am?” Nothing he had said or done would indicate that he was telling the truth right now but his voice seemed genuine.

Mr. Ketch clicked his tongue at you disparagingly. “Of course,” he reiterated, “but, then again, you’d be shot the moment you set foot off of the base. Loose ends and all that. We can’t have any witnesses just wandering around. I’m sure you understand.”

And that was how you found yourself running the technology for the Men of Letters. You mostly kept out of the Brits’ ways. As long as you kept their systems up and running, they had little need to speak with you and you were just fine with that. They knew their threat to shoot you was enough to keep you in the bunker and compliant.

You were still upset about the Men of Letters killing everyone you worked with. The people at the desks next to you hadn’t been werewolves and, yet, they had been shot with silver just like the creatures who had been in charge. That didn’t seem right or fair to you. It wasn’t much but you took some solace in small acts of defiance. You ran all of the technology in the bunker, including the key cards that opened each of the doors. So, instead of giving yourself level 5 clearance like you were supposed to, you granted yourself access to each and every door in the place. Not even Mr. Ketch had that kind of power and he was one of the big fish in the Men of Letters pond. You didn’t use the clearance you had given yourself - you couldn’t risk being caught in a room to which you shouldn’t have access - but knowing that you could get into even the most guarded of rooms (not to mention everyone’s private quarters) gave you a little thrill.

One of the Men of Letters was often kind to you, though, and you grew to like Mick. Eventually, they started bringing in some Americans, too, who were also nice to you and you began to hope that there might be some escape for you with one of them. However, they all were working with the Men of Letters, though the Brits would always make derogatory comments about the Americans after they would leave on jobs, and your hope soon faded. You weren’t sure why the Brits hated the Americans so much but, then again, the Men of Letters was obviously a very old, very secret society, perhaps they were still sore about the Revolutionary War, you thought.

When things got particularly rough, you took solace in your budding friendship with Mick. He wasn’t like the others but, after a while, he just stopped coming to see you. He didn’t say why and, when you asked Mr. Ketch about it in passing once while you were working on his computer, he told you that Mick had been called back to the home office in London. Some of the Americans started coming around less and less, as well. Particularly the Winchesters, who you had taken notice of immediately. They were both giant men, especially the younger one, so it was impossible to miss them. Eventually, only Mary, Sam and Dean Winchesters’ mom, was left of the Americans and you suspected that the affair she had been carrying on with Mr. Ketch had something to do with her sticking around longer than the rest.

But even she stopped coming around as much, though you noticed her name still in official memos. Her room was redesignated at a higher clearance level - only Mr. Ketch and Lady Bevel were supposed to have access now - and you wondered what happened behind that closed door. Mary eventually rejoined the briefings and went out on jobs again but she seemed different somehow. She was colder, more calculated, more like Mr. Ketch.

Now, barely seven months after being basically kidnapped and held captive by the Men of Letters, you were cowering under your desk again. There was gunfire sounding out in the bunker and you had a distinct feeling that Mr. Ketch wouldn’t be coming to your rescue this time. You had hacked into the security cameras and seen the footage. The Americans who had slowly disappeared were back, along with some you had only seen on television screens, their photos plastered on the screen next to statistics and analysis of their weaknesses. Sam Winchester was in the lead and it was clear that they were aiming to reclaim their homeland from the Brits.

This time the person who found you was a woman. You had never seen her in person around the bunker but you knew from seeing her photo that she was Sheriff Jody Mills. Jody had a habit of taking in wayward youth who had found themselves on the wrong side of a supernatural encounter with nowhere else to turn and you prayed that her compassion would extend to Men of Letters captives as well.

“Help me,” you whispered, tears forming in your eyes. This was it, either your rescue or your death.

You saw pity flash in Jody’s eyes for a brief moment. She pulled you to your feet and walked you out of the office, her gun pressed into your back as she steered you toward where she was to rendezvous with the other hunters. Sam Winchester was already there.

“This one’s American and asked for help,” Jody explained before Sam could question why you were there.

You put your hands up in a sign of surrender. “I can help you. Just, please, get me out of here.”

Sam looked at you with suspicion in his eyes. He recognized you from seeing you a few times around the bunker and you knew you had to talk fast if you wanted to make it out of this room alive. “They killed everyone I know and kidnapped me. Said they’d kill me too if I tried to leave. It’s not much but I’ve been doing little things here and there to sabotage them or at least make their lives more difficult and I’ve got access to every door in the building.”

You were rambling and on the verge of tears but Sam lowered his gun and gave Jody a curt nod. “We’ll do our best to keep you safe but we’re not giving you a gun.” Sam was speaking loud enough for everyone in the room to hear it and his tone of voice was clear. He didn’t trust you yet but you were under his protection and anyone who disagreed would have to answer to him.

You were grateful and stayed close to him and Jody as the group methodically worked their way through the rest of the building. It wasn’t too terrible watching the hunters take apart the Men of Letters, though you jumped every time someone fired a gun, and soon enough the entire system had been dismantled. You hadn’t seen any sign of Mr. Ketch in the bunker, though, and that worried you. Maybe one of the hunters had gotten to him before they found you or perhaps he had been called back to the London office, too. Either way, you hoped to never see the man and his wicked, predatory smile again.

Once you were all outside, the news that Lucifer - THE Lucifer - was back in the game setting in, one of the hunters turned to Sam. “What are we going to do with this one?” he asked, waving his gun in your direction.

Sam glared at the hunter before looking to you. “You’re free to go home, now,” he told you. “No one’s going to shoot you for walking away.”

How did he know that had been the threat? He had been a part of the organization for a short time but he had never seemed to get too deep into things with the Brits. His mom had dove in head first but Sam had seemed more hesitant. “I don’t have a home anymore. Their no witnesses policy destroyed any semblance of home and friendship I’ve ever really known,” you admitted. You barely knew the people surrounding you and you didn’t want to come across as weak or vulnerable in front of them but you didn’t really see another option besides the truth right now.

You were looking at the ground but someone spoke up and you recognized the voice as belonging to Jody. “You can come on back with me for as long as you need. I’ve got the space at home as long as you don’t mind living with two teenage girls,” she offered. “Maybe once you’re feeling up to it, you can help us run some tech. It’s about time the hunting community stopped relying so heavily on oral histories and handwritten journals.”

You looked up at Jody with hesitation. Her offer sounded nice but you didn’t want to find yourself in another situation like with the Men of Letters.

As if she sensed your thoughts, she added, “It’s not a condition of staying with me. You’d be free to do as little or as much with hunting and hunters as you please.”

You nodded. “Thank you,” you said quietly. Then louder, “Thank you all.”

ALL THE TAGS! (forevers): @deathtonormalcy56 @supernaturalyobsessed @roxy-davenport @sumara62 @ginamsmith @gallifreyansass

"All Characters” list from the SPN Pond: @jelly-beans-and-gstrings @deansleather @whywhydoyouwantmetosaymyname @mrswhozeewhatsis @deals-with-demons @buffylovesfoxmulder

“All Characters” list from @mrswhozeewhatsis: @mrswhozeewhatsis @vintagevalentinexx @thinkwritexpress-official @bowtiesandapplepie @itsemmyb @ezauraemmaline @charliesbackbitches @deandoesthingstome @deerlululucy @walkingencyclopediaoffandom @mrsjohnsmith @growleytria @thegleegeneration @samtomydeanwinchester @SinceriouslyAmellPadalecki @i-never-said-a-pilot @thewinchestielboys @supermoonpanda @sis-tafics @amaranthinecastiel @fandommaniacx @meganwinchester1999 @kittenofdoomage @samanddeanwinchester67 @prettyxwickedxthings @ferferelli @lilyoflothlorien @olitzisbae @iridianuniverse @the-morning-star-falls @shortandlongstories @ackleslaugh @eyes-of-a-disney-princess @chrisatplay @faith-in-dean @kreborn17 @for-the-love-of-dean @winchesterfiesta @zanthiasplace @gadreelsforbiddenfruit @trenchcoats-and-bees @curliesallovertheplace @jencharlan @skybinx-blog @beachy2014 @impossible-box @tia58 @sams-little-toy @faegal04 @sunriserose1023 @jelly-beans-and-gstrings @saving-things-hunting-family @jotink78 @notnaturalanahi @howmanytuesdaysdidyouhave @lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell @pinknerdpanda @alangel1895

#supernatural hiatus writing challenge 2017 #spn hwc - week 5 #supernatural fanfiction #gen!fic #British men of letters #reader insert #angst #spn spoilers #spn season 12 spoilers #fics by Rev

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theanimewarren · 8 years

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Top 25 Anime Series - 2017 Edition

Oh man, I can't believe I actually managed to come up with this damn list. There are so many changes to my previous top 25 list, it's almost scary. But I promised I would for my dear friend, Doaks as part of the celebration of his finishing his 100 top 10 lists (see his post here https://kitsu.io/posts/8688917 ), so I really dove in and gave it my all to come up with the list. Hopefully I'll be able to explain why I placed the shows on the list in a way that makes sense as well.

I do have to say that that I couldn't actually narrow my list down to 25 though. I got it down to 35 by some miracle. Once I had that ordered the way I liked it, I decided to take the remaining 10, pick 5 of them that made decent talking points and listed them as honorable mentions to the list. I'll be going through those first, then proceeding on to the true meat of the dish, my top 25 anime series! So let's get on with it!

The Honorable Mentions:

5. Bunny Drop/Sweetness and Lightning/Aishiteruze Baby/Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father/etc.

This is the only time on this list that I am going to cite several shows that are not all part of a single series, but I honestly couldn't pick just one of them to represent this topic. Suffice it to say though, I really enjoy these series that deal with the single parent role to a small child. Most of my examples deal with a teenager or young adult in the role, but it doesn't have to be that way. Sweetness and Lightning and Bunny Drop have the parent role filled by someone who is old enough to know better for instance. They all share the same sort of storyline thread though, seeing the ups and downs of parenting from both sides of the relationship and how bonds form and grow as time goes on. You could probably lump Barakamon in with these as well, though Handa-sensei doesn't quite fit the role of legal guardian, but there is still a lot of the same sort of storytelling involved. Poco's Udon World would also fit here, just with that added supernatural element. But yeah, I really love these shows, but alas, not nearly as much as the ones that made the final list.

4. Yoru no Yatterman

https://kitsu.io/anime/yoru-no-yatterman

We've long since gotten used to the concept of a reboot. At least once a year, it seems, there's a new anime reboot of some old series. I'm sure that in Japan, there are actually a fair number of people who either remember the original shows or know about them because they're parents were raised on them, or had a soft spot for them. For us westerners though, this is not always the case. You might get a few of us who happen to stumble across an old show like Time Bokan or Gatchaman, but how many really delve into them? I love older anime and even I'm not well versed in the more obscure series beyond about the mid-90's. That being said, I did make an effort to get some information about Yatterman and the various other characters involved in the Time Bokan universe (it probably has a far better name but I don't know it offhand). Now, why did I do this? Because this series did such a good job of making me want to relive these characters. I knew it was a reboot of sorts, but I didn't know the characters. I could tell it was a total love letter to them and the shows they were from though. If I had grown up with it, I'd probably be in tears of joy the whole time for the wonderful job they did, from many returning characters and set pieces to even the simplest subtle nods left here and there in the show. I loved this show for that. It's not often you can get a sense of nostalgia from something you couldn't possibly have proper nostalgia for, but Yoru no Yatterman did it, and I applaud it for that.

3. Strawberry Panic

https://kitsu.io/anime/strawberry-panic

So, anyone who's spent some time with anime is probably at least somewhat familiar with Yuri. It's not a hard thing to find though. The basic idea has been bastardized for use in many a harem series or comedy series for the laughs. But how many of us know the difference between that and the more proper, pure form of Yuri? Probably more than I'd expect, but still, it's a huge difference that I wasn't totally aware of before I watched Strawberry Panic. I'm very glad I did though. While I'm sure the very idea of Yuri, even in this form, would unsettle many westerners, I found the whole idea very captivating to watch. It was so pure and innocent, and yet it stirred emotions in me that I never thought I'd feel from a show that I thought would be a step below softcore lesbians before I watched it. Boy, was I wrong. This show opened my eyes to yet another facet of anime that that I really need to explore more.

2. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

https://kitsu.io/anime/tokyo-magnitude-8-0

This is a series unlike anything else I think I've ever seen. I mean, we've had many a disaster movie made in the west. They tend to be either super cheesy summer flicks as far as I've ever seen, though I'm sure there are some decent ones out there. In anime though, I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. The premise alone is pretty bold coming from a country that is quite possibly one of the most active in the world when it comes to earthquakes. All the same though, there is just something amazing about the execution of the whole story. It's sensationalized a bit, but overall it's a great lesson in the kinds of things you might expect in a huge disaster, and it does that while still telling a powerful and moving story at the same time.

1. The Pilot's Love Song

https://kitsu.io/anime/toaru-hikuushi-e-no-koiuta

For myself, this is one of the more shocking entries on my entire list. When this series ended, I was so pissed off. I have stated many times how much I hated this show for how it ended. But I've reflected on it a bit since then, and you know what? I like it. I mean, yes, the ending is a terrible cliffhanger that never got resolved and there is a bit of the plot near the end that's kinda disappointing as well. The journey to get there though. That is something I enjoyed a lot. The world was also quite cool as an experience, and I wish I could have more of it. Oh, and while I won't delve into this big time, I do appreciate any series that isn't afraid to kill off cast members in a meaningful way, and for a purpose. So yeah, in a lot of ways, This is actually a really great show. The only reason it didn't make the top 25 really is the way we were shafted out of an ending.

Alright. Now that we're past the honorable mentions, it's time, for the shows that I love more than any others. The shows that make me happy, keep me entertained and generally could be the only shows I ever needed if I was stuck on a desert island. Here, are my top 25 anime series!

Top 25:

25. Taisho Baseball Girls

https://kitsu.io/anime/taishou-yakyuu-musume

Considering how highly I spoke of some of the shows in the honorable mentions, seeing this show here is probably quite a surprise to some of you. To that, all I can say is that this show gave me many things that I enjoy just by themselves, but all together in one package.

Sports series. Check.

Moe cast. Check.

Historical setting. Check.

Decent comedy backed by a good story. Check.

All around, it just pleased me in so many ways to watch this. It does feel like the moe edition of “A League of Our Own” at times, but for me this isn't a bad thing. Watching our two initial leads build a female baseball team at a time when so many things were changing in the world, let alone, Japan was just inspiring on a certain level. Add to that the fact that this series has all the proper staples of a sports series without being so long it's hard to watch, and I'm hooked. Both times that I've sat through this series, I've very quickly marathoned through it because I just can't stop once I've started. That's how good it is for me.

24. Mitsudomoe

https://kitsu.io/anime/mitsudomoe

Now, I love me some comedy. But like anyone, my tastes in comedy can be hit or miss at times. I've dropped more than a couple shows where I just didn't get the joke. But when I do get the joke, oh man, it's all over. I'm sure this will be a running theme through this list, but there is one thing I can say about Mitsudomoe that I can't say about any other show on here. Never have I laughed so hard watching anime, and in every episode too. I'm talking big, laugh out loud, in tears and bawling from how funny things get. For some, the humor can surely be low-brow, even sick and disgusting at times, but not me. I just laughed my ass off and moved on to the next episode ready for more.

23. YuruYuri

https://kitsu.io/anime/yuru-yuri

I honestly almost took this off the list entirely. But then I thought back to why I kept up with this show as the OVAs and third season came out. While this series does pander to the less proper Yuri I mentioned above, it's not nearly as bad as some series I've watched. I almost feel like it's the missing link between the two camps of Yuri. It lacks that pure and innocent side, but it doesn't have the overly sexualized side to the degree that we usually see either. It mostly uses it for heartfelt moments or comedic effect, which is a lot more fun to watch. Also, the cast is just brilliant, the OP is catchy as all hell in most seasons and the animation looks great, even to the point where I didn't notice the studio change.

22. Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!

https://kitsu.io/anime/chuunibyou-demo-koi-ga-shitai

Okay, simple answer to why I like this series. Because I was Rikka and Yuuta as a teenager. Not to that degree, of course, but I can relate to what it's like to want to be something you aren't and to live in my own world rather than face the harsh realities around me. Now if only I had been able to turn mine into a halfway decent harem in the process, hehe. But yeah, beyond that, I just love the way this series executes it's approach to these delusions, both from a story standpoint and from a visual standpoint. Showing us the world as it really is and as Rikka see's it was a wonderful touch and it still pleases me when I think about it. Also, the whole thing about how sweet and innocent the relationships in the seres were portrayed was just great. I know a lot of fans felt the series didn't pay off in the end. I, on the other hand, fell it went exactly where it should have given the personality traits of the characters involved.

21. Shiki

https://kitsu.io/anime/shiki

So, let's analyze this series for a second. It's about vampires, sorta. It holds a lot of the common tropes we all know to be true of vampire stories. But it does avoid some of them and change others to suit it's needs. It also makes sure that, while it's a very dark and depressing series, that has plenty of very bright and flashy elements to it to catch the eye, most notably, the truly unique hairstyles of townsfolk. These two things would probably send any hardcore fan of vampires running away long before the series can sink it's teeth into them. For those that look beyond these two things though, this is probably one of the better vampire stories out there, period. It retains so much of it's gothic roots while making sure it stays modern and original, creating this perfect blend of suspense and horror that even I, someone who is not usually a fan of said things, can be drawn in. Also, that first OP is just awesome, and the sole reason I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of Buck-Tick.

20. Space Dandy

https://kitsu.io/anime/space-dandy

This show has so many things for so many people in it that your enjoyment is pretty dependent on how many of those things click with you. For myself, there was only really one episode that didn't click with me, and even then I saw it as a bit of a spoof on things like it, so I wasn't too bored. Dandy just does so much right and checked so many boxes for me that to list all the reasons why I loved this series would be like writing a term paper, and I sure ain't doing that right now. Let's just say I love it for the boobies and be done with it, okay?

19. My Daddy Long Legs

https://kitsu.io/anime/my-daddy-long-legs

Anyone who knows me, knows my big passions outside of anime are music and reading. Music we'll touch on later. For now though, let's talk about books. Specifically, let's talk about classic literature. I'm sure anyone reading this has at some point taken a class where they had to read some old classic like Tom Sawyer or Little Women or something. Well, there's an anime version of quite a few of these classics held in a series known as World Masterpiece Theater. Now, I personally love these series, having seen a few of them now. They do a great job of presenting classics that I may or may not have read in a way that is entertaining while not taking too much away from the original story (usually). For myself, I've oddly found that I got the most enjoyment out of the ones from books I've never heard of or have very little passing knowledge of. My Daddy Long Legs is a book I've since picked up and enjoyed because of this series. I will say they changed a lot of details for reasons I'm not too clear on, but nonetheless, the series is very enjoyable and one I would definitely watch again. Judy is a great lead character and all the stuff she goes through to get where she does by the end is just inspiring. And on top of all that, this series got me to go out and buy the book it's based on. I can't say that for any other anime I've watched (not counting manga and light novel adaptations of course).

18. Nanaka 6/17

https://kitsu.io/anime/nanaka-6-17

I don't think I've ever thought so much about my own childhood as I did after watching this. It just amazed me. To have all the things I didn't know I'd forgotten pointed out in a very simple way like that was a life lesson I didn't see coming, and I love this series for that. Before, I would always have a reason to justify my doing something of importance to me. I can't just go buy a mandolin and attempt to learn to play it because it might be fun. There has to be a reason that sounds mature and responsible, right? Wrong. This show managed to remind me that there are times when it's okay, and possibly even the better option, to think more like a kid than an adult. The whole thing is done in such an adorable way too. I honestly felt for Nanaka through the whole series, watching her struggle with concepts that would boggle any kid if they were thrown into them, all while making the adults around her realize that they might be looking at it all wrong in the process.

17. Romeo no Aoi Sora

https://kitsu.io/anime/romeo-no-aoi-sora

And we're back with more World Masterpiece Theater action. This time it's a book I knew nothing about before I watched this, and one I'm realizing now that I never did get around to buying afterwards. I really must fix that. But yeah, I can say that I had a great time watching such a powerful story, with a great cast and a well executed ending. It was also a nice mini-group watch so there is that bit of fun to make sure this series sits up there as something memorable for me and the other two involved. There's just something that can't beat watching a series with some good friends.

16. Azumanga Daioh

https://kitsu.io/anime/azumanga-daioh

We'll surely be hearing about comedy a couple more times on this list. This one is a pretty charming series to watch though, and ranks with only a handful of other series where I've read the source material, I enjoyed it so much. I think what got me here is just how off the wall the comedy can be at times. The teachers are just nuts, but the students all have their own, err, quirks about them as well. It just all works out to this brand of insanity that draws you in with one thing and keeps you there with a dozen more. I also have to give it credit for being a 4-koma manga adaptation that doesn't feel like a ton of short comics tied together, while still being very true to the manga. It's weird how it pulled that off.

15. Macross 7

https://kitsu.io/anime/macross-7

Remember how I said we'd get back to music later. Well, here we are. I love music, so what better way to keep my attention than to base a series around the idea that music can stop evil and save the universe. And while I really want to acknowledge the entire Macross franchise here, I have to give special kudos to Macross 7, almost solely because it has the best soundtrack of the franchise, and a soundtrack in the top 5 of all anime I've ever seen. The tracks just rock, and fit well into the story as a whole. So well in fact, that one of the better tracks (in my opinion of course) has shown up in every Macross iteration since. I may be wrong, but I'm not sure anything from the original TV series managed to do that. Just a track from the movie, Do You Remember Love? (someone will surely prove me wrong on this, right?)

14. Super Sonico

https://kitsu.io/anime/super-sonico-the-animation

This is not on the list because of mindless T and A. This is on the list because it was the most unexpected slice of life miracle I've ever seen. Because it had a decent soundtrack. Because it devoted an entire episode to her pet cats. Because it knows how to take a character that looks like the ultimate fan-boy wet dream and make that one of the last things to cross your mind while watching it. Oh, and also because it has one of the best Christmas episodes in anime. If you haven't watched it because you think it's all about the fan-service, go watch it. If you still think I'm wrong, we can discuss it, but I think Episode 7 will be my winning card. Never have I been more surprised by the content of an episode than when that episode aired.

13. Steins;Gate

https://kitsu.io/anime/steins-gate

Time travel stories always fascinate me. If they're done especially well, I love them even more. While not the best time travel story I've ever come across (go read Tim Powers' novel, The Anubus Gates if you're curious), Steins;Gate is certainly very near the top of the list. With a very engaging cast and the kind of drama that I wish was present in any of the other series linked by the errant semicolon, I just have to keep coming back to this one. It was also one of my first anime when I really dove into the fandom a few years back and holds a bit of a nostalgia slot in my heart. Oh, and also, that soundtrack is just brilliant.

12. Nodame Cantabile

https://kitsu.io/anime/nodame-cantabile

Ah, Nodame Cantabile. This is actually the most recently watched anime to make this list. I honestly only competed it early this year. This one did so many things right for me though, so it easily made the list. To start, the music selection here is just about perfect for a show revolving around classical music. The choices weren't always super obvious picks, but they didn't get so obscure that a casual viewer would feel lost or bored. It was a mix of well known and not so much so, and being the huge music fanatic that I am, this was perfect. Add to this that Nodame is just so damn charming as a character and that the rest of the cast is so very enjoyable to watch interact, and you have something I could have easily plowed through in a couple of days. It was a real struggle not to fly through, instead really forcing myself to take some time with it. I'm so glad I did though. This show will not be forgotten by me or many that watched it.

11. Galaxy Express 999

https://kitsu.io/anime/galaxy-express-999

Okay, so I haven't actually finished this show yet. In fact, I've been watching it for nearly 3 years now and am only a smidge past the halfway point. So why is it on this list? Because it is that show that I can go to when I don't feel like watching anything else and just enjoy an episode in peace. There is an overarching story to the show, but for the most part, we only see that in the first couple episodes and brief reminders from the cast when something happens to remind us that this is why they are on the Galaxy Express, bound for the planet where Tetsuro can get a mechanical body for free. Otherwise, this show is just a lot of one-off stories, often with morals. This is where my love of the show comes in though (well, that, and the fact that I love Leiji Matsumoto's artistic style). I love these stories. They are not always complex, but they are very often surprising and unexpected, and told so very well. For a show from the late 70's, this one just blows me away sometimes, because I never think of it as a time when we'd get something like this. That's probably my bad western mindset towards animated shows of the time though, and I should be shamed for this. Still, this is a classic and I love it.

10. F

https://kitsu.io/anime/f

I wrote a big review on this series after I watched it, which I will link here.

https://kitsu.io/reviews/13194

The short version though, and why I love it so much, is that this is probably one of the best anime endings I've ever seen. The show is wild at times, and a bit unconventional in how it portrays the sport it's based around, but man, the rivalry between the main characters is just brilliant, and it ends so perfectly. I love it! I only wish this had a better fansub than it does. Someone really needs to fix this.

9. Aria

https://kitsu.io/anime/aria-the-animation

Wait, what!? Aria isn't number 1 anymore? You must be in shock over this if you know me and how long it's held that spot. Well, all I can say is that I really put a lot of thought into this list, and I realized something. I do really love Aria. It's a wonderful series with great stories, some of the best music in anime and a cast to die for. Still, I have 8 other shows that I would more quickly watch if given the choice. It sounds weird saying that, but that's how it is. My tastes have shifted a little and become more clear in the past year or so, and that's what moved Aria down the line. I love it for it's slice of life nature and the calm, peaceful stories it give us. It just doesn't have something else to really grab and hold me like other shows that pair in more drama or comedy, which seems to be where my tastes have gone. Still, I'll recommend this show to anyone that asks if I see it missing from their lists. It's a must watch, like every show in my top 10 (I will back this up if anyone dares question that statement).

8. Emma: A Victorian Romance

https://kitsu.io/anime/eikoku-koi-monogatari-emma

So, I really have a thing for British history and culture. It's one of my other big geek things besides music and anime. So of course, a show that feels like a mangaka tried to be Jane Austin for a while is obviously going to catch my attention. And as you can see, it was really, really good. Romance in anime is a genre unfortunately plagued by unfinished stories and plenty of bad tropes that we're all sick of. Emma takes a different track with it's Victorian romance styles, and I think it does it beautifully. The cast is very enjoyable, the story moves along properly and the romance is a wonderful thing to watch unfold. And of course, it has a proper ending! I also have to give a shout out to this series for great accuracy in historical detail. So many sites of old London town were brought to life here, which was a joy to see.

7. Nichijou

https://kitsu.io/anime/nichijou

And speaking of British culture, well, okay, Nichijou doesn't have any link to it. If ever there was a series that feels like I'm watching an anime rendition of Monty Python's Flying Circus though, this would be it. There are totally random side jokes and stories that go nowhere, jokes that start in one sketch and end up in another one, and a sort of humor that doesn't feel Japanese at all, aside from the setting. Maybe this is why, for the longest time, the only western release of this show was in Australia. Hmm? Anyways, this show makes me happy when I watch it, with much laughter included. The cast is something I can't even begin start praising and the art style is just amazing for a weekly show. If you haven't seen this yet, I dare ask you, “Why not!?”

6. Cross Game

https://kitsu.io/anime/cross-game

Best first episode ever! Simple as that. If you aren't hooked and ready for more by the end of that episode, you might as well hand in your anime fanboy ID card and find a new hobby. Seriously though, this show is just amazing, starting with that first episode, and just building from there. The cast is near perfection, the story is not nearly what you would expect from a sports anime and the culmination of the series just works so well. I honestly could not be more pleased with a show. Also, it has a song for drawing the cat and shows off fan art. How cool is that?

5. Eden of the East

https://kitsu.io/anime/eden-of-the-east

Eden of the East is a show I didn't really think about putting on my favorites for a long time. Then I realized I had been rewatching every year, and enjoying it just as much every time. I don't know exactly why I like it so much. It's just kindof become that show that I have a mood for, put on and have a good time for a couple days. I think it's just a combination of a fun cast and an interesting story with lots of movie references that I actually get. Then again, this could be another case of a series that I watched early on in my return to anime and it holds some nostalgic value. Either way, I think it's great.

4. Yawara!

https://kitsu.io/anime/yawara

I'm sure most would not pick this as their series of choice from Naoki Urasawa, but dammit, it's so good! And I don't even like Judo. But then I watched Yawara and found it to be the most interesting sport for a few months. Then again, this series isn't just here for making me like a sport I knew nothing about. It's here because it mixes that up with an intriguing romance plot and a great cast of characters that I'll never forget. Also, it did a great job of fleshing out side characters that I honestly didn't expect. It pleased me so much with two particular characters because one deserved the attention and the other grew so much from the bumbling idiot he started out as. It was just amazing to watch.

3. Working!!

https://kitsu.io/anime/working-1

You know those series you relate to because you've been there and done that. Working is that series for me. I mean, my food service jobs were nothing nearly as insane as this series, but I can relate so much to the things that happen at Wagnaria. The cast encompass so many of the types of people that I've dealt with, only with the insanity knob turned to 11. This series also gets a nod from me for having some of the catchiest opening themes I've ever seen. Not the best, mind you, but damn if I didn't watch them every freaking time.

2. Maison Ikkoku

https://kitsu.io/anime/maison-ikkoku

Right, now we're in to the really tricky entry for me. I really, really wanted this to be number 1. I loved so much about this series when I watched it. I relate so much to Godai and his struggles, more so than nearly any other anime character I can think of with the possible exception of Anna in When Marnie Was There (but that's a whole other list). I understand what it's like to be in a crappy living situation with people that drive you up the wall on a daily basis with no regard for your personal space. I know the struggles of trying to make it through college. And like a lot of us, I understand the desires love gives us, even when they seem unrealistic and someone else is trying to get the same girl you want (granted, my experience with this one ended up much worse in the end, but yeah). These alone are big reasons why I absolutely love the series. But there's more. The cast is just a joy to watch, from the most annoying characters on up to all of my favorites. There is plenty of off the wall comedy like any good Rumiko Takahashi series, but there is so much heart behind her work, and nowhere else do I see that than in this series. It is the perfect romantic comedy as far as I'm concerned, and a joy to watch through. This is also the only anime, because it's out of print in the west, that I would more than willingly drop the money to buy on DVD (that price currently being well beyond $1000 last I checked). That's how much I love this show. It would be number 1, except that number 1 happens to be...

1. Ichigo Mashimaro

https://kitsu.io/anime/ichigo-mashimaro

Remember way back in the honorable mentions section, how I talked about that whole single parent slice of life subgenre that I love so much? Well, this series is kinda one of those. I mean, not totally since there is some indication that there are parents around. We never see them though, so this show is really all about an older sibling taking care of her younger sister and her friends. Of course, this group of characters works in such a way as to make sure that only the best possible comedy happens whenever possible. I can't even describe the joy it gives me in these moments. The jokes just have me in stitches. But there is an equal amount of heart in the show as well. It still has my absolute favorite Christmas episode ever. For all the jokes in that episode, the innocence it portrays and the care that most of the characters go to to protect that is just a thing of beauty. So yes, I love this show. Often times, it is the show that I drag out first when someone asks for a recommendation, and I've yet to get anything but a good response when said persons finish the show. And if that's not enough to show my love, well then, how about this. This is the only anime that I own twice. I bought a DVD box set back when it was still out of print, and then I bought a copy of the Blurays when Sentai Filmworks picked it up last year. I have not gone to the trouble to do this kind of upgrade for any other series, and probably will not, even though I have many series that I can now upgrade. This is the only one I see a reason to have done so. And believe me, it was so worth it! It feels so great to finally have the OVAs for this series too.

And with that, it looks like we're done. If you made it this far, I really want to thank you for reading all of that (unless you skimmed through it all, then shame on you, I put a lot of work into this and now you hurt my feelings). While this is of course, only my list, I'm feeling brave enough to ask what you guys think? Do you agree with anything? Disagree with a reason better than “It's Shit!” or any other mean spirited remark? Should I do a list like this for movies or OVAs? Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it. So thanks again, and take care!

#top 25 #anime #2017

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stokan · 8 years

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The 20 Best Things of 2016

Fun fact: Many good things actually happened in the year 2016. It’s true! It wasn't all death and Trump, although as you’ll see, those two factors hang heavy over even the best of things. But just like every year, 2016 still managed to produce its fair share of great art, cultural triumphs, and viral delights. Leaving out, obviously, things from 2016 that it seems like I’ll probably love but have yet to experience (OJ: Made in America, Search Party, 20th Century Women, Fences, etc.), and TV shows I’ve already written about in years past (OITNB, Transparent, You're the Worst, Veep, etc) here are my top 20 favorite things from 2016, listed in no particular order:

1. Beyonce - “Formation” video

How upset old white people were about this should give you some idea of just how great it is.

When I was growing up, the biggest music video from the biggest female pop star of the day involved her dancing around suggestively in a Catholic school girl outfit. Trump may have won the election, but progress still remains undefeated.

2. Kendrick Lamar’s Grammys Performance

(Of course this isn't anywhere on the internet for me to link to. Because Neil Portnow.)

Kendrick’s performance was the performance that Kayne always thinks he is giving. It’s a performance that made everyone else who took the stage on Music’s Biggest Night seem like talent show contestants.

I don’t want to tell artists how to use their fame, but this is how they should use their fame.

3. Last Week Tonight - #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain

SPOILER ALERT: He didn't make Donald Drumpf again. In fact the viral success of this piece and lack of any resultant effect on Trump whatsoever does raise some big questions about the effectiveness of comedy in actually changing anyone’s mind about anything in 2016. But yet, like death from a thousand paper cuts, it definitely drew a little blood. And even though I really wish John Oliver had stuck with guns and only referred to Trump as Drumpf for the rest of the year, it was still a more thorough and effective attack ad than anything the Clinton campaign managed to put together, and that was basically their whole job. John Oliver can never be president, but the world is going to be a better place as long as he keeps trying to help decide who will be.

Also, says everything about 2016 that this piece now feels like it came out ten thousand years ago.

4. La La Land

Hey, remember joy? And love? And having hopes and dreams? Well La La Land sure does! The best and worst thing you can say about it is that it’s a pre-Trump movie. Maybe the last one ever in fact. But for my money, Damien Chazelle’s quest to Make Musicals Great Again is exactly the tonic we need right now. And it seems fitting the Oscars after the death of Debbie Reynolds are going to be headlined by a colorful and happiness-inducing musical about show business, complete with its own dream ballet. Sometimes the best way to reinvent an art form is to just do it the same way its always been done, only better and at the right time.

5. Olympic Swimming

When the Olympics began I barely cared. I was raised on the Olympics, but in 2016 there’s so much else going on it felt like maybe time has passed the Olympics by. And then the swimming started. And Ledecky destroyed all challengers. And Phelps proved that calling him the greatest swimmer of all time is still underrating him. And Simone Manuel made history. And Lochte Lochted. And Anthony Ervin spun an all-time Olympic athlete backstory into Olympic gold. And for a week there was nothing in the world more compelling than watch people swim laps in a pool.

So turns out the Olympics are the Michael Phelps of sporting events - the second you think they’ve slipped a bit is when they have you right where they want you.

6. LVL Up - “Pain”

Point: Rock and roll is dead

Counterpoint: “Pain” by LVL Up

7. Stranger Things

I hate the 80s. I hate supernatural shows and horror-based shows and “genre” shows in general. I hate homage as the starting place for a work of art. I hate culture’s obsession with nostalgia and youth. And yet I loved Stranger Things. It felt like nothing else on TV while feeling like so many other things all at once. It’s the show Lost wishes it could have been, and what JJ Abrams wishes he had made instead of Super 8.

Also: I hate that there’s going to be a season two. I hate that dialogue around the show seemed so #TeamBarb when clearly any sane right-thinking person is #TeamNancy all the way. I preemptively hate all the imitators Stranger Things is going to spawn. And I hate the Stranger Things backlash that’s inevitably coming and coming hard. But right now, in this moment, let’s all embrace a wonderful television ride and not worry about the demigorgons in the woods coming to put slugs in its mouth.

#KeepHawkinsWeird

8. Flossie Dickey

Sometimes you find true love where you least expect it. Like in an interview with a 110-year woman at a nursing home.

9. Sam Donsky on The Ringer

(Speaking of soul mates…)

In the age of Trump it’s more important than ever that we have writers brave enough to ask the tough questions. Like: Who would win the Oscar for Best Baby? What is the best night any celebrity has ever had at Madison Square Garden? And why does David Benioff always thank his wife by her full name?

From analyzing the Kim/Kayne/Taylor tapes like they're the Zapruder film, to asking 74 questions about a film no one saw or liked, 2016 was the year Sam Donsky officially made himself into this generation’s Woodward and Bernstein, if Woodward and Bernstein were mostly known for dissecting dumb pop culture on the internet. We may never fully understand why Trump won, but, also, what’s up with Chris Pratt’s vests?

10. Black-ish - “Hope”

A perfect piece of writing and a perfect argument for the continued existence of network TV.

That being said though, 40 years ago this would be a classic TV episode people would talk about for generations. Now, it didn't even get nominated for an Emmy. Maybe network TV is just beyond saving.

11. The People vs. OJ Simpson

It’s almost a cliche at this point to point out how many societal issues the OJ Simpson case touched on, but watching this miniseries unfold was a great reminder that looking at the the past is usually the best vehicle for exploring the present. To choose just one example, the scene where the jurors argue over what to watch on TV is a perfect encapsulation of how something like a Trump victory could some day be possible. And if Marcia Clark isn't a perfect Hillary Clinton avatar then I don’t know who is. My only complaints about a perfect eight hours of television are that it wasn't longer and that Sarah Paulson and Courtney B. Vance aren't eligible for Oscars.

12. Samantha Bee’s Donald Trump Conspiracy Theory

Look, I don't want to say that Full Frontal with Samantha Bee is the best and most important show on TV. That is has the best joke writers in the business. That it has the righteous anger and indignation that this year called for. That it’s going to be our guiding light for the next four years. And that it’s proof that giving The Daily Show to Trevor Noah was one of the dumbest decisions in recent television history. All I’m saying is that some people are saying that, and who am I to disagree? If I was going to make claims that outlandish, I guess the first pieces of evidence I would direct you to are this already iconic Donald Trump conspiracy and the show’s Harriet Tubman segment. But I’m not one to make accusations about things using facts and evidence. I’m no expert; I’m just a guy. A guy standing in front of samanthabee.com asking it to to love him.

13. David Bowie - “Lazarus” video

The ultimate mic drop.

They say Native Americans used to make use of every part of the buffalo. David Bowie was like that, only the buffalo was his life.

14. SNL

“Farewell Mr. Bunting”

Having enough trust in your audience and your vision to attempt this sketch is super inspiring. Getting people in 2016 to wait through two and a half minutes of build up in a viral video before it pays off feels like a miracle. And getting the feeling back in my face when I finally finish laughing at this is going to be really great.

“Black Jeopardy” This is what comedy can do when its at it’s best. It cuts to truths about America more clearly and cleanly than 1,000 think pieces ever could. Are comedy sketches eligible for the Nobel Prize in Literature now?

“Hillary Clinton/Hallelujah” And this is what comedy can do when it’s not comedy at all. When historians 200 years from now want to know what the days just after the election of Donald Trump felt like all they need to do is watch this. The best thing SNL has ever done.

15. Songs That Made Me Unsure Whether I Should Be Sad, Dance, Or Both

Christine and the Queens - “iT”

I have absolutely no idea what this song is about. All I know is it sounds like the feeling of being alive. Between this song and Marion Cotillard’s eyes the French really continue to have the whole beautiful sadness thing figured out.

Eleanor Freiberger - “My Mistakes” The best Rilo Kiley song of 2016. The world can change however it wants; as long as it keeps giving me new versions of the exact song I’m totally good.

Mike Posner - “Took a Pill in Ibiza” The exact opposite of me is an EDM-influenced song about taking drugs in a nightclub in Ibiza. Yet here we are. Turns out that existential melancholy translated into Douche from the original Neurotic Intellectual is still pretty damn relatable. And yes I realize this song came out in 2015, but this will always be the sound of 2016 to me.

16. Moonlight

Moonlight feels like a miracle. That a serious drama without any name stars about a poor, gay, black man coming of age could be made at all, yet alone breakthrough into the popular consciousness. That a cast this natural and flawless could be found, like an album where every song that comes on makes you go “no THIS one is my favorite!”. That there are two different sets of three actors so similar and so good that when I see them together doing press it hurts my brain because I can’t process that they were not ACTUALLY the same person at three different ages. That two people making small talk at a table in a diner could have a whole audience on the edge of their seats. That a no-name director with one prior little-seen credit could create the most powerful and well-made movie of the year. None of these things seems possible or plausible, and yet they're all true. This movie is a miracle. And its success gives me hope. To quote critic Dana Stevens, in the pitch-black year of Trump, Moonlight was a “crack in the wall that allowed light to shine through”.

17. Atlanta

In 2016, what even is TV? It’s basically anything now. And it’s everything. It’s whatever it wants to be. And no artist has yet risen to meet the challenge and possibility of our post-Louie world better than Donald Glover has. In 2016 Atlanta is TV, and TV is Atlanta. There are no rules. There is only what you can dream up.

What will season two of Atlanta be? It could be literally anything and no one would bat an eye.

18. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book

Chance the Rapper is so millennial it hurts. Chance the Rapper definitely has strong feelings about safe spaces and Bernie Sanders. Chance the Rapper has never even considered doing something ironically. Chance the Rapper makes Lin-Manuel Miranda look like a cynical pessimist. Hell, Chance the Rapper named himself Chance the Rapper. And as a millennial, Chance the Rapper is the future.

And the future sounds amazing.

The future is like if Old Kanye had been raised on new Kanye and was actually good at rapping. (As the old saying goes: every generation gets the Late Registration it deserves) The future is like if Picasso painted with emojis. The future is earnestness being the new aggression. The future is Future being the past.

Hip-hop is dead, long live hip-hop.

19. “A Closer Look” on Late Night With Seth Meyers

I almost left this reoccurring segment off my list of the best of 2016 because it’s become such a constant part of my life that I assumed it had been around longer than just this year. Who knew when Jon Stewart retired that the new iteration of The Daily Show would be called Late Night With Seth Meyers? Or as I call it: Essential.

20. Revisionist History Podcast

Facts and knowledge really took a beating in 2016, but turns out both are still great if you just re-examine them rather then throw them out all together. Perhaps looking more deeply into our assumptions about the world can help us better understand human nature and the reality we all share. Who knew?

Of everything I experienced in 2016 this podcast is the thing I reference most frequently. I’m fun at parties.

#la la land #Kendrick Lamar #moonlight #a closer look #revisionist history #formation #snl #make donald drumpf again #samantha bee #chance the rapper #atlanta #stranger things

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