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ender-baggins · 3 years ago

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Just watched 14x13 Lebanon.

Will preface with the fact that this was a bit of my commentary on the previous episode, and that I do think John Winchester was a crap parent

Lebanon was a pretty good episode, actually. I know some people hate it, and I started off prepared to seethe every moment that John was on screen. but then I managed to get one foot out of the John-crit zone and put it in Sam and Dean’s shoes, and looking at it from both perspectives? The episode has a lot of nuance to it.

Spoilers for this 14x13 Lebanon (obviously)

Overall I think the most important thing to remember about this episode: the theme is that some things are too good to be true.

I knew which episode it was, but I was surprised because I thought it has been in season 15, and then John didn’t show up for a while, so I thought I was wrong until the Pearl came up.

I gotta hand it to Jensen. When John appeared, there were so many emotions packed into Dean’s face in that first short scene, I had to rewatch it several times to get them. Part of it was simple shock, but I could also see… something a little like panic in his face, along with Waay too many emotions for me to name.

The conversation between Sam and John was… I started off mad and then focused more on Sam’s perspective and realized that… yeah, Sam isn’t the same person he was last time he saw his dad. And he didn’t get closure. He never got a chance to get real closure on it, and then here, he did, at least in some form.

Also, interesting thing I noticed- I could see the beginnings of how it could turn into another argument, and John said something that seemed a little accusatory, “you didn’t have a problem talking about it before you left,” and then Sam was like “nope, not gonna argue, not gonna do it, REDIRECTING-“ Which, after what Dean said in the scene before—

—Sam doesn’t want to mess this up for Dean. No way is he gonna start a fight, not now, not when they just got their dad back.

I don’t like the last line of Sam and John’s conversation: “But you did your best, dad. You – you fought for us, and you loved us, and… that’s enough.” Because honestly- it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t. And… dammit he could have done better. But then again, that’s Sam’s dad, and he’s been dead for over a decade, and sometimes people tend to put rose-colored glasses on over the past. So I’ll still happily condemn John’s parenting but I won’t condemn Sam just because he’s unable to see things for what they are in this case.

Now- my absolute favorite part of this entire episode is the section of Sam and Dean going to get groceries and noticing things are changed, and realizing “oh shit, what else is different?”

One, gotta love Dean for implying that Sam being a kale nut is a worse thing than Dean being considered a serial killer by society (which, it’s not like society is wrong??). Like, ah yes, wonderful priorities there, Dean. You’re a wanted killer with your face up in the town, but clearly Sam giving a lecture about the wonders of kale is a much worse thing. (If you can’t tell, I’m being incredibly sarcastic here)

And then here. Castiel’s appearance. I was screeching watching this. Completely freaking out- so much adrenaline. I bet if I’d taken my pulse it would have been skyrocketing-

This was followed by the scene of Castiel and Zachariah in the restaurant, which was Awesome, very clearly highlighting the difference that Dean and the Winchesters made in Cas’s life (later this will be relevant in the Confession - “You changed me, Dean”).

*cue me posting an unnecessary amount of screenshots*

Castiel unfurls his wings—

(Note the messy hair from flying around everywhere. Not the same as his old haircut, but they did what they could with Misha’s hair at the time)

Notice that Dean’s got the angel blade point down, and when he attacks Castiel, he’s using the blunt end to hit him, not the sharp end

(On the other hand, Sam uses the sharp end of the blade to swipe at Castiel. No judgement from me here, Sam sees this as “not our Cas” while Dean still sees this as “my Cas, I can talk him away from Heaven again.”)

Then, the most interesting thing here- when Cas pins Dean agains the wall, Dean’s not even trying to fight Cas here.

See how his hand settles on Castiel’s chest? Not really pressing, just touching. His other hand is gripping Castiel’s wrist, I imagine to try to remove enough pressure from his neck that he can speak. Trying to use his connection to Cas to get Castiel to stop hurting him. And it doesn’t work. Castiel stares him the eyes, not even a flicker of doubt or questioning.

You’ll note that I referred to alternate Castiel in this episode as exclusively “Castiel” and not “Cas.” Because it’s not Cas. Cas is the angel that saved Dean from Hell, and the angel that’s been by Dean’s side for 11 years (at this point in time). And this Castiel has not done that. So he is not Cas.

I’m reminded of the scene wayy back in season 5 where Cas beats Dean up in the alley for trying to give up and give in to Michael. There, Dean actually encouraged Cas to kill him, at the end, and Cas softens. Can’t exactly parse out the parallels there because my brain isn’t working, but there you go.

Now, probably my favorite conversation with John is this one, with Dean.

Right here. The way that Dean says “I have a family.”

It feels almost defiant. “I do have a family. I have Sam, Cas, Mom, Jack. My mother, my brother, my best friend… and I have a son, we all have a son. And beyond that, I’ve got Jody and Donna and Claire and the girls. I do have a family. Yeah, it doesn’t look like the apple pie life, the white picket fence, wife and kids, and yeah, our son is the child of Lucifer, and yeah, I’m in love with my best friend who’s an angel in a man’s body, and I wouldn’t trade him for any woman, and you’d hate that. But they’re my family. And I’m good with that.”

It’s proud, it’s a little defiant, it’s also a little bit of a reassurance, as we see from John’s smile afterward. I don’t think John caught the hint of a challenge in there.

I loved that moment. That might be my favorite line in the entire episode. “I have a family.”

I also like… Dean’s acceptance, “I’m good with who I am.” Part of that… I think it’s both a good thing and a sad thing and also a half lie at the same time. I think he’s good with who he is, in the sense that he’s accepted that he and Sam are the people that have to fill this role in the world, y’know, saving everyone. I think he loves the people he’s with, he loves his family and wouldn’t trade them for anything, not even having John back. No way would he ever trade Cas or Jack or Sam, or Mary, for anything else, ever.

It’s sad, though, because it’s like… he can’t imagine who he’d be if he had a different life. Yes, he’s had a few runs at an apple-pie life, but they weren’t happy, there was always something wrong nagging at him. He… I think he believes there’s no way for him to be happy, and that this is the best he could have.

I’m not even sure how to analyze the goodbye scene. I mean, the clearest thing here is just so much grief from everyone. They got a taste of their father back, and now he has to go back to being dead. There’s so many complicated feelings for both of the brothers, because of the complicated relationship with John, but in the end? They can’t help but love him, and they can’t help but feel grief at losing him. I won’t fault them for that.

In short, I wanna give Dean a gigantic hug and also give him therapy-

And then Cas coming back to the bunker when he did. I bet he sensed something and headed back to the bunker as fast as he could. Also, no clue what he experienced during the whole “Castiel and Zachariah are alive” thing. I imagine it’s possible there were two Cas’s running around for a bit? Because Mary didn’t get affected by the pearl. And Sam was there with his own memories, despite there being videos up of him doing things in the parallel universe. As for Cas, he’s part of Dean’s group of “people” so my guess is two Castiels running around for a little bit.

I like how Dean looks at Cas at the end. He’s relieved to have his angel back.

In summary-

The theme of this episode is “some things are too good to be true.” John came back, the four of them got their moment together, but John couldn’t stay. Things were good for that single afternoon, because everyone was just happy to see each other again, but it sent so much stuff into chaos that it couldn’t last, it had to be undone. And even then, if they’d tried to keep going with it, I know it would have degraded, the illusion of perfection would shatter, and they’d fall into old habits, old arguments and new ones.

And so it had to end.

#THIS IS NOT JOHN APOLOGISM #JOHN IS A TERRIBLE PARENT #HE MAY HAVE APOLOGIZED BUT THAT DOESN’T ABSOLVE HIM OF HIS ACTIONS #john winchester #spn 14x13 #spn Lebanon #dean winchester #sam winchester #mary winchester #castiel #jack kline #destiel #supernatural #Ender’s musings

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izziegs · 4 years ago

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Okay so TMA 187 analysis here, a bit more “Jon’s judgment of Helen was not entirely correct” from another Spiral fan

1. I think Jon’s analysis of Helen is (ha ha) distorted by A) his desire to justify her death despite her friendliness, and B) automatically made untrustworthy by the fact that Jon has never understood the Distortion. Helen has expressed before that him Knowing things about her is not the same as Understanding things, and he’s made it very clear before that he does not Understand (MD and HD are fusions, essentially. Combinations of the Spiral’s manifestation: the Distortion, and a human. In the same way Garnet is a combo of Ruby and Sapphire but not truly either of them, Helen Distortion has Helen Richardson in her, but is not actually Helen Richardson. She is both Helen and not, and was never Michael, though the Distortion was. Honestly, Jon, it’s not complicated)

2. We even saw this with Michael - I can’t forget that Jon assumed the Distortion was just a manifestation of the Spiral, not an avatar, and he seemed to take the revelation that Michael Shelley was an assistant as a sort of...betrayal, almost? Something that definitely threw off his idea of good-bad, where even though avatars could be bad their humanity kept them from becoming as monstrous as Michael, and the sudden shock of hearing otherwise, of seeing what he could become...I don’t think he ever bounced back from that.

3. Jon has always seen the worst in Helen. In 115, she came back to him for emotional help/venting/advice/connection and he lashed out at her, scared of seeing her become like Michael, still sore from betrayal from the Stranger, etc. From the get-go he decided this was just a Thing using Helen’s face, and even when she immediately told him otherwise, he rejected it. (“I don’t believe you” - “I have never told you a lie”) He chalked her vulnerability up to manipulation, and has never truly turned his view of her away from that initial assessment

4. 131 shows a lot of the same (“You’re still wearing her face” - “I’m not ‘wearing’ anything”) This episode Helen deliberately pushes against Jon’s desire to neatly separate them into bad and good, something Melanie pulls them away from to refocus on Jared

5. 143 doesn’t have them fight quite as much, though Jon does still seem very suspicious. Helen just shows up to eat Manuela and give Jon and Basira a door home

6. 157 - aka the day Jon uses as justification he was right Helen was never on his side even though it is One Thing. They’ve met four times prior to this and he’s been mean to her every time. I can understand her abstaining from helping him, especially when she thinks the end result will help her, and double especially when helping Jon would put her directly on the bad side of two very powerful avatars (Also, as Helen said, “If that makes it my fault, then surely this is Georgie’s fault as well, and Melanie’s-”. AFAIK, he’s not upholding that as proof those two are bad and against him)

7. Post-apocalypse, Helen tries to give Jon the advice he refused to give her. When she was fully accepting her avatar status, she just wanted someone she thought could help her, and now she’s trying to be that person for Jon. Hearing her later desire to keep the world as is, it would also make sense that she might’ve been trying to get him to agree with her, however, unlikely, so they could continue “helping” each other/wouldn’t have to have that inevitable fight. Something else notable about her in the Eye’s world: she forces Jon to stop withholding info from Martin. She forces them to talk about difficult topics (Smiting powers, where’s Basira/how is she, Martin’s domain) and had essentially become a more reliable source of info than Jon is. While her popping up was beneficial to Martin, it was annoying to Jon, and possibly also part of why he continued not liking her.

8. Now all of that, looking at 187: Again, Jon very quickly establishes that he doesn’t understand how Helen works (“I am not [Michael], and never have been. Surely you know all this by now”) and then explicitly says he is currently making judgments based on feeling instead of logic (which is not a new development, looking at his choices since The Eye Opens).

Here I’m going to go over a few of his specific lines from 187:

“Now you use her form, see her mind, but they’re just… tools.” - If that were true, there’d be no reason Helen would act completely differently than Michael did. If this were just a monster using a human’s mind for manipulation advice, why have a totally new personality? Helen is Helen, but Jon’s still stuck in his season 3 mindset

“Michael had nothing you could use but a razor-straight desire for vengeance, but you saw something in Helen that would work on me much more subtly. So you took her” - Bold of Jon to assume Helen taking over the Distortion was that influenced by him, lol. If the Distortion wanted you done for Jonathan, they’d have just kept Michael and let him eat you like he planned. Not everything’s about you.

“How long have you been working with Elias?” - This one is interesting because if he knows everything, he should’ve known whether or not Helen knew Elias (unless he assumed she could get into the Panopticon where he can’t see). Michael knew Elias, pre-Distortion, but Helen’s not talked to him. Jon didn’t think Jude Perry was working for Elias, despite her clear revelry in the new world. I think it’s weird he assumed that about Helen (unless he was also using that to justify her death)

Her commentary during his statement is funny, but interesting. The perfect time to attack him if she really wanted to, if she really had been building up to that like he thought she was, and she spends the time joking about him and Martin living in a Honeymoon Suite in her apocalypse hotel

“Is a friendship true, or is it reaching out with hands that cut you?” - Another interesting line to me because when Michael told Sasha he wanted to be her friend he deliberately manipulated his hand so that he could hold her hand without cutting her

“You worked to hurt us and help us, all with the same smile, until we can barely tell one from the other” - I think Jon is talking about Michael and Helen as one person in this part, but specifically with Helen she literally didn’t hurt you Jon she had one time she didn’t help

“Never quite crossing a line we could never forgive, but never putting yourself on the line either.” - Yeah, Jon, that’s what most people would do, tbh. It’s not unforgivable that she didn’t put her life on the line to help someone who has only ever been mean to her. Actually, she helped him more than most people would if treated that way

“It’s not me I’m worried about” - Another interesting line because even as he’s killing her, Helen’s final threat is to hold him in the halls until the End eventually gets his friends. She never threatens to harm any of them (because they’re her friends) - Edit: I can see how it could be interpreted as her threatening them buttt idk if she can kill them in the new world so I assumed it was End related. Still no empty threats, no real lies from her yet - Also, I think she genuinely does not want to kill Martin or Jon, she wants them to turn so they can all be friends without those messy ~moral hangups~

“If you do this, everyone inside me is dead!” - I wonder if this is true. I can’t tell if Jon was the only one that fell out of the halls in front of Martin. It’s not like the other domains, where taking the avatar in charge may usher in a new one. The Distortion was Helen. If this sentence is true, then Jon just murdered that mom and very possibly orphaned that five-year-old. Not just gonna brush that one off there

“Its hidden teeth and the ones it wears so proudly.” - Even in the end Jon still Doesn’t Get It. He still thinks the Distortion is pretending to be Helen. Was pretending to be Michael. As much as he should be an all-knowing being, he clearly still rejects what he doesn’t like

I don’t have a specific quote but Jon acting like the Distortion has had a constant motivation or like, consistent desire (outside of “cause problems for fun”) is wild because Michael explicitly told Jon he didn’t want the Watcher’s Crown to happen. Michael was going to kill Jon to stop it. He was on the exact side Jon is on right now. But I guess it’s easy for Jon to paint him as evil when the roles were revered, huh?

If you’re still reading this, uh. Hi. I really really like the Distortion (Michael and Helen) and I am Very Upset with Jon right now

Edit: This is not an argument on whether or not Helen was evil or if Jon was right to kill her too to save the world. She was absolutely evil and I can see why Jon felt her death was necessary I'm just saying he was wrong about her lying to him

#tma #the magnus archives #helen richardson #helen distortion #michael shelley #michael distortion #jon sims #tma 187 #tma spoilers #this is 1400 words of me analyzing every Helen appearance ever

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still-a-morosexual-help · 3 years ago

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OBEY ME! LESSON 50 DETAILED SUMMARY + THEORIES

One locked lesson. There’s also a chat between Mammon & Lucifer after they leave which is just Lucifer spamming him with texts that are all some variation of “don’t do anything stupid” and “be safe”, which Mammon never replies to and it reminds me intensely of my mom when I had school field trips.

In the morning Asmo says MC looks like they had a goodnight’s sleep ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• )and Satan says despite how much Lucifer denies it, it’s a fact that he spoils Mammon (AH HA!) and Asmo teases Satan about being jealous (AHH HAA!!!!). turns out they’re running late and Mammon’s still asleep, they can either wake him up gently (he blushes and asks if they came for round 2 before he realises what time it is), roll him outta bed (he screams, falls and gets pissed off) or yell his name in their best and highly accurate Lucifer imitation (He wakes up screaming and trying to convince Lucifer he didn’t do anything wrong before realising it’s MC). They end up having to skip breakfast and running to the station where they meet Luke who tells them the train’s about to leave. Mammon says that a kid like Luke wouldn’t understand the complicated adult process behind getting ready to leave on an overnight trip, Luke says that’s BS and they just overslept. The two of them start arguing and MC tells them to both shut the fuck up cause the train’s leaving. A red faced Luke starts screaming while they’re running cause Mammon picks him up and then he starts yelling at MC to stop laughing and help him. They never reveal who screamed the night before? Was it Levi realising Crowe was missing? Was it Lucifer trying to get Mammon to stop hugging him? Was it either Mammon or MC as they railed each other? Was it some poor brother who walked in on that? Was it for completely unrelated reasons? Can screams just be heard from outside the house at a semi-regular basis?

Mammon ends up tossing Luke on to the speeding train and when they’re all on it the two start arguing about being late/ the merits of throwing children on to trains. MC says people feel more comfortable to freely argue about things when they’re close. Mammon and Luke both instantly yell “We’re NOT close!”. Luke goes to keep him luggage, mumbling about being worried about spending time with Mammon and Mammon tells him he feels the same. MC and Mammon go to check out their room and MC coos about how big the bed is (it really is a comfy looking bed right under a large window) and Mammon says it could fit both of them and have room to spare before blushing and asking whether they’d actually share (and hey didn’t Lucifer book these rooms????????) Mammon remembers the train trip in S1 and blushes cause this time it’s just the two of them (did y’all forget Luke!?), MC says it’s like they’re on their honeymoon (GUYS SERIOUSLY DID YOU FORGET THE CHILD ALREADY!?), Mammon (while obviously blushing) says there’s other stuff that’ll have to happen first, like a “..um…p…proposal…and stuff”. Mammon then says it’s just the two of them and a bed right now and there’s only one thing they can do and they start going to make out before the door slams open and MC instantly pushes Mammon off and he falls of the bed. Luke completely oblivious and innocent asks what just happened and Mammon says they were practicing self-defence techniques and guys guys I’m crying why is this so funny, why does this seem like the scene from a dozen family comedy movies/sitcom shows where the kid walks in on the parents!???? Luke says he’s hungry and want to go get lunch.

Luke goes over their plan, Mammon grumbles out a whatever, Luke says he needs to listen and take it seriously, Mammon says he’s listening but totally not taking it seriously. He asks Luke why he’s so excited anyway, that he’s bouncing about. Luke’s embarrassed and tries to deny it and MC says Mammon had been bouncing around too. Mammon blushes and tells MC to shut it and Luke says it’s best to ignore Mammon cause he’s not worth it (I love Luke but sometimes…….) Luke ignores Mammon’s protests and shows MC the pamphlets. All the cars in the train are named after angels, with the first being Michael. Mammon says something about Luke going back to talking about his “precious Michael” and that no one cares that the cares are named after angels cause angels aren’t really all that great and he doesn’t see what’s special about them (AND NO GRUDGE HUH!????? Also this line gets a lot sadder when you remember angels killed his little sister). Luke starts telling himself to calm down, Mammon says he can hear everything Luke’s saying. Dessert arrives and Luke wants to share with MC and Mammon teases him about being excited about it before he realises it looks really good. Mammon asks for a bite, Luke refuses they start arguing (Just so you know ever since the “precious angels” line Mammon’s had this smile on his face no matter how much they argued and something about it reads as particularly nasty). Mammon suggests they flip a coin, either they each keep their own desserts or they switch (and pls don’t steal candy from a kid even I can’t defend no matter what issues you may have with the kid’s home/guardians). Luke refuses and Mammon taunts him about being afraid of losing and calls him ‘Luke the loser’ (really wish MC could smack him now and this is probably the most vicious we’ve seen Mammon throughout the 3seasons and we always take time to talk about everyone else’s issues but never Mammon’s, even in S2 when everyone was fighting each other they all got a chance to air their problems with each other and then MC helped them settle it and sure Mammon got a brief chance to yell at Lucifer about how he’s treated but they never got to resolve it, like Asmo said they ignored each other for a bit and then went back to their usual normal. Mammon’s long overdue a therapy session). Anyway Luke takes the bait and says he won’t lose cause he’s got Michael watching over him. Mammon says he should take the challenge then cause he’s got “whats-his-face” watching over him. Mammon wins and Luke accuses him of cheating and Mammon asks what the ‘doggy’s’ proof is. Mammon calls him a chihuahua and when Luke protests, Mammon says he’s Michael’s little puppy who sits on his lap and snuggles up to him all day (no grudge my ass). Luke flushes red, yells at Mammon to shut up and says he doesn’t understand why Michael still cares about the brothers before running away. Mammon loses his smile for a second before he laughs at Luke for running away without eating his dessert and he really does look like a chihuahua when he’s mad. He asks MC if they agree and they can either say Mammon in their Lucifer imitation (he freaks out but doesn’t seem to understand why MC’s pissed) or say “You know what? I hate this side of you, Mammon.” (which wow…He gets really upset about that, stuttering and saying he was just teasing and MC didn’t have to say they hated him)

MC goes to see Luke in his room, he only lets them in after making sure Mammon isn’t there. He apologizes for walking out and MC says it was understandable and that Mammon was in the wrong, Luke says he shouldn’t have let Mammon get to him, specially when he knew Mammon seeing him upset will make him happy. Luke says he’s been wondering about why Michael still cares about the brothers and that they may have been angels once but they did something awful enough that they were cast out and turned to demons (and he doesn’t know!!!!! Is it awful that I want MC to tell him about Lilith and the human she fell in love with?). He says if Michael loved them so much he should have just forgiven them without casting them away (also that’s a thing – were they cast away? Or did they run? We know they fought against the angels before they left and that the angels and presumably, they themselves were aiming to kill the other side, so at the height of all that anger, hurt, death and pain would Michael have just cast them away if they got captured, specially to the Devildom where he knew Lucifer had been meeting up with Diavolo? I always thought that after Lilith fell Lucifer just gathered up his remaining family and fled to the one outside ally they had. I also had a HC that maybe Simeon helped them escape and that’s why he got such a large demotion. They’ve never really cleared up what happened after Lilith was hit, but it would also make sense for the angels to say they were cast away specially if they’re not publicising the reasons behind the war/fight). Luke says he needs to stop and shouldn’t second guess Michael’s judgment and that sounds a lot like what Lucifer kept saying to himself about his Father’s judgment during the Devilgram where he first met Diavolo and the celestial realm is so shady guyyyyyssssss I love morally grey characters who see themselves as being wholly in the right. Luke asks MC as the person closest to the brothers if they think the brothers still love Michael cause he doesn’t want Michael’s love to be in vain. They say sometimes love is one-sided and Michael is still going to feel the way he does. Luke is upset and says he knows that Michael will still love them the way he always has. they ask if Luke hates the brothers (he turns red and said he used to but thanks to MC he can see some of the good in them and doesn’t dislike them as much anymore) and if he finds it hard to forgive them (he says it’s not his place to forgive them and his opinion won’t change Michael’s and that when it comes down to it he understands they aren’t a bad group). He thanks them for coming to check on him. In the corridor Mammon asks if Luke finally cried himself to sleep and calls him a baby (Mammon you cry over nature documentaries…). Mammon insists he didn’t come looking for Luke cause he was worried and was instead wondering where MC went cause they were taking long. He asks them to come back to the lounge for coffee which they missed cause of “Luke’s tantrum”

Back in the lounge Mammon says Simeon needs to teach Luke to relax cause he’s too uptight & that he can’t take a joke. MC asks him to stop making fun of Luke (he tells them to stop lecturing him like Lucifer) and asks if he hates him (he says it should be obvious he doesn’t). He says Luke lives in an extremely small world (which yeah) and he can’t help but to tease him and how once upon a time he was like that too (does…does Luke remind Mammon of himself…?) and MC asks how he ended up like he is now. He says that he ended up awesome, self-assured and sexy after being through both highs and lows. Mammon then gets all serious, saying Luke’s the lowest of the low ranking and yet he’s getting sent to the Devildom and Human Realm, meaning someone behind the scenes is pulling the strings cause they think he needs to see what the real world is like, hoping that he’ll learn that there’s more out there than the world of angels. He says that even after all this time Luke hasn’t learnt anything and that he still sees that the angels’ way of doing things is always right and that he doesn’t even want to imagine that sometimes they may be wrong. And Mammon says if he’s not gonna learn on his own then Mammon’s gonna have to show him by force that things don’t revolve around the celestial realm and the angels and that there’s more to the world. Then finally more light-hearted he says that sometimes someone’s gonna come along and scam you outta your dessert and that’s life. MC summarises it as Mammon trying to teach him that life’s not fair (I mean it’s a pretty mean lesson, specially for a 10yr old but I get that the circumstances are different and more complicated than in the real world/with an actual 10yr old and that “everything will always be okay because Michael will always look after me and Michael is always right” isn’t the best mindset to function on). Getting serious again Mammon says Simeon is making a mistake by standing back and letting Luke discover the world on his own specially when he still hasn’t figured things out at all even after so much exposure during the last few yrs. And that sometimes you gotta force them to see things whether they like it or not, and that he’s just being a mentor. MC asks “like Lucifer was to you?”. He agrees and says he’s not messing with Luke just for the fun of it THOUGH it is fun. So basically Mammon’s parenting style is just a tamer version of Lucifer’s.

By night they meet up with a red face Luke in the corridor. Mammon greets him as usual, calling him sleepyhead and then asking why he’s looking at Mammon like that with sweat beading on his forehead when Luke doesn’t reply. He asks if Luke’s realised how amazing Mammon looks/is and now can’t help staring. Luke, with a red face and looking to the side, apologises to Mammon about what happened/the things he said and Mammon says it’s good he said so and calls him a good doggy and Luke frowns. MC says it was Mammon’s fault to begin with. Mammon tells MC not to come at him with the truth with such a serious, scary look on their face but he flushes red, admits his fault and apologizes too. Then asks Luke if he’s hungry and if he wants to go get food, Luke, still red, says he isn’t. Mammon says whatever and goes to leave till MC starts silently glaring at him. He yelps but understands that MC wants him to fix Luke’s sad/subdued mood. So he asks Luke to come with him. When Luke’s shocked and starts to question him Mammon turns red, snaps at him to come along and then picks Luke up again and hoists him over his shoulder while Luke screams and protests. Mammon carries him all the way to the roof of the train, laughing and saying he might actually drop Luke by accident if he keeps squirming. Luke snaps and asks if Mammon is trying to kill him and Mammon says that Luke’s pamphlets said that the train would be travelling through a slower speed through this area which means it was a good chance to take in the view and stargaze at night and the sky behind them looks really pretty and this is so sweet and he really was listening to Luke the whole time and I have this image of Mammon dragging MC along with him as he stomps into the Angel’s Halo, kidnaps Luke by picking him up and carrying him over his shoulder as he yells at Simeon about the three of them going off to hunt some other rare creature or plant and I want this to be a regular routine for them pls. Luke says the pamphlet didn’t tell them to climb the roof but Mammon says it’s better this way, Luke tries to get MC to talk sense into Mammon but really he should know by now that MC’s always ready to go along with Mammon’s crazy plans so they just say that this is Mammon’s way of making it up to Luke and that there’s no harm in it and that it’s fun. Luke calls MC out, telling if they don’t put their foot down with Mammon he’ll take advantage and things like this will happen. Luke then says enough and asks Mammon to put him down before gasping. Mammon laughs and asks if Luke really wants to be put down when he’s clinging so hard to Mammon (from what I’m getting I think Mammon shifted Luke to his hip? And that’s what the gasp was for) and then he tells Luke to go ahead and look at the sky cause the stars really are beautiful. Mammon points out cygnus and Luke says it’s weird that he knows about constellations and Mammon asks why that would be weird. Luke says it’s weird cause they’re human world stars. And Mammon looks sad and says Michael taught him a long time ago and Luke is surprised (pretty sure before Lucifer took Mammon, Michael was his official guardian? I feel like they said that in one of the earlier S3 lessons) Mammon says that Michael likes that sort of thing and Luke said Michael taught him about the constellations too. Mammon guesses it was in the Celestial Realm observatory and that Michael heads there any chance he got. Luke is surprised that Mammon still remembers these kinda things about Michael. Mammon says that even if you want to you can’t forget a guy as weird as Michael and that he sticks in your memory. Luke says Mammon’s in no place to talk considering he’s pretty weird too. Mammon snaps at him but Luke ignores him saying he got his constellations mixed up and that he was pointing at orion not cygnus and just I love the idea that Michael loved the stars and the constellations and the stories behind them but he also didn’t know shit about identifying them so each set of young angels he showed and taught the human world constellations to have a completely different set of information and none of them are right. I also love how casual Mammon and Luke’s conversation is but the whole thing probably takes place while Mammon was still carrying Luke. And ugh I have such a pretty image in my head for this whole scene and I’d give anything to be able to draw rn

The next morning, Luke is cheerful about getting off the train and Mammon complains about him being too happy when Mammon’s still tired. Luke says he’s tired too cause the 3 of them played cards till dawn and dfnkjefjiwqeji this is so cute? Did Mammon teach Luke to play? Did they all fall asleep in bed together? I like to imagine Luke wasn’t able to fall asleep in his own room so he came to MC and Mammon’s room looking for MC only for it to be Mammon who opened up the door. When MC comes back to the room after washing up for the night and changing clothes the two of them are sitting cross legged in bed across from each other in their night clothes with Mammon trying to teach Luke a card game as they play it. MC and Mammon don’t get that alone time they were hoping for but neither of them mind because sometimes a family is a demon, a human and an angel playing cards during the witching hour on a night train heading towards an isolated lake and hidden fairies. Luke says he couldn’t win though cause SOMEONE kept cheating Mammon says lol yeah I cheated against you for the first two times but then I realised how much you sucked so I stopped after that I only cheated against MC :D MC gives him a look and he tries to placate them by saying he only cheated sometimes. Luke says it doesn’t matter cause they need to get going since they need to get through a forest to get to the lake. The forest, despite it being midday, is foggy and creep, and is rumoured to be them home of a vampire, a witch who eats children and a goblin who imprisons travellers. Mammon & Luke are both freaked out by the witch (…for two very different reasons) & MC dismisses them as just stories (YOU WERE KIDNAPPED AND TAKEN TO HELL???? Your closest friends/family are demons, angels and a sorcerer??? You’re out here looking for fairies????). The boys both get startled by a bird and cling onto MC, Luke then gives MC a blessing to protect them. It suddenly gets darker and it starts raining and Luke spots something.

They end up in front of the house of lamentation (and holy fuck I missed it so much?? It has character! The house in the human world is just sparkling clean, white and empty. The only rooms in it that have character are the bedrooms which are just portals to the house of lamentation.) The boys are both shocked and stuttering until Luke remembers the pamphlet mentioning an old manor hidden deep in the forest. MC remembers the story of the house in the human world about the servant apparently killed off the couple and 6 of their kids before killing himself, leaving only the oldest alive, though later there was evidence that the oldest was the killer but nothing came of it. He died of old age in the house but rumours spread that it was haunted and you were able to see people moving around inside and hear people arguing and screaming (and okay so if the brothers are the seven children and MC is the servant… are Diavolo and Barbatos the parents?). Mammon says it can’t be the HoL cause Lucifer had it disassembled and brought to the devildom (and do you think Lucifer was trying to make a statement? “Six people were killed by their oldest brother in this house, DO NOT test me.”) MC says maybe it’s an imitation, Luke agrees saying they may have built another one as a tourist attraction over where the first one stood. (I like to think that the massacre in the original HoL was so dreadful that it permanently bound the original with its land in the human realm and that when it was brought to the devildom the natural magic all around it strengthened that bond to the point that it encompassed the imitation HoL as well. So now even though the HoL in the human realm is just a tourist trap you can still see 7, occasionally 8, sometimes 10 shadows walking around, You can still hear people arguing and shouting and screaming. But these are not ghosts and are instead the shadows of the real lives that currently inhabit the original house of lamentation, being filtered through the bond up to the human world. Tourists will swear they hear voices yelling for Lucifer or Satan and other demonic names, screams of terror, hauntingly beautiful singing that continues for hours or monstrous growling but this is just Lucifer & Satan arguing about why Satan can’t adopt a pet cat, Mammon being strung up and hung from the chandelier, Asmo singing in the bathroom and Beel’s stomach growling). They all head in and Mammon says it doesn’t feel right, that they’ve all been in the actual HoL and are comfortable in it but that this place was eerie, Luke agrees (ironic that the real murder house is comfortable and homey while the tourist trap is spooky). Both the boys then suddenly disappear, not even answering when MC calls for them.

#obey me spoilers #my posts #my theories #obey me #obey me!#swd obey me #shall we date? obey me!#obey me shall we date

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morningstar-descended · 4 years ago

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Mammon was an accomplished soldier in the Celestial Realm

Belphie used to be a little Lucifer Mini-Me when he was a young Angel

Lucifer would sing his siblings to sleep, Before

He didn’t tell his brothers about Lilith because he didn’t want them to interfere with her new life. It was hard enough for him not to.

Diavolo’s older brother, Beleth, has a scar covering the left side of his face from where Dia ground him into the dirt to try and get him to yield.

Their formal fight for the crown lasted three days.

Diavolo’s younger brother, Amaymon, is Asmo’s sugar daddy.

Diavolo’s Mom is also still alive, she has her own estate in another part of the Devildom. She can suplex him.

Lucifer will absently neaten up his brother’s clothes for them while he’s lecturing them.

Lucifer has fed demons and unruly Witches to Cerberus before.

Mammon has never had a partner in any sense of the word.

Satan was ‘born’ as a baby.

Asmo used to dress Satan up in little outfits when he was small.

Satan can repeat almost everything he’s read verbatim.

Lucifer has to double check that he knows where all of his brothers are before he can rest at night, unless he passes out.

All the brothers wore their hair long as angels. Lucifer’s the only one who’s never grown it back out since their fall.

It took Lucifer around six hundred years to develop proper feelings for Diavolo.

Lucifer is deathly afraid of Diavolo’s father.

Barbatos is possibly--not counting Diavolo--Lucifer’s only friend.

The Sport Beel plays is a type of Wrestling mixed with MMA and Capture the Flag. It’s played topless.

Lucifer will occasionally ask Levi to explain the plot of an anime or game to him if he wants to zone out for a while. He’s listening, but because following what Levi is talking about takes a lot of concentration, it’s almost like meditating.

Lucifer’s hair got its white / gray streaks when they lost Lilith.

Lucifer actually does have some wrinkles, he just hides them most of the time.

No matter how hard he tries, Lucifer just can’t get good at video games.

Lucifer will write out bits of sheet music when he’s bored.

Lucifer has more demon markings on his body than just the diamond on his forehead.

Lucifer’s hands are very scarred, mostly from dealing with small child Satan.

Beel’s sport is unnamed because in Infernal, it literally just is called “The Sport” since there’s only one.

Almost all of the siblings have physically torn an opponent to shreds and or consumed them. Asmo and Mammon are notable exceptions.

Satan went through a phase where he spoke solely in riddles.

Levi was hardcore into theater before animation became more of a thing. he still has a lot of opinions about it.

Belphie spent most of their early fallen years either half asleep, or completely asleep.

Beel is incapable of chewing gum or sucking on a jaw breaker properly. He impulsively swallows whatever goes in his mouth.

Lucifer has been summoned to the human world successfully only twice in his existence. He killed both summoners for the audacity.

The entire garden around the house of lamentation was of Lucifer’s design.

Mammon has the best control over his shape-shifting--able to stay in a false form for longer, and able to retain his humanoid form despite high emotions.

The brothers are, quite literally, Devildom Celebrities.

Diavolo has never kept a pet before.

Lucifer is ambidextrous, but prefers his left hand.

Mammon is left handed.

Gluttony demons tithe to Lord Beelzebub on his birthday in the form of whatever food they fixate on.

The first angel Lucifer killed after his fall was one he didn’t actually recognize.

The first angel Mammon killed was one of his friends from the Celestial Guard.

Lucifer will never forgive the other Archangels for turning their back on him.

Lucifer has only ever had two partners in any sense of the term in his entire life.

Beel used to be the smallest, before he hit his growth spurt and overshot all of them.

Lucifer swears almost exclusively in celestial, when he’s pissed off enough to actually swear.

Satan doesn’t really have any of Lucifer’s memories, but he retained the emotions based around them. It’s confusing.

Lucifer can cook just fine, but he can’t bake to save his life.

The Longest Lucifer has stayed awake without any rest was about a month. It wasn’t pretty.

Half of the time Lucifer says something funny it’s unintentional.

Most of the Devildom’s current infrastructure was pioneered by Diavolo’s father.

King Diavolo’s real name is Ba’al.

Lucifer can play basically any instrument that’s been invented, apart from electronic only ones.

Levi’s skill in painting could put any of the great masters to shame.

Lucifer isn’t a fan of a poultry, ironically.

The fact that they can get Belphie to wear his complicated RAD uniform everyday while being the Cardinal Sin of Sloth is a point towards how well Belphie controls his sin.

Being a shutin used to be cool and mysterious-- Levi mourns that social shift often.

Lucifer considers Levi the easiest brother to handle because he doesn’t really leave his room.

Mammon, while definitely being guilty of lots of grifts and get rich quick schemes, actually has at least five jobs on top of his stipend for being a Sin.

Lucifer has been trying to figure out how to kill those three witches for causing him problems by proxy, but he hasn’t figured out a legal way to justify it yet.

Amaymon is Diavolo’s youngest sibling. Lucifer can’t stand him.

Flower arranging is one of Asmo’s hobbies.

Asmo also has the best eye for interior design aesthetics, even if he uses them to make a room look... Like That.

For Centuries Lucifer couldn’t even begin to talk about his interests without Diavolo flooding him with related gifts. He’s gotten better about it since.

Lucifer and Diavolo’s relationship was purely physical at first.

Beel often uses the fact that his brothers think he’s stupid for his own gain. Most of the time it’s to get more food, but whatever works works.

Lucifer is completely fire proof now as a demon, inside and out.

He has nightmares of fire, though.

In one of the battles of the Celestial war, The Archangel Michael did his Signature “Step on Lucifer’s face/head trick” And Lucifer nearly took his leg off for it.

All demons can both purr and growl.

Lucifer’s back is heavily scarred from his fall and Satan’s creation both.

Mammon physically regenerates the fastest, and Belphie the slowest.

Levi, due to Envy’s ability to constantly and unintentionally buff the demons around him, is always helping his brothers in some small way whether he means to or not.

Beel still has specific nightmares of Lilith’s death, and will often crawl into Belphie’s bed to hold him after.

Satan never knew Lilith, but he’s emotionally attached to her because of the vague memories he inherited from Lucifer.

Asmo’s hair, if he grew it out, would be loosely curly.

All Lust type demons are Incubi / Succubi / Concubi.

Wrath type demons are the ones who cause classic hauntings.

All sleep paralysis demons are Sloth demons, though.

Pride type demons are the most prone to possessing humans in power, despite Lucifer having never possessed a human before.

Barbatos is actually a little bit older than Diavolo, but not by much.

Luke is basically Michael’s son.

Simeon is the younger brother of the Archangel Jophiel (the Angel of Beauty).

Asmo, if given the chance to defect back to the Celestial Realm, would seriously consider it.

Mammon acts like a fool, but isn’t one himself.

Belphie and Beel aren’t quite telepathic, but they always know where the other is, or if they’re in trouble.

The Cardinal sin of Wrath traditionally writes all of the punitive legislation in the devildom, so Satan is the one who writes out what crime gets what punishment.

The Devildom’s economy has never flourished so much before Mammon became the sin of Greed.

A good 60% of the work Lucifer does is paperwork that should actually be handled by one of his brothers.

Asmo’s painted his nails with his own venom before, and then used it to kill people who piss him off.

The only person Lucifer can accept losing to is Diavolo.

Lucifer isn’t a functional person until around 2 hours after he’s woken up. Luckily he tends to get up around 4:30a.m. / 5a.m. so when normal people have to interact with him, he’s mostly aware.

Mammon likes to over-saturate his foods with toppings and sauces, which is why Beel can’t stand his cooking.

Asmo likes the taste of straight vodka.

Lucifer once slapped another demon’s head clean off when they spoke back to him while he was addressing Diavolo’s court.

Lucifer and Diavolo’s first real “Date” was in the Royal Garden.

Any part of an Archdemon is worth a small fortune, as they’re rather potent spell ingredients.

If you talk shit about Mammon near a Greed type demon they WILL beat your ass.

Diavolo loved Lucifer on sight. Or, well, he loved the look of him.

#{ Mun Post }#Ask Meme #{ fuck you. never challenge me again ghdhghsdhg }#Anonymous #long post #dialuci

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im-the-punk-who · 4 years ago

Text

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@rnmmarchformeta Day 1: Tonight’s theme is: Themes

Malex and Music: Tracing a relationship through music used in the show - Part 1

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Given that both Michael and Alex have a personal connection to music, I wanted to go over some of the intricacies of what the music choices and lyrics/stories behind the songs used might tell us about Malex. The music choices in Roswell New Mexico are deliberate and often incredibly pointed. Particularly in the case of Michael and Alex there are elements of their relationship that are not so much underlined as written about only in the lyrical choices that play under their scenes. This choice for me made rewatching the series a lot of fun because as I discovered the lyrics to some of the more obscure song choices I kept discovering new intricacies and motivations for each of their decisions. Below the cut for length.

(Author’s note circa 2007: (rawr xD) I’m focusing specifically on the parts of these songs that play over or in direct correlation to scenes where Michael and Alex are both present. I would love to explore this theme in the wider context of the whole show and how their interactions with other characters might change some of these but...this is already like 6k and that’s just how the peas and carrots cooked. That said I will be referencing other characters and relationships as relevant, particularly, I will be talking at some length about Milexa and the airstream scenes in 2x06. I personally have a favorable reading of the scenes and what they mean for Michael and Alex. I also talk briefly about Milexa in a few other spots - they’ve been marked as ‘Milexa’ or ‘Miluca’ if you wish to skip them, although I don’t know if this will make sense as a whole without them. But, should you wish. Proceed accordingly. <3)

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Posted on AO3 here.

Sedona - Houndstooth (1x01)

The first song we hear in relation to Malex is ‘Sedona’ by Houndstooth. The song plays during the reunion as we see Alex confront Michael about the chemicals found around his airstream. The verse that plays underneath the scene references how, due to its scenic beauty, the town of Sedona was once a highly sought after filming location but had fallen into obscurity when cowboy movies went out of style in the late 70′s.

Similarly, Alex tells Michael that he is ‘wasting his life.’

“Does the macho cowboy swagger thing ever get old for you?”

“Did it get old for you?”

For me, this scene is as much an introduction to the past between these two as their present. Gone but not forgotten, their interactions are a ‘script’ that the two of them play off of. In other words, Michael and Alex don’t so much interact as play off of what the other expects from the other. This becomes especially clear when in 2x05 we learn that Alex has at least once before warned Michael about ‘wasting his life.’

When The Truth Hunts You Down - Sam Tinnesz (1x01)

The next scene is this one, in which we see Alex contemplating an old picture of himself. We then see Michael watching him.

Later, the last line is overlaid with Jesse telling Kyle about the existence of aliens.

The truth about Michael’s alienness is quiet literally hunting them, but so is something about Alex’s past. As we get to know him, we learn just how much his father is interconnected with all of the worst moments in his life and everrything he has buried and tried to run from in order to avoid it. Michael, Roswell itself - Alex ran halfway across the world to try to run away from the trauma of his youth, and yet here he is.

“Nostalgia’s a bitch, huh?”

“You know I thought when I got back from Iraq you would be long gone.”

“Is that what you want?”

“We’re not kids anymore. What I want doesn't matter.”

We also find out something of the nature of his and Michael’s relationship and that there are clearly still feelings between them - no matter how much Alex is trying to deny it.

Give Me The Night - Des Rocs (1x02)

This is one of my personal faves from the Malex soundtracks. It just *slaps* okay?

Aside from the obvious nod to Michael’s alienness, this song underscores the divide still between Michael and Alex despite the passionate kiss they shared at the reunion. Michael is initially flirtatious and full of swagger - until Alex shuts him down.

The fallacy of Alex’s rebuke and his dismissal of the feelings behind the kiss are underscored by his refusal to even look Michael in the eye as they talk. Even if he tries to deny them, the truth of his feelings hunts and haunts him because he feels he can never act on his own desires. And in turn when presented with the about face, Michael turns bitter as the push-pull is reinitiated. Michael falls back to the script they’ve been rehashing to save his feelings - ‘puts on a show’ as it were, and Alex falls for it hook, line, and sinker. He is still unwilling or unable to see the truth that lies beneath the surface.

“Isn’t there some law about building on a historical site?”

“A historical - oh you mean because the UFO crashed here? Yeah, we’re not supposed to build on Santa’s workshop either.”

For Michael, who at least to me was obviously hoping things would change this time around, this must feel like a bucket of cold water, especially in the face of Liz Ortecho’s knowledge and seeming easy acceptance of the aliens’ existence. While Max might get his happy ending, Michael is left to keep hiding from the person he loves, never being seen and wondering if Alex’s feelings are even real.

Two Princes - Spin Doctors (1x02) (Miluca)

In rapid fire we have the next three songs as Michael and Alex spend some time at the Wild Pony. This verse plays under the interaction when Alex comes in the bar and spots Michael.

“Though he got kinda hot. In a ‘sex in a truck, smells like a river, never introduce him to your mama’ kind of way.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

My boy. My child. My bluntest instrument in the tool kit. Has no one ever told Alex Manes that saying you hadn’t noticed an objectively hot guy is hot is basically code for ‘I haven’t stopped staring at him since I walked in and my brain is not functioning at a high enough level to mask that fact’? Son, please, this is a drunk Wendy’s.

(Also this is huge foreshadowing for Miluca - Michael and Maria don’t have sex *in* a truck but it’s pretty close, we find out later that Michael/the aliens smell like rain, and she tells him he’s not meeting her mother at one point. The angle of this shot is also, for me at least, a hint that Michael is going to become the object of these two ‘princes’ affections, at some point.)

Anyway this is basically poking fun at Alex Manes, repressed disaster, for having no clue what love is and trying to express his affection through like, everything except anything anyone would understand as romantic love. (And we will see this in the flashbacks as well as present day - that Alex mostly uses his station or advantages as a way to show the people he loves he loves them, rather than using words. When he offers Michael the shed, brings him the guitar, uses his military connections to find out about Michel’s mom, hacks into Maria’s computer...listen I got more.) But that isn’t enough, as we’re learning. If only there were some way Alex could also learn that lesson.

And seriously, “This one said he wants to buy you rockets?”

How’s It Going To Be? - Stephen Edwards (1x02)

“Is there really nobody in this world that you wouldn’t risk everything to save? Sad.”

Oh Isobel, if only you knew.

So, aside from returning the kiss Michael initiated at the reunion, Alex has soundly rejected every advance Michael has made for a relationship. Despite that Michael seems to have been harboring some hope that things might be different not that Alex is back more permanently. But now with Isobel bringing into question what he’s willing to sacrifice, I think he might be realizing that toll has been extremely steep already.

(Also truly obsessed with how both Alex and Michael have positioned themselves so that they can casually glance over at each other without arousing suspicion. *Boys*. It’s not that complicated what is this middle school?)

We know that Michael doesn’t like having to keep secrets, and again I have to wonder if he’s regretting not telling Alex he’s an alien, or wondering how that conversation would have gone.

From the previous scenes we can tell something in their relationship is coming to a head - maybe Michael is hoping it’s that he can finally stop keeping secrets from Alex and show Alex who he really is - that Alex will stop misreading him. That Alex will change.

But there is also the expectation that if that happens, Alex will likely leave again. Not just because that’s what Alex’s trauma makes him do, but also because that is how Michael frames all of his relationships. As ‘until you leaves’. He is shown to have a habit of catastrophizing because he doesn’t believe himself to ‘belong’ anywhere(HA) and this is one of those times we’re shown that.

Come With Me - Gold Star (1x02)

“Home can be a person.”

And here we have Alex “thinking about who he was” as Maria closes up the bar. Given where this scene leads with him and Michael, I think the rest of the lyrics to the song are incredibly poignant.

Tell me what were you dreaming? Tell me who were you trying to reach? Gimme something real to believe in Or gimme a reason to leave So i left her standing under shining stars in the Silver moonlight by old Borough Hall - whoever you are

We know that after this evening Alex attempts to rekindle his relationship with Michael, still thinking about who he was, and maybe for the first time trying not to run from what he wants. He’ll be unsuccessful this time, but it’s the first clue that Alex is attempting to break a pattern that has held him in place for ten years.

While he may have been misreading Michael’s stunted growth, we’re starting to see Alex contemplate change in himself. This is the start of Alex’s two season long journey to break out of the fortress he’s built around himself. To ‘put his weapons down’ in an effort to be with Michael.

(She lets her guard down on her way back//to close her eyes and fall asleep - “It was late....I was tired.”)

God of Wine - Third Eye Blind

So clearly the writers were like ‘how can we hurt Milo specifically’ because these lyrics are *so good* as we hear malex talk about the way they view their relationship for the first time in the show.

The music starts just as Michael picks up the old photographs, first of the pod squad, then of himself and Alex playing guitars in the desert. As he packs up the airstream to move it off Foster’s Ranch, Michael is also thinking about the past.

Throughout the series, we’re given a bunch of musical lines about how Michael and Alex can’t go back to what they were, that they have to move forward. And it’s true - as we’ll see over and over again the dynamic they’ve had has been incredibly unhealthy for both of them. But they also cannot avoid the other’s orbit. And when Alex comes to talk to Michael it’s the first time we see him actually decide to initiate - to try and take what he himself wants, rather than waiting or hiding from it. But it is also very much Alex falling back into the ‘madness that holds a truth he can’t erase’ of Michael’s really, very, super, incredibly obvious feelings for him. Our boy is not subtle.

But Alex is still hunted by the past - before we know his history we assume that when Alex references ‘who he was before he went to war’ he means Iraq. But Alex’s war is his father. As much as combat can absolutely be a traumatizing experience, for Alex I never really read that as his main source. As he’ll tell Forrest later - “My PTSD triggers are a little more complicated”.

And so when he tells Michael he’s been thinking about who he was “before he went to war” for me that’s more a callback to who he was before Jesse found the two of them in the toolshed. “When this started.”

As Michael tells him “From where I stand nothing’s changed” the words “I know, I know, I know” repeat in the background because WE KNOW. We all know, except Alex.

“And that’s a problem for me, Guerin.”

And the siren’s song that is your madness

“Because every time you look at me, I’m seventeen all over again.”

holds a truth I can’t erase

“- and I forget that the last ten years even happened. And then you look away and I remember all over again. And it almost kills me every time.”

All alone on your face

“I never look away. Not really.”

For Michael this is basically confirmation of what he’s been realizing over the last few days - that Alex has been totally misreading him and that yes, Michael, you’re going to have to use your words on this one.

To which we see Alex’s brain 404-blue-screen for a minute as he realizes what Michael means. Which I personally really appreciate.

And especially since we’ve just learned that a lyric of this song was written on Rosa’s hand the night she died, I can’t believe it’s a coincidence in this being the song that plays underneath this scene - where Alex says he was thinking about who he was before. Everything changed that day for everyone - including Michael and Alex. Michael had gained a terrible secret he couldn’t share, that meant he changed his whole life and started needing to hide and lie and act out, and Alex - not knowing the truth - assumed that it was Michael’s way of trying to push him away and end the relationship. Which leads to the decades long miscommunication of Alex seeing Michael do that over and over again.

For the last ten years, Alex has been seeing Michael as the boy who looks away, then looks back. A Michael whose focus shifts to and away from him and who he sees as wasting his life; directionless and aimless. But as he realizes what Michael is saying he has to recalibrate everything he’s thought their relationship is.

This is possibly the first time Alex has realized that his view of Michael has been wrong. That he really doesn’t know Michael at all.

And we know this interaction has a profound impact on Alex in terms of how he views their relationship. I feel like this is one of those things that becomes a mantra for Alex, later down the line. He repeats it to Michael at Caulfield, and in his song as well, “You never looked away, now I won’t look away” to express his commitment to breaking down the walls he has built up for himself.

Even though we know the relationship is doomed at this point, it’s the first time a stone falls from the walls Alex has built around himself in a decade.

Here - Chance Peña - 1x03 (Alternate title: “Home”)

Okay I would like to petition to make it illegal to have unreleased songs in episodes, Chance Peña help a bitch out. I had to watch a *fish show* to hear the full lyrics because they’re edited in the show! ( I will also note the next lyric is ‘goodbye, my dear’ which. rude.)

Anyway, we’re given these lyrics as Michael wakes up to seeing Alex has stayed the night. I took the editing, with the previous song choices, to be a reaffirmation of this being something new to Alex, but not necessarily to Michael. Michael knows what he wants from a relationship with Alex - even if he’s put the hope aside from time to time the want is always clear.

For Alex though, a relationship with Michael is something that scares him because of his fear that it can be taken away. (”I just thought that I could be happy, and not be afraid that if I loved anything my dad would destroy it.”) He is trying to make it work - “drawing near” to Michael - but he knows that in order to do that he is going to need to be uncomfortable. To face the fears that have held him back and kept him in comfortable limbo for so long.

I’m also going to flail about how, while RNM has the song listed as ‘Here’, the producer of the other show(Battlefish) identified the song as ‘Home’. I hope I don’t have to yell at y’all, other Roswell New Mexico fans, about how often that word has snuck up on me and knifed me in the back regarding malex. Especially since Alex *is* currently - well, here. With his home. Kill me please it would be kinder.

But then of course we see the old insecurities pop up again as Isobel arrives. Even if he is trying - Alex is nowhere near ready to jump out of the closet yet.

Fast Aint Good Enough - Inkwell Echo (1x06)

I debated adding this one because it’s a little bit reachy, but I thought it was significant in that even when they were seventeen, the thing Alex is ‘afraid of’ is his feelings for Michael - not necessarily of being gay but of what people like Kyle and his father do with information like that.

Wish I’d found the words when we were seventeen-

Kyle asks

“What are you so afraid of?”

-just as Alex catches sight of Michael.

(“I wanted to be the kind of person who won battles. It felt good.”)

Aside from Alex’s general need to protect Michael in any and all situations, I feel like the lyrics of this song - about the singer’s attempt to leave an abusive relationship - underscore that even before the toolshed, Alex was fighting. Even before the toolshed, he has been fighting to this cycle he is trapped in.

While he and Michael build their relationship he starts thinking seriously about leaving and not just surviving but he will ultimately choose to trap himself for years in order to hide his love for Michael.

Like so many gay kids, Alex is fighting a system that deems him guilty of sin - and takes his fighting back as a sign of his guilt. And in order to actually be able to love Michael, he is going to have to figure out how to put down the weapons and the hurt and break the cycle.

First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes (1x06)

Are they serious right now I swear to god.

So obviously, we’ve got the origins for everything we’re told about Michael and Alex’s lives changing based on their feelings for each other in like two and a half verses of song. Forget the entire second season we have everything we need right here.

“It was the first time I liked our hometown, though.”

“Alex made me believe there was a place for me here.”

We know that for both of them this is really a moment of self discovery as much as it is a discovery about each other.

For Michael in particular, who doesn’t know why he’s here or who he really is, and who previously had no plans besides leaving the planet, this is the moment that he realizes what he wants - to be with Alex.

And for Alex, to me, this moment is a brief glimpse into what his life could be like. We don’t have any confirmation if Michael is his first kiss with a boy or not, but we do know that this moment is significant in that it’s the first that makes Roswell feel like a place he enjoys being.

And as he is realizing that, the lyrics echo it -

But I realized that I need you // And I wondered if I could come home

(Screeching from the background: WOULD YOU COME HOME)

But of course, as the song says, these things take forever because...well....

(It’s because Alex is dumb. My poor dumb emotionally stunted child. Please go to therapy.)

In essence, this is the moment that sets Michael and Alex on their entwined path. The path that Alex will have to fight to get back to - the path Michael will lose faith in before he later starts to regain the hope that it exists. I also like to think about the link between the last lines:

Remember the time you drove all night // Just to meet me in the morning?

and the line from ‘Would You Come Home’

Would you meet me in the middle // Could we both stop keeping score?

I like to think about the parallel here, about meeting people where they’re at, and the love and care and effort it takes to be willing to drive all night to meet someone. Listen a bitch is soft and gay don’t look at me.

You Can’t Love Me - Novi & Tyler Blackburn (1x12)

(*Whispers and rocks back and forth* this is fine it’s all fine)

Once again we have a song whose lyrics give us a tailor made road map to Malex, and will pop up later in ‘Would You Come Home’. We’ve already seen the implosion of the way Michael and Alex have been orbiting each other for a decade, but now that Alex knows the truth, he actually has the ability to understand Michael in ways he hasn’t been able to before. (Something we’ll see later in Season 2 when he talks with Maria.)

And because of that, we see the true beginning of the journey of Michael and Alex back to one another in a healthier way.

But part of that journey is going to be realizing that what they’ve been doing and the way they have loved each other in the past isn’t sustainable - and maybe isn’t even the way they want to love each other.

“They’re my family, Alex!”

“Alright, maybe! But you are mine. I don’t look away, Guerin.”

“No. We’ve been holding onto this thing. And it’s gotten us nowhere. Just let it go.”

Even though the words are said in anger, there is some truth to what Michael says. Their relationship so far hasn’t been a good one. Where Alex is trying to repeat the words that Michael said to him that made such an impact on him, Michael is (well, a, trying to save his dumb boyfriend from getting flambayed) using the opportunity to reveal how little faith he has in their relationship. To say that no, this doesn’t feel like love.

But as much as the song lyrics are about loving someone who isn’t good for you, they’re also about changing and growing, and about a commitment to be better.

(Sound familiar? Brb, I’m gonna go jump off a cliff.)

Love is messy, and especially for Michael and Alex, love has always been something that hurts. “Home is where the hurt is” - and a really important part of their journey is realizing that, and realizing there is a different way of loving each other.

Additionally for Alex, this is when he starts to realize the full extent of his family’s involvement in hunting and hurting Michael’s family. It isn’t just his dad - his entire family line has been involved in this since before Alex was born. And still is. This is really where he starts realizing the roots of the guilt and shame he’s going to have to deal with in order to be anything to Michael - not even a partner but a friend.

This is the first step in that journey. Not just the commitment that yes - I want to build a home for you - but that first, I don’t know, maybe I need to put down these weapons and pick up a different set of tools?

ON TO SEASON TWO

#rnmmarchformeta2021 #roswellmarchformeta2021 #rnm meta #Alex/Michael #alex manes #michael guerin #maria deluca #sort of? shes mentioned #1x01 #1x02 #1x03 #all episodes #Day 1 Themes #meta #malex #tw ptsd #tw injury #tw queerbashing #tw flashbacks

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ncisfranchise-source · 3 years ago

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Let the good times roll one more time!

NCIS: New Orleans signed off after seven seasons with a finale that mostly wraps up some lingering threads. Special Agent Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula) marries Rita Devereaux (Chelsea Field), with Dr. Loretta Wade (CCH Pounder) officiating. In attendance for the intimate ceremony are his team — Tammy Gregorio (Vanessa Ferlito), Hannah Khoury (Necar Zadegan), Sebastian Lund (Rob Kerkovich), Patton Plame (Daryl “Chill” Mitchell), and Quentin Carter (Charles Michael Davis) — and his family — mother Mena (Joanna Cassidy), brother Jimmy (Jason Alan Carvell), and son Connor (Drew Scheid).

And while Connor’s mother Sasha (Callie Thorne) plans to take him into witness protection with her, when she sees him having fun at the wedding, she instead skips out on the marshals … and leaves him to stay with his dad.

TV Insider caught up with executive producers Jan Nash and Christopher Silber to find out what would’ve happened next.

The series ends on a positive note. Was that always the plan for the end of Season 7 or did anything change after you learned you weren’t coming back?

Christopher Silber: We would’ve probably ended with a bit of a cliffhanger or at least an open-ended idea that there is more trouble to come for our characters. When we found out that this was going to be the series finale, it was Jan who felt like, “Let’s have it have a positive ending without it making it feel like it’s an ending for our character, just an ending for the series. They will continue even if we don’t get to see them on their adventures. But let’s give them a win, let’s end on a high note.”

Would it have been more of a cliffhanger than Sasha being followed? An additional mystery?

Jan Nash: Sasha being followed probably would have been the end. I think we would have done a lot of the same elements, but we would have ended telling a story in that episode that would have leaned in a little bit more to her being in danger and when she pulled away, she was being followed. We would have had a sense that Season 8 would have opened with either her having already been harmed or seeing her be harmed perhaps. That investigation would have defined the beginning of Season 8.

It’s also fitting that the series ends with the Second Line. So was that part of the plan for the series finale whenever it was going to happen?

Christopher Silber: Not to be overly optimistic, but we knew that there would be a series finale, but we never had a plan in the seven seasons I was on the show for how we would end it. It felt right in a moment, that’s for sure.

At the end of the series, the team’s all staying put professionally. Is this a team you imagine continuing to work together for years or do you see any of them moving on?

Silber: I would say that they would work together for a while, but you never know where they might end up and that isn’t meant to be coy.

You really did a deep dive into family with Pride in these final episodes and it’s been so wonderful to see him getting his time with his mom, marrying Rita, getting to know his brother over the years, and having those moments with the son he didn’t know about. So what did you want to do there this season?

Silber: We’ve done so much with the man and put him through his paces throughout the years. We’ve shot him. He had an overwrought relationship with his father who was a criminal. He had to witness his father die. What we wanted when we delved into a new chapter of his family was to show how he evolved, how he didn’t have to be surrounded by so much chaos. By connecting with Rita and finally finding some grounding there and spending more time with his mother and then introducing the son character, we really gave him a full spectrum. When we met Pride in the original crossover with NCIS, he was recently separated, heading into a divorce, his daughter was going to college, and here we can end with Pride remarried, with a son, so it’s really full circle for him.

It seems like we got to see the acceptance that Pride and Jimmy had for who their father was through their conversations with Connor about who Sasha is.

Silber: Absolutely. That was another thing. Not to get too heavy about it, but as we as adults reach the place where our parents were when we were kids, we look at them and say, “Look at how you’re messing up.” For Pride, it’s realizing that it can get complicated even with the best of intentions. For him and Jimmy, they recognize that. Even in dealing with Sasha, someone who tries to kill him multiple times, he was able to see that she also contained multitudes.

Did you accomplish everything you wanted with Pride and Rita’s wedding — the actual ceremony, the celebration, and the lead-up to it?

Silber: Under the circumstances, meaning the COVID of it all, meaning that we were given a little bit of lead time, which we were grateful for, to know that this was the series finale, I am extremely proud and satisfied with how we did it. If we had more lead time or if we thought we were going to keep going, maybe it would have been grander, but I think it was appropriate to the show for sure.

Nash: I’m not sure it would’ve been bigger. We’ve never talked about this, but I felt like the intimacy of it was really beautiful and that the Second Line was really celebratory, particularly to people in New Orleans, who did all of that because they had to move it around a lot because there were some storms coming in. They did a magnificent job.

One of the most pleasant surprises of this final season was how much I enjoyed Hannah and Carter’s developing relationship. What did you like about exploring that? Do you think they could make it work or might him staying weigh on them a bit?

Nash: It was clear to us when we put them together procedurally earlier after Charles joined the show, they had a real chemistry. We started talking about that earlier and then decided we were going to just let everybody else see what was happening almost more before they saw what was happening. We had set Carter up as being a character who did not put down roots. He was not somebody who is interested in making connections, particularly in his work environment. That gave us an opportunity to bring in his mother and let him explore some of the things that might have gotten him to the place where he was that kind of person. And it really just made, I think, the journey of Season 7 really compelling for both of them. I’m going to believe — because the show in my mind continues — that they are gonna make it work and they’re going to be charming and adorable and happy for a very long time.

Tammy found a home in New Orleans with and away from the team, which she never would have imagined when she first arrived. Where did you want to leave her?

Silber: For all of our characters, we wanted to see them grow and change and evolve — certainly with the team as their family, but also in finding their home and finding their roots in New Orleans. For Tammy, when she arrived, she was someone who was thinking about finding her way out and unsure about the team and to be able to see her finally mark her own territory, own who she is and own what she wants to be, that was special for us.

Sebastian’s had quite the professional journey these past seven seasons, but he hasn’t been lucky in love. Is that something you would have changed if you had more time to wrap up the series?

Silber: Oh, I think so. He was a great example for us in that when the show started, he was the lab rat. He was someone who you wouldn’t expect to scout in the field and to be able to take that character, show his growth in an arc over the series into a very confident field agent who still remained interesting and funny, the adjustment didn’t change his character. It just matured him. But yes, I think if we’d had more time, we were always talking about finding him love. It just didn’t work out for him, but I’m sure in the future he will find the right woman.

We really got to see just how much Loretta does, for the city and for the team in these episodes. What did you want to showcase with her this season?

Nash: Obviously CCH is such an amazing actress and such an amazing presence that we just felt like the things that we wanted to talk about were stories that could very much be told through her character. We just realized that not only would she be able to do the things she’s always done on this show so effectively but also to explore her emotional life in a way that allowed us to take advantage of all the many gifts that CCH has. When we started the season, we knew we were going to lean into that character and the gifts of that actor. At the end of the day, it was all we could have hoped for and more.

Can you say anything about what else you would have liked to have explored if there was another season?

Silber: Certainly we would have wanted to explore and we were excited about exploring Pride’s relationship with his son and digging deep into that and seeing what that means to discover that you have a son who is nearly fully grown and to try to build a relationship and try to build those ties. It would be challenging for sure. We thought that the young man who played Connor was fantastic and there was great chemistry with Pride and with Jimmy as well. As well as solve incredibly interesting and fun Navy crimes.

You have NCIS Hawai’i coming up. Is there any chance we’ll hear more about the New Orleans team on there or do you know for sure that you won’t address it?

Silber: Never say never. … I’ll be a hundred percent honest with you. We are happy for all crossovers. It’s fun. I was fortunate enough to be involved in the NOLA and mothership crossovers the couple of times we did it. I know the shows like it, the writers like it, the actors like it, and the audiences like it.

#ncis new orleans #interview

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andrea-lyn · 4 years ago

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gregory manes gets a drinking buddy (and a friend)

“Come on, Evans, I need a drink.” The liquor store is closed, and it’s too long of a drive to get to Planet 7 or Saturn’s Ring. The Pony is his only option, but the door is locked and Max Evans keeps standing there like a bouncer and not a bartender. Doesn’t he understand? Can’t he see that Greg needs a whiskey or three? Maybe if he drowns his guilt and his regrets and worries below the weight of the liquor, he won’t have to think about it. God knows he’s not sleeping, so what else is he supposed to do? “C’mon, man,” Greg pleads, more desperately. “It’s past two, no liquor store’s open and I need a drink.” His voice breaks and he knows how desperate he sounds, but he’s sober. Him falling apart has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the nightmares he sees behind his eyes when he closes them. The scuffle on the ground, the desperation in Alex’s voice, the sound of a gunshot echoing, his father’s blood on the ground. His father. When he closes his eyes, he sees Jesse’s blood flowing out of a bullet hole. The residue of gunpowder on Gregory’s hands, physical evidence that he finally protected Alex. The relief, from both Alex and Michael’s faces helps most nights, but not all of them. Tonight, it’s not doing the trick.

Tonight, he needs the help of whiskey. “Look, I gotta clean up and do the tills with Maria out of town,” Max says apologetically, “which means I can’t serve you anything. If you’re really desperate, though, I know a place you can go.” Greg’s desperate enough to try anything. “Hit me.” That’s how Gregory Manes ends up at Sanders’ Junkyard, standing outside an Airstream, not sure why Max sent him here. His car is a couple feet back, but Max said specifically to come to the Airstream if he wanted to get a drink, so here he is. “You should really know better than to try to stay at the Pony beyond closing. Even I couldn’t manage with the owner, and she and I were dating.” Greg whirls to find Michael Guerin sitting in a beaten-up folding chair beside a fire pit a few yards away. He’s not really sure where to start with any of this. Did Max send him here on purpose? Maria and Guerin were dating? Besides all that, he’s still struggling to understand what Guerin's doing in a junkyard. His confusion must make Guerin feel sorry for him, because he hooks a lawn chair with his ankle and drags it over. “Here,” Guerin says, leaning down into a cooler to hand him a beer. “You’ve got these for life from me, in my gratitude.” Greg wanders closer and takes the beer, not sure where to start, so he figures he’ll go with the low-hanging fruit that Guerin already offered. “You said you and DeLuca broke up?” “Yeah,” Guerin admits, pressing his lips together as he looks away. “It’s complicated.” “It didn’t have anything to do with CrashCon, did it?” Greg feels the guilt creeping back in to sit on him like a weight, but Guerin scoffs and shakes his head. “You mean, does it have anything to do with what you did for me and Alex? No,” he says firmly. “No, I think we both realized that as much as we made each other happy, we didn’t make each other happiest. I wanted her to want the same things I did and she wanted the same, we just never met in the middle.” The breath Greg lets out feels like it untangles a knot in his stomach. “Good, cuz I’m not sure I was ready to deal with a broken relationship on top of the…” He can’t even say it. It dies in his throat. “I’m the reason my mother died.” Greg’s attention snaps up. “Uh,” he echoes, “From the files I read, I am 99% sure that my father’s torture of aliens is that reason.” After he’d shot Jesse, Alex had handed him boxes of files, probably to try and make him feel better about what he’d done. The thing is, it had, to a degree. “I’m the one who cracked the glass, set off the failsafe,” Michael says darkly. “You were protecting Alex. I was trying to get to my mother, and I got nothing out of it. What you did, Greg, it wasn’t a bad thing. He was an asshole and Alex isn’t sitting at home crying tears about this. I think,” he amends. “I guess Forrest knows better these days, huh,” is his quietly bitter remark. “Alex likes him.” “I know. It’s why I spend my nights drinking here and not at the Pony,” Guerin insists. “It’s his turn to have something and if we get another shot, I’m gonna take it, but I’m not ruining this one. Alex deserves happiness.” “He does,” Greg agrees, glad they’re aligned on that. “The things my father did to Alex when we were kids…” Guerin’s gone tight, like he’s not sure he wants to hear what Greg has to say. He swallows, and then says, “What kind of things?” “There’s only a few years between all four of us. We all went to the same schools, knew the same people, and we all knew what Dad was doing to Alex after Mom left. We should have done more, we should have said something, we should have stood in the way. I told Alex that it’s time to let go of it, let other people carry it for him, and I meant it,” he insists, impassioned, “but....” But, what? But Greg hadn’t expected to become a murderer to do it? He hadn’t thought he’d have to kill his father to protect his baby brother? “You wondering how you’re gonna carry this?” Mute, Greg nods. “I don’t regret it,” he says firmly. “I think maybe that’s worse. I should feel bad. I should regret what I did, but I don’t. My father was a monster, and maybe Alex was the one who saw his worst face, but I only knew a fraction of what he did and I wanted to get away. I killed him to protect Alex.” “And me?” Guerin quips. “Alex,” Greg reiterates. “You dying at Jesse’s hand would’ve broken him, new boyfriend or not.” Guerin goes quiet, no witty retort ready for that. “Look, man, you’re probably one of the best people outside of Alex I know. I can tell you what not to do,” he admits. “I’m pretty much the best evidence of that. Don’t spiral into beer and whiskey. Don’t fuck your way through town. Don’t instigate every bar fight you can to end up locked in jail.” Those aren’t exactly things that had been on Greg’s to-do list, so he thinks he can handle it. “I don’t want to put this on Alex,” Greg admits. “You, me, and him. We’re the only ones who know what happened that night and he doesn’t need to hear about how I hate that I became a murderer to do the right thing.” “So don’t.” “What?” “Don’t put it on Alex,” Guerin says. “You said it. You, him, and me.” Greg stares at him in confusion past the flickering firelight. “What are you saying?” “I’m saying that I know what it’s like to have a burden on your shoulders that feels so heavy that you think it might break you. Like I said, I am the poster child for fucking it up, but I’m trying to put that behind me and maybe this is part of it.” Suddenly, Greg gets it. His laugh feels hollow, but only because he really didn’t expect this, of all things. “Drinking buddies,” he says, “where I can talk about how heavy the weight of killing my father feels.” “So long as you’re not complaining about the beer selection, I think I can give you an ear and advice based on years of doing the wrong thing.” Greg closes his eyes and there’s his father’s body on the ground, same as it always is his nightmares. Okay, then. Drinking and sharing buddies with his brother’s ex. There are weirder things in the world -- hell, there are weirder things in Roswell. Why not? “Start at the beginning?” Guerin gestures to him. “Start wherever you want, man. It’s your story.” Greg nods and when he finds his words, he starts by telling Guerin about the gun, the weight of it, and the relief when the smoke cleared. He talks about the blood, about all of it, and about seeing Alex’s face and the relief there that made it okay. He talks a lot, that night, until Guerin finds him a blanket and a lounger to crash on. It’s not all of it. It’s not going to instantly make it better, but it feels good to talk to someone else who’d been there. Maybe he doesn’t have to do this alone. Maybe he just needs to figure out how to carry this load. Here, in the junkyard, that’s where he’s going to start.

#roswell new mexico #gregory manes #michael guerin #coping bros #fic #post-s2

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booksandwords · 3 years ago

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The Librarian's Vampire Assistant 2 by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Series: The Librarian's Vampire Assistant #2 Read time: 2 Days Rating: 4.5/5

The quote: “Please. Try to stop squirming. This is supposed to be a family-friendly mystery novel.” “What?” “Never mind. We all knew it would turn R-rated at some point.” — Michael Vanderhorst & Miriam Murphy

This is a book with a hell of an ending. It concludes the storylines started in 2, lines up 3 with a bang. It definitely encourages people to keep going. I should have guessed at least some of the endgame but didn't, it's set up well. The players were al there, the signpost are there to be seen but will only make sense when everything comes together. There are some moments of serious darkness including Michael attempting suicide (look it makes perfect sense in context). That is a spoiler, I will not hide it because I need it where it can be seen.

This is a book for two kinds of people. Those who like supernatural fiction and booklovers. Both the main characters Miriam and Michael are booklovers, Miriam is an almost stereotypical librarian intelligent, shy, clumsy and with a hoard of books. This book adds to what is already known of their characters. Michael is a dichotomy. He is deadly, old and always put together but he as a streak of loyalty to those who show loyalty to him and a strong set of principles. All wrapped up in a mess of humour and slightly confused feelings about his librarian. As the pov for the reader, we get an idea of his personality he's slightly sarcastic and highly amusing. But the way he describes himself is funny... "The deed of a four-century-old vampire with the face of a twenty-year-old. And the body of an underwear model."; "athletic build, six feet one, thick dark hair, and charmer of a smile."; "crossing my muscled arms over my very muscled chest. I was a university student who enjoyed exercise and boxing on the side for money before Clive saved my life from the flu. To this day, I still enjoy working out.". I always forget how young he presents as and I can't get over that. Michaels coding feels at least initially like it is sitting somewhere on in the aroace spectrum. But it's not that simple and it is even more complicated by the end. Michael's confusion over the bond he has with Miriam is still unexplained it's something I guess we will find out at some point. I see Miriam as a booklovers protagonist, as a librarian she has what so many consider a dream job (which is mine), she has a house full of rare books and first editions. One of the best exchanges in this book is “Which was your favorite?” “That’s like asking a musician to tell you his or her favorite note. A true booklover doesn’t have one.”. That is such a booklover response and I'm pretty sure I've made a similar answer at some point. She is stronger and more perceptive than she appears. Her love and trust in people is fantastic.

Lula is just a straight-up badass woman. Smart and more than able to hold her own against the men. Viviana is far behind Lula in the badass stakes but where Lula is physical and very obvious, Viviana is the brilliant assistant/ lawyer to Michael, loyal and efficient. "While I cannot argue with Viviana’s rage, I am shocked by it. I have never seen her claws and teeth. Of course, Aspen had forced Viviana to become a vampire and then used her child as leverage." She may have been blackmailed into her vampiric state but she is determined to make the most of it. I never want to see her truly in anger.

It must be said that while The Librarian's Vampire Assistant books stand alone or at least Mimi Jean claims they do and she does reiterates the characters, circumstances and some of the lore. These are all built on through the books as necessary. I like Mimi Jean's lore, especially this quote about sunlight. "We simply hate the hell out of it, similar to how cats hate baths, children hate bedtime, and men hate listening. Vampires. Hate. Sunshine.". Book 2 does build heavily on book 1 even if the circumstances are explained it definitely makes more sense if you know what is going on coming in.

I'm finding this with an annotated quote dump.

“Oh really? How about story time, huh? I see that glint in your brown eyes when you think you’re about to scare the children. Of course, you end up boring them to sleep, which is why the moms all love you. I think they’ve started a fan club.” — I love this line. Michael and kids is one of the cutest things

"I am a man. On the rare occasion I do not know something, I wing it. Hasn’t failed me yet." — No comment I just need it in this review

"“Didn’t your parents leave cash reserves?” She shakes her head no. “They spent their money on books. Every last dime.” She shakes her head no. “They spent their money on books. Every last dime.” My kind of people." — I mean yeah mine too. But damn Miriam got a bit screwed on getting the ability to care for her amazeballs collection and her library.

"Mr. Nice is a giant ball of crazy wrapped in an impenetrable blanket of crazy and dipped in dazzling crazy sprinkles. — I mean this is a fair point. He is A LOT.

"As a collector of literature myself, I have never seen anything like the items in her home. It gives me a solid book-boner merely thinking about it. First. Editions. Mmmm…” — Michael... Micahel I love it.

"She is right. She never will be ready. This beautiful, delicate little flower would wither in my world. She is meant to live a human life filled with books, story times, and love." — This is so soft and pretty and loving. I like how Michael talks about Miriam.

#the librarian's vampire assistant #mimi jean pamfiloff #book review #read 2021 #ktreviews #tw torture #i really do relate a bit to both michael and miriam it's the book thing and the librarian thing

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homeformyheart · 4 years ago

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first choice (part 1) - noah harris x mc (mtfl)

author’s note: i wanted to write something where MTFL mc puts herself first rather than getting wrapped up in relationships but still ends up with noah. i hope you enjoy! *heads up: there is a reference to both HSS and ROD :) i couldn’t help myself!

copyright: all characters owned by pixelberry studios. pictures from unsplash. series/pairing: my two first loves - noah harris x mc (emma price) cross-series references: jordan lee, michael harrison, myra khandaar (hss); logan (rod as a movie) rating/warnings: 13+; some teen angst word count: 3.2k summary: after the fiasco at the homecoming dance, emma decides what she really needs to do is focus on herself and figuring out what she wants. and so she transfers to berry high.

read part 2.

first choice (part 1)

emma sat on her bed with her legs crossed and laptop open. she was almost done with her application. all that was left to do was pick her potentially award-winning photograph from the two she had narrowed it down to. she couldn’t help but smile at the memories associated with each picture, back when things were definitely more exciting and drama-filled.

12 weeks earlier

mason parked outside emma’s house. the lights were on, so emma knew she only had a few minutes before her dad would inevitably walk outside and see she was sitting in a car alone with a boy. she felt like she was on an emotional rollercoaster and bit her lip in an attempt to stop herself from just breaking down into tears.

“you keep saying nothing’s changed, but everything changed when you started dating ava and when she needed to come first instead of me. i deserve to find happiness for myself too,” emma said, blinking rapidly to hold back tears.

“and you think that’s going to be with noah? he’s not a good person,” mason replied, the grip on his steering wheel tightening so much that emma could see the vein bulge on his right hand.

the part of her that was in love with mason desperately clung on to his words and attempted to convince herself it was jealousy, that mason wasn’t in love with ava and wanted to be with her. but the part of her that always tried to be rational scolded her instead to accept that mason had always seen her as a sister and was just being protective.

“noah’s been good to me and that should be enough. you don’t get a say in who i date, mason. not since you and ava started dating without giving me a heads up,” emma said after a moment and opened the car door.

8 weeks earlier

dave price read the piece of paper in his trembling hands, and then re-read it again. he read it a third time, just to make sure his understanding was correct. the words “accepted,” “transfer,” and “welcome” kept swirling around and he finally looked up from the paper to his daughter who was wringing her hands nervously and biting her lip.

“i just don’t understand why, or how, or when…?” he trailed off, looking back down at the paper again.

emma inwardly reminded herself it was too early to celebrate even though her dad’s initial reaction to the news was much better than expected. she would take confused over angry any day. she moved to sit down on the living room couch, motioning for her dad to sit down next to her. she grabbed the photo binder sitting on the coffee table and handed it to her dad.

“i realized that i haven’t really been thinking about my future or what i want to do after high school. i’ve been so focused on following in mom’s footsteps with cheerleading that i’ve ignored things i could be passionate about, things that make me my own person,” she started slowly, watching her dad’s face closely as he flipped through the binders.

“until recently, i forgot how much i love photography. after mom died, it was too painful to think about. i helped take some yearbook photos earlier this year and realized how much i missed it. i don’t want to cheer anymore, but i do want to pursue photography. eastridge doesn’t have a great arts curriculum but berry high does,” emma started talking more animatedly about the arts programs at berry high and the how arts are integrated with extracurriculars and school activities. mr. price looked on at emma, stunned. he couldn’t remember a time since his wife died where emma was this excited.

mr. price looked back down at the acceptance letter in his hand. emma continued softly, “i just looked into their transfer requirements to see if they would accept my credits and let me join the arts program. i think this could be the fresh start i need to figure out my own path.”

“your mother wanted to do the same thing when she was your age. and these photos are absolutely beautiful, emma. you have a real talent. go ahead and transfer,” mr. price said, giving his daughter a hug.

4 weeks earlier

every time he heard the bell that signaled someone opened the door to the diner, mason looked up, tense. and every time it wasn’t emma, his gaze dropped and he tried to take a deep breath. when it finally was emma, his gaze searched her face for some sort of clue as to how she was feeling.

emma could feel mason’s eyes on her as soon as she walked into the diner. she walked over to the booth before sitting down across from him, pausing for a moment to take in his appearance. a purple bruise had formed on his cheek and there were bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept the last couple of days. to be fair, emma hadn’t really slept much since the homecoming dance either. regardless, mason looked as gorgeous as ever in his gray sweater, which brought out the blue of his eyes that emma had loved staring into for as long as she could remember.

mason nervously cleared his throat. “thanks for coming, emma. i’m really sorry for what happened at the dance,” he said, taking emma’s hand with both of his on top of the table. “i didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“what are you sorry for, mason? crashing my date twice or getting into a fight with noah twice in one night?” emma asked sarcastically. mason flinched slightly at her tone. “you weren’t interested in me until after i started hanging out with noah. what happened between the two of you?” emma said.

mason dropped his gaze and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “that’s not true, em. i’ve had a crush on you for a long time, i just wasn’t sure if you’d ever see me as more than just your best friend and i spent all summer trying to forget my feelings so i wouldn’t ruin our friendship. as for noah, it’s… complicated.”

“is that all you have to say?” emma pulled her hand out of mason’s grasp and crossed her arms over her chest.

“is this because of noah? if he hadn’t come back this year, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. this is not how i imagined senior year going with you,” mason said, his tone bitter and defensive.

emma’s eyes narrowed. “this has nothing to do with noah. you want to talk about how senior year was supposed to go? let me tell you how i imagined it. in wisconsin, i promised myself i would be honest with you about my feelings for you when i got back. and i stupidly hoped that something would change for the better and i was looking forward to senior year. instead, i find out that you decided to date my other best friend without telling me. do you know how much it sucks to be away from your best friends for months having a miserable time and then come back to what feels like the worst news since my mom died?”

emma unfolded her arms, her shoulders sagging in defeat before continuing, “the decent thing would’ve been to give me a heads up about you and ava before school started. finding out about the two of you in the parking lot on the first day is forever ingrained in my mind as the moment everything changed between us, and not in a good way. i was heartbroken and it felt like i lost the relationships i had with both of you at the same time. noah was a friend to me through all of that and was there for me all the times you weren’t this year.”

mason at least had the decency to look ashamed. “i’m sorry, emma. i’m not proud of how i handled my relationship with ava. but i broke up with her once i realized i might have a real chance with you, that you might actually feel the same way i do. i’m not sorry about taking a chance on that.”

emma let out a long sigh. even though it was everything she had wanted to hear from mason for the longest time, she was too emotionally exhausted to feel anything other than tired right then. “well, your timing sucked. i’ve been doing a lot of thinking and i realized something. since my mom died, i don’t think i cared to focus on what i wanted for once.” emma could see that mason was about to interrupt and raised a hand to stop him. “i don’t want to be an accessory to the story of your history with noah or your relationship with ava. i’m taking senior year into my own hands and changing what i can.”

mason’s eyebrows furrowed in thought. “what are you saying, em?”

“i’m didn’t come here to argue with you about homecoming or noah or ava. i came to say goodbye,” emma said, looking up from her hands to take in mason’s eyes that had just widened. “i’m transferring to another school starting next quarter. and i don’t think we should hang out for a while. maybe some time apart will help us figure out how to be just best friends again.”

2 weeks earlier

emma was already feeling more at home at berry high than she ever did at eastridge. it was only a couple of weeks but she already made a few friends. the yearbook editor-in-chief, jordan lee, who hadn’t given up trying to get her to join the cheerleading squad for winter quarter, band vice president myra, who wanted to hear all about her relationship drama at eastridge and set her up with someone at berry, and jordan’s boyfriend, michael, who had also been a huge help in helping her get up to speed on her photography skills. he was more into videography but some technical components like framing a shot and managing the lighting were things emma hadn’t really considered before. they both also made sure to introduce her to their friends and it was nice to be around people who created a supportive, rather than toxic, environment.

mason still came by at 7am every weekend for their jogs, but emma had started leaving at 6:30am so they wouldn’t cross paths. she meant what she said about not seeing him for a while and kept her replies to his texts short. it hurt and she missed her best friend, but it also meant she had more time to catch up on her photography and painting skills. and it’s not like she wasn’t busy. she was helping to paint the sets for the fall play and jordan’s friends dragged her to berry high’s football games every weekend.

noah was waiting by his bike in front of her house after school one day. they still texted even after she told him she was transferring but hadn’t really seen each other. to be honest, emma was kind of avoiding him after what happened at homecoming.

noah’s face was stoic as she approached but she thought she saw a flicker of emotion in his eyes. “can we talk?”

emma nodded. he drove them to the hill overlooking the city and they talked for a while about what happened at homecoming and everything that had happened at eastridge since she transferred. eventually, the conversation circled back to the one topic emma had been avoiding… “them.”

1 week earlier

“so, who are you going to be rooting for?” myra asked, earnestly. “hello? earth to price?”

emma’s gaze snapped up. “oh sorry, i don’t know yet. i’d be fine sitting with berry high but…”

“but mr. tall, dark, and brooding is playing for eastridge and wants to see you in his letterman jacket,” jordan teased, nudging emma’s shoulder playfully.

“oh my god this is just like a romantic movie…” myra stared off dreamily as emma hastily excused herself.

the game would be starting soon and emma had a decision to make. she stood in front of her locker, staring at the red and cream colored eastridge letterman jacket with the number 17 and thought back to the conversation she had with noah a week ago.

“i don’t want to wait around for someone who doesn’t want to be with me. i deserve to be someone’s first choice,” noah said, softly. he had taken her to his favorite hill and they were sitting side-by-side on a blanket he had brought.

emma fought the urge to scoot closer to him and lean into his shoulder. “i really like you noah, but there’s a lot i still don’t know about you and this beef you have with mason is concerning. i don’t want to get hurt.”

noah lifted her chin so she was looking him in the eyes. “i promise i’ll tell you what you want to know soon. and to be honest, you’re more likely to end up hurting me when you realize you’re better off without me.”

emma folded her arms over her chest. “i know how this story ends, noah. i saw ride or die last year. you would totally pull a logan and end things because you’re ‘looking out for me’ and that would just… really hurt.”

noah just smiled. “good to know you’re team logan. i promise, i’m all in. no more secrets, no more running.”

the bell signaling the end of the school day jolted emma out of her thoughts. he had handed his jacket to her and said she had a choice. she could wear it to the berry/eastridge game and cheer for him or she could give it back to him at the end of the game. either way, he would respect her decision. and as much as emma wished it wasn’t, it was decision time.

she grabbed the jacket and tied it around her waist before heading out to meet michael at the football field. she was helping him film the game from the sidelines, while taking photos for the yearbook as well. it wasn’t long before the stands were full, the cheerleaders from both schools were in formation, and the game was underway.

both teams were evenly matched and emma was furiously clicking away to get as many notable shots as possible from every angle around the field. she realized she was capturing moments for both schools, except her shots of eastridge were centered around a certain quarterback, who was calling plays and scoring touchdowns himself, running as though an angry mob with pitchforks was coming after him and his life depended on his ability to stay at least ten feet ahead of them. to be fair, it was football, so he was definitely being chased. eastridge was down by six points with the ball on their 30-yard line and one minute left in the fourth quarter. the game was pretty much over.

eastridge called a timeout and all the players came off the field. emma started reviewing the photos she had taken so far, making a mental note of which ones to review on a computer later when a shadow suddenly appeared overhead, blocking out the sun. she lifted her head slowly to find noah towering over her, with his sexy trademark smirk.

his eyes twinkled mischievously and emma felt the weight at her waist disappear and looked down to see that he had untied the jacket. he held it behind her without breaking eye contact. emma swallowed and put her hands inside the sleeves as noah pulled the jacket forward so it enveloped her berry high shirt.

“if i remember correctly, i asked you to make sure i could see you wearing the jacket,” he murmured, leaning in by her ear.

emma blushed. “well, you know, i’m supposed to be taking pictures for berry high and well—” she was quickly interrupted by a searing kiss, followed by another, and another that left her slightly dizzy and out of breath.

“does this mean you’re all in?” he asked quietly after pulling away. his smirk was still there but emma could see the vulnerability in his eyes.

she smiled brightly and nodded. she realized she had known all along what she wanted and was finally ready to admit it. “you’re my first choice, noah.”

“good. i’ll see you after the game then, babe.” noah winked and jogged off to join his teammates. emma took a quick picture of the eastridge team huddle with the number 17 front and center to try to calm herself down.

present day

the two photos in front of her were so different from each other that she wasn’t sure how she could pick just one for her submission. they were both from the day of the berry high/eastridge football game, when noah became her boyfriend.

even emma was amazed at the clarity of the first photo, which perfectly captured the exact moment noah made a game-winning touchdown. emma remembered it happening as if it were in slow motion, and her fingers moved over the shutter of their own accord. with less than a minute left, noah picked up the fumbled ball that fell from his receiver and ran over 50 yards, dodging defenders left and right to get to the goal line. emma had captured the exact moment he leaped over a berry high defender to score the final touchdown that brought eastridge a win after being down six points. the best part was that even though she was standing at least 15 feet away, and the football team had pulled him into a mob and were trying to raise him up, emma could tell that noah was looking at her and she somehow just knew that he had scored that goal for her.

the second photo was less action-packed but just as, if not more, sentimental to emma. it was later that evening, when he took her to his favorite hill and held emma close, with her head resting on his chest. it was their first date since becoming boyfriend and girlfriend and emma thought that night was very poetic in a way. they were looking up at the stars in the sky, perfectly framed by the peaks of the surrounding trees and she couldn’t help but take a picture. she wanted to remember that moment forever. she remembered noah telling her about his parents’ first date being under the stars and was reminded of how the stars were part of her own parents’ love story. now it was part of theirs.

emma really had no clue how she was supposed to pick one. so she picked up the phone.

“hi babe.” emma heard noah’s husky (not to mention sexy) voice after two rings and blushed immediately.

“i am never going to get tired of hearing that and i can’t believe i get to call you my boyfriend,” emma sighed happily. “but i’m calling because i can’t decide which photo i want to submit to the contest,”

“i’ll be right there.” emma put her phone down and laid out the two photos and accompanying write-ups to both out on her bed while she waited.

* * * * * mentions: @khoicesbyk; @nyastarlight; @chetachisblog; @robintora; @shows-simp-card;

#choices fic writers creations #mtfl #noah harris x mc #my writing #choices #pb choices #playchoices #playchoices fanfiction #my two first loves #choices mtfl #choices fanfics #choices fanfic #not twc #long fic #my choices fics

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ziracona · 4 years ago

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And I hate to do this- So on that thread, not that he's as bad, why do you think Michael is redeemable? (and also Frank) Especially by his main victim? :? I hope that isn't as bad or as judgmental as I think it sounds... - Sleepy (its like 5am here :3 living up to my name i see)

So, these I gave a short and a long answer for under cut, but forgot I’m on mobile and can’t do that. I can tag it “long post” but uhhh, sorry about this. Anyway, thats why Frank comes in two chunks. I wrote it expecting to be able to use a read more. :’-] also ya fine. And I hope you’re in bed 🤣 now. Okay so. Here’s my reasons:

For Michael, to start, Halloween is complicated af. You have to know what timeline people are talking about, because there are like 8+ and Michael has been written as a wildly different character by wildly different content creators, and I would not feel the same ways towards them all. They’re not the same character. When I talk about Michael, unless I’m going on about a specific other film, I mean either H20 canon, or DbD canon, which are in line with each other when it comes to characterization. (This also includes Halloween’s 1 & 2 in the H20 line, and Halloween 1 at least in DbD). In those timelines, Michael has like at best 2% agency and choice in his own life and what he becomes. That’s why I am sympathetic. I still root for Laurie to nail his ass to the wall of course, and everything he has done to hurt someone isn’t okay just because his life is unfair & awful & out of his control, but I still find him a very tragic character. He was canonically suffering violent psychosis his parents refused him treatment for, isolated with a monster as his doctor & only human contact for 15 years from age 6 on, overdosed on medications that when OD’d worsen psychosis symptoms and can cause permanent brain damage, and stuck like that until escaping briefly when he turned 21.

In Halloween canon, Michael tells his parents he hears voices telling him to do bad things like hurt people, but they tell him he is imagining stuff, and ignore his attempts to get help. The voices say they will be quiet, which is what he desperately wants, if he kills his sister Judith. So he does, at age six. Scientifically speaking, that’s literally too young to really have a complete grasp on death and mortality itself, let alone complex ethics. He immediately goes to his parents after doing the deed, so they can do whatever they need to do. Instead of getting him help, he is sentenced to 15 years in a 1960s American sanitorium (hell), until he turns 21 and can be tried for murder as an adult (fucking ridiculous and unfair?? Tried as an adult is for like, upper teens who commit heinous murders. How tf you justify trying a six year old literally too young to really understand murder as an adult for murdering someone??). They give him to Dr. Sam Loomis, a fucking horrible person, who says he spends 8 years trying to help Michael (a fkn lie), but canonically by only a few months of meeting the kid is thoroughly convinced he is evil, the devil or a demon in human form, faking his psychosis and side effect symptoms (trauma induced mutism from killing his sister, onset of catatonia/motion loss symptoms, etc, all of which are common with his disorder & trauma), desperate to kill again, and an evil mastermind doing the devil’s work, and says so. Spends four hours every day accusing Michael as a six year old child on, of planning to do horrible things and faking his illness and being a demon and not a human, and Loomis, from age 6 to 21, is this kid’s only human contact. And the staff knew it and how wrong and disturbed Loomis was, but did nothing. So from age 6 to 21—barring one or two visits from his mom & Laurie before his dad beat 4 year old Laurie for saying Michael’s, who he hated after Judith’s death, name—until she trauma blocked out having had a brother or sister at all, and then both parents died in a car crash—his only human contact in complete isolation was an adult man who told him for four hours a day he was an evil lying demon faking his symptoms and plotting murder and not a human and promised he would kill Michael and stop him, from childhood on, and that was it. He was never given an understanding of what was medically wrong with him, or that anything was at all. He was threatened and abused and kept overdosed on drugs for 15 years since early childhood, and his only understanding of the world taught in that absolute isolation, was that he was a demon who wanted to get out and kill again. And the violent psychosis, telling him if he killed both sisters, they would go away and leave him in peace with no more constant noise. With no normal understanding of the world or people or life like he was owed ever given to him, no understanding at all of what you were going through or were aside from the promise drilled into your head you were a monster who wanted to kill every day for 15 years while drugged up? Like, I’m a firm believe people are responsible for their own actions, but in a case as extreme as that, honestly, how else was that ever going to even be able to end? You forget, as a child. Who you used to be. That’s beyond grooming even, it’s being grown in a lab for the sole purpose of someday walking out, taking a large kitchen knife, and killing Laurie Strode. And it’s tragic. It’s unfair. Halloween is a tragedy, not a horror film. It didn’t have to be that way. He wanted help. He asked for help. Loomis is directly and pretty much solely responsible for the lives lost in 1978. You know he won’t even call Michael “him”? The only human he contact he had since age six on called him “it.” And no one stopped any of that. And even then. Even then, even with all that. With the drugs, and the lab grown killer, and all of it? Michael is pretty much the single least sadistic slasher killer there /is/.

Everyone he kills in Halloween? He kills fast. It’s actually kind of boring if you’re expecting a scary slasher, because there’s no chase until Laurie. He just appears, runs you through, and you die. Very fast. And if there is any emotion expressed towards the act of killing or aftermath, it’s not pleasure or hate or happiness, it’s curiosity, because literally everything is something he wasn’t allowed to experience growing up and just has no practical experience with yet. And on top of all that, he also just doesn’t kill people he doesn’t have to. He kills one man for clothes, kills Annie to re-do Judith’s murder since it didn’t work the first time and he needs both sisters for the voices to stop, and he kills Bob and Lynda becuase they stumble onto where he is & are a threat to success. (This + Judith 15 years prior is all the deaths in Halloween period, btw). Michael routinely only kills his target, and anyone who is a threat to success. Literally doesn’t even jump out to kill Bob or attack until Bob opens the door to the closet he was hiding in, and he has been seen. Walks past a security guard and lets him go in H20 becuase he doesn’t see him, steals keys from a mom with her 4 year old kid and doesn’t even hurt them because they don’t see him really either, steals a knife from an old lady making a sandwich who is one foot away but looking the other direction, so he lets her go. Even with all the possible stakes against him, really, Michael is like, the least cruel and most sympathetic and merciful version of that lab grown killer possible, which can only be a testament to the person he was initially/still somehow has managed to keep faint traces of alive inside.

As for Laurie finding him redeemable, answer is threefold I guess, and I’ll start with the most important. 1: in Halloween canon, Laurie cares for Michael and is incredibly sad about what he turned into and wishes he could be different (once she remembers who he is). That’s established canon, not a choice of mine. In Halloween 2, she tries to talk him down before shooting him, and he hesitates when she says his name and lowers his weapon for a moment. In H20, she talks about him a lot & even asks her boyfriend (a psychologist) if he thinks something so traumatic can happen to someone that they can never recover, bc even though she hasn’t seen him in 20 years, he’s still on her heart. She hesitates to kill him once she has him helpless in the finale, and when he reaches out for her hand, she almost cries and starts to reach back because it’s what she has truly wanted for so long. 2: Michael & Laurie are siblings, and that’s a very important relationship to me. Obviously, there’s lines where you cross, it’s fkn over, but it is special, and I’m weak for it. They were both cheated of the good family life they could have had, and I like characters I care for getting recovery and rehabilitation, and I would like them to be able to recover and have whatever fragments of the lives they wanted which are still possible. And then 3: Laurie is his victim, but they’re also both victims of Loomis, and the system, and her parents, and if she does /wish/ for him to be okay and things to be like they were, which was canon before me, so she does, then I think them finding happiness and her relief and new hope in regained family and him redemption and rehabilitation through the quite literally only person he has /ever/ known who treated him well or like even a human at all & is still living, that’s so good. It’s sweet, and it makes sense. I like broken people putting the pieces together and finding ways to be okay. None of the shit that happened to either of them was okay, and Michael sure did fucking do it, but it’s about as “it’s complicated” as literally possible, and Laurie wants him to be her brother again, and Michael deserves a chance to experience personhood enough to want anything like that again too, and I think it’s sweet. To be able to find happiness and peace and a new life in that rubble. It shouldn’t be possible, because Halloween is a tragedy that never gets a happy ending, no matter how many timelines they create or versions they tell, but I wish it could have one. It needs one. At least one, among all the fated tragedies for those two cruelly cursed siblings. They both had their lives stolen. Michael by Loomis, and Laurie by Michael. And I want them to find those stolen lives again. And if they can do it together, that’s a very odd and unusual set of circumstances for that kind of thing, but it’s a very complete way to tell the story. He tried to kill her, but if she asked him to stop and he stopped, if he himself chose to change on his own, when it really, really mattered—decided that it was what he wanted more than all the things he was before, and she decided that was enough, and they could both have a future as family? I like that. It’s a happy ending stolen back.

Long Frank Answer, in case you /have/ read ILM & thus short answer did not answer your question: So. Again, for me, I always talk about Frank as in the version of him I myself write, and I wrote ILM before the archives retcon, and also just ignore them because they’re usually dumb and blatantly contradict well established and longstanding canon. Even then, I usually don’t like Frank though—didn’t like him when I started writing ILM. But Frank has very little established canon character. All there is for sure is he was a foster kid that went through some bad stuff, he met Julie and changed his mind about desperately trying to be homed somewhere other than with Clive bc he liked Julie a lot, he met Susie and Joey, they became a gang chilling in Ormond’s abandoned lodge, then tried to rob a store Joey was fired from, were surprised by a cleaner who grabbed Julie, and Frank impulse stabbed him, freaked, and ordered the others to finish it with him and be in it together. Then before they’d even really finished burying the body, they got snagged. That leaves a whole lot of personality and thoughts and motivations and future choices and person wildly undetermined. Writing, sometimes characters just do their own thing completely out of my control, and I have to adapt. Frank chose not to kill Meg at the end of Tenacity, Adrenaline, & Grit, which surprised me, because he’d been nothing but a dipshit asshole bastard till one minute ago, but I knew it was because he recognized what she’d tried to do at great pain to herself because she wouldn’t bow down and die, and he connected/empathized or sympathized on some level. He also couldn’t go through with killing Quentin immediately after being helped by him in Distortion/Iron Maiden. Neither was like, planned. It’s just who the character was. I was frustrated. I did not want to like or feel sympathy for Frank at all. Then in The Lost, Jeff just fkn hijacked the whole plot and added 20 pages not in the outline because he wanted to be kind to Frank & it’s not like I can stop characters when they do whatever they do. And while writing it, I got to know that the version of Frank Morrison in the world I was writing—which is always the version I refer to/think of him as & write now myself—was not somebody past saving. He’s a piece of shit and he’s done fucked up and inexcusable stuff, and he pays for it. In many ways, Frank gets away with a lot over the course of ILM, but it’s always because characters choose on their own to forgive him, not because they or he doesn’t think it was fucked. And Frank suffers—a lot—for his choices, and has to live through appropriate and large amounts of regret and remorse about stuff he did before the end. He gets the chance to make better choices several times, and mostly he doesn’t. He continues to fuck up. But right near the end, he makes a couple good decisions when it’s down to the wire, sees where his bad choices got him and what he has to live with, and then he does live with it. He almost dies, and then ends up falling on Jeff’s mercy, which he knows he doesn’t deserve and doesn’t expect to get, for a last chance to make it, and because Jeff is an ungodly kind and forgiving soul, he makes it.

Frank isn’t a good person, and he does a lot of stuff that isn’t remotely okay or justified or excused, but he /is/ a kid—the upper end of it, but he’s not a full grown adult. He has every reason to believe nothing of himself or others, a fucked up childhood and life which isn’t his fault, and the Entity got all four Legion kids before they’d even had time to process the one and only violent crime they did (which was unplanned), and it is historically running a PHD in psychological warfare vs everyone. Absolutely none of that excuses or justifies him, but it is an explanation for some of it that is not as bad as say, doing that shit for fun or cruelty or hate or what have you, which makes him a bad person, but one with a lot more humanity left than say, Kenneth. Who is at -100 or something. If he’s still got a lot of humanity left, that means he could be redeemed, and he eventually chooses that path for himself and hits the appropriate “I did something horrible. Fuck. It was really bad. I should not have done it.” “I am really sorry I did this. I feel awful. I’m sorry.” “I cant change it, but I can try to do better and make whatever reparations I can.” “I want to be better, and I am going to try.” necessary stages of actually trying to improve. So, I like him. He did a lot of really awful shit that wasn’t okay, but he was never without sympathetic elements. He does love his friends and his girlfriend, he is a good boyfriend to Julie and selfless towards her and his crew (overall anyway—has even risked death for them very willingly, even the one who was fighting with/kinda hated him), will keep his word in deals and has some semblance of both sympathy and honor, feels guilt, is a kid, did not choose this life but was rather catapulted into it and too weak to climb out once he landed in the mud. All of that together makes him someone I feel sympathy towards and find quite redeemable, so long as he will decide he wants that, which, in ILM, he does. If you just meant Frank in general then idk how to answer because there’s not much established Frank period it’s kinda a shell like all original dead by daylight characters, and I have no thoughts on it by itself because it’s not a whole person, and so I really only think of Frank as ILM verse Frank now.

#ask #sleepy #hope this is coherant. I love answering but I’m also on vacation trip rn so I’m not proofreading & u get what u get 🤣 adds flavor #in living memory (fic)#in living memory #spoilers #ILM spoilers #Halloween #dead by daylight #long post #Michel is not the villain of Halloween: he and Laurie are both the victims & it’s a fkn Greek tragedy #they both deserved so much more than the lives they were thrown into #: (#sad now just thinkin bout it

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whateverthedragonswant · 4 years ago

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and the rewatch continues

So rewatching most of season 5 and dipping into season 6, after coming from season 4, I found some things very interesting, things I actually had forgotten about and some that just hit differently now that the show has ended:

Season 4:

Brothers - different iterations: Had that finale happened after this season, it might have made better sense (though I STILL say the manner of Dean’s death is laughable)

Destiel & Cas: While Cas and Dean have some uncomfortable staring contests and there’s chemistry, I didn’t get the whole Destiel vibe (this is just my personal take), yes there’s a bond there, a growing partnership so to speak but I feel like Cas is not around enough for it to be in the forefront of the story or even to demand Dean’s attention in a way. Like Cas made his big entrance in 4x01 and we saw how things took off from there for the story and for this connection/bond between he and Dean but Dean is early season Dean and Cas is early season Cas. Though I found Cas’ interest in everything Dean Winchester to be intriguing (and he put Dean back together with his own hands, I just...this really does become the greatest love story ever told, I swear), I personally didn’t get the whole UST vibes that has been talked about. I actually found myself wanting to go deeper into Cas’ story (a la 6x20 style) aside from Dean’s and Sam’s.

Anna: That whole night with Anna was purely that: a night. There wasn’t a whole lot of chemistry between Jensen and Julie and it’s very clear that this whole sex-on-last-night-on-earth thing is for comfort, for both characters. I kind of get why they switched up gears there for Dean’s angel role, even if they didn’t intend for Destiel to read as romantic at all initially. 4x09 & especially 4x10 were so obviously trying to ying and yang the brothers and the sides that had chosen them/complemented them: Anna | Ruby, Heaven | Hell -> eventually Michael | Lucifer. But back to Anna, while I enjoyed her character and would have loved to delve deeper with her, I am glad Cas was the one who got to stay. Anna and Dean had no chemistry, outside of a couple of glances before the big hookup/last night on Earth deal, there wasn’t really anything there. Tbf, they didn’t have a lot of private time before that, except maybe one convo. To me, in this scenario, Anna was a source of comfort (after she tells Dean he needs to forgive himself for what happened in Hell which I very much appreciated, someone had to tell him that) and attraction, letting her have her last night on Earth, a hookup, etc. But there was nothing deeper there. And for this bond with an angel to happen, there needed to be something deeper there. Perhaps had Anna been around longer and didn’t go the way she did in season 5, it might have but I honestly tend to doubt it. We all know Cas and Dean’s (Misha’s and Jensen’s) natural chemistry is off the charts. I’m not sure Anna (Julie) could have competed with that had both Cas and Anna stuck around together. I know I’m completely biased here, but I almost felt like Anna and Cas had more chemistry together, it might have been because they got more face time, I’m not sure. But I thoroughly enjoyed watching it all go down again.

Adam: Omg I forgot about how Adam wasn’t Adam when Dean and Sam first met him. That was heartbreaking on so many levels, but mostly for Adam and his mom dying the way they did and of course, for Dean and Sam. Namely Dean because he was the most affected by finding out about Adam’s existence. And I swear I fell in love with Dean more in that episode as a character because despite his pain, his anger, his hurt, he still tries to do the right thing by Adam, to honor his dad’s wishes. And John...that mf’er doesn’t deserve any of those boys as his sons. What an asshole through and through.

Season 5:

Destiel & Cas: And now we see Cas becoming a bit more forefront and the vibe has changed...slightly. Now it’s a partnership turning into a friendship. Dean and Cas get a bit more face time and it shows. 5x03 was awesome and of course the wholly unnecessary line of “One, Bert and Ernie are gay” -- like where did that come from? I still loved it. It was tough to see Dean and Sam go their separate ways in the beginning but we still got some gold out of it with 5x03 and 5x04. And thankfully, we get more into not only more of the angel and apocalypse lore this season, but we also get to see how Cas’ relationship with the Winchesters is changing and more of what makes Cas tick as a character in his own right. And of course, bamf!Cas was very present.

Brothers: Once again, had that finale happened after this season, it might have made more sense (sans the junk death) - because it’s very obvious that the co-dependency is alive and well here and it would have made more sense for their characters - while they have others outside of the two of them they are caring about (Bobby, Ellen, Jo just to name a few), it’s still the exclusive Winchester-only club. I truly enjoyed watching these two working together and moving towards the season finale. Dean’s memory of Sam and the fireworks, Dean talking about how Sam’s best memories weren’t the same as his (shocker, John Winchester is a d-bag, I’ll keep saying it), Dean struggling to make the decision to say yes to Michael, having to agree with the plan for Sam to say yes to Lucifer to try to trap the latter, Dean showing up to the cemetery -- all of it was incredible and the two of them were the beating heart of the show at that point. 5x22 will always be one of my favorite season finales for that show. It was pure awesomeness, truly epic and perfect.

Dean: holy hell, they really, really threw a lot into Dean this season - not that they hadn’t before, but damn. Each season just amps up the Dean game, just like I remember, and I am happily here for it again. No offense to Sam at all, but Dean is just so complex, so complicated yet straightforward, and there’s so many layers to him that they just keep peeling back and they feed us well each season. I swear, if you turned the sound off and just watched that scene where Dean tells Zachariah to call Michael, where Dean and Sam go their separate ways, you would know exactly everything Dean is feeling and thinking thanks to the incredible talent of one Mr. Jensen Ackles. Just really incredible. How this man never got nominated for an Emmy at any point for this show just astounds me. Yes, I know that show wasn’t considered a contender for that type of award run, but dammmnnnn. He deserves it and more. Watching this season and season 4 really brought back the original reasons I fell in love with Dean as a character in the first place. One of the best characters ever, I’m telling you. And may I just say, I hated that they brought back John’s leather jacket for him in the season finale but I get it, it was Kripke’s swan song (did I just do that? I believe I did) so we of course went back to core Winchester things, not just in story but every element. I’m ngl, I was so glad to see Dean shed it though when he is sitting down to dinner with Lisa and Ben.

Apocalypse: I thoroughly enjoyed this whole plot line - this really was high stakes, more than ever before, and though angels were dicks, there was Lucifer of course and a mysterious though mostly absent God behind the curtain - you just never knew what was going to be thrown at you next, just like the boys were going through.

Heaven/Mary: even though this definitely has to do with Dean more so, I did enjoy them seeing Ash and Pam, Ash’s setup, and of course Mary being there, seeing how such a good memory could be manipulated by the dick angels and the horrible things Mary said to Dean. Of course, I felt for Dean but it was interesting to see that whole scene play out. Plus we got even more confirmation of what we’ve known all along: John is a bonafide asshole and Dean really did experience facets of spousification, even before Mary died (which just makes me so sad for him, I swear if they don’t put a Cas vs John scene in the reboot... because you know Cas will win that thumb war)

Meg: ngl, I wasn’t really crazy about this iteration of Meg - I don’t mean Rachel Miner’s version, just this particular performance, which I chalk up to whoever decided they wanted her to go this route in her performance - I couldn’t believe it was the same character, the same actress - I am so glad the show/Rachel developed the character we all love to hate and secretly really love to how she was in later seasons

Jo: omg Jo. I have to admit, in season 2, in the first episode she showed up in, I despised her. She was like that bratty teenage kid who’s a real pain in the ass and whines and doesn’t get it. But after that episode, I grew to love her with each one she was in. She became a bamf in her own right and I loved seeing that come through this season especially. Her death was horrific (what is it with this show killing off bamf female hunters in such a gruesome way? it brought back horrible Eileen flashbacks for me personally, and for them to turn Meg and Ketch into somewhat redeemable characters after that... you know, I swear...) but heroic and I had never been more proud of my girl. Except the scene with Dean in the kitchen. As much as I love my chaotic hunter son, I was glad to see Jo flip him off in the way she did. So proud. And then her goodbye with Dean, I had forgotten exactly what he did so I was going “omg, she just saved you, Dean, this girl has feelings for you, she deserves at least a kiss, kiss her. right. the fuck. now!” and sure enough, he did, on the forehead, which I was like okay, well I get it, he doesn’t return those feelings but he does care about her but dammit, she deserved for him to plant one on her. and then he did and I was just gone, I was a complete bawling mess. And her goodbye scene with Ellen, and then her death along with Ellen’s sacrificing herself to stay by Jo’s side and give the boys a chance to get out of there...yeah, I didn’t stop crying for about five minutes. I cannot tell you how much I miss those characters and I would have sold someone else’s right arm to make their return in the series finale happen. Besides the obvious characters that should have been present, Ellen, Jo, and Ash deserved to be there (just not Samantha and Chad, if we can get a “Cas helped” for the third major character/lead, we can also get a “Ellen and Jo went to assist in setting up the honeymoon suite above the roadhouse - I said what I said).

John: usually, I cannot abide giving any time to this jerk, never mind talking about him, but I have to say I enjoyed seeing pre-loss John in 5x13. That conversation he has with Sam I think is so glaringly important. I know it was for Sam to forgive John and heal, but the fact that John himself is saying “how could he do that to you? he was supposed to protect you” -- yep, that was pure poetic cinema in my eyes. Because pre-loss John is right, how dare post-loss John do that to his boys? There’s no excuse anyone or this show can give him. As much as I love JDM, post-loss John Winchester will never be okay in my book.

Adam: omg Adam. First of all, I loved his dynamic with Sam and Dean. I really, really wish we could have had him around longer just for that alone. What an awesome character we could have had giving Dean and Sam a run for their money. “Well, we’re working on the power of love.” “How’s that going?” “Not so great.” -- give me an episode of the three brothers on a milk run hunt (sans generic mask-wearing vampmimes) with all of the fixings and I swear we would get done!Sam, consistently being roasted between Dean and Adam, and then Dean thinking he’s got a mutual now, a BFF, and Adam turning right around to roast him as well. It would be epic, I tell you, epic. I wish Adam had gotten a better end, this season and at the end of the series. He certainly deserved better. And this may be a random observation but why did Michael take Adam at all? I know the countdown had begun and he was desperate to grab a vessel so he could fight Lucifer at the appointed time and Dean was not giving in (that he knew of), but what chance of victory did he think he had without using his true vessel? Using that logic, I guess Michael’s end in the series makes more sense now...? Who knows.

Chuck: Swan Song (5x22) and the lines, “Endings are hard. Any chapped ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There’s always gonna be holes. And since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ass“ -- did anyone else feel like that was Kripke speaking or is it just me?

Season 6:

the whole Lisa thing: while it was nice to see Dean go domestic, I have to say I was more invested in Dean and Ben’s relationship development than I was with Dean and Lisa’s. The chemistry just wasn’t there, I have to be honest (he and Anna actually had more chemistry for a few minutes than he did with Lisa this whole season). I don’t doubt they loved each other, it was real, and Lisa was good for him at the time but it just didn’t have that spark. I loved Lisa as a character in her own right, but I was happy to see her and Dean eventually go their separate ways. Though my heart broke for Ben on that one. He and Dean really had a whole father-son bond happening there. I appreciated that when Ben called him, even that one time that nothing was really wrong, Dean dropped everything and headed right over. They had a bond of their own happening outside of Dean and Lisa’s. I think Dean ultimately made the right choice in the end to keep Lisa and Ben safe (though they should have been able to choose if they wanted this), but God did that cost him and we see it in that scene outside of the hospital with Sam. How much that hurt for him, and for us to see how it killed him to do it. I’m still grateful that he got to see what the domestic life was like and that he got a reprieve from hunting for a bit. It made complete sense as to why Cas didn’t want to pull him back in to ask for help with Raphael.

Destiel: Welp, now there’s definitely an emotional relationship happening. Meaning the bond has become even more forefront and not only is Dean affected, but we also see that Cas is, too. Dean’s reaction to finding out Cas was working with Crowley the whole time, Cas’ reaction to Dean choosing to save the two boys instead of focusing on finding Eve, Cas’ reaction to Dean’s stance on the Crowley situation, Dean’s finding out Crowley kidnapped Lisa and Ben, Cas asking Dean to trust him, Dean seeing Cas becoming the new God and needing to summon Death, etc. It was fantastic. While it hurt during some moments, I enjoyed seeing the dynamics and reactions to these situations play out. This is definitely a friendship now, a family relationship formed (and still forming) like Dean says in 6x20. Imho, Jensen and Misha knocked it out of the park this season when it came to that relationship. I loved it.

Cas: holy hell, 6x20 has become one of my all-time favorite episodes of SPN. I loved seeing Cas’ POV. Cas was already a fave character of mine but this episode made me fall in love with him all over again. This was incredible and I’m so thankful they fed us so well with this one. I really enjoyed seeing Cas as a character stepping into the forefront, right there with Dean and Sam. Yes, he was a part of TFW before this, but you have to admit that in this season, it becomes a whole new ball game. Really amazing stuff and of course, Misha slayed it all.

Meg & Megstiel: I was so happy to see the iteration of Meg return that we know from later seasons. Maybe I’m just too used to that version but to me this felt more effortless for the character and for Rachel, that really let both shine. Personally, I’m not a Megstiel shipper. While I love their dynamic, it just isn’t there for me, but I really did enjoy their scenes together. Cas felt as if he needed a little shaking up so to speak so I think she was perfect for that. Plus, I have a hard time forgiving those in the show that sic Hellhounds on my bamf female hunters so that might be partially the reason for my bias, just saying. (I never really forgave Ketch either)

Samuel...& Co: I just...why? Don’t get me wrong, I liked Mitch but this felt a bit...I don’t know...off? Other than some place for Soulless!Sam to go while Dean was playing house and for nabbing Alphas for Crowley, I don’t get what the point of this story line was? Was it to show us that Mary’s dad was a d-bag? Check. Was it to show us how people sometimes make the worst decisions when it comes to their family? Double check. Like, we kind of already got that and it was just unnecessary confirmation if that makes sense. And the thing that kills me is that Samuel was in Hell (or goes to Hell, I kind of did other things in the background during that arc) but he loved his daughter enough to betray her sons and do the wrong thing but John gets to go to Heaven? This still confounds me. Though I enjoyed Gwen and it was a shame she couldn’t be a family contact in another state for the boys later on to pop up every now and then.

Soulless!Sam: I enjoyed this part of Sam’s arc but I won’t lie, I was relieved like everyone else when he finally got his soul back though waited with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. But it was interesting to see this side of Sam.

Dad!Dean: I know I mentioned Dean and Ben above, but that one episode with the shifter!baby, that was priceless and God, did I love it.

I just loved going back to this for both boys

#spn posts #spn rewatch #episode mentions #spn 5x03 #spn 5x04 #spn 6x20 #spn 5x22 #spn 4x19 #spn 5x13 #spn 5x19 #this was in my drafts #i'm kicking it out #spn season 4 #spn season 5 #spn season 6 #destiel mention #anti john winchester #dean winchester

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geekygoddesss · 5 years ago

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The Boyfriend Tag [Luke Edition]

Summary: an unfiltered interview featuring Luke Hemmings and his girlfriend.

Words: 8k

“Hi, I am Luke Hemmings from 5SOS” He waves at the camera

“Hi, I am (Y/n)” I introduce myself shortly.

“and this is our take on the Boyfriend-Girlfriend tag” he explains shortly, holding in his hands the IPad, with all the questions “Let’s do this”

When and where did we first meet?

“Good question” Luke takes the lead before I can “It’s kind of complicated because we met back in high school, before I started with the band and all that, but, we met again on a frat party here in the states” he shortly explains.

“It’s a really small world, I’ll tell you that” I chuckle “We were on a couple classes together in school and I was always aware of your existence, you’ve always been popular, me not so much, we never really knew each other” I keep on explaining “but long story short, I study here in California and I was at this party and we...” I start, not really finding the friendliest way I could put it, it was complicated.

“Hooked up” he completes for me, not finding it to be a big deal, apparently.

“Yeah” I admit, not helping it but blushing “Which is funny because I don’t think he recognized me at any moment”

“I didn’t” he says, raising both of his eyebrows at that fact “When we left the party I was drunk, I’m not going to lie, but I just kept looking at your face and I was like... I know you from somewhere” he points at me and smiles, almost mimicking the moment.

“Of course” I roll my eyes, bumping his shoulder with mine “but I look a lot different now, I don’t blame you, In high school I was -y’know- pretty big and I wasn’t the one who talked with guys or people, but I got in better habits and lost so much weight, by now I look completely different than I did before, I wouldn’t recognize me either” I shrug, completely understanding why he wouldn’t know who I was.

Looks are looks and we didn't see each other for a long time, it’s normal.

“You do look different but still I feel a bit guilty because I remember you helping me back in the day in like... chemistry and stuff, maybe physics” he mentions, shaking his head “We weren’t complete strangers”

I nod “Your mom used to tutor me too” I mention as a fun fact, laughing when his eyes widen a bit at the reminder.

“Geez, that’s true” he chuckles, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand “Why didn’t you ask for my help? I knew a lot too” he asks in curiosity.

I shake my head “I don’t know. First, I didn’t know you at all and two, you’re distracting” I scoff, caressing his cheek “your face is trippy” “I know it’s so ugly” He laughs, following my joke and leaning into my touch “I wouldn’t like to have to see me while tutoring me, That’s like study suicide, right?”

I nod, laughing hard at his statement, which wasn’t completely true but still it was funny to hear from his mouth. Luke is a smart guy, but the two of us together could be messy.

“Dork” I laugh, nudging his head aside playfully “Moving on“ I announce, grabbing the IPad and moving on with the questions.

Where was our first date?

“Our first date was adorable” I say, letting a pout show on my lips at such an adorable memory.

Thinking about it only made me smile the brightest, I’m glad this question came up.

“You think so?” Luke said with a smile, looking over at me.

I nod, I thought it was obvious. “Yeah, it has a special place in my heart” I admit with a little shrug “It was about four days after the party, after we slept together I left your house in the morning and gave you my number, four days later you texted me saying ‘u good?’” I say, not helping but letting my laughing slip into my story while I talked.

It was such a simple thing, but quite funny, for me it was such a miracle that he even remembered my existence after that night, he seemed like the kind of guy who always had a better girl to do.

“Literally” he laughs with me, leaning in to bump my shoulder with his “No, I took her to this parking lot, sounds really creepy but it’s not I promise, it’s on a hill so it had a great view of the city” he explains in all seriousness.

“And he bought pizza and some Ice cream, I enjoyed myself” I smile, going in to grab his hand.

“It was nice” he answers, lacing our fingers together “I also realized, you’re pretty cool, we didn’t talk at all in high school and I came to realize I might have missed out” he shrugs, looking at me with those big puppy eyes.

My heart melts.

“Aw” I lean to kiss his cheek shortly “It’s funny, you and I weren’t friends but I was friends with Calum, not Michael, but Calum” I mention as a fun fact to the camera.

He nods “Yeah, he told me” he chuckles, squeezing my hand “Anyways, that was our first date, I think it was a pretty good start” he says, finishing the question up and grabbing the IPad from me.

I have nothing else to say more than to agree, that was the whole story, short and sweet.

“Hell yeah it was” I nod once to the camera, and we move on.

What was your first impression of me?

I look over at him for a long second, already knowing my answer and trying to moderate the weird smile coming out of my lips.

“You’re going to hate me for this” I mumble, raising my eyebrows at him and taking a peek of his weird look, to then explain it all. “it took me a second to actually go and talk to you and when I did, later on when I noticed you were flirting, I thought, isn’t he the guy who’s dating that X factor girl?” I admit, letting a playful chuckle come out of my lips as i dropped the bomb.

His eyes widen, I bet he didn’t saw that coming, we never mention stuff like this, but I was speaking the truth, I would be lying if I said anything else, that was exactly what I thought.

“Goddammit” he cursed, shaking his head at that mention “don’t tell me you used to watch that show” he said and I nodded “this is new, by the way, I didn’t know this crossed your mind” he said, totally amused.

“Yeah every week, and your ex was there, I remember that clearly, She won” I chuckle, almost needing to mention some kind of proof that I actually did know his ex from way back. “but that’s my point, I saw you together before and I thought you were still a thing and I was like, Is he cheating...?” I said, almost imitating my exact thought on that moment.

“No” he immediately answers shaking his head “We were a thing, like four months prior we met, but not at that time, I was alone” he explains, looking at the camera shortly “She’s cool though” he shrugs, not really making a big deal out of it.

Not like it was a big deal anyway.

“Yeah, she’s nice” I shrug, for the couple times I’ve seen her, she was pretty cool. I move on and turn to him with a questioning look “What did you thought about me?” I ask with a small smile.

He clicks his tongue, almost making some time to think of an answer, but apparently, his mind is a bit blank.

“If I’m honest, I don’t remember the very first thing I thought, I was drunk, so things seem a little blurry from the start of that night but I remember once you we were talking about something, I thought...” he says, leaving a dramatic pause “She talks to me like she’s known me forever and I like that” he mentions, looking over at me.

“I mean.... not exactly, but almost” I shrug, leaning to kiss his cheek.

“Almost” he mumbles, turning to my direction and staring at me directly “I also thought you were really sweet and I like your sense of humor, in general I just Felt really Welcome”

That answers makes me melt, it was so sweet, he is so sweet.

“Aw, that’s so cute” I say in adoration, leaning straight on his lips and pecking them shortly “crap, now I feel bad, my first impression was the worst ever” I pout, staring up at him.

“It’s fine” he shrugs, not really mind it, apparently.

But really, we never really made a big deal about stuff like this anyways.

When did you meet my family?

Now, this was an easy answer. “The first time I met your family we were in Sydney” I start explaining “It was not long ago, we were there for a week and we had this big family getaway for one day, It was the very first time I met your entire family” I smile, looking over at him and leaning in to kiss his shoulder. “Oof That was such a good day” he says, smiling at the memory.

I smile too. “It really was” I chuckle, nodding at the camera “my mom made the biggest batch of ravioli, his mom loved so much that it had them talking for hours” I explain, sighing dramatically at that mention. Luke just laughs. “honestly, the woman just kept speaking until the conversation was so strong, not even Luke or me could interfere to talk to our own mothers” I shake my head, being kind of dramatic, but having a fair reason for it.

Luke stares at me funny for a couple seconds and keeps himself silent, I wondered if he wanted me to continue the story, but by the way, his eyebrow raised, I guessed he had something to say and I certainly did not want to miss that.

“Are you saying that because your mom shushed you?” He asked, giving me a funny look, like he was suppressing a laugh. I nod harshly “Yeah! What the heck?” I exclaim, shaking my head “She is sometimes a bit rude but I love her, anyways” I roll my eyes at the reminder of that moment.

Long story short, my mother happened to be so in the story that when I tried to add something, she shushed me and moved on with the story, which Luke’s mom didn’t seem to notice at all, but I was certainly outraged about for a good minute, but I went back to my boyfriend and eventually forgot about it, it wasn’t a big deal anyway. “My dad was in charge of the barbecue and it was funny because where the grill was there was nothing but a whole lot of man there” Luke added as a good fact. “Your brother, your dad, me and my brothers, it was man zone and you” he chuckled, sneaking his arm around my waist and squeezing. “I blended in well, thank you very much” I bragged, rolling my eyes “I mainly did a lot of this and a lot of this” I say, hugging him tight and then pressing my lips against his cheek “but it was better than being shushed by mom a second time” I shrugged, with a winning smile, kissing his cheek again. “Our first family event was good, it was the first time we got to know each other’s family and it also felt like a reunion, because oddly enough some of our family went to school together, so there was a lot of catching up too” He nodded to the camera, adding a lot more to our little story. “It was adorable though, don’t you think?” I ask him, looking up at him and looking for his eyes to meet mine. “Definitely, it was cool” he turned to me, pressed our lips together and looked back at the camera “moving on” he announced, so we do.

Who said “I love you” first?

Luke blushes instantly with this question. How cute.

“Aw, I did” he admits, looking down at his hands as he spoke.

I smile “Yes he did” I say, leaning to kiss his shoulder “Who gets to tell the story? I think both points of view are great” I mention, looking up at him.

I didn’t mind telling the story, but I knew he also would like to be the one to tell it, so it was up to him to say who should be the one on taking the lead. However, he looked just as clueless as I was with that question, and as he shook his head, he said to me.

“Flip a coin, flip a coin”

Making it the biggest and only solution we had for something like this. It was dumb, but flipping coin has been our decision picked by choice since the very beginning of our relationships.

“This is exciting” I mention, taking my phone off my pocket “I have an app for that in my phone” I say to the camera as a fun fact while I look around the screen and select the handiest app I have.

“Heads” Luke called first when the coin starts flipping. He always said the same thing.

So it lands and it drops in heads, he won. He always did, it was not the app, he was just a lucky guy and now I had to sit down and listen, my side of the story would have to be told some other moment, now is not my time.

“I tell it then” he said with a big smile, sitting up straight and looking at the camera “Basically, until this day, I can’t help but feel saying it might have been a bit rushed, we haven’t been dating for long and she was never in a real relationship before so, I think maybe for the time we have had going out and about, I still feel like I might have said it way quickly” he admits, pursing his lips together as he shrugs. I frown a little. “Aw, I don’t think so, it felt right, you know?” I shrug, not really agreeing on its entirety with that statement. “Yeah! I mean, of course” he nods as he keeps going with his explanation “it was this day when we were traveling back from... Mexico, if I’m not mistaken” he said, starting the story “We were on the plane back and we were literally sleepless, we had one full night of sleep and completely active mood on the way back” he mentioned “I think the difference between this time and the past times I’ve done this first step, out of all of them this one has been the one who felt more like a moment of realization other than something I thought of for a while” he admits to the camera “We were watching a movie and she was like completely distracted with it, I got distracted from mostly my thinking and I just said it” he shrugged, finishing the story.

.That was the big story, that’s how it happened.

“It sounds like a simple moment but for me it felt like a lot” I added, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “For me too, I didn’t think much about it beforehand, but once I said it I was like, shit” he said, his eyes widening a little “But I really meant it, it came from heart even when it was brought up at a random moment” he shrugged. “I loved that” I admitted “because now only I got to see what your feelings were in a moment where all you were doing was reflecting on your own mind, this isn’t something you felt forced to say, you just spoke your mind in a pure way” I said, smiling at the thought.

My boy was a pure soul, he spoke his feelings straight from his heart and I appreciated that in so many ways, I guess that's why we connect so well. I love him just the way he is. “I love you” he mumbled to me. “I love you” I repeat, leaning and kissing his lips shortly. I look at the camera “Isn’t he cute?” I say, squishing his cheek, even when I knew he didn’t love that, but I couldn’t help it.

I could do it all day, he is the cutest guy I’ve ever known.

What dressing do I always wear?

“funny” I say with a teasing tone as I look at him up and down and point “those stinking boots, that’s my answer” I said, laughing as he looked down at his own shoes and frowned.

“Hey” he said, acting offended, crossing his leg over his knee and showing off his left boot “they’re nice, don’t call them stinky” he pouts to me innocently. “Sorry, I can't help it, they’re ridiculously expensive and that kills me” I admit, shaking my head “plus, they’re like good but not that especial”

I spoke my truth. The day Luke spent that much money on a pair of boots was the same day we had a bit of an argument, not that extreme, but still it was a lot of money he could have spent in more useful things and those pair of boots were certainly nice but not worth that much money.

“Ah” he said, looking down at it and touching the leather of the boot “I like them lots” he admits “they’re casual, for me, I like wearing them because my stylist mentioned it makes every outfit more elegant but doesn’t make it fancy looking, if you know what I mean” he explains to the camera “it’s an everyday kind of deal, you got this black leather, not real leather, may I say, and then this stars around here, that I think plaster my style pretty good” he shrugs, not caring at all on my thoughts on them.

“They really do” I say, agreeing with him on that part “they’re still like so expensive, though, damn” I hiss, as an instinct.

He laughs at my reaction, finding it funny in a way. He leans forward, put his finger over my mouth and makes a quiet “Shush” with his lips. I don’t fight it, I just shut my mouth, I can’t really question his purchases when it comes to style, that’s his deal.

“For you, I’m going to say, denim” he answers, looking at me straight “you were denim a lot on the daily basis, however, asides from that, the one thing that has been like your staple ever since I’ve known you is this guy” he says, reaching out for me and grabbing my hand to raise it up high.

Something really outstands from my wrist and it is a couple of fabric rings that are covering it and that never move from where they are, it’s not a surprise at all that Luke chose this as his answers, he would be right. “My scrunchies” I point out, smiling at the camera “Yeah, these are usually essential, since I was very young really, living in such a hot place made this a vital piece in my looks” I shrug “you never know when you’ll need them”

That was just the pure truth. “Right” he nods, letting me put down my arm “I actually remember you back in high school, on this school dance, you wore like a full formal dress and a red scrunch, it stood out for me” he laughs at the memory “Damn, Yes” I cringe because that was certainly a hard one to remember “I mean, that was probably those times when Sydney was just a living hell, I’m just going to say that” I shrug, mentioning that fact before someone could forget.

As much as I love our home, it could sometimes get too hot. “Agreed” he nods at that mention “Just from remembering that I’m sweating” he says, pulling a little bit on the edge of his shirt.

I laugh, I can’t deny I found that quite funny. “Uh Huh, right” I say, rolling my eyes. This time I go and steal the IPad from his hands because now it was time for me to ask the questions.

Weird habit of each other?

It doesn’t even take me ten seconds to answer that question.

“Luke sings, all. of. the. time” I say, emphasizing my answer by slapping my hand on the table.

I can see from the corner of my eyes how Luke starts blushing from that, apparently not finding this one the most suiting for an answer. I can hear him laughing in my ear, I bet he was waiting for some other answer that could expose him, but now was not the time to reveal those. “Hey” he says, acting offended “that’s not a weird habit, I object” he shakes his head, but nothing he could say would make me change my answer. “No, i think it is” I nod, being strong with my answer “even on the most uncomfortable moments you will hear him try to reach like falsettos in the kitchen” I chuckle “I once had Jazz playing in the living room, I love jazz so I usually play it when I am having a good day and all, and you know there’s parts were musicians just kind of loosen up and improvise” I explain a little “well, like was in the garage and I heard him bopping and beeping a whole melody by himself, all alone” I laugh a little, not really containing myself “or maybe it would be at four in the morning in his studio, whatever suits him best” I shrug. “Point taken” he laughs with me, shaking his head as he turns to look at me straight “does it bother you?” he asks me before he can move on from this.

I shrug. I love to hear him sing, he’s very talented, and I love that he experiments with his talent as much as he can, but sometimes his little habit could be a lot for some people. Lucky for me, it never really bothered me, but there were times when maybe his singing could become a little stressful.

“Not at all, I just think it’s funny” I answer him, reaching out to caress his cheek lightly. I didn’t want him to feel attacked, I was not that serious about it. “really babe, really” I kiss his cheek, feeling him soften up with my touch. “Alright” he mumbles, turning to the camera to say his part “Well as in for you, I do have a weird habit, I don’t know if this is anything new for you but it is a little weird when you are like chillin -like- on the couch and from one moment to another your leg just goes” he doesn’t say much, he just raises his stretched arm up high and goes back “and you keep it there” he laughs, making it more exaggerated when he goes with his other arm and squeezes my thigh. “I’m trying to pop my hip bones!” I argue, completely blushing at that “It’s difficult okay? And I’m flexible I gotta make that useful” I excuse, like that would make it less weird. “Sometimes it would be like, she stands up and goes like a crab” he tries to explain, going to stand up to do the motion, but the second he tries to get up his seat I am the one taking the lead and grabbing his arm. “Lies!” I exclaim, making him sit down again “Oh my gosh Luke” I laugh, hiding my red face on his shoulder and from the rest of the word. He laughs hard, apparently finding extremely funny his comeback to me, and I gotta say, this is probably his best move he’s ever done to me and I respect that. He definitely got me speechless with that one.

“Don’t be embarrassed, babe, it’s okay” he comforts, still laughing as he hugs me.

I shake my head “Can we just pass onto the next?” I ask, not wanting to carry on with this at all.

He nods, and with that, we just go on with the interview.

How long have we been together?

“We are six months long” He answers before I can “We turn one year in February, next year”

“On Valentine’s” I compliment his answer as I smile and lean my head on his shoulder. That answer alone made me smile the brightest.

“Yeah, fun fact” he chuckles to that mention “that’s how you know we actually have big plans, not just a date or whatever” he nods, turning to me and kissing my forehead.

“I’m looking forward to that” I say, already growing excited “See, we usually throw the best dates, best getaways, I love those so much and being our first anniversary, god...” I sigh, imagining all of the possibilities “it will be quite a ride” I state, letting that dumb smile take over my face.

“Yes it will” he assures me, kissing my forehead softly “You don’t even know”

I look up at him and he looks up at me, I don’t want to ask or say anything, but there is something in the way he is looking at me that tells me he already has plans and that makes me nervous. I go to say something but I immediately shut my mouth, I try to say something else, but I shut up again, I don’t know if saying something will trigger something else. “Okay” I say, looking away from his blue eyes “I don’t even want a hint, I’m excited already” I chuckle to myself, looking down at the device in my hands “So..” I say, dragging my finger through the screen.

So, we move on.

What is the most public thing we’ve done together?

“We do this thing sometimes where we will go on Instagram and actually do lives together, every once a week or so” I explain shortly as I shrug, not really hesitating with my answer since it was already obvious. “Unlike others in this band, this is not the most public thing we’ve done, I would say that for social media we are pretty transparent” I state, looking at my boyfriend just to see his reaction to my answer.

Answering for both of us could be a lot, especially since we often differ on a lot of things.

“I agree” he nods, looking at me shortly “I actually like doing lives with you, we have a good laugh on those” he smiles, nudging me.

“We do” I chuckle “Fans ask the craziest questions, I think I have never been asked more in my life about our sex life than in the last three or four lives” I laugh. I could quote every single of those questions right now, but this is a family-friendly show and we must keep it that way.

“I mean, they asked you if I kept it 70��s” Luke mentions with that teasing smile on his face that can only remind me of my reaction when that came up.

“Dude” I say, my eyes widening to that “I am glad I didn’t have to answer that about myself if I am honest” I chuckle, shaking my head to that.

Sometimes too much information could be too much.

“I could have” He teases back, going in to kiss my forehead.

“Anyways” I say, waving that away before something could slip out “in conclusion, we do go unfiltered in social media and real life, obviously, but still we don't really overexpose ourselves, if you know what I mean” I add to our question, making that clear before people could jump to conclusions.

“We manage to keep it low in a way” He clarifies, complementing my answer.

I nod, agreeing with that. “I was saying this earlier actually, but even though we don’t hide from the public, I like posting pictures of us, however I don’t like bragging, which is a common misconception that sometimes fans like to use referring to how sometimes I would share things of us, but I don’t do it out of a bragging feeling” I say, also making sure I clarify that.

Out of the couple pictures I have posted with Luke, there is always people that like to do those kind of statements. It hurts, it will never stop hurting a little bit, but the best I could do for that was to suck it up and move on, I chose this, now I gotta live with it.

“I know baby” he comforts, rubbing my back “It’s normal though, it happens” he says in all honesty “I think how we keep things by the time, seems like the right thing to do”

I couldn’t agree more with that. We like going public and it is fun, but there are things we don’t like to show and keep it to ourselves, that’s our magic and we’ll keep it that way.

“It does” I agree, not having anything more to say.

We stand strong with our answer, that is all that matters.

First thing you noticed about me?

“Dude, your eyes” I say, very fast, as soon as I read the question out loud “I don’t think I remember anything clearer than that” I say in honest words. His eyes were something that I won’t ever forget.

“But, from when we met in high school or…?” He says awkwardly after I stated my answer. There was always going to be that question since we practically met twice.

“Yeah, all the way back in high school, I don’t remember very clearly how you approached me but I do remember thinking, wow” I say, mimicking that moment “Yours are honestly the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen” I say, staring into them “I like that a lot, it’s trippy” I admit shyly.

He blushes a little, I love that.

“Well, thank you, I guess” he says, chuckling awkwardly “it’s nice to know eye contact isn’t dead after all” he shrugs at that.

I laugh “Of course it isn’t” I say shaking my head before nodding on his direction once “so?” I ask, waiting for his answer.

“The first thing I noticed about you was probably your moves, at that party” he admits, with a bit of a smile on his face “boy you do know how to dance” he nods at the camera, almost proud of it “That’s how we re-met actually, I danced with you and then I introduced myself” he said, adding that up before moving on.

“Which is like every story from everyone who dances as much as I do” I chuckle a little bit, he rolls his eyes “But thank you, I am glad you like my moves” I say, almost flattered for this.

“Of course” he smiles, going in to kiss my forehead “It is really a boring answer, I can’t go deeper than night, for the tenth time, I was wasted” he clarified once again.

“Yeah you were” I confirm “that night you woke up and were like oh you’re here” I laugh, remembering that exact moment like it had happened yesterday.

He woke up completely disoriented, with a headache and hungry. Finding me there was certainly a surprise and I could understand why.

“We-” he starts saying, but seems to be completely cut off as he laughs “We don’t need to talk about that” he says with difficulty, not helping his laughing as he remembers that moment.

Those were our first steps as a couple, we weren’t proud of it at all, but it was a start. However, even when our start was rushed, we still had a lot to look forward too, and we were sure as Hell it would be better. For now, all we can do is show the world just that.

Tell us a fun fact about you

We both stay silent, trying to think of anything to answer this question, but apparently, nothing really comes to mind with this one. It feels like forever. It takes us a minute, then two, by the time minute three comes around, we both look at each other with that clueless look, trying to see if any of us got something to say, but apparently, we were both blank.

“Oof, I have no idea” He sighed, leaning over and resting his weight on his forearms.

There was only one thing I could say, but in my opinion, I didn’t find that any interesting.

“I have one” I announce, getting his attention “Remember that time when we were camping and a bee stung you and you had to take off your shirt because you couldn’t find the bee?” I ask, he nods. By the look on his face I realized he had no clue where I was going. “I realized we have the same birthmarks” I revealed, raising my eyebrows, trying to make that a bigger deal than it actually was.

It sounds weird and not realistic, I know.

“No way” he frowns, looking over at me “I think that is impossible, babe” he says, shaking his head.

I knew that already, but I was being serious.

“No, it isn’t” I shake my head as well, getting up from my seat to prove a point.

This needed to be shown.

I raise my shirt first halfway, probably alarming the sound crew and Luke at the same time, making myself seem like if I was about to show anything else but that was not it. I turn around and show him my lower back, where a small stain lays on my right side.

“See, this one, you have it too” I tell him and I show everyone. Then turn around and show the one on my stomach “and this” I point. Fix my shirt and then show my wrist “and this” I finish revealing, to then take my seat “Tell me it’s impossible now” I challenge him, waiting from him to prove me wrong.

He is just blinking as an answer, probably trying to find any logic that can explain all this, it was very weird.

“I can’t” He says, his eyes completely wide “Now that is a fun fact” he chuckled nervously “Is this like those movies? Where everyone is like ‘you’re my soulmate’?” he says in a bit of a mocking tone.

I laugh “I’ve been waiting for you all my life baby” I follow his lead, throwing both arms around him and kissing his cheek “My love for you shines like a thousand suns from the moment you touched my butt” I recite dramatically, leaning in and pecking his lips.

He laughs hard. Who would have thought I would reveal a pure fact from the day we met?

“Expose me, why don’t you?” he rolls his eyes after I let out my joke.

He is embarrassed, I can sense it, but that’s okay because it is all for the sake of playing around. I knew it didn’t totally bother him.

“I’m joking” I clarify, just in case, kissing his cheek again “but yeah, for now, that’s all the fun facts we have” I speak directly to the camera, to then slide the IPad on his direction and consider him the honors. “Next”

He takes the device, and with that, we carry on.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve done for each other?

I am not the one answering at first, he is. Before I could even think of something he was already taking the lead and revealing an answer from his side. It was like he already had it thought out.

“One day we went on this date, she was just coming back home after like, two weeks in Sydney, didn’t have a clue I was planning on it, neither that I was in town so when she came back to her dorm I made sure to build a surprise up” he explained, trying to paint a picture for everyone. “I bought her a dress, we went out, we walked around the city until sunset, it was crazy” he said as his conclusion, leaning back on his seat and staring at me, looking for a reaction.

My face lights up instantly, I was loving that answer and I loved that this was the one thing he chose to say because that was for sure one beautiful day I would not ever forget.

“That was the best date ever” I say, resting my heart on my chest “Still can’t believe you’ve managed to do that” I say, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

He deserves all the kisses in the world just for that.

“Honestly, I’m very proud of it, not going to lie” He chuckles, turning and kissing my forehead “As far as our relationship has gone, I think this is the biggest thing I’ve done” he mentions with complete honesty.

“Aw” I smile to him, reaching to caress one strand of his hair “I don’t know, I think the biggest thing I have done for you it’s baking things for you, I’m always on that deal” I shrug, making that the only answer I had.

I haven't had the time to plan out a good surprise for him ever since we started dating. For me it was complicated, I had too many things going on at once in my life, constantly; thinking of an elaborated surprise was almost mission impossible, but I would find the time for that, sometime, I don’t know when, but one day.

“Oh my god, those are fire” he says at the mention of my baking “She’s a good cook” he points at me with a proud look.

“I love cooking” I shrug, not having much to say about that “so every time I see he’s super busy or just wanted a bit of relax, I try to bring something, it’s fun for me and I like how excited he gets, so it’s a win-win” I chuckle, at my small explanation.

He nods, agreeing with my words.

“It’s a win-win however you want to see it, because after eating we are always energized” he says, smiling at the camera and nodding, then nodding again and again.

I didn’t know if it was awkward or if I should ignore all that, but something in his look told me, this came with second intentions.

“Dude” I frown, nudging his side, even though he wasn’t saying much.

He turns to me, acting surprised and with wide eyes, he looks at me weird and says “What?” he asks with a funny look, I throw another look back at him. “Oh you’re the overthinking it, not me” he laughs, waving this whole thing away.

I roll my eyes, he laughs. Sometimes I swear he is worse than a twelve-year-old, for real.

“Anyways” I say, shaking my head “Lets keep going” I announce before he could go any further with his silly jokes.

Tell us a secret

Like in previous questions, for this one, we both stay quiet, almost as if we were thinking of something to answer that but couldn’t find anything worth saying. The truth is, none of us felt like putting a valid answer there; it would be too much information and we didn’t need that to be public.

So I take the lead on this one. I lean on the table in front of me, look straight to the camera and say three little words that had gotten me through various situations and lead to different outcomes.

“Luke sucks balls” I whisper to the camera, then leaning back on the chair and making myself comfortable.

There was silence in the room as if no one really dared to comment on that and I get it; but in this situation all I had to do is look at my boyfriend and see his reaction, because is the only one that really matters.

“I am supposing you say that because you have balls” He says in a serious tone, looking at me in the eyes.

I chuckle “Yes, bigger than yours” I state, nudging his side softly.

“Ooo” He said, acting offended, opening his eyes wide open like he was actually surprised “This took a turn” he said, laughing, to then shake his head and say back to the camera “We’re not telling you secrets” he says, shrugging.

I nod, agreeing with that “The mystery keeps the flame alive” I tease “or so they say” I say, winking to the camera.

“Indeed, baby” he nods, kisses my cheek and grabs the IPad. We were almost done with this one.

Favorite feature about each other?

“Your eyes” he answers first. Which almost seemed like a competition because I already had my answer and was about to speak. He laughs, points over at me and says “I stole your answer” he mocks, kissing my cheek.

“Yes! you bitch” I laugh, pushing him away playfully.

He shakes his head, kisses my forehead in comfort and says “Well, I mean it” he says with a smile on his face “They are pretty and I enjoy a lot looking at them” he admits, being honest in his answer.

My heart melts a little “Thank you” I say, kissing his cheek softly “I will say, your complexion” I answer, going in and stroking his cheek slightly “Bad side of it, whenever you get a pimple you can see it from a thousand miles away, but, it’s funny because it matches mine” I laugh, pinching his cheek “It matches so well that he has worn my foundation” I shrug, stating a fact.

“Yeah, true” he nods, leaning in my touch “we match so well”

I nod “Soulmates” I say, singing it out a little as I look at the camera “Get on our level”

What do we argue about the most?

“Dude” I answer first, my eyes wide as the answer came to me “For some reason our biggest discussion ever has been how it is apparently impossible for us to harmonize” I laugh, founding it so funny that I couldn’t really say that sentence without breaking to laugh.

“Did we actually argue about that?” Luke asks, being a little weird out by me laughing so much.

“Yes, we did” I laugh, not being able to hold myself together at all “Let me explain, it was this day were they were working and Luke had to record and stuff” I start the story “In the meantime, Calum and I were just messing around the piano and we sang a song and then Luke came in and was like ‘what the…’” I try to imitate the moment, along with the face he made, but I was laughing so much I was losing it, obligated to stop talking before I lost my breath.

“It’s treason, I’ve been trying to tell you how to do it but you don’t listen” he excuses his tantrum with one proud voice.

“Excuse me” I touch my chest in one defensive move “it is actually not my fault I can’t harmonize well with you and I can with Calum, babe, you know that” I say, making that clear before he went on.

He hisses, he knows he can’t really argue with that, so he shuts his mouth from whatever he could say and just accepts that I’m right.

“Yeah, that’s true” he said sighing “Oh man, this is pissing me off a little bit” he admits, shaking his head slightly.

I pout “No” I say in a whine, leaning my face on his shoulder and kissing it better. He could be sensitive sometimes. “Let’s continue” I say, waving this all off and moving onto the next.

Nicknames for each other

“I call you bubba a lot, actually” I answer first, not really thinking about it twice. This answer just came out naturally “You could say that is my nickname for you, aside from the usual Lu and stuff, I always call you bubba or bub” I shrug.

I don’t dig on it too much, those were already the usual names I would go for on the regular ever since I started dating, it was the default so I went with it a lot. I wasn’t the most creative either, so in my defense, I was not the best for making up new ones, I would always stick with my usual ones.

“Yeah” he nods, to then move on with his side “I usually go with your childhood nicknames that your mom told me” he chuckles “Bunny, nugget, sort of that stuff” he mentions just a couple, even though he could probably name hundreds “If I am feeling spicy I would say bumblebae” he adds in a proud voice.

“Which is considerably terrible” I mention, but I don’t mean it at all.

“I disagree” he shakes his head with decision “my personal favorite, cuddle muffin” he said, again, being really proud of his answer.

He looks back at me for a second, then back at the team, seeing if anyone had anything to say about his choices on nicknames, but no one said a thing. It was not a terrible nickname, but it was definitely not the best, if someone asked me.

“Jesus” I sighed, shaking my head “you made that up I swear”

He laughs. “It’s a thing” he says in some kind of defense “Personally I think I am the king of nicknames” he states, giving himself a title out of the blue.

I laugh. “You swear” I say, shaking my head.

Because apparently now Luke is putting himself on a pedestal.

“I do” he winks at me and takes the tablet from my hands.

We were almost there, we didn’t need to stay in this one any longer.

What’s something you are thankful for?

We didn’t know what to do when this question came up. If we were supposed to hold hands, stare at each other deeply, take this in private, we didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. When Luke shifted into his seat and put the IPad down I knew he was up to something, because he was about to say some serious stuff and he wanted me to listen.

So he grabbed my hand, made me focus on him and started speaking.

“I am thankful for finally finding someone who really feels like could be the person that will bring some kind of stability into my life” he says in soft words as he starts his answer “I have had a rough couple of years, when it comes to relationships. For me, I have been hurt a lot, one of those relationships ended badly and the others didn’t but still when you break up with someone you will always feel that emptiness which always makes you wonder weather if you are doing things right or not” he explains, painting a pictures of what has been going through his mind “I am thankful for finding someone who I feel I have known all my life and that I feel like I can continue growing with as time passes, I know this is only the beginning but I love you a lot and I am hoping for many more years with you in the future” he says, raising my hand to his lips and kissing it softly.

The honestly reflected in his words makes me completely head over heels for him. My throat feels like it has just been tightened in a knot and I can’t speak clearly, but I go past that. Grabbing his other hand and pressing both close to my chest, I make sure he hears me because now it was my turn to speak up.

“I am thankful for having a person that makes me feel loved and has taught me to love myself like I have never done” I say, speaking from my heart as I look at him straight in the eyes “it might sound stupid but with my situation, after losing more than a hundred pounds and literally stepping into a new lifestyle, living in Los Angeles has been anything but easy for me, people look good, people is confident and even when I want to pretend I am, I feel

like I am none of those things” I shrug, my voice cracking slowly as I speak “I am thankful that you’ve known how to look past my past and have come to appreciate what I am now and showed me why I should always put me first, even when I know you could be with someone better” I say, and this is when I lose it. Tears start rolling down my face and I sob.

I don’t think I have ever said all of those things out loud in front of him, and it felt incredibly difficult.

“I love you, Luke” I say, going straight for him and wrapping him into one tight hug. One that felt intimate and needed. I needed him close to me.

“I love you” he says in a whisper, kissing my hair “so so so much”

He rocks me softly in his arms, he holds me until my sobbing quiets down and I am ready to face the world. I didn’t expect myself to break down like this in the middle of an interview, but sometimes I get a little sensitive. Once I feel like my breathing goes normal, I look up, everyone is looking at us with awe and that makes me blush, I almost can’t believe this just happened, I would like to just sit back straight and act as this didn’t happen but that would be silly, so I just look at the team in front of us and nod at them.

“Thanks a lot for this” I say with a soft smile, thanking them for their time.

“Thank you” Luke repeats right behind me “That what fun!” he says, and I agree.

This has been an interesting experience, I was truly thankful for it, so, until the next time, this is a wrap! and I had a hell of a good time with it.

#luke hemmings imagines #calum hood imagines #michael clifford imagines #luke hemmings x reader #ashton irwin imagines #5sos blurbs #5sos fanfic #5sos fanfiction #5sos imagines #5 seconds of summer preferences #5 seconds of summer blurbs #5 second of summer imagines #5 seconds of summer imagines #5 seconds of summer #luke 5sos #luke hemmings blurb

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lambourngb · 4 years ago

Note

Duty of Care and /or Gravedigger’s Union

I did Grave Dancer’s Union - a nod to my 90s love of Soul Asylum here.

Duty of Care was another torture Michael fic- I wrote it pre-season 2, when I thought the love triangle was going in a particular way. I don’t know if there’s still an appetite to season 1 au stories? There’s some season 1 characterization of Alex ahead, particularly in regards to Jesse.

Here’s what I had - some of which already appeared here before Last Year’s Wishes ate my brain.

****

“Can’t believe Maria is still wearing the pendant of alien poison around her neck while she dates your alien ass, Guerin..” Kyle commented watching the decay values multiply as Liz titrated pollen into the samples.

The current theory on alien resurrection, and it said a lot about his life that he had competing theories on alien-involved resurrection, was that their ability to manipulate energy changed based on their needed life skills at the time of adolescence. Michael had been separated from his siblings young, and needed to develop defensive skills. The defiant and pained look on his face when he explained stopping an item being hurled at his head at the age of 7 was a needed survival tactic courtesy of foster homes he had passed through kept Kyle from questioning any further.

Isobel had through her mother Ann’s never-ending dinner parties and charity benefits, found comfort in seeing and knowing what was meant under the sugary sweet words of adults around her. Being a small child paraded around adults who were charmed by her blonde hair and blue eyes meant she had the most exposure to social events while Max hid in his books.

Finally Max had anointed himself as a fixer early on in their life. He had taken responsibility for Michael being left behind, and had tasked himself to protect his sister afterward. The defensive use of healing fit with his offensive ability to kill in the service of keeping those he loved safe.

At the most basic level, it was all energy from synaptic responses in brain waves to manipulating molecules to move or stop an object. How a pollen interrupted that energy use could theoretically solve the problem of how to jump start an ability.

“You think you might get around to telling her the big secret anytime soon?”

The mask over his mouth and face did little to block the glare Michael shot at him. “Shut up Valenti.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s Maria. She is a card carrying member of the ACLU and the Nature Conservatory. I had to bail her out of jail last year during an ICE protest. She’s not going to turn you over to the government.”

“Kyle!” Liz scolded, “We talked about this. Agency. It’s up to Isobel and Michael who knows. I already broke that with you.”

Michael ran a gloved figure over the counter absently. “I hate secrets, okay. This isn’t any fun for me, especially considering how many people already know. I went from having just Max and Isobel, to basically the whole graduating class of New Roswell High in on it. A lot of loose lips.”

The habit of 20 years of paranoid silence was probably a lot to try and break with a new relationship if that was the basis of it. There was a good amount of slack that Kyle could extend to Michael, including trying to be understanding when he started up with Alex’s best friend in the wake of Max’s death, but exclusion of Maria from the secret felt wrong to him.

He couldn’t fathom the reasoning behind lying to someone that he wanted to be in a relationship with, and he had a feeling that it wasn’t because of worries that she would tell someone about the aliens living in Roswell. While he couldn’t outright call Michael an asshole on Alex’s behalf, he could poke and prod him when the opportunity surfaced.

“You should look at this way Guerin, that larger circle means if something does happen, you’ve got more back up than just Isobel, with Max being out of commission.”

“Oh yeah, so if the government disappears me to a black site, you’re going to ride to my rescue?”

“Yes.” Kyle replied seriously. “I wouldn’t be alone either.” The name Alex Manes went unsaid, but from the brief wince on Michael’s face, he knew exactly who was being referred to obliquely. Scored hit again.

“Well as fun as this discussion is, I’m going to take off. Iz and I have practice plans.” Michael slipped his hat on, and tucked the stool away. “Liz, call me if you have a breakthrough on nullifying this stuff. For a rare flower, there sure was a lot of it stockpiled in Noah’s cave.”

“Sure thing, Mikey.”

“Valenti, make sure she goes home to sleep and eat at some point. I don’t want to have to put her in a pod next.” He ducked out of reach of her hand, laughing at the offended look she sent his way.

“Far be it for me to agree with him, but he’s right. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends and the middle between rebuilding your lab, researching Max’s healing power, studying this pollen, not to mention working at the diner. We should make time for something else, like a drink or a movie. Recharge.” The past month since Max’s ‘death’ brought back the manic energy burst from solving the issues with the depowering serum. From one catastrophe to another, it was barely time to recover before the next happened.

“I know, I just. I need to stay busy. It’s so quiet without him.” Liz stretched and started to tuck her last slide away into the cooler. “But I think I am done today, if I work anymore, I’ll just be making mistakes.”

Kyle slipped on his coat and held the door. “Not that I don’t believe you leaving on your own volition, but let me walk you out.”

“Lucky for you, I’m too tired to be offended.”

Kyle kept his hand on her back gently steering her through the hallways. The third shift was on at the hospital, and he winced to think about his own upcoming shift at noon tomorrow. Balancing football, his pre-med studies and his social life in Michigan taught him valuable life skills in working on short sleep, but even the hours of residency had no competition on his current life of alien lab work and tracking down government funding of a black ops prison project with Alex. When he mentioned a night off, he wasn’t only including Liz in that need.

Inhaling the cool night air, he calculated if he made it home, heated up a meal, and fell asleep promptly there was the opportunity for 6 good hours of sleep before meeting up at the bunker to check in on the data mining project Alex was running.

“You know, you should go a little easier on Michael.”

“I thought everyone in this town was in love with Max Evans, but apparently it’s Guerin.” Kyle retorted sarcastically.

Liz bit her lip at the mention of Max before sighing softly. “I’m serious, Kyle. He’s really messed up right now. I was actually shocked he was somewhat sober tonight.”

“I’m not going to be petty here Liz, and mention the obvious that we are all really messed up right now. I get where you’re coming from about their need for secrecy, but Maria really deserves better. I’m not her best friend like you are and Alex was, but I’ve been here in this town with her. She was there for me after my dad died, and she supported my mom’s election for sheriff. With Mimi getting worse, she deserves to have someone to count on, not someone who is lying to her, and by extension, making all of us lie to her as well.”

“Alex was? Past tense?”

He arched his eyebrow in disbelief, “I guess I am going to be petty tonight, but seriously Liz? Have you talked to Alex lately? Every time Maria comes up in conversation he puts his best ‘Baghdad was a little warm and I was just doing a job’ face on and repeats to anyone listening how happy he is for them. Guerin messed him up, and worse, took away from him one of the few people he lets himself drop that soldier bullshit front he has.”

Liz sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I know the history with Michael is a little complicated, but we don’t always get to choose who we fall for and who we don’t. Love is messy. It doesn’t color inside the lines and follow any of the rules.”

“Maybe you’re right about that, and maybe there’s no avoiding the heartache. I do believe though that you can choose whether or not to be a dick about things, and Guerin not telling Maria is a dick move and it’s got consequences.” Kyle unlocked his car, and opened the passenger side with a gesture. “Our sister doesn’t have many friends, and he’s robbing her of one right now. Rosa lost ten years because of aliens, don’t you think that’s enough loss for all of us?”

“Do you know how annoying you are when you’re right? I’ll talk to Michael, better yet, I’ll talk to Isobel about letting Maria in on the secret.”

He slid into the driver’s seat, smiling across to her. “Tomorrow. Tonight, what’s left of it, is for sleeping.” He turned the ignition, and stopped, as the headlights came up illuminating the familiar green Chevy sitting across the lot from them. “That’s Guerin’s truck.”

“He left before we did, what’s it still doing here?” Liz ducked out of the passenger seat and ran toward the truck without waiting for an answer. Kyle swore softly, untangling his hand from the ignition to follow her. The truck looked undisturbed, no sign of the occupant. Liz reached for the driver’s side door, testing it, and gasped as the door swung open. The ever present black hat slipped off the dash into the floorboards.

There were three things Michael prized above all others, his truck, his cowboy hat, and his sister. To leave two out of three unprotected was highly out of character for him. Kyle turned around the parking lot, scanning for signs of him.

“Kyle, look,” Liz grabbed his arm and pulled him down toward the wheel well of the truck. Gleaming silver in the light , tucked on top of the tire tread, was a syringe needle with a depressed plunger.

“That’s not good.”

She stuffed her hand into her pocket and withdrew a spare latex glove to wrap around her fingers as she lifted the syringe from the tire. She peered closely at the vial, a sickly yellow liquid film thinly coated the inside. “I think someone took him, and without testing it, I’m guessing this is some sort of knock out drug based on the pollen.”

Kyle reached for his phone, mentally saying goodbye to the idea of sleep anytime soon. “I’ll call Alex, you call Isobel. And I don’t know, I guess call my mom? I mean, we usually call the police when someone gets abducted.”

Liz thinned her lips, holding the needle with one hand as she dug out her phone with the other. “I don’t think you can call the cops on the government, which I’m guessing that’s what we are dealing with since they knew how to knock out Michael.”

The government, or more specially it was probably someone related to Project Shepherd. Kyle sighed, holding his phone to his ear. It rang once, before he heard, “What’s wrong?”

He pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure he had called Alex and not the psychic alien sister, “How did you know something was wrong?”

“You’ve called me twice in the last three months, once to tell me you put my dad in a coma and once to tell me about Max. You’re a texter, even though I explained it’s easier to keep things secret if you call. So again, what’s wrong?”

Kyle slowly walked back toward the hospital. He should have volunteered to call Isobel, because this was not going to be easy. “It’s Guerin.”

“Is he okay?”

“We don’t know. We think someone took him. Liz and I found his truck at the hospital, unlocked. It looks like he got jumped by someone who knows how to incapicitate him.”

“I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Kyle wasn’t surprised to see the call disconnected. It was a forty minute drive from the cabin to the hospital if someone followed the speed limits.

***

“It’s Guerin.”

Alex was somewhat aware that he must have replied. He was in his SUV and away from the bunker, before he’d registered that the call had ended. He could only be thankful that today had been a ‘pull day’, rather than a ‘push day.’

Alex could divide his days into two motivations, he either wanted to be as far from town and the chance of running into someone he knew (Michael) or he wanted to be close in case something happened that he could help fix (for Michael). The cabin was isolated enough that only Kyle made the trip from Roswell, but not in recent memory with the pace of lab work and hospital hours. Alex could comfortably avoid reality with his laptop until the second feeling took hold. The Project Shepherd bunker was an easier location to reach Isobel or Liz from when the inviatble call for assisting an intoxicated Michael came.

Seeing Maria meant seeing Michael in the evening hours, and it was strange to resort to in his post-service life the habit of a decade before; lying and hiding himself in every interaction. His calendar had a weekly reminder to join Liz and Maria at the Wild Pony for a beer, usually scheduled early enough that Michael was still at Sanders working, but late enough that the automated work emergency text to his phone could reliably give him cover for an exit.

Psychic as she was, Maria always let him go with a pained but relieved look. It wasn’t her fault that he was still in love with Michael. It wasn’t her fault that Michael wasn’t in love with him. Neither he nor Maria had so many friends that they could afford to lose one, but neither was fooling the other that the relationship hadn’t changed in the aftermath of her dating Michael.

This wasn’t his first go around with unrequited love.

He’d survived Brendon Urie, and he wasn’t ashamed to have been a sixteen year old pouring over fan meet and greets on livejournal before hitting the road with Rosa to see Panic at the Disco in Albuquerque just after school let for the summer. He might have mapped out Los Angeles coffee shops to busk at after he turned legal and could escape west to be a musician, coffee shops close to Silver Lakes and Encino neighborhoods to be organically discovered by his crush.

He had survived his fourteen year old obsession with Kyle, that lasted until it was safer to love unattainable rockstars versus the childhood friend now high school bully. He could laugh at himself for thinking that Kyle had turned on him because he felt the same way but just didn’t know how to articulate it outside of shoving him against the lockers and jeering at him in gym class.

Unrequited love that had once been returned was a higher bar to clear than a fan fantasy or a childhood crush, but then the sins Alex carried were deeper and more lasting as well. More than a ruined but now healed hand and a discarded scholarship, he had the murder of Michael’s mother to carry. He would survive Michael not loving him, he was reasonably sure of it. He wasn’t sure if he would survive something happening to Michael because of the Manes family legacy.

Someone knowing how to subdue and take Michael pointed to his family’s involvement.

He didn’t bother with the visitor’s desk at the hospital foyer this time, walking purposefully toward the elevator and wing where Liz’s new lab resided. The door opened to his touch, revealing Isobel hovering anxiously near Liz’s shoulder as she swabbed a syringe.

“You made good time.” Isobel greeted.

“I hacked the traffic lights.” Alex informed, setting his laptop case on the lab table, and popping the case open. A few keystrokes and he was inside the hospital network and probably breaking a dozen federal laws of privacy.

Kyle closed the door, and shook his head, “Seriously?”

“No. I was at the bunker.” He brought up the internal security logs, noting visitors and elevator access. “So what do we know?”

“Not a lot,” Liz replied, her gaze fixed on a spread of swabs and slides. “I’m trying to pull as many samples as I can from this syringe so I can analyze it. There looks to be a reservoir of 3 CCs. My original serum required a dose of at least 6 CCs to incapacitate, so whatever they used was more concentrated.”

“Hopefully less lethal,” Isobel observed. “Are you in the hospital network already?”

“Just what’s linked to the internal wifi signals. I’m going to need access to their security office since it appears the actual camera footage is on a closed circuit.”

Kyle pulled out his ID badge, “I can take you there, but how are you going to get the guards to let you look at the footage? I can still call my mom and make this an official police investigation.”

Alex dug into his pockets for a thumb drive, and then turned to Isobel, “I’m hoping you can influence the guard into letting me download the footage. If you can’t, then we will need to bring the sheriff into this.”

Isobel tapped her forehead knowingly, “If I can’t influence the guards to let you in, I can at least make one of them think he left his car unlocked or his coffee pot plugged in.”

“Let’s go then. Michael has been missing for at least an hour.”

Kyle tapped his badge at certain checkpoints, opening the electronic doors as they headed down to the security room. Alex made a mental note to scrub the ID tags once they were done, on the off chance someone was curious about the movements of a doctor who should have been long off duty.

The windowless room was covered in screens and held one guard boredly sipping his coffee while he watched a television show on his phone. There was a chance they didn’t need a psychic to gain access, but it was probably better safe than sorry.

Alex moved quickly after Isobel held the security guard’s mind in hers and slide behind the desk to call up the footage on the parking garage. Mindful of time, he plugged in his drive and started transferring all the raw data from the camera recordings. The antiquated hospital computing system did nothing to soothe the anxiety.

Long experience working with poor computing power and broken infrastructure while deployed in Iraq was the only thing that kept his inner impatience off his face. Touching the mouse or tapping his fingers never moved data faster.

Finally the file clicked over complete, he slid back from the bank of monitors, and nodded to Isobel. The security guard took a deep breath and look around briefly before picking up his phone and restarting the television show on his app.

The door clicked shut as the three of them hastened back to Liz’s lab. His hip barked at the hurried extension he placed on his body. With the clock ticking, the discomfort slipped into the box marked ‘to deal with later’. Once the drive was inserted, it was a matter of minutes to set up a scan for vehcile traffic entering and exiting the hospital parking lot.

Liz dug out a bottle of acetone for Isobel, who accepted it with a small smile and then nodded over to the laptop. “I hope you are having more luck with the security footage, than I am having with this drug.”

“I grabbed everything from the last 72 hours, just in case. It’s possible someone followed Michael to the hospital,” Alex balanced carefully onto the stool, keeping the weight off his prostetic. “I would have found a less populated area for a snatch and grab, but maybe they were worried about Michael’s powers and if so, then likely they scouted the view points of the cameras before they made their move to minimize their exposure. At least that’s what I would have done, if I had discarded the open road or home as possible targets.”

“Well we all know what a paranoid and careful asshole you are, Alex.” Kyle observed, working on a second set of samples.

“I try not to repeat my mistakes.”

“Like Caulfield?” Isobel asked pointed.

A sharp stab of pain went through him at the reminder. As if the prison ever left his mind for a moment these days. “Yes, like Caulfield. I should have found a more covert way to gain information than assume it was abandoned. I should have realized my dad had more going on than surveillance on Roswell.”

Kyle touched Alex’s shoulder with a comforting clasp, “At least we know he’s not personally behind this. Master Sergeant's main nurse likes me, she would have called if something had changed.”

Alex stayed silent, knowing that his next task would be gaining access to the long term rest home in Santa Fe where they had transferred his comatose father after he had attacked Kyle. There had been initial protests regarding the forged records until he had pointed out the other option had been to kill Jesse.

The classic body Chevy truck flashed on the screen with the timecode marking it as Michael’s arrival at the hospital. Alex paused and marked the frame for reference, then eased through the later clips watching for his exit. There were two cameras concentrated on the parking lot, one at the entrance/exit, and one with a long panoramic view of the lot, primarily to ward off a car thief or would-be mugger. It was grainy in grey scale, but at least he could be thankful that Michael drove such a distinctive truck. The task of finding an unremarkable Honda Prisius would have been daunting.

His hand stilled as he paused the footage on the slow but unmistakable swagger of a figure striding away from the hospital entrance toward the parked Chevy. Michael’s black cowboy hat hid his face but even absent such an identifiable marker Alex was sure could have picked out his body in a sea of others without question.

Michael reached his truck with no issue, unlocking the driver’s side door. His hand swept off his hat and casually tossed it into the front seat of the cab. Behind him, in the next parking aisle a nondescript panel van, a door opened slid open and a glint peeked out. Michael reached behind his neck, his body half in the truck and slapping at the skin there.

Alex inhaled sharply, fear and dread rising. It was a terrible thing to watch knowing it had already happened. Two figures dressed in plain dark clothing emerged from the van, and started toward the truck. Michael’s body half fell from the cab, and curled around the front wheel. Alex watched as the two effortlessly brushed off the weak struggles to fight their grasp of Michael’s shoulders, tugging him backward to the waiting van.

His body was tossed without care into the back, the door sliding shut blocking the last view of Michael. The two men split up from the van, circling around to the front doors. Alex numbly clicked on the frame, saving it, and switched over to the second camera focused on the entrance.

Watching his brother Flint calmly pay the ticket machine was not much of a surprise at this point.

“Kyle, I’m going to need you to call your nurse friend to check on my father.” He was proud that his voice was calm and even, despite the rising sickness within. “The good news is, this wasn’t a government issued black ops team that took Michael.”

“And the bad news?” Isobel prompted.

“It was personal, which means they aren’t as invested in keeping him alive.”

* * * *

[Isobel details their mental bond. That it feels blank]

“I was always closer with Max. I don’t know if it was a twin thing or being raised together, but Michael was always harder to connect with until recently. We’ve been practicing so much together, he started to take up a bit of space here, “ she patted her chest. “Not enough to fill the void where Max was, but enough that I could tell if he was happy or if he was angry. Strong emotions only came through. Lately it was a lot of anger but he wouldn’t tell me what was going on… “

“And now? Do you feel him now?”

Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head. “It’s empty. Blank. Like it was when we kids before he moved back to Roswell. I think he’s still alive, but he feels very far away, or very weak.”

[Alex waits patiently for the call. He thinks this is going to be an exchange of Michael for his dad, until he realizes his dad is not at the long-term care facility any more]

[Round table discussion at Max’s house to figure out what Jesse wants. Isobel finds out more about the shared past of Michael and Alex- and Maria shows up at the end looking for Michael]

“It’s been 2 days, why hasn’t your dad called with his demands? Is he not reading from the classic villain script this time?” Isobel wondered bitterly. “What is with your family, Alex?”

Kyle injected, “We don’t know that Sergant Manes is involved.”

“Don’t we? He disappeared from the nursing home just before Michael was taken. It seems pretty convenient timing to me.”

Alex pressed his fingers under his eyelids to relieve the building pressure. It had been a long two days of nothing after he received the call that the psuedonmyn he had checked his dad in unrder was no longer a patient in the long-term coma ward in Sante Fe. The staff was calling it a miracle that just after a devoted son had prayed at his bedside, he had woken up. Alex knew it was anything but divine intervention to have Jesse awake and free in the world.

“Isobel is right, this has Dad written all over it. Somehow Flint found out what had happened and woke him up. It’s been two days because I’m guessing he is still weak from the inactivity.”

Liz stirred from her claimed spot on the couch, cracking an eyelid. “What makes you think there’s going to be a demand, Isobel? Manes has what he wants, a new alien to test and torture. If you look at the research side of things, the aliens in Caulfield were all weak and elderly, and Michael’s a healthy 28 year old. Whatever fucked up weapon he was developing might need a younger test subject.”

“Now there’s a comforting thought.” Kyle muttered.

“I don’t think it’s research. This still feels personal to me. Michael still has an offensive power to defend himself with, the softer target would have been Isobel if he just wanted an alien to grab.”

“Gee, thanks Alex. Come closer and I’ll show you what I’ve been working on and see if you think I’m still a soft target after I turn your skull into crushed bone.”

***

Alex’s fingers were numb, as he pressed in his code to access his Whatsapp account. Waiting in his inbox was an unknown number and a video attachment. He abruptly dropped into the deck chair as the video opened to his worst fear made real.

Michael’s left eye was swollen shut, blood staining from the corner of his forehead, dripping down his cheek bone. His arms were stretched high above his head, disappearing out of frame. His shirt was missing, and there were sluggishly wounds striping over his shoulder and licking across his collar bone.

The camera turned, Michael blurring out of view. The monster that starred in seventy percent of his nightmares filled the screen. “Hello, Alex. I was hoping to keep you out of this, son, but this creature is being very uncooperative.”

Off screen, he heard a weak, “Go fuck yourself, Manes. I keep telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jesse nodded to someone out of frame, and Michael screamed in agonizing pain. Long hiccuping gasps for air puncuated another softer, “fuck you.”

“Like I said, uncooperative. When we last saw each other, you had something that belonged to me. Jim Valenti stole it from our base, and refused to tell me what he had done with it despite my best efforts at persuading him.”

Michael cried out again, choking on a soft sob. Alex forced himself to watch, drinking in every detail for his later plans.

“With N-38 gone, I can’t hurt this thing the same way I did dear old Jim so I’ve had to get creative. Electricity just makes some of them stronger, but good old heat and sharp still work on them. We both know you can break its bones with enough force.” Jesse turned, pointing the camera toward Michael again, focusing on the dangling bare feet. “There are more bones per square inch in the foot, than anywhere else in the body. I am telling you this so you don’t doubt my resolve. This thing is relatively harmless for its kind, and I’m willing to return it to you in more or less good condition, if you bring me what Valenti stole. Let me know what you decide to do.”

The video cut off.

****

There was an expected role to play, like there always was when Jesse Manes was involved. Once it meant peppering his speech with ‘yes sir’ and ‘sorry sir’ and toning down his clothing in hopes of escaping his fists, and when that proved futile, it went in the opposite direction with makeup, nail polish, and piercings.

For all of his proud talk about the service, his father never served anywhere but stateside. His knowledge of tactical defense and enemy counter measures were likely twenty years of date, and Alex was counting on his father’s pride from keeping him unaware of the technology shift. The set up of the Project Shepherd bunker confirmed that.

He tucked his personal side arm into his thigh holster, securing to his left leg and reached for his secondary weapon to slip into his boot strapped to his prosthetic. The weight of the kevlar and vest registered briefly on his shoulders before it slipped into the blank shroud that had enveloped him as soon as he heard Michael’s cries. Knives and a pair of percussive grenades weighed down each side of his pockets.

A floorboard behind him creaked, his gun cleared the holster before his mind caught up on who would have followed him to his cabin. It was a little concerning that the sound of a vehicle hadn’t registered until now.

“Whoa, don’t shoot.” Kyle lifted his hands, halting abruptly. He took in the dark clothing, combat hardware and the array of weapons spread on the cabin’s table. “I guess we are going full cliche today, good to know.”

Alex dropped his arm away, resecuring his gun. “Then you know what I’m going to say already.”

“Humor me, then. This is a trap, Alex.”

“I’m well aware.” Alex flipped open a black case and pulled out his phone and laptop. Carefully he pulled out three silver discs, and a pair of jeweler’s glasses. He sat down in the chair, slipping the glasses on to peer down at the discs. “I’m going anyway.”

Kyle sighed, aggrieved. “Well I did promise Guerin if he got his ass kidnapped by the government, I would come to his rescue.”

Alex didn’t look up from his work, pressing a small pin on each disc. “You’re not going with me, Kyle.”

“I know this face is distractingly handsome, but tell me you remember all the time we spent on the range together as kids. I can shoot a gun.”

“Shooting a paper target is different from shooting at a human being.” Each disc beeped softly, then went silent. He pulled the glasses off with a satisfied smirk, “Besides, I need you to come with the cavalry. These are military grade GPS trackers that I’ve linked to my laptop and my phone. Once my father sees I’m there without the piece of the ship, he’ll take me to Michael so he can teach me a lesson.”

“What makes you think your dad won’t find these trackers?”

“I’m sure he will, but I’ve got a back up plan on that as well. My father has underestimated me my entire life. He thinks I am weak, that my emotions and desires cloud my judgment. He’s going to see he was wrong.”

“Alex.” Kyle hesitated, struggling for a moment before taking a seat at the table. He gently laid his hand on Alex’s wrist, stilling the other man. “We all want Guerin back safe but I want you to consider for a moment that your father is right, that your emotions are clouding your judgment. Because what I’m seeing right now is kind of freaking me out, dude. You’re dressed from head to toe in black ops murder gear with GPS trackers, which I didn’t even know you could buy, talking about going in alone, guns blazing, against your dad.”

“I got them on Ebay.”

“That’s what you’re choosing to focus on?”

“What are my other options, Kyle? He’s got Michael. He’s had him for two days, and there is exactly zero chance he doesn’t want both the UFO fragment and Michael.” Alex wrenched his hand away,. He inhaled deeply and pushed down the swell of thoughts of what had already happened to Michael in two days.

“I agree, but back when I laid him out with barbiturates in our bunker, you and I had a discussion about killing him. I seem to remember we decided against that.”

“No, Kyle, you decided against it and I went along with it. Which was clearly a mistake. This has been a long time coming, okay? He brought this on himself when he took Michael.”

“I knew there was no talking you out of this. I just don’t want you to do this alone.”

* * *

The lights were all on at the formerly known as Evans-Bracken residence, now just Evans.

“You look like you’re ready to storm the castle.” Isobel commented, before pushing the door open and turning back into the house. “I still haven’t felt anything from Michael. He could be dead, and all of this would be pointless.”

Alex winced and acknowledged the point before pushing the thought down. “He’s not dead.”

“How do you know? Your so-called cosmic connection?” She sipped from the glass in her hand, the scent of chemicals wafted to him. It was clearly not water.

Gently he wrapped his fingers around her hand, guiding the glass away before resting it on the table next to him. “Maybe, but in reality, if he was dead, my father would have taken someone else as leverage and he would have taunted me with my failure to protect Michael.”

****

[ So as you can see it needs a massive rewrite to fix my characterization- but I still like the plot of Jesse taking Michael for the ship piece- especially since the show fumbled on this so badly in 2x10-2x11. ]

#oh man early hiatus fic has a feel don't it?#Anonymous

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guerins · 5 years ago

Text

a little summary of fehr and mo’s insta live

HEAT WAVE RE-WATCH - April 20th (2020)

It took Brendan a minute to figure out how to add Majandra to the live feed.

She was wearing a sickass robe. Said robe was discussed like halfway the feed.

They were both drinking. Brendan: red wine and vodka. Majanda: who knows (I think it was also wine. I don’t remember if she said it, though)

Did they toast each other you ask? They sure did. Glasses clinked the screens; I shit you not

Majandra said she wanted to watch the episode beforehand, to prepare herself.

She did. But only the beginning because she could not get through the first scene due to embarrassment.

On the live feed we saw her embarrassment fist hand. Brendan was also feeling weird about it.

She kept looking away, talking to distract herself.

He said the reason why he kept talking while the scene was on, was so he could distract himself from what was happening on the screen as well.

They discussed Majandra’s sweeping abilities -or lack thereof- and Brendan’s mom being on set while they filmed that make-out scene at the crashdown.

They were dating while they filmed that ep. They were on the early stages of ‘courting’ as Majandra put it, so Brendan’s mom being on set did make her nervous.

Brendan said they should not have been making out on the floor of the diner. He said something along the lines of ‘That place if full of cooking grease!’

He shared a little anecdote about how he was on his trailer one day, someone knocks on his door, he opens and ‘oh, majandra delfino is there’

She went to him to rehearse their first kiss. They barely knew each other. Hated each other (she more than him, apparently). And she went and said she needed to see what he kissed llike to prepare herself for the actual scene. So, they would rehearse the kiss scenes. They would make out on his trailer and then film the scenes. Yes, SCENES. As in, MORE THAN ONE. I repeat, this happened MORE THAN ONCE. Majandra claimed she wanted to know what it would be like, so it’d look/ feel good on screen.

Majandra said she now realizes how unprofessional that was, but at the time she didn’t think it was weird. Brendan, on the other hand, thought it was a weird thing to do and still does. Not that she refused to kiss her back then tho…

The hair was a big topic of discussion.

Majandra kept apologizing about hers.

Although they both praised Brendan’s hair.

Brendan said he still has that red shirt from when they’re making out at the eraser room. He said one of his daughters wears it all the time.

Hey, did you guys know the girl playing Vicky Delaney (Kyle’s date at the soap factory) was actually a 40 year-old woman?! Huh. Go figure.

Majandra saying to Brendan that they are now the age the actress is and they don’t look nearly as good. Brendan agreeing.

Majandra said she loved Liz’s voice. That she loved how Shiri would sound different when she played Liz.

The love they got for Diane (Amy Deluca)!!!! Majandra said she was too young to be playing her mom.

Brendan saying how he can now appreciate the grownups scenes and how cool it was that Bill Sadler (Valenti) got to have that storyline with Diane. How he didn’t care about the adult scenes back then because he was kind of a dick and whenever he saw the scenes with the grown-up actors, he’d ask why those scenes were even necessary.

Majandra agreeging. She said that whenever she watched ‘My so-called life’ she would hate the adults scenes because they were boring in her eyes.

They now realize those scenes were actually very important.

THE LOVE FOR COLIN! ♥

Majandra: He looks like a baby! Look at his clothes.

Brendan: He was great. I love this relationship he had with Liz. Maria was the best friend but he was also there…

Majandra: Yeah, it was like a trio.

Brendan: (or was it Majandra who said this?) He was the third sister.

Majandra: But Maria was number one. [laughs]

They discussed the turtle neck. Or, as Brendan put it, the ball of yarn Majandra was wearing.

This was a good hair day for Brendan btw, just in case you were wondering. He confirmed it.

The Stargazer relationship was talked about. They had nothing but love for those two.

Brendan addresses Katie’s PJs

Brendan: Katie was really great.

Majandra made the observation of what a sweet guy Alex was to be having this kind of dream about Isabel, and not something entirely different.

Brendan: He even got a tuxedo.

Majandra: Look at the boombox. Like ‘Say Anything.’

Once again, back to the clothes. Brendan’s t-shirt in the bathroom when he and Max talk about how ‘it has gotten complicated’ (Brendan actually said that line twice when this scene came on), he said he still has that shirt and he had to fight to let them wear it on the episode. Apparently, everyone was against it, he had to convince them. The t-shirt has some horses on it.

Brendan also stole a bunch of clothes and memorabilia, Majandra was not so lucky. She went to get some of Maria’s clothes only to find out it was all given to some producer’s daughter. So, when the show was over, she parked her car, opened the trunk and got whatever she could in there. Ended up getting the clothes the adult actors wore.

The way Jason looks at Liz when they’re dealing with the ‘mating ritual’. Majandra said ‘look at Jasons eyes! Ahhhhh’

The golden top maria wears at the soap factory? Majandra didn’t remember it. BRENDAN DID.

What Majandra remembers is that at this point in time in real life, they were sort of on the outs. Mimicking fiction. As they usually did. They were on and off during the entire series and funnily enough, when the characters were fighting, so were they irl. She said that she believed there was a scene in this ep she remembers which means they were sort of fighting.

They talked about how it was also difficult filming when they were on a fight irl but Maria and Michael were doing great. Those were hard days filming. They would come to set and everyone would have to figure out and read the vibe to see how they were doing. Lol.

Majandra saying how it was kind of unbelievable that Isabel would go for a guy like Alex. That she was so beautiful, she looked like she could be dating a college guy. Also, she praised that Isabel chose Alex, she gave the good guy a chance instead of going for a different type.

When they got to the ‘maybe we should have never started this’ Majandra confirmed that they were definitely on the outs irl at this point of the series. She again apologizes for her hair.

Brendan says he was worried about the humidity in this scene because of his hair. He was very protective of his hair. He wouldn’t let anyone touch it. Even today he gets nervous when he goes to get a haircut.

They talked about Valenti’s phone when he’s on a date with Amy. Well, it wasn’t Valenti’s phone, it was the restaurant’s phone but they thought it was Valenti’s cellphone and that he carried it around on his pocked or something. They had a good laugh about it because the phone was huge.

They talked about Majandra’s old phone back in the day. Which was both a cellphone and a walkie. (A nokia, I think they said. It was yellow? I don’t remember the color.)

They could not get through the jail scene. Kept saying ‘when is this gonna end? This jail scene is so long.’ Lol

To be fair, they were right.

They praised Alex for standing up to Valenti. Talked about Liz making the index finger signal as she tells Alex about Max, Michael and Isabel.

Brendan mentions Liz’s crazy eyes in this scene and why Michael was clearly right no to trust her.

Brendan: Look at her, she’s telling him the secret. Knew I couldn’t trust her.

Majandra: Yeah, she’s telling everybody.

Brendan: The bars in the jail. Are they real?

Majandra: What if they started to bend?

[laughs]

[more laughs]

Liz’s roof? All fake. The ladder was short. Not that short though.

Brendan: Yeah, Jason wasn’t on his knees climbing up that ladder.

Majandra: Can you imagine if he was though?

[laughs]

Brendan: Is this their first kiss?

Majandra: It is. I think.

Brendan: He even lifts up her shirt a little! That’s ballsy.

END OF EPISODE.

For the little Q&A

They said they would do the live feed again. Next episode to re-watch would be 285 South (maybe) because that got a lot of votes and they love that episode. Brendan said they should probably do one ep from each season. They talked about B&T. They have a second trailer. They filmed it. (We already knew this. Well…we assumed, but now we know for sure it’s out there.) They are very protective of this new project and getting it done so that’s why they haven’t released the trailer. They are sort of saving it for reasons. They have talked to networks, and continue to work to bring the show to life. There are things they want to keep, easter eggs, like the tobasco bottle, among others, so they are fighting to get those things to stay in the story.

They zoom with Nick and Jason very – and I mean VERY-often. Apparently the four of them are really good friends. They said maybe they could do a live feed with them. And they would also love to have them on B&T, obviously. Actually, they’d love to get as many actors as possible that were on Roswell to join B&T.

They were asked to describe each other in one word. Brendan said the word for Majandra back then wouldn’t be the same as now. They were asked to choose two words to describe each other, one for back then, one for now. Brendan went with ‘Passionate’ and ‘Loyal.’ Majadra said of Brendan he was ‘Blunt’ and now he is ‘LOUD.’ “Crazy, frustrating, agitated, stubborn” were other words to describe each other they used. Majandra said she thought Brendan had a condition, that that was the reason why he talks so loud nowadays. Brendan made sure we all knew that he does not. That’s just the way he talks.

Gags: When Brendan connected for the second video, he had trouble adding Majandra to the live feed (AGAIN) so he grabbed the ipad/tablet/or whatever from where he had it set, to try and work it out. And when Majandra finally appeared on screen, he dropped the ipad/tablet/or whatever to the floor. More specifically to the back of his desk. When he was setting it back on the table, he nearly dropped his glass of wine or flask (?) of vodka. Majandra laughed, he made a panicky funny face.

If I forgot something, I apologize. If remembered something incorrectly (like, who said what) please forgive me, I’m only human. Also, I wrote this down on Monday night after the live feed. Well, it was like, 4 am so… it was actually Tuesday. I was worried if I waited longer, I would forget more details. Anyway, I hope this was helpful somehow. Love you all♥

#roswell #brendan fehr #majandra delfino #roswell cast #Baron and Toluca #sm #live feed sum heat wave #let's hope this becomes a weekly thing ♥#fehr and mo's roswell rewatch #ketchup and two muffins

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