#and more but these are the ones i was gifset hunting when i got upset

[might-be-a-drag]

why am i (person obsessed with a handful of netflix shows that failed to break containment) forced to see squid game and wendsday and all those in the tags for said shows to such a degree i can barely find any content at all from the shows i'm actually looking for scattered amongst all the big name stuff? does not help that the names of these shows must be differentiated with 'netflix' in the tag bc they're common words. is this tumblr sucking or people over tagging the fuck out of shit?

[chamomileteainabuttercup]

beboots

How about Jangobi, with 4, 16, 36, 37?

Thanks for playing!  This one is a little bit of a challenge because, as I noted before, this is a ship I don’t really think about unless a particular gifset reappears on my dash and then I think about it for like fifteen minutes.  Getting it to work requires changing the plot quite a lot, of course, and I prefer to get the changes going from the very start of their interaction. 

4.  First impression of each other? Was it love at first sight?

Temuera Morrison has noted that at the beginning of the scene, his “hospitable Māori” impulse was to offer Obi-Wan a cup of tea, but since he wasn’t sure they have cups of tea in space he decided to just stick to the script.  

So in my version, he does offer him a cup of tea and Obi-Wan accepts and so they sit down with their tea and it’s all rather disarming.  Obi-Wan is still highly suspicious of Jango (which is only sensible) and Jango is still playing everything very close to the chest, but the mood is slightly softened by the sharing of tea - and if they’re feeling lavish, biscuits too.  Obi-Wan’s head is full of questions, like “What sort of man is this?  Ruthless bastard, or perhaps not totally ruthless, given the little boy?  Was he involved in an assassination attempt on a rather good friend of mine?  What can I find out about all this cloning business from him without letting him know how little I knew in the first place?” while Jango has two main questions, “How much does he know?” and “Am I going to have to do something about him?”  And he’d rather not have to do something about him, because he likes the look of him and this kind of cagey verbal game-playing is his idea of a bit of light fun.  Then again, he is a Jedi and they generally spell trouble - but there’s no reason not to enjoy being around him while the opportunity lasts. 

Oh, and while this conversation is going on, Boba is sitting on the floor nearby playing with his space Lego and every time Obi-Wan glances that way he’s looking daggers of suspicion at him.  Obi-Wan actually finds it rather amusing to be glared at like that by a cute little kid (he’s like an angry kitten) so he just smiles back and twinkles his eyes at him (Boba looks disgusted), and asks Jango how old his son is, and they agree that eleven’s a very nice age, before all the teen angst begins. 

Jango says calmly, “I’m not expecting to have much trouble with Boba,” and Obi-Wan replies, “Ha!  I wasn’t expecting to have this much trouble with Anakin,” so that gets them onto the difficulties and rewards of bringing up a bright and adventurous boy, whether as his dad or as a sort of older brother figure, and sharing stories about things Boba and Anakin have said and done, and before Obi-Wan knows it they’ve been chatting for an hour and he’s got completely side-tracked from finding out about clone skulduggery and has slipped into flirting with Jango fairly shamelessly.  Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Obi-Wan will flirt with more or less anything that can talk back, but he’s realising that there’s an awful lot of charisma about Jango and he’s beginning to feel fascinated. 

So no love at first sight, but in later years (because they do have later years together, Jango doesn’t lose his head) Obi-Wan likes to say, “You had me at ‘cuppa tea?’”

(but he really sealed the deal when he offered him a Tim Tam)

16.  Do they keep secrets? Lie? Cheat?

To start out, Jango is keeping all sorts of secrets and lies freely whenever he considers it necessary, or just convenient.  It’s only gradually, as he grows to like Obi-Wan personally more and more, that he begins to want to be honest with him.  For a while they have one of those “frenemies who encounter one another occasionally and engage in flirtatious banter and/or homoerotic combat” type relationships, but over the course of the Clone Wars as they meet again and again they get into situations where they need to trust and help each other, and Jango has cut ties with the Separatists because he prefers to be a free agent, and Obi-Wan begins to hope that if he had a strong enough personal reason, Jango might want to lay off the shady business and... and there he runs up against the fact that he shouldn’t be thinking in these terms, he can’t have that sort of relationship with Jango any more than he could with Satine, he just really really wants to.  And at least Jango doesn’t have a philosophical or ethical problem with violence. 

Obi-Wan isn’t actually celibate, he squares it with himself that his flirtations and anonymous hook-ups aren’t deep attachments or possessive relationships and therefore they are within the letter if not entirely the spirit of the rules, and the first few times it happens with Jango that justification works, but it starts to wear thin when he realises how much he misses him after he leaves.  When Jango, thinking he’ll surprise Obi-Wan when he unexpectedly sees him in a bar, walks in on one such hook-up, he’s angry and upset and Obi-Wan is rather shocked and thrilled to realise Jango considers this cheating, that he cares  enough to have hurt feelings about it.  He’d been thinking of himself as emotionally compromised without quite realising Jango couldn’t just take or leave him.  That’s really the “Oh” moment for Obi-Wan. 

So after a while they’re not keeping secrets from each other, but Obi-Wan is working very hard to keep the relationship a secret from the other Jedi, including his closest friends, and telling a lot of lies in the process (there is at least one comedy episode wherein Obi-Wan is trying to sneak away to see Jango and Anakin is trying to sneak away to see Padmé and each keeps getting in the other’s way without ever realising there is sneakiness on the other side). 

Not to mention keeping it a secret from all the clones.  Boy, is that a weird situation. 

36.  What’s their greatest strength as a couple? Their weakness?

They have excellent chemistry and both love sparking off each other, verbally and/or more physically.  They always find each other exciting and interesting.  Not so much a weakness as an obstacle is the fact that Boba still really doesn’t like Obi-Wan and doesn’t need a stepdad and thinks he has stupid hair (that part really stings).  He’s always been the apple of his father’s eye and never had to share his attention with anyone else he really cared about, so his dad actually falling in love with someone makes him feel insecure and jealous and grumpy.  Obi-Wan’s attempts to win him over are complicated by the fact that he can’t actually explain to anyone else why he’s trying so hard to be nice to snotty teen bounty hunting prodigy Boba Fett.  Boba really enjoys holding this over his head - but will never actually drop the blade because, as little as he likes his dad’s boyfriend, he is just grown-up enough to realise it would really hurt his dad if he spoiled things for them, and he doesn’t want to go that far.

37.  How much would they be willing to sacrifice for the other? Any lines they refuse to cross?

That’s the big problem, isn’t it?  Crossing lines.  Obi-Wan has a very strong moral, religious and cultural code, and he can’t sacrifice that without undoing his whole sense of identity.  He can be dangerously complacent about the rightness of the Jedi Order and the Republic it defends and persists in believing that if Jango only understood more about the Jedi he would accept that rightness.  From his perspective it often appears as if Jango doesn’t have a moral code at all. 

From Jango’s point of view, yes he does, but it’s very pragmatic and based more on principles of loyalty and personal integrity than on adherence to any laws or rules.  If he’s true to himself and to the small circle of people he cares about, that’s all that matters.  He cannot and will not compromise on his duty to Boba as a father, and that comes before even all those complicated issues of Mandalorian politics - but those issues will inevitably cause problems for them too, particularly given that even if he’s been able to get over his romantic feelings for Satine as his feelings for Jango grew, she’s still one of Obi-Wan’s oldest and dearest friends and he doesn’t want her to be overthrown.  And of course Jango is far from the only person who might want to overthrow her. 

Somehow all this is going to eventually involve a lightsaber/Darksaber duel between Maul and Jango in the Mandalorian throne room.  Holy shit that would be cool.  Fuck yeah!

uhhhh I don’t know whether or how any of this gets resolved but there’ll be ANGST and STURM UND DRANG and other German words for heavy shit.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 18, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Hey OP where’s the funny header gif for this post? Sorry, it was murdered by an angst demon and the framing of these shots.

My Found Family Came to Find Me

Continuing our flashback from last time, we see Baby Wei Ying up a tree, refusing to come down because he's afraid there are dogs. Eventually he falls out of the tree, like a dumbass a child, and Yanli tries but fails to catch him. 

Unlike his grownup counterpart, Baby Wei Ying doesn't pretend he's unhurt when he is hurt. I'd like to put the change at Yu Ziyuan's door, but actually he admits to being hurt during his Gusu summer - he mimics Lan Zhan's stoicism when they're getting beaten, but it doesn't come naturally to him, and he whines a lot afterwards. 

By the time of the Animatronic Dog incident, however, he's laughing off obvious injuries that have secret trauma behind them. By the time he comes back, coreless, from the burial mounds, he won't confide in anyone about his hurts any more, except possibly Wen Qing.

Yanli carries Wei Ying, in a sequence that will be echoed much later in his life when Lan Zhan carries him (gifset here). While they head back, she tells him that Jiang Cheng has a bad temper and to ignore whatever mean things he says. This will also be echoed in the future, when Wei Wuxian says it to Lan Zhan after their argument with Jiang Cheng in the shrine.

Yanli also explains that Jiang Cheng loved his dogs and that he's been very sad since Jiang Fengmian sent them away, demonstrating once again that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father. Yanli says that Jiang Cheng will be happy to have a friend with him, though. This kind of makes Wei Wuxian's role in Jiang Cheng's life "replacement dog."

Jiang Cheng, after getting over this particular snit, got worried about Wei Wuxian and woke up Yanli to find him, and then went wandering around in the dark like a dumbass a child, and is banged up and crying when the other two find him. Yanli encourages him to apologize to Wei Wuxian and he does, which will not happen again until the very end of the show.  

They all smile and laugh together, as Wei Ying looks to Yanli to guide him through the insanity that his life has suddenly become. 

(more behind the cut!)

They head back to Lotus Pier in a sweet montage of walking and smiling together, with Jiang Cheng carrying the world's most beautiful candle holder with the world's most wind-resistant candle in it, to light their way back. Back in the present day for a brief moment, Jiang Cheng pretends to sleep and listens to his sister insisting that the three of them should always stay together, while a single tear rolls down the side of his face.

Soup is Love, Chapter 1 of 1000

Then we head to the past again. In Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying's now-shared room, Wei Ying sits on the bed trying to figure out how to deal with his grumpy new roommate.

Wei Ying is unsure what to do when confronted with pajama game this strong. Tiny Jiang Cheng is already a fashion king. 

Then he tells Jiang Cheng he's not going to narc him out to the clan leader, since it was his own fault that he hurt his leg. This is all Jiang Cheng needs to hear to decide Wei Ying is all right, and he says that he will help Wei Ying chase away dogs in the future.  In fact, Wei Wuxian will protect Jiang Cheng from punishment basically forever, while Jiang Cheng will continue to threaten Wei Wuxian with dogs...forever.

They shake hands on their new understanding and then jump up and down laughing, Wei Ying's leg being all better now, apparently.  When Yanli arrives (carrying a tray of...can you guess? I'll let you guess), they stop jumping. Wei Ying dives in to give Jiang Cheng a little tickle/embrace in an adorable moment that would have me saying "oh, my ovaries!" if I hadn't surgically sent my ovaries to hell a few years ago.

Yanli introduces Wei Ying to the emotional and gustatorial miracle that is her lotus and ribs soup. He hesitates a long time before tucking in because he's so unused to being fed.

Consent? I Don’t Even Know Her

The flashback wraps up with Yanli conked out on the table from the drugs in the incense burner, while Wei Wuxian, who is somehow unaffected despite sitting almost as close to the smoke as she was, checks on her. Jiang Cheng and his Uggs period-appropriate sock thingies get out of bed to come stand with Wei Wuxian, and have feelings about sending Yanli away after she JUST said she doesn't want to be parted from them.

Wei Wuxian: If she didn't want us to do this, she shouldn't have signed that blanket consent-to-medical-treatment form.   Jiang Cheng: Wen Qing made me sign one of those plus a durable power of attorney, is that bad?

This episode is all about people overriding each others' agency and making massively important decisions without the consent of the people who will be affected. But in a feudal context, it's not a violation, no matter how it feels to the person being controlled. In feudal life, your body belongs to your lord -- your sect leader, in the world of CQL. Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng's choices are overridden by their clan leader's final command to Wei Wuxian.  Wei Wuxian's core is arguably Jiang Fengmian's property--Wei Wuxian certainly sees it that way, just as his hand was Yu Ziyuan's to take if she wished.  

The brothers tenderly tuck Yanli into bed in the rolly cart and hand her off to Song Lan. They talk about how important it is to get her to Lanling and that she's probably going to be mad, as they thank Song Lan for helping them. 

Yanli listens while she sleeps and, in what is becoming a trademark Jiang move, lets a single tear roll down the side of her face. Jiang Cheng points out that Yanli never gets mad at Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is like, true dat.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Song Lan is always so emotional about every damn thing, I love him. Here he's like OH GOD NO DON'T FORMALLY THANK ME! STOP!!!

Then he starts to ask Wei Wuxian to pass a message to Song Xingchen for him, but then decides not to say anything, making it super obvious that they fought and aren't together. 

Wei Wuxian reacts to this with confusion and distress, probably because he doesn't want to imagine ever having a breakup with his own soulmate. Which he soon will be having.  But possibly he's just upset that his OTP broke up.

After Song Lan takes off, Jiang Cheng gives Wen Qing a rude & perfunctory thank-you bow, turning away before she can return it. Wei Wuxian tells her not to take it to heart - basically everyone who deals with Jiang Cheng gets a version of the "ignore what he says" speech. She says she understands and that in his place she would have behaved worse, which is so totally not true.  

Then she asks Wei Wuxian if he's sure about the core transfer (not in so many words, because the script is being kind of being vague about it, without actually hiding what's happening). His reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then he and Jiang Cheng walk off, with Jiang Cheng giving us a rear view that had me googling Wang Zhuocheng's fashion shoots to determine if that wagon he's draggin’ is really as delightful as this belt makes it look. Alas, there is not a wealth of photographic evidence for this research, as compared to, for example, photos of Xiao Zhan's outstanding ass.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning see them off, with Wen Qing wishing they valued their lives more. Although, what she and Wen Ning are doing is massive treason, so their lives will be pretty much forfeit if they're caught, so...

The Sunshot Campaign of Like 60 Dudes

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng walk up the mountain for the whole beginning of the Sunshot campaign, which...okay. Maybe it's like Dunkirk or The Witcher where they intercut stuff that is happening in different timeframes, which is one of my least favorite new film style thingies.

You know, for a guy Wei Wuxian constantly calls "peacock," Jin Ziyuan really doesn't wear a lot of adornment; just some subtle metalwork on his belt with no dangly bits at all, and a single reasonably-sized hair crown. Compared to the extremely fancy Lan Wangji he's almost plain. We already know that Wei Wuxian is a massive hypocrite when it comes to his idea of a perfect boy, however.

So, this is the Lanling Jin army, which consists of literally 60 guys, including the ones on the stairs and Jin Zixuan and Douchebag Dad. How are they going to fight a war with this tiny group? Why do they have such a big plaza? Hasn't anybody on this production learned CGI cloning?

That’s better.

Nie Mingjue and his best bitch Baxia make quick work of the 4 Wen guys who were assigned to hold the Unclean Realm. 

Hello, Daddy Da-Ge!

Squeeee, it's Lan Wangji! He's taking back Cloud Recesses! Ooooohhh we've missed you Lan Wangji.

Look guys he's here! Look how beautiful he is. He's looking at the gate of cloud recesses and thinking thoughts that Lan Xichen or Wei Wuxian could probably see in his bewitching eyes if they were here to see him, which they aren't. But at least he is here!

....and now he's gone again. *cries*

Hares On The Mountains

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian continue roaming prettily around this pretty mountainside. The locations in this show are such eye candy. 

Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains  Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains  If I was a young lass I’d soon go a hunting

Jiang Cheng starts to have doubts about the whole Baoshan Sanren thing. Wei Wuxian's reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.  

Then we have just the tenderest blindfolding scene, (more gifs here), which is fodder for your ChengXian dreams, if you have those.

Here's a good place for a sidebar about what is and isn't incest. Whee! In the CDrama context, relationships tend to be more clearly defined than in western media. The mechanism of confession & acceptance means that people either are or are not in a romantic relationship, with few grey areas. So a character can literally say "we grew up as brother and sister, but now we are dating" and when someone looks startled they just say "there's no blood relation" and everyone is like "cool cool" and that's the new definition of the relationship.

For a strong example of this, the extremely wonderful Go Ahead is about a contemporary family in which a girl and two boys, who are not blood relatives, are all raised together, and call each other brother and sister. When they become adults, they and everyone around them expect the girl (now a woman) to marry one of the two men who have been her brothers, while whichever one she doesn't choose will carry on as her sibling. It's treated as the most natural, logical thing in the world; the only question is whether she wants to make that transition, and with whom.

Looked at through this lens, Wei Wuxian's relationships with his adoptive siblings have just as much potential to turn into romances as his relationships with his friends do, and there's nothing creepy about it. As such you can expect my meta to always get into ChengXian moments without treating it as a wrong or forbidden love. Hopeless, of course, because Jiang Cheng is such a prick the power of WangXian is stronger, but that's a different matter.

What is wrong is wearing this fantastic hat & veil combination when the most fashionable person on the mountain is blindfolded and can't see it.

In the course of this blindfolded encounter with Wen Qing, Jiang Cheng gets to kneel before a powerful woman, be led along by a length of silk that's placed in his hand, and then knocked the fuck out and operated on. He'll wake up in a hotel room in a tub full of ice with "we took your kidney" written on the mirror in lipstick, and he'll love every minute of it.  

Soundtrack: 1. Still Fighting it, by Ben Folds 2. Hares on the Mountain, by Steeleye Span

Writing Prompt: The NEXT time somebody blindfolds Jiang Cheng

[thegeminisage]

wAit i actually do want ur thoughts on how much u think michael was talking total shit i nthat bar

(here’s the post for context)

well firstly i think it’s an interesting juxtaposition between lucifer, the “bad son” who ostensibly doesn’t lie but merely tells uncomfortable truths*, and michael, the “good son” who not only lies all the fucking time, but knows the exact worst possible thing to say to anyone at any given time. I JUST THINK THAT’S NEAT. 

(*lucifer lies a lot in late seasons too because of antag decay, but like, the original concept of him was one of uncomfortable honesty.)

michael is willing to lie to get his way and does so frequently - starting with going back on the deal he made with dean, to leave him after they killed lucifer. he also does it when he shit-talks every last one of our protagonists in turn in 14.10, the episode the gifs are from. he starts with jack - telling him he’s nothing but a job, and dean wasn’t sad when he died, when we know that isn’t true (jack is visibly upset by this, which is part of why he chooses to use his powers later; michael successfully manipulated his enemy into doing harm to himself). after that michael goes in on cas, telling him that god doesn’t care about his world because it’s nothing but a failed draft (interestingly, cas is also visibly shaken by this).

then, before sam and cas enter dean’s mind, michael says that he WANTS them to do that - because his body might be all chained up, but in there, they don’t stand a chance. this is also untrue, because the whole purpose of him talking shit in that gifset to begin with is to stall so his monsters can rescue him. dean DOUBLES DOG DARES HIM to snap his fingers and nuke them all, and he doesn’t because he can’t. he didn’t want them in dean’s mind at all. he’s in trouble the whole time they’re in there and he KNOWS it.

as for what he said to sam, dean, and cas - yeah, this was also deeply untrue. the first thing he does is take a shot at cas; he claims that dean doesn’t care about cas, only feels obligated to help him out because of cas pulling him out of hell, and that cas, known fuck-up, is almost not worth the trouble. of course, WE know that isn’t true, and DEAN knows that isn’t true, and, being that cas was just looking through dean’s worst memories a few moments ago, and likely saw his own death there, HE probably knows it isn’t true too. (look at his face there compared to sam’s; he’s quite unbothered by the accusations, but shortly after looks away as though remembering something. the sheer magnitude of the lies michael is telling is what leads cas to figuring out in a moment that what michael is actually doing is stalling.) 

michael takes a swing at sam next, and this punch seems to hit the mark a little better - michael claims that dean was happiest when sam wasn’t around so it could be just him and john, alone together, just the two of them. it’s not in this gifset, but he also says “deep down, [dean] knows that you will always abandon him, again and again,” and sam shakes his head furiously. 

of course with what he went through at lucifer’s hands, sam has every reason in the world to be afraid of archangels, but i like to think he’s thinking about running away in flagstaff - i imagine the older sam got, the more he began to understand about the differing ways he & dean were abused by john. michael is striking at sam’s guilt for leaving dean alone to go to school, because he knows EXACTLY what dean’s life with john alone was like (more on that in a sec), but he’s also unknowingly striking at that flagstaff guilt. knowing something in your head and believing it in your heart are two entirely different matters - but i think logically sam is emotionally intelligent enough to know, most of the time, that the person at fault for dean’s abuse is his abuser. at the very least, he can be certain that dean was NOT happy when left alone with his father - dean’s neediness has been brought up in this series almost more times than i can count.

but both michael’s attack on cas and his attack on sam are ALSO attacks on dean, because dean will worry that sam and cas WILL think it’s all true - which is why michael says it. sam and cas are there as dean’s support system because dean isn’t strong enough to fight michael on his own. michael is SMART and the smartest thing to do is to drive a wedge between dean and his rescuers as quickly as possible. 

dean’s face here is absolutely INCREDULOUS. not only is this evidence that everything michael is saying is wildly untrue, but that he knows exactly how untrue it is - after all, he’s in dean’s head. michael’s goal isn’t to expose an ugly truth, it’s to strike at insecurities and weak points with untruths. the very next thing he says to dean is “you don't need them. you don't even like them. they're not your family, they're your responsibilities. they're a weight around your neck, & deep down, you were desperate to get away from them - that's why you said yes.”

dean goes from incredulous to disgusted in a big hurry once michael starts implying that dean believes sam’s going to abandon him again, and he gets out-and-out angry once michael actually does hit on the smallest kernal of truth - that dean sometimes felt burdened by the responsibilities of caring for his family. i think dean only getting truly angry THERE is indicative of how much bullshit the rest of it was. 

...including (told you we’d get back to this) the fact that dean was happy to be left alone with john. as we can see from his face - his “michael-is-lying” face - dean was NOT AT ALL HAPPY that it was just the two of them. consider:

john is a control freak - he expects instant and unquestioning obedience from his sons at all times. dean explains to sam later (and john himself confirms this near the season finale) that john equates control to protection. "dad was never disappointed in you...he was afraid of what could've happened to you if he wasn't around." "when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all i could think about, my only thought was, that you were gonna be alone, vulnerable." john, in his insane quest for vengeance and in his constant paranoia, wanted to control every possible aspect of sam and dean’s lives.

when sam leaves he’s not under john’s control. when sam and dean withhold information from him (that sam has been having visions) they aren’t under his control. when they talk back or disobey orders (when a young dean leaves the motel room to go to the arcade instead of watching sammy, when sam won’t accept his hunt midseason, when sam refuses to shoot him in order to kill yellow eyes) they are not under his control. even when dean doesn’t take care of the car as he was asked to, he’s not under john’s control. he’s slacking. 

and EVERY time this happens john gets angry. he demands to know why didn’t didn’t call about the dreams. he snaps at him about the car. when john came home from flagstaff and found sam missing, he was furious. we don’t know exactly what happened but we can tell it was not good. how much worse would it have been when sam went away for good instead of just two weeks?

i don’t think john’s reaction was as rash as the one in flagstaff - because he knew sam wasn’t dead, and sam’s college dreams weren’t dean’s fault, he didn’t wind up beating dean for it - but i do think it was longer-lasting and in many ways worse to deal with. he basically threw a 4-year temper tantrum that he couldn’t MAKE sam stay. and with one son missing there was just one left to take it out on. again, dean’s abuse is the fault of his abuser, NOT SAM, but no: dean probably did not have a good time while sam was gone.

what’s absolutely twisted about this is that the feeling seems to have been mutual - sometime in those four years, john started letting dean go on hunts by himself. this is explained away in the now-iconic “i’m 26 dude” line but john is such a control freak that it seems unlikely it was a matter of finding dean old enough to have earned his independence. dean could have turned 40 and if john was still alive and hunting yellow eyes he’d still expect dean to go right where he put him. i have a different theory:

dean says in season 14 that john used to send him away from sam when he was angry, so dean associates being split up from them with failure and punishment. it’s very likely that not only was dean NOT happiest when it was just him and john, he was actually SO unhappy that john simply didn’t want to be around him anymore.

hence the incredulous face.

[spn masterpost]

[widowquakes]

Alright fuck I have lots of thoughts and feelings about this whole Natasha situation and I need to get them out in the open like right now because it’s been a month and I’m still distraught as fuck.

As some of you may know, I’ve been watching the MCU since the beginning, I was about 11 when IM1 came out and I watched it through my fingers because I didn’t understand what I was watching lmao. A few years later I was entering high school and I gave IM2 a chance, when I was 13.

Of course, as a young girl who was just discovering her sexuality, I latched on. I was just in the beginning stages of figuring out I was gay. I was in a religious stage too, praying to god every night to change who I was so life would be easier. Well, it didn’t really work out all that great for me. IM2 was a movie I watched sort of casually at first and ended up really latching onto the woman in the movie. Natasha was strong, beautiful, and brave, and I admired that about her. I took on my adoration of her as “admiration” (totally not attraction) and put her in my head as someone I really admired.

Two years later, I was just turning 15. At this point, I had come out to one person, my best friend. I hadn’t fully accepted who I was yet but I got over my religious stage and was in the process of coming to accept myself. It was difficult being in a catholic school, though. All around I heard all about how gay people are going to hell. Every damn day. So I took to tumblr, a platform I had really gotten into lately.

The Avengers came out around that time, and naturally, I was so excited to see Natasha back onscreen. I remember watching that opening scene on the big screen and feeling my heart race. My admiration turned into adoration, and before long, I was taking to tumblr, posting gifsets and thoughts and feelings all about her. It felt good to be open about how I was attracted to her when I couldn’t be open about it in real life.

“Black Widow” became an icon to me that I connected with being comfortable with my sexuality. A badass woman who didn’t need a man and still kicked endless ass while also being very human and vulnerable at the same time. She was all I wanted to be, and as a teenager, I needed someone like that. I had many heroes in my lifetime that I admired and adored; musical artists, actors, and real people alike, but Natasha became like a best friend in my head.

The older I got, the less I chatted about her. I became so comfortable with the knowledge that Natasha would always be there in one way or another. I had a Black Widow hoodie, stickers, etc.

I grew up more. By the time I turned 17, I was in a relationship, and I finally told my friends the truth. I came out to my school and, when I turned 18, came out to people in college. I began to speak out a lot more to people in my life. I changed a lot — went from an introverted and closeted person to an outspoken and brave young girl.

And the whole while when I was changing, Natasha was always someone I drew inspiration from. I admired her more than anything, I considered her like a friend to me. I know that sounds stupid because she’s fictional, but she mattered to me. A lot. Winter Soldier came out, and I was the happiest Natasha fan in the world.

I was 18 when AOU came out. As we left the theatre, I sobbed uncontrollably in the car. We were meant to go out to dinner after, but my friend and her mom just parked me in the parking lot and let me cry it out. My friend hugged me and told me something that really reassured me. “Natasha will be in other movies. They’re going to fix this.”

I was distraught over how they treated her in that movie, more than I’d been upset over anything relating to movies before. I reassured myself that they would fix it, that I wouldn’t have to deal with this forever. I immediately went on tumblr, read FanFiction’s, roleplayed. Got my mind of it and appreciated Natasha a lot more after that.

I came out to my mother when I was 19 or 20, something like that. Finally, I was in a good place in my life. I started a relationship with an incredible woman. Infinity War came out and I got this incredible interpretation of Natasha. I was beside myself with happiness.

You’re never quite 100% for a person like me, though. I’m a minority in the world. I’m a gay woman who’s constantly belittled at every turn.

I remember many experiences pretty significantly. I remember being on the subway and a full grown woman taunted me for 20 minutes, threatening to kill me when I got off the train. I skipped my stop so that she would get off first. I’ve been cornered, tracked down, hunted, and attacked at every corner.

I can’t say that during these times, I actively told myself, “be brave, that’s what Natasha would do”, but I don’t think it had anything to do with being active. Natasha became such a part of me and who I was that, in retrospect, I don’t know if I would be able to survive all that if I hadn’t drawn inspiration from her as a teenager. I was a mute kid, incredibly quiet. Something changed that day I first saw her onscreen, and I haven’t been the same since.

I was nervous the entire week leading up to Endgame. I was in a good place in my life — happier than hell with who I am, with my identity, and with my relationship. But something felt wrong, something felt off. I was sick to my stomach with nerves. When Katie saw Infinity War, I had only question for her, “does Nat survive?”

I felt a sinking in my chest when they went to a Vormir. Having avoided spoilers all week, I was hoping for the absolute best. God, I can’t even tell you how much I cried. I had a blanket in my lap and as she was dying, I held it and sobbed my eyes out. I was crying so hard that my chest physically hurt, and it turned into a quiet asthma attack. I barely remember the movie after that. Not even Carol could bring me back from that, I was completely distraught. To this day I still can’t watch that scene, I have to leave the theatre whenever it’s on.

She’s been a part of my life for 10 years, forming and shaping who I am as a person and who I’m becoming in the future. She’s not just a fictional character to me. And I understand that the MCU did her dirty for so long, and she has far less scenes than most characters in the series, but seeing her when I was a 13 year old closeted mute kid and immediately admiring her completely changed my perspective on life and on who I am. I’ll never be the same because of this character.

I’ve admired her for a long time. She was there for me and she was a support for me when I had nothing. I had no faith in myself or in the world. I was a depressed teenager, constantly suicidal, but even when I had nothing I was still able to watch her movies or look at gifsets of her and just fucking admire her and love her. I haven’t been writing as her, but she owns a part of me even to this day.

And finally, now that I’m in a good place, now that I’m finally happy with my life, I’m forced to watch her die a cruel death. See her body on the big screen and face the fact that she’s not coming back. And I know that going into this we all knew that the OG Avengers weren’t coming back, but this? This was cruel.

So anyway. It’s been a month now and I still cry to myself on the way home from work. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to recover from this, but I sure hope it’s soon.

Godspeed, Natasha Romanoff. I love you 3000.

[hale-of-stiles-heart]

i adoor you

Inspired by this gifset (also on ao3)

Cas had never liked doors.

More often than not, he didn't even deign to open them himself. He simply used a sliver of his grace to bust open doors or gently close them behind him.

A tiny flap of his wings could send the heavy steel door of a bank vault flying off its hinges, the pitiful obstacles nothing to him. It took some restraint to avoid splintering wood doors into bits but it was an art he had quickly perfected.

He always wondered why humans had abandoned more traditional room separators. Hanging cloth and folding screens had worked perfectly for hundreds of years. Besides, they were much simpler to both make and maneuver.

Of course, he understood why humans liked them as much as they did. Doors provided more shelter, protection from the elements and invading enemies. And, perhaps most importantly, they provided privacy.

There were no doors in Heaven. Not originally.

There had been no reason to have doors. Angels did not have any privacy nor did they particularly want it.

They were siblings, brothers and sisters and fellow soldiers living together side by side all the time. What did an angel need privacy for?

They did not sleep. Or eat. Or defecate. Or change clothing. They did not copulate in the same manner as humans.

Simply put, angels did not do anything that they required privacy for. At least, not in the beginning.

Things had changed after Lucifer fell, after humans became their Father's favorite creation. After the angels began killing each other for power and prestige.

When the torture started, angels subjecting their own brethren to unspeakable horrors more suited to the conduct of demons than faithful servants of the Lord, doors made their first appearance in Heaven. More were added when some of the seraphim, namely Naomi, had taken up the practice of wiping angels' minds clean of memories.

The only other doors in Heaven led to the personal heavens of deceased humans. Even in death, humans seemed to be rather fond of their privacy.

Cas had always been envious of them in that respect. As shameful and irreverent as it may have been, Cas had often longed for solitude, for independence, for privacy and freedom. He had wanted to spread his wings and be truly free.

Rebelling against Heaven, against his brothers and sisters, against his own Father who had given him life billions of years ago had given him that chance. But he had ruined it.

In his bid to be free he had essentially clipped his own wings. He believed humans called that ironic. Or was it poetic justice?

He couldn't be sure. There had been no poetry in Heaven, either.

After falling, in every way possible for an angel, he found that he rather enjoyed poetry. But he still disliked doors.

He had never despised a door as much as the one that he was currently staring at. The loud slam still echoed in the hallway like a taunting laugh.

He had gotten into an argument with Dean. Again.

They seemed to be a more and more frequent occurrence since Cas had moved into the Bunker. He had renounced Heaven after the Darkness had made peace with God who decided to make amends with His firstborn children by returning their wings and unsealing the gates to their home.

But Heaven had never been Cas' home. Not really. No matter how many times he sacrificed and slaughtered and died for Heaven, he knew he would never be truly accepted by the flock.

He belonged with Dean and Sam. For however long as they would tolerate him. Which, apparently, was not very long.

Only a few short weeks after he had moved into the Bunker, still adjusting to the mostly sedentary lifestyle of humans, to having his own room and his own possessions few in number though they may have been, he and Dean argued for the first time.

It had been a rather trivial squabble. Cas had failed to put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher after having a midnight snack on one of the nights that sleep evaded him. He had left them in the sink instead.

He had not wanted to wake Dean or Sam by rinsing his dishes and loading the dishwasher at one a.m. He explained that to Dean, effectively ending the argument when he offered to make it right by hand washing his dishes.

His act of contrition had seemed to work. Dean dropped the issue.

Their next argument occurred only a few days later. Cas had messed up again.

He had added too much detergent to the washing machine while doing laundry. Soap suds had overflowed out of the machine and into the floor of the laundry room.

Several of Dean's shirts had been ruined. And the washer had been damaged itself.

Cas had been wracked with guilt about both. He procured the new part for the washing machine but he could replace the damaged shirts without using his grace.

It only took an ounce, metaphorically speaking, of his grace to return the shirts to their former glory but Dean had remained upset. Cas had spent two days scrubbing the laundry room clean in order to make amends.

But as hard as Cas tried to acclimate to life at the Bunker, he always seemed to do something wrong, always seemed to do something that upset Dean. He hated himself for it with a fiery passion he had once reserved for only the most vile and vicious of Heaven's enemies.

He was supposed to be Dean's friend, his protector, and yet all he did was disappoint and upset him. All he did was fail him, over and over and over again.

After the washing machine incident, Cas just seemed to do everything wrong.

He was given cooking duty one night and burned dinner because he didn't realize how fast grilled cheese sandwiches cooked. Another night, he accidentally spilled some ink on one of Dean's copies of Busty Asian Beauties.

A week later, he somehow mucked a spell by adding just a hint too much of belladonna nectar. Dean ended up with bright purple hair for a week, instead of being immune to the thrall of the witch casting love spells in Florida.

On a hunt in Ohio, Cas got distracted while he was supposed to be playing bait for a shapeshifter and almost let the monster get away. He had been rather distracted when the bartender of the establishment he was staking out started flirting with him, complimenting his blue eyes and informing him that he had a pretty smile.

While Sam had been rather frustrated as well, though he was also quite amused by the situation, Dean had been furious. He had given Cas a harshly worded lecture on the ride back to their hotel room where Cas was stuck sleeping on the lumpy futon, the sound of the drug-fueled marathon of sex happening in the next room ringing in his ears all night.

No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried to improve himself, he always managed to screw up somehow.

He watched hours upon hours of various cooking shows, devoured every cookbook that he could find, yet his cooking skills remained 'piss poor' according to Dean. He assisted Sam with his household chores, listening attentively to all of the man's instructions so as not to make any more mistakes — he even took notes — but Dean still found fault in the way he folded clothes and cleaned the bathroom.

But Cas could look past of all that. Because their arguments only accounted for a mere fraction of their interaction.

Most of the time, his life in the Bunker was a dream. More of a heaven than the place where he had lived for billions of years of his life.

When they weren't driving across the country and staying in cheap motels that reeked of stale beer and cigarettes, they basked in their own type of domestic bliss.

Dean cooked dinner almost every night and breakfast every morning, swaying side to side in his comfy bathrobe as he blasted Led Zeppelin and Bob Seger on his pink iPod. After eating just a few of Dean's home cooked meals, suppressing his grace enough so that he could taste the food rather than the molecules in it, Cas understood why humans were such fans of eating.

The first time he tried pie, a decadent slice of chocolate pecan pie in a Boise diner, his eyes had rolled back into his head and he had let out a moan so loud the elderly couple at the next table had gawked at him, scandalized. Sam and Dean had dissolved into hysterical laughter, though Dean had looked more flushed than when he usually laughed.

Most nights, he ended up sandwiched between Sam and Dean on the couch they had moved into one of the empty rooms to create a den. They had found a decent sized television at a local yard sale along with a DVD player and had started building up quite the collection of DVDs.

Dean would make popcorn drenched in melted butter and salt while Sam would roll his eyes and grab a few beers while Cas finished getting comfortable on the couch. It was much nicer than the ones he usually slept on when they were on the road.

Other nights, they found different ways to entertain themselves. From another yard sale, one in Columbus, Sam had purchased a handful of board games. Dean had bought a game himself, something called Cards Against Humanity.

It was a crude game, full of sexual innuendos and crass toilet humor, but Dean seemed to enjoy it, inviting Charlie to play with them a few times. He appeared to enjoy it even more when Cas joined in, always laughing raucously whenever the angel won a round.

Sam preferred more family friendly games, straightforward board games with simple goals and easily understandable premises. Cas had similar feelings on the matter but every once in awhile he would be the one to suggest a round of Cards Against Humanity, if only to see the way Dean's face lit up.

They ventured into town every now and then for more than just groceries and rolls of toilet paper, for weekend farmer's markets and local craft shows. And Dean hadn't been able to say no to a trip to a local music store that had vinyl records in stock.

Cas' favorite outing had been to the quaint, independently owned bookstore that was nestled between a pet store and a local diner. The feeling of being surrounded by books, works of fiction and fantasy far removed from the purely informational tomes in the Bunker, had been humbling.

He had lingered among the stacks for hours, running his fingers over the spines of books, mumbling their titles under his breath. Sam and Dean had just let him browse for as long as he liked, looking on with soft smiles.

It had been one of the most wonderful days of his life.

But the memory of that day was faded and far away, buried under the mountain of guilt and despondency that threatened to crush him completely as he stared at Dean's bedroom door. The door that had been slammed in his face. The door that stood between him and the man he had given up everything for.

He and Dean had been working on reorganizing some of the shelves in the library. They had been separating the books by subject, by the supernatural creatures they primarily dealt with, so they could alphabetize them later.

Cas had mistakenly set down a book detailing the different types of Greek nymphs and the methods most efficient for killing them in the pile of books about Celtic spirits. Dean had immediately snapped at him, launching into a lecture. Their argument had burgeoned from there.

It ended with Dean throwing the book in his hand onto the table and stomping down the hall to his bedroom. Hoping to somehow placate Dean, Cas had followed him, rushing after him in desperation.

But his bid to end their argument early was almost cruelly dashed when Dean finally made it to his bedroom doorway. He whirled around to face Cas, all but screaming, "Y'know what, Cas? Why don't you go fuck off somewhere like you always do?! Go hang out with your little angel pals and leave me the hell alone!"

The door had been rudely slammed shut in Cas' face not a second later, leaving the angel to stare at the numbers designating Dean's bedroom as Room 11. The sound of the door slamming and Dean's words echoed in his head.

Both were loud and jarring, conveying the same message: leave. Get out. Dean doesn't want you here. Cas could feel it reverberating throughout his entire body, coursing through his very grace until he could feel in the tips of his hidden, newly restored wings — the dejection that threatened to swallow him whole.

Breathing suddenly became more difficult as though something had a vice grip on his throat and was squeezing tightly, trying to crush his windpipe. It was almost like drowning, the burning in his lungs and the feeling of sinker lower and lower beneath the waves of his despair.

The dark wood of the door seemed to stare back at him with an angry glare, cruelly reminding him that he was being barred from the man he cared about more than anything. He wanted nothing more than to break down the door, to explode it into a million splinters with a burst of his grace, but he couldn't.

It would be a violation of Dean's privacy. It would only make Dean hate him more. If that was even possible.

He hated the door. He hated the fact that he was so terrible at everything. Hated himself.

He had done it again. He had upset Dean, had driven him away for what seemed like the millionth time.

And he didn't know how to make it right. Ideas pinged through his head, half-baked and full of room for error, but they were all he had. So, he went through with them.

He walked back to the library, feeling oddly numb. The quiet of the Bunker was almost suffocating, both Sam and Dean in their respective bedrooms, as Cas finished sorting the books.

He was meticulous, careful not to make another mistake. After separating the books by subject, he set to work alphabetizing them on the bookshelves.

It was quick work, tedious and routine like the process of cleaning a gun. But he had messed that up too when Dean had shown him. He had used too much solvent.

Shaking his head to clear away the nagging reminder of all the times that he had failed to do the most simple of tasks, Cas had finished restocking the shelves. He decided to dust afterwards.

Then, he cleaned the kitchen. And the bathroom. He rearranged one of the supply closets so the extra towels, cleaning supplies, and various other supplies were easier to find.

Hours later, when the afternoon had turned to night and Cas found himself exhausted despite the fact that he did not require actual rest. But returning to his own room only made him feel more abject.

He only remained in his room long enough to kick off his shoes and grab the blanket from off his bed, the same one that Dean had wrapped around him while he was still suffering from the effects of Rowena's spell.

He returned to Dean's room afterward to find the door still closed, still locking out Cas more effectively than any sigil ever could. For lack of anything better to do, he plopped down beside Dean's door, the floor cold beneath him.

He draped the blanket over himself, breathing in the faint scent of Dean that still clung to it. He tipped his head back, leaning against the wall of the hallway as he stared up at the ceiling.

In the morning, he told himself as he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep. Things will be better in the morning.

In the morning, Cas woke to the sound of a door opening, the hinges squeaking. He snuffled, keeping his eyes closed as he tugged the blanket higher up his back.

He didn't want to wake up yet, he wanted to stay in that peaceful unconsciousness. He couldn't screw anything up in his dreams.

But the universe seemed determined to rouse him from his slumber. The creak of the door hinges seemed to grow louder as a gruff voice demanded, "What the hell?"

Cas finally opened his eyes, squinting to shield his eyes from the bright lights of the hallway. He scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, blinking to clear his vision as he peered upward towards where he had heard the sleep-rough voice.

Dean was standing above him, pillow creases on his right cheek and five o'clock shadow darkening the sharp line of his jaw. His hair was messy, flattened against his skull in some places while it stuck up wildly in others.

He was wearing the same shirt as the day before, a dark gray Henley with two of the buttons undone. It was wrinkled, like Dean had slept in it along with his faded jeans.

He looked extremely tired, dark shadows under his eyes that seemed less bright than usual. There was tension in his shoulders, like any sleep he may have gotten was not restful.

"Good morning, Dean," Cas rasped, straightening up as he drew his knees to his chest. "I—"

"You're still here," Dean said incredulously, cutting Cas off before he could apologize. His eyes were wide as he said it, full of disbelief and confusion.

"Of course, I'm still here," Cas replied, his brows furrowing as he returned Dean's look of incredulity. Why would Dean think he would leave? Because he had snapped at Cas? Where else was the angel supposed to go? But more importantly, Cas pointed out, "This is my home."

Dean blinked. And opened his mouth to gape at Cas.

Cas was just about to ask Dean if he was alright when he was cut off again, this time by a pair of lips being pressed against his own.

Warm hands cupped his face, rough thumbs tracing over his cheekbones. The faint scent of whiskey and the fancy name brand soap that Dean preferred filled his nose.

And while he was completely taken aback, he was also overwhelmed with a feeling of rightness as Dean kissed him.

A moment later, before Cas could even attempt to kiss Dean back, the hunter ended the kiss in favor of wrapping his arms around Cas' shoulders and tugging him into a tight hug. He pressed his lips to Cas' temple as he breathed, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Cas. I've been treating you like shit."

Before Cas could open his mouth to dismiss Dean's apology, to ensure him that he wasn't, Dean rushed on, "I was scared. And I know that's not an excuse but I was, man. I was so scared."

"I was just waiting for you to get tired of slumming it with a couple of hunters and run back to Heaven," Dean explained, running his hand up and down Cas' back as he cradled the angel to his chest. "I figured you'd do it eventually so I just gave you a little nudge. I'm so sorry, Cas. I always fuck everything up."

"Shh..." Cas hushed, curling his arms around Dean, slipping a hand into Dean's hair to run his fingers over the hunter's scalp. Voice quiet and calm, he murmured, "It's alright, Dean. You haven't fucked anything up. This is my home, you're my home, I'll never run back to Heaven."

Dean let out a watery laugh, tightening his arms around Cas who buried his face in the crook of Dean's neck. That was how Sam found them half an hour later, smiling to himself as he stepped back into his room, closing the door behind himself.

[whoinwhoville]

(That frustrating) WIP meme

Thank you, no thank you, thank you @gingergallifreyan who tagged me with that WIP meme. {{crying}} over my ignored muse. She’s THERE, but I have NO TIME to WRITE!

List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

PLEASE DON’T STEAL MY IDEAS. I WILL FIND YOU AND BEAT YOU UP WITH A WET NOODLE.

Sensory Overload - Current. Almost done. Shorter fic. My first soulmark AU. Set in current times. Royal Ten x Commoner Rose (owns a flower shop)

Crown Prince John has to marry before his 30th birthday, soulmark or not. He’s betrothed for political purposes to a princess from neighboring country. Of course, you know who his soulmate is. Will they find each other in time? She knows, but he doesn’t due to the nature of soulmarks in this version.

>>>“You are such a fan girl,” teased Martha.

Rose shook her head. “No. It’s more than that. I can’t explain it. Every time I hear him talking, I get this little feeling -- I feel this shiver go up and down my spine, and settle right in my neck. It’s daft. Never mind." Rose looked down sadly. “Sorta hurts, y’know? Knowing I’ll never even have a chance?”

“There’s a reason it’s called a *crush*, Rose.” Martha smirked. “Oh, this is disappointing. He's leaving. Looks like he's not greeting the crowd today. Come on, girlfriend, let’s get a cuppa and get back to your shop.”

Rose reached back and scratched at her neck. “Isn’t it a bit cold for mosquitoes? Just got a bite. I hate those awful blood sucking little monsters.”

“I swear those things would survive a nuclear bomb.”<<<

Best Mates Sequel to one-off, Lab Mates. Text conversation fic.

>>>**Saturday September 3**

**8:22 pm - BlueEyedJack** gorgeous blonde is here with  idiot named Adam. he’s handsy and she doesn’t like it. rescue her. **8:22 pm - Doctor10**  you rescue her you’re already there. why do you keep calling her gorgeous blonde doesn’t she have a name? **8:23 pm - BlueEyedJack**  i’m holding her name hostage because it is perfect and i know your obsession with how a name feels in your mouth. **8:23 pm - Doctor10** stop it captain innuendo. i have a valid appreciation for linguistics. **8:23 pm - BlueEyedJack** your mind went there not mine. but since you brought it up. other things belonging to gorgeous blonde would feel much better in your mouth than her name — if you’d just give her a try **8:23 pm - DoctorTen**  :redangryface emoji:<<<

My Fair Rose - I began to post this summer of 2012.

Rose Tyler is a stage actress, starring in a smash hit revival of My Fair Lady. John Smith (Ten) is a bookshop owner. What happens when they start a family before ever giving themselves a chance to fall in love? (Drunken one-night stand leads to pregnancy.)

I loved it. LOVED it. But then it went haywire and jumped the shark in a major way. It wasn’t supposed to be about an abusive, bullying manager, vendictive ex-wife, poor self-image, and blackmail, it was supposed to be a relationship piece about falling in love in the wrong order. I’m trying to fix it and and get rid of the numerous, ridiculous subplots. Took it down during the Great Fic Delete of 2015. It has not be re-posted yet. I’ve dabbled with it, but not nearly enough to even begin to put it back up. Needs MAJOR work.

>>>"Can I help you?" a pleasant, male voice called from around the corner of the bookcase, pulling her up and out of her downward spiral of worry.

"'M fine, thanks, just browsin'," she answered warily, pulling the bill of the cap further down to shield her face as she stood up. Turning to directly face the bookcase, Rose pretended to be engrossed in her hunt for a specific title. She pulled a book off of the shelf and hugged it to her chest like a treasure.

"Are you looking for something in particular within the Sexual Anthropology section?"

Rose blushed and looked down at the title, then at the man for the first time. The lovely Estuary voice belonged to a tall, slender man in his mid to late thirties with soulful brown eyes and really great hair.

"Are you an anthropology student?" he asked her. "That's a rather obscure, scholarly work."

She looked down and read the title. "*Sexual Selection and the Origins of Human Mating Systems*. Uh... well... no... I'm not a student. Like I said just browsing…”

"In the Sexual Anthropology section.” He looked at her over his glasses. "Don't really get too many customers back here. Are you sure you're alright, you seem to be upset."

“Someone is following me, and I ducked in here to throw him off.” Rose heard the tinkling of the bell on the door. She peeked around the corner of the bookcase. “Oh no,” she whimpered, looking over the tall man’s shoulder.

"That's him.”

"Quick, get in here." The man opened a narrow door and Rose felt a strong hand push her inside of a musty storage cupboard, the only light a sliver peeking under the door. She pressed her ear to the thin wood.<<<

Found & Revisited - Started this in Summer of 2012. Sequel to Found & Forgotten, fourth installment of the FoundVerse. Again, a victim of the Great Fic Delete. Haven’t put it back up.

Jackie insists upon seeing John and Jane Smith (the Doctor and Rose) get married in 1963. On the way back home, the TARDIS takes a wrong turn, stranding newly pregnant Rose, a very edgy Doctor, and a very angry Jackie in 1963 London. 


I started this because I was so in love with John and Jane that I just couldn’t let them go quite yet. I do like this story, and it works, I think... I just haven’t worked on it too much.

>>>"Eager?" she asked with a tongue-in-teeth grin.

“Oh yes!" he growled, snapping his head for emphasis. The couple was quiet for a few blocks. "John had very few regrets in the end, love, but he did have one."

"What did he regret?" Rose asked quietly, laying her hand over the Doctor's as it rested on the stick shift.

They were stopped at an intersection. With eyes shining in the lights of the nighttime city, the Doctor turned to Rose. "He was very disappointed that he never made love to Jane in their own bed."

"Really?" Rose asked with a small smile.

"Yep."

"Jane thought about it all the time after they decided they would spend their wedding night in their own bedroom." Rose bit the side of her lower lip. "We could pretend," she said in a smoky voice. She moved her hand from the stick shift, up the Doctor's arm to his face, and then trailed a single finger up and down his left sideburn.

"We don't have to pretend, Rose. It could be real. We could make it real for John and Jane."

"Whaddya mean, Doctor?" Rose asked, intrigued by the heavy tone of his voice.

"How would you like to take a little walk down memory lane?" He paused as he pulled the Aston Martin up to the kerb, and his voice dropped an octave and was half as quiet, but far more powerful. "How would you like to experience one last night as night as John and Jane?" He unbuckled his lap belt and leaned across the armrest that stood as a barrier between them. "I think we should give them that night that they both wanted so very...very much."<<<

Exposed - Started this in February of 2014.

Immediately follows Closed.

When an alien threat surfaces in Broadchurch, Torchwood comes to town and Rose Tyler and DI Alec Hardy's new relationship is tested. Sequel to Closed, crossover with Broadchurch.

I adore this series. I adore this pairing. I am actually actively working on this.

>>>Alec flexed his jaw as he stared at her red-tinged lips. He grinned wickedly, and snatched the half-eaten berry from her fingertips.

"Hey, that was mine!" Rose protested.

Alec made a show of popping it into his mouth. But then he put his hands around her waist, and pulled her close. With one hand, he cupped her face. Their lips met in the middle. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, savouring the sweet berry juice now mingling.

Rose melted into his arms, and toyed with the short hairs at the base of his neck. “I really need to stop. Things to talk about, remember?" she said, pulling away.

Alec dropped his hands from her waist, and put them on his hips.

"Damn it, woman. Talking can wait."

“No! I still have things I want you to know about me. I’m not gonna jump back into bed again! We rushed things the first time! And that’s not who I am!”

“Unless you’re going to tell me -- again -- that you’re not really who you say you are.” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Nothing could possibly be as important as this. Gods, I’ve missed you. I saw you sleeping there this morning and almost pounced on you.”

“Glad you didn’t,” she said stifling a giggle. “Would rather be awake for that.”

He relaxed his jaw, and then hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans. She grimaced. “Sorry. I can’t help it. See? I *do* want you. But I just can’t do it yet.”

He pulled her against him, and growled into her ear, "Missed you.”

“Missed you too.” Rose gasped, but stayed close. She put one hand on his shoulder, and then relaxed her cheek against his chest. “I missed you so, so much.” Rose drew in a deep breath, inhaling the faint scent of what was left of his cologne. His heart beat steadily under her ear. “I got clearance from Dad to tell you the rest of it.” She whispered. “Everything. And I’m a bit afraid you might think I’m off my nut.”<<<

JazzVerse - The first major fic that I wrote. TenToo x Rose. Still pondering. Don’t know if I’ll put this back up. I never put it up on AO3 - it was only on Fanfic, Teaspoon, and ElJay (Fanfic and ElJay are gone, and was deleted from Teaspoon). So many cringeworthy moments, and so much headcanon has changed. But then again, it is a valid point in the path of my growth as a writer. I’m very conflicted. The last installment is the WIP - Let’s Get Lost. I don’t even remember what it was about. {{headsmack}} Something about getting lost in time.

Never posted, but in progress (Nano stuff):

12 Months Late - Nano 201?

I liked this one. The Doctor landed the TARDIS in Pete’s World twelve months after Rose dimension hopped. TenToo, Rose, and Jackie find themselves in a cyber-ruled world trying to make their way back to London from Norway to fix it, because it turns out, they are in an Alt!Pete’s World!

>>>“There’s something very, very wrong. Until we know it is safe, I don’t want the two of you to divulge your identities. Got it?” he asked sternly and then sat up straight in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. "When did you jump, Rose?" He now knew what had been bothering him, why his time sense had felt wonky ever since the beach.

“I made my final trip through the dimension cannon on eleven October, two thousand sixteen,” she said in hushed, though punctuated tones.

“Blimey,” he said, quietly. “We’re a whole year off? How? We worked out the... the... coordinates together. Guess we got it wrong, didn’t we?” He scratched his cheek, embarrassed.

“Got it wrong? That’s all you can say? We got it wrong? Well I have something to say to you! Stitch this, Doctor!” Jackie recoiled and slapped the Doctor across the face. “He did it again, Rose! Twelve months late, again!” Angry tears were beginning to form in the corners of Jackie’s eyes.The Doctor closed his eyes and looked down at the table.

“I’m so, so, sorry Jackie. I’m so sorry.” He looked back at Jackie, and his brown eyes were shining with regret. His human skin showed a hand-print where Jackie’s palm had met his cheek.<<<

Smyth’s What-Not Shop - Nano 201? - Human AU that mirrors the transition from Season 1 and Season 2

Rose Tyler works in a shop owned a war vet - John Smyth (Nine). He’s a former Army doctor who was court-martialed and lost his commission for disobeying direct orders. He has stopped practicing medicine altogether, and owns a shop that sells a little bit of everything - one of those places where you can find exactly what you want. It’s in a bit of a rough part of town. Slowly, she begins to help him heal, and of course, they fall in love. The shop is robbed, and he dies saving her life. (Parting of the Ways.) What she doesn’t know is that he has a brother - James (Ten).  He’s the one who treats him at the hospital. With his dying breath, John begs James to take care of Rose. Angst. Angst. Angst. AAAAANGST. But happy ending... but nowhere near there yet. I really love this story. Unfortunately, I can’t find it. I know the plot by heart, though, as it is dear to me. I want to write it again.

Stuck in the Middle - Nano - Human Nature AU -- with a twist

Dimension Hopping Rose ends up in wrong universe, pulled there by the TARDIS -- but Rose doesn’t know this because she’s powered down. This universe has been nearly destroyed by Cybers, leaving a crack between universes. All electronics were knocked out by EMPs deployed by Earth to knock out the cybers, leaving the world in a pre-computer, perhaps 1940s, 1950s technology. Of course, the minds still exist to rebuild, but it’s taking a while. A medical doctor who looks exactly like Ten is there, and HE IS A PRAT. Hot tempered, rule breaker, loner. Rose really can’t stand him, but he’s very attractive in a bad boy sorta way. And of course, he’s hot. Donna is there, too, but this is before Rose knows about her. She thinks the lookalike is just that -- a lookalike. What she doesn't know is that he’s fobbed, and Donna is his caretaker.

>>>So he had lost all semblance of self-control. He raged. He threw his surgical instruments at the walls. He used every filthy word in his enormous vocabulary. His actions had so terrified one of his surgical assistants, that she had fled from the theatre in tears. And finally, he punched the tile wall, possibly breaking a couple of his knuckles.

And now he was sitting in the locker room, on the floor, back against the wall, breathing in and out, trying to calm his racing heart.

*“Mr. McCrimmon, please report to Mr. Stoker. Mr. McCrimmon, please report to Mr. Stoker’s office. Thank you.”*

“Oh, well isn’t this just bloody fantastic.” James groaned as he stood from the floor. He moved to the door, and then realised that he was still wearing the paper shoe covers. He pulled the booties off, crumpled them into a tight ball, and dropped them into the rubbish bin before he pushed the swinging door and shuffled down the corridor to receive the third reprimand in a fortnight.

“Shit. Shitty, shit, shit, shit, bloody shit on a stinking shit stick,” he muttered before he knocked on the door of the Chief of Surgery.

“I assume that’s you skulking outside of my door, Mr. McCrimmon.”

James opened the door, dropped onto the worn leather couch adjacent to his boss’ desk. His head fell into his hands.

“How do you do come up with such creative use of the Queen’s English?”

“It’s a gift.”

“And so soon after your colorful tirade in the operating theatre barely sixty minutes ago. Don’t you ever get tired of the taste of filth in your mouth?”

“Yep.”

“If you weren’t such a bloody good surgeon, I’d sack you on the spot.”

“I know,” the man spoke into his hands before he dragged them down his face.

“What the hell happened in there? And I’m not talking about the patient. She was doomed before she was loaded into the St. John.” Stoker crossed his arms and scowled.

“I’m tired. So bloody, bloody tired of it all. Day after day. The men and women and children. The maiming. The injuries. The death. All in the name of progress. Doesn’t anyone ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, this was meant to happen? That we little humans were meant to stumble and fall? That we were getting too big for our britches, and the Universe decided to slap our arses into the previous millennium? But no! Not us! We decide to push and push and push ourselves to the brink of… of… Oh, never mind. I’m done.“<<<

Dividing Time - Nano - Dark!Doctor, Dimension Hopping Rose

Immediately after the Time War, Nine regenerates into Ten, and Rose wasn’t there to help him heal. He’s taken over Earth as its supreme ruler - Time Lord Victorious to the extreme. He senses her time energy and Void Stuff when she ends up in his world. He finds her, but she escapes just in the nick of time, but not before the TARDIS/Bad Wolf transfers all of her memories and Bad Wolfiness into this world’s Alt!Rose. “There is always a Rose for the Doctor,” is the premise. Can she heal him?

Erasure - Nano 2016 - Human AU

Dr. Ian McCrimmon, genius. Of course. He discovers a test program being conducted by the government to study the effects of removing emotions from people - will they be the same person? Can they regain their personality? He gets “erased” but it goes to far and erases everything, including the memory of his wife - Rose. A scientist with a little bit of conscience saves him from being killed off, and moves him to a small town far, far away to live a completely new life as a DI. You can see where this is going, can’t you? It was going to be a bit of a Closed re-write. LOL. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

>>>Rose shrugged. "I figured after a while that you just wanted to be friends. We got so comfortable together. Don't get me wrong. It's been nice. Great even! I love spending time with you. But you when hadn't kissed me after three months." She lifted a shoulder. "A girl sorta gets the hint.”

Ian rubbed his neck. "I'm not very good at this, Rose. I've been an academic since I was sixteen. Never went to school dances, or on dates. Not that I didn't fancy girls from time to time. It just wanted a priority. But then you came along, and I had no idea what to do. I just stumbled along, letting you show me the way."

"I really like you Ian. More than like. You're my best friend actually. But I've wanted to be more than friends with you for a while. To be honest, I wanted to snog you the first day we met. And I kept hoping you did too. But it didn't happen, so I figured having you as a friend was so much better than nothing at all."

"Of course I want more with you, Rose. But... This job of mine. I... I don't know where it's headed. I'm starting to worry about some things that I'm seeing at work. And--" Ian closed his eyes. "And I would never want to leave you alone."

"Alone? What do you mean?" <<<

I’m not going to tag, but PLEASE do this if you want to. Actually, it was a really good exercise. I’m sorta inspired to begin working on these again.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi! Sorry to bother you with a bit of a dumb question...but I've been seeing the phrase "the story became the story" a lot in the past few weeks on my dash, and I never understood what exactly it means? I think it was mostly on some other blog but I can't seem to find it. Just very confused ^^'

It’s from 9x07:

SAMSo, what was that all about, ‘Dee-dawg’?

DEANYou remember when we were kids that spring in upstate New York? Dad was on a rugaru hunt. We, uh – we crashed at the, uh … the bungalow colony with the ping-pong table?

SAMYeah. Uh, y-you disappeared. Dad came back. You were gone. He shipped me off to Bobby’s for a couple months and went and … found you. You were lost on a hunt or something.

DEANTHAT’S what we told you. (as if Sam’s story refreshed his memory) Right.

SAMI’m sorry? That’s what you told me?

DEANTruth is, uh… I lost the food money that Dad left for us in a card game. I knew you’d get hungry, so … I tried taking the five-finger discount at the local market and got busted. I wasn’t on a hunt. They sent me to a boys’ home.

SAMA boys’ home, like a … reform school?

DEANYeah, more or less. It was a farm, and the guy who ran it – Sonny – he, uh, you know, he looked after me.

[…]

SAMHey, Dean … I mean, why didn’t you just tell me you went to a boys’ home?

DEANI don’t know. Uh, it was Dad’s idea. And then it just – you know, the story became the story. I was 16.

I copied most of the exchange (that’s the end of the scene, with Dean using that last line to end the argument) because I think context is sort of important… Basically a lot of meta writers since this episode have picked up on it as a really important phrase to explain a lot of things all round the show, where people have been holding onto ideas and stories which helped but really aren’t that great long term for their development and all. 

This one exchange summarises the entire point of this episode before you even get into it, and basically anything where they were holding onto an idea for safety or denial out of their childhood. Most John Winchester focused episodes have an element of it, this is just the most overt (I think it’s the key episode really for all Carver/Dabb era John-related stuff) so it gives us this great line to explain everything.

Now Mary’s back it’s even more critical because it’s basically explaining everything where there’s difficulty communicating, and Mary was still in the “story” up until Toni told her to her face that there was a different truth to the one she’s been clinging to. (I just scrolled past this great gifset with some side by sides) 

Essentially the entire story of Mary to Sam and Dean has been, well, a story. She has a whole history of being their tragic saintly mother, they never got to knew through anything but hazy memories and stories. Ever since then her image has been challenged, I mean, like, in 1x09 she apologises to Sam for what happened/will happen (not that she remembers this now) - but at the time it showed there was maybe something more to what Mary knew. Still, going back in time and meeting her, whatever we learn that she’s a hunter etc never changes who she IS to Dean and then Sam - they both look at her like she’s a flawless angel and permanently with tears ready to fall just to be in the same room as her. 

As much as John stuff has stories that became the story - the things they say to explain how bad it was to themselves, that they can focus on him being a great hunter, a hero who sacrificed himself for them, who had his noble tragic quest to avenge Mary, doesn’t really cover that he neglected them and raised them poorly, messed up, with too many expectations and dangerously. Which again is a theme since season 1 - if nothing else shows it clearly, then 1x18 with John sending Dean to clean up his mess with the striga… Which John blamed Dean for despite him being a kid, it was his fault for messing up the hunt not John’s for expecting this tiny child to protect his brother with a shotgun from a terrible monster. And I’ve never been certain he wasn’t using them as bait if he had left them alone in the same town as the monster knowing its pattern was to feed on kids.

So they have their stories about John - stuff where Dean accepts the blame or things where they can kid themselves it wasn’t all as bad as that, because they DID love him and he loved them and all that stuff is apparently what family does for each other - all the selling their souls etc.

Of course then it turns out Mary was the one who started it not John, which is the narrative asking us to question her, to allow her to be more human, as messed up as them, etc.

But actually having her back is difficult to get over the image, so for them the hurdle with Mary has been seeing past the story that became the story, that she is miserable and human and messed up as well (hence all the drama she’s put them through so far)… And they’re struggling with the image of John, where the story became the story and they haven’t exactly conquered that yet EITHER so asking them to be upfront and comfortable discussing it with Mary? She’s been folded into their perception of John and though they very very gently poked at the idea to start with, she was making essentially the same error as Henry Winchester:

HENRY You’re also Winchesters. As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope. [DEAN and SAM look at each other.] I didn’t know my son as a man, but having met you two… [HENRY takes DEAN’s hand with his right hand and holds out his left hand to SAM] …I know I would have been proud of him.

He ALSO read all of John’s journal and was horrified by what had happened to him, but for his own sanity drew a nicer picture of John as a hero and a good man (because, on a cosmic level, he was and his actions were good and he saved people and sold his soul for Dean and didn’t even break in Hell when Dean did, like, what a great guy). Mary as a character with a full season long arc has a chance to learn more and get past that same introduction to what she missed while skipping ahead in the story to what to both Henry and her is essentially after the story ended, and to understand what’s underneath the story - that this upbringing by a crusading hero was not exactly a story of great parenting when it came to her sons. And even the only thing she doesn’t know yet after Toni’s attempt to tell her a version of the truth to upset her is that cupids connected her and John, and that her whole story THERE is also a half-truth because unlike the story Dean told her in 12x01 about how she met John, there is no cute love story - there’s manipulation from Heaven and in the end the same love that made her make that deal wasn’t all her fault because it came from a cupid’s arrow not just from her own heart. And it all “had” to happen because of the apocalypse.

Anyway, that’s the sort of thematic thread that has been running through the entire show but since 9x07 had really easy words to put to it to mean anything where this messed up family has constructed an easier truth over its darkness. 

(I have to say as I just watched 10x05 last, I really hated the Winchester Family Story as presented there with them all singing Carry On Wayward Son, and I think it was meant to be fake because Adam was there and they had to ask who he was… But the whole take away from the episode even for the actual Sam and Dean was a very very glossy idea of what they do and how their family is. Works great as a 1 off episode completely in isolation to actually celebrate the show and fandom as we love it, but in context 2 episodes after demon!Dean was laying into Sam about how they were raised and the real dark heart of their family, before trying to kill him…. it’s so fake, and watching those 2 episodes side by side like I did, without the werewolf melodrama in the middle… It’s so obviously a “the story became the story” to smooth over the whole demon!Dean incident so they can function for most of the rest of season 10… If you need another example of seeing it in action :D)

[janiedean]

Look, the reason Asian-Americans get so upset about whitewashing in American movies when people living in Asia doesn't, is because Asian-Americans ARE AFFECTED BY AN ALREADY IMPOSSIBLY TINY MARKET FOR ROLES. It's based in a really long and shitty history of racism so of course people are going to be up in arms about roles for Asian characters being taken by white people that already have a huge pool of roles to choose from and nobody telling them that they're not good enough for them. 1/2

2/2 If you could almost only be cast as ‘sexy exotic woman’, 'evil martial arts villain’, 'mysterious oriental martial arts master’ or 'sexless butt of the joke’ you’d also be upset at roles where your people get to be heroes, romantic leads and main characters getting twisted around to cast white actors because they are supposedly seen as more 'desirable’ and 'marketable’ than Asian-American actors. So yeah, Japanese natives doesn’t care because it doesn’t affect them and their careers.

… I read this three times and I swear I tried to come up with a nice response, but I don’t know if it’d be nice according to you so whatever. Never mind.

These are all fair points but you know what’s the fucking problem?

That at least on here, y’all market this as **cultural appropriation** other than whitewashing. and you wanna know something? let’s just use g*host in the shell since I guess it was what kickstarted it.

‘g*host in the shell is a JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE’

JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE

JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE

JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE

where does it read japanese-american or asian-american? nowhere. so if you care about the **cultural appropriation** behind it, the japanese’s opinion comes before anyone else’s at any time because they came up with the franchise. it’s their stuff, not yours. and if they think that americans making horrid movies out of their stuff isn’t inherently problematic then you should listen to them for a moment, or the chinese, or whatever, but no, because whenever I hear this argument it’s all ‘but it’s about US and not about THEM’ when you’re… talking about things that… they created. now, there’s stuff and stuff - the netflix death n*ote movie looks like an americanized dumb clusterfuck but uhm I haven’t seen that many people complaining about it (is that because one of the racebends is that a character became black? who the fuck knows), but like if the show itself then is inherently racist or sucks then by all means complain, if it’s not and it doesn’t suck and y’all just out to complain for the sake of complaining (not mentioning what I’m thinking of but everyone who’s been around here understood it I fear) then idk ask yourself a few questions and give yourself a few answers.

because I’m honestly fucking tired of americans-anything complaining about X media being problematic because it’s not representative enough for *their* needs and blaming it on cultural appropriation when the people from that actual culture don’t give a fuck.

other than that:

Asian-Americans ARE AFFECTED BY AN ALREADY IMPOSSIBLY TINY MARKET FOR ROLES

point taken, and then why every time I see a show with Asian-Americans in it or with Asians in parts that are their ethnicity or the likes no one on this shit hole of a website gives two fucks about it? I mean, idk, THE THREE FIRST THINGS THAT COME TO MIND:

marco polo. one white character (and they hired an Italian to play an Italian you don’t even know how happy we were everyone on italian tumblr watched it), everyone else in the cast had Asian heritage if they weren’t Asian tout-court, it was done fairly well, people didn’t even speak English all the time, canceled after two seasons while every other netflix show in existence gets renewed for at least three or four and on tumblr everyone was crying about OMG THERE’S A WHITE MALE LEAD (wow, italians are white…?) and who cares if everyone else was not white and had a+++ arcs/storylines.

the great wall. lol this one was amazing, y’all complained for months about white-saviorism and whitewashing even if IT WAS DIRECTED BY A CHINESE DIRECTOR WHO’S BEEN IN THE BUSINESS SINCE THE FUCKING EIGHTIES WHO USED CHINESE ACTORS OTHER THAN NOT AND SHOT IN CHINA, when it came out I’ve seen one post (ONE) by someone asian-american who said that actually it was a good movie and didn’t do any white-saviorism and the main character was actually a chinese woman who saved the day and wow, it tanked and none of y’all went to see it. (but when tumblr went up in arms about mad max fury road you all went even if it was mostly white actors, but that one was a feminist action movie and this one… apparently was not because matt damon was in it. okay.)

fresh off the boat. I’ve see gifsets from that show maybe thrice from people of asian heritage (tho I think a few lived in Europe) and a few posts like OMG IT’S A SITCOM JUST WITH ASIAN-AMERICANS DEFYING STEREOTYPES IT’S LOVELY WATCH IT. okay, have I seen the whole of tumblr supporting it? blah. no. it’s still on the air so I guess people watch it so yay for them but like, where’s the support for it? idk. never saw it. most probably never will.

bonus: the 1*00 has actually more non-whites (including asians) in its main cast but everyone wanks about it and wants to quit it when they kill off white characters and fuck me if I’ve been lurking in that fandom for a year or so and I only see people talking extensively about monty when discussing a non-canon ship he’s part of when in theory both him and the other party are otherwise engaged (and both canon ships get ignored hahahaha but we all want more interracial canon relationships right?). now that show is hardly perfect when it comes to *representation TM* (like monty and his mom are both asian-americans but from two different nations originally but WHATEVER) but I mean, support what you have so they do better after maybe??

extra bonus: it’s not a role it’s a cartoon but pls also go after people in the v*oltron fandom who are fixed on thinking that if you have two asian characters they have to be related somehow? anyway, nevermind.

I could also rant about how everyone on here hates c*lint eastwood and forgets he made gran torino (which had plenty hmong actors and was not at all racist actually all the congrary but who cares), or letter from iwo jima ie the least american-centered war movie I’ve ever seen (from americans) with all japanese actors (or japanese-americans) entirely shot in japanese, but who cares. I could rant about how every piece of media I consume that has canon well-written minority characters (not just asian-american) gets thoroughly ignored seven times on ten on this hellhole of a website, which is a thing that happens whatever y’all say.

I could rant about a lot of things, but just the fact that you say ‘WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT WHAT THE JAPANESE OR THE CHINESE OR THE KOREANS THINK ABOUT ADAPTATIONS FROM THEIR OWN MATERIAL BECAUSE EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS IS HOW IT AFFECTS US AMERICANS’ is making me fucking want to punch a mirror because y’all are going like

and honestly, it’s US-centrism all over again.

is there a problem with asian-american casting? sure. so WATCH THE THINGS WHERE THERE ARE ACTUAL GOOD ROLES FOR ASIAN-AMERICANS, ignore g*host in the shell if that’s what you want (honestly I don’t even give a fuck about that movie, I haven’t read the manga and I don’t even know if it’s actually racist or not and I don’t care because I don’t want to go watch it) and put your money where your mouth is and go support the things that actually give you what you want, because if you don’t then you’ll get stereotypes forever because majors won’t invest money in things that they know won’t return that fucking money. marco polo tanked? see when netflix comes up with another show with the same cast again. I doubt it will in the next five years or so. but whatever, I really doubt y’all give a fuck when you can have a few nice witch hunt and go against stuff that is popular or rant about how appropriative i*ron fist is when the chinese don’t particularly care about that either and when they haven’t whitewashed characters that weren’t originally, y’know, white. but okay.

people are going to be up in arms about roles for Asian characters being taken by white people 

fair, except that I’ve seen people suggesting l*ucy liu for that role as well. lucy liu has taiwanese origins. the character is japanese. if you want r*inko kikuchi then you have a point, if you want someone who’s not originally japanese to play the characters because they’re asian so it’s all the same…. do I have to finish the damned sentence or do we all get where I’m going at?

you’d also be upset at roles where your people get to be heroes, romantic leads and main characters getting twisted around to cast white actors because they are supposedly seen as more 'desirable’ and 'marketable’ than Asian-American actors

yeah, and every time I see a show or movie where asian characters are all that, as stated above, they tank or no one cares about that show or no one cares about that character.

putting your money where y’all mouth is, again? or should I remember the times people wanted the 1*00 to get canceled because a white lgbt character got killed when at the same time it has representation for a whole bunch of other groups including a canon interracial gay ship that no one gives a fuck about and a canon interracial het ship everyone hates because both go in the way of the interracial fanon m/m ship? (one of which is asian btw but lol as if I ever saw anyone advise ppl to watch the 1*00 because monty is in it. btw he’s a main character.)

Japanese natives doesn’t care because it doesn’t affect them and their careers.

given all of the above this is just so - so terribly US-centric I don’t even know how to start to address it. hey, the japanese opinion about a movie made out of a japanese comic book/franchise is irrelevant because it doesn’t affect them. wow. almost sounds like, ‘we are pretending to care about your culture/your media being exploited by the americans (because yOU COULD TALK ABOUT AMERICANS REMAKING EVERYTHING IN AMERICANIZED WAY RUINING IT 90% OF THE TIME) but instead we just care as long as it affects us and if you disagree with us then fuck you’.

okay, then next time start fucking using the right terms. call it ASIAN-AMERICAN. CALL IT JAPANESE-AMERICAN. CALL IT CHINESE-AMERICAN. because whether y’all like it or not, japanese-american is not the same as japanese same as italian-american is not the same as italian, being american is part of your motherfucking identity and you have absolutely no right to impose it on others just because for some reason in the US there’s an identity culture that tends to reject the AMERICAN part of it and focuses on where you originally come from, and y’all pretending to be paladins of saving other cultures from so-called appropriation or from white people appropriating roles or whatever is honestly so ethnocentric I don’t even wanna know.

thanks and goodbye.

by the way, you know why everyone italian on tumblr watched marco polo with utter glee? because we’re sick tired of seeing that whenever an italian character is on any american media they’re ALWAYS criminals - like you have to hope they’re well-written criminals (ie: ASSHOLES) rather than badly written criminals, but guess why whenever they write well-written criminals the italian-americans go like OMG THAT’S NOT ACCURATE WE’RE NOT LIKE THAT (lol criminals are like that sadly) and then we end up getting cringy shit most of the time. and then when we get an actually decent character who’s not a criminal then there’s people like BUT IF HE WAS ITALIAN HE SHOULD BE A POC again superimposing american standards on us because lol obv. an italian character CAN’T BE PLAYED BY AN ITALIAN ACTOR BECAUSE HE’S NOT DARK ENOUGH ACCORDING TO YOU.

that’s all y’all sound when you complain about this shit and like idk if for people from asia it’s the same level of frustration or not but the moment you go like it doesn’t affect them it affects me when the franchise in question is not even fucking american you need to ask yourself how bad did your ethnocentrism get.

jfc.

also: I have to work in the afternoon and I already lost forty minutes replying to this thing while feeling progressively less inclined for nice discussion about the topic because I’m honestly sick fucking tired of US centrism on this blue hellhole so any wank coming out of this or whatever is not getting answered period because I have work to finish. bye for real now.

[mrsbluebertgreggleson]

So I just caught up on “Breakdown” (yeah yeah, I know, I keep missing eps and watching them way late - people keep hogging my TV and I keep getting distracted, I can’t help it!) and:

1. This was actually a legitimately freaky episode with the brief dip into torture porn. Like the parts with... Donna’s niece, Ginger, whatever-her-name-was (I just watched and I already forgot, lmao), and the poor dude who got hacked, those were super horrific and it felt VERY old-school SPN. Which I really, really loved. But also, jfc. Now admittedly I did try to veer away from spoilers and I did pretty well, but between out-of-context gifsets and the title, I thought the episode would either be A) revolving around Sam and Dean having breakdowns and having to mutually come together and work through them, little-to-no supernatural threat, which would’ve been fun, or B) Sam and/or Dean freaking out at the sight of the workshop and flashing back to Hell and having aforementioned breakdown, which also would’ve been fun. Until the vamp flashed his fangs, I also legit thought the twist would be that it was a 100% human enemy/enemies but SUPER fucked up serial killers and cannibals and evil, evil people, a la “The Benders”, with it just being people kidnapping and brutally killing each other while other people watch on camera as snuff films on the Dark Web(TM) and pay for body parts as trophies, and Sam and Dean once again remembering Humans Are the Real Monsters. But I did appreciate the return to actual horror, so hopefully they keep it up because that’s why I watch SPN in the first place.

2. They also laid on the political stuff pretty thick, huh? lol. I didn’t mind too much, but it got to be a little jarring at times. Kinda reminded me of Charlie. Which... now makes me think Ginger and Charlie could’ve been a cute super-liberal redhead couple, hm!

3. Speaking of cute couples, I really started digging Doug and being like “aw, he and Donna are so cute!” right in the same scene he skadoodled. Dang. Well, maybe they’ll reconcile in the spinoff or something. Also, the mention of veganism by the vamp dude made me think in the part where Doug’s like, “No! I’m not like you guys, I can’t do this, I-I-” and the way the political themes were going in the episode I was fully prepared for him to say, “I’m vegan!” Which would totally be my excuse to get out of having to go kill monsters and get made fun of by demons :c and inevitably die gruesomely for having even glanced at the Winchesters.

4. Why the fuck was nobody reacting at all to Vamp Dude being such an unbelievable over-the-top douchebag, even before they found out he was a vamp? He went from “lololol yeahhhhhh that babe was HOT” -> “lololol yeahhhhhh I arranged for her to get kidnapped” -> “lololol yeahhhhhh I send people to get horribly tortured to death and their body parts auctioned off, check it out” And no one even gives him a dirty look, they just bring him with? Like I get they were focused on Ginger and Dean did rough him up earlier/they did ask why he was doing it, but it felt very much the plot was hurrying along with allowing time for real human reactions and the way all of them failed to react to almost all his comments was just super weird, with how they just let him stay smug and cocky and unbelievably evil when he was supposed to be human. I guess they didn’t have time to bring him to the police, but surely Dean would lose his temper again and beat the shit outta him, Dean’s not a very calm and controlled dude. Or at the very least unleash the angry Batman voice unto him and scare the shit out of him. And he’s responsible for putting Donna’s niece in danger, he just admitted it, so it’s weird she didn’t get much reaction to it either. Like even if he was written and acted less douchebaggily, more outrage and anger from the other characters would’ve been more in-character.

5. LMAO the scene where all the monsters are seeing Sam about to get sliced like “*gasp* yesssssss. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.” Like holy shit, is it happening?? is it really happening?!?! (Dean: no.) It’s weird also that they didn’t show Sam and/or Dean getting one last win over the watching monsters by being like “hey guess what, now we know where you fucks all are and we’re going to hunt down and kill every one of you” or “uh, uh, uh, GAME OVER *take 30 seconds to clumsily shut off camera*” OR “don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, fuckos *shoot camera*” We didn’t even get to see the monsters reacting to Dean saving Sam. Like no screams of rage. Not even one wibbly-lipped monster-pout!

6. Sam mentioning Cass in the last line made me suddenly remember Cass has been rotting in a cage in Hell with Lucifer for... quite awhile now. Probably standing with his face against the bars, staring into space like “Whyyyyyy is it taking so long to get me out of this, Lucifer is so annoyyyyyying, Asmodeus’s accent is so cringyyyyyy” (Poor Cass. Putting it in that light made me be like, damn, he does have it rough. How many other obnoxious characters are they gonna stick him with indefinitely?)

7. FBI Monster Man was actually pretty smart about it (in theory, he could’ve just shot Sam without waking him up and giving him the big speech first, but that’s okay, I appreciate him trying to be smart with the writing forcing him to be dumb) but that would’ve been a spectacularly gruesome fate for a character, holy shit, imagine if a recurring character had actually been killed off that way, that would’ve been so messed up and upsetting. I imagine lots of H/C fics were born the night this episode aired. I want to read em, this concept had a lot of weight for me and I have my own idea for it that I want to use (but it’ll take approximately 20 billion years to get to at the pace I’m writing, I do still got +12 seasons to get through with my SPN fic-verse). If anyone found/wrote any, reblog this (or if you’d prefer, message me and let me know if you don’t want me to reply publicly) with it, I’d dig it!

Overall I’d give it about a 7/10, mostly because obviously I really liked the concept and the execution of the horror a whole bunch. Some flaws but pretty good casefic, especially for recent seasons. (Y’all know I just want teh horrorrrrrr.)