#angel 5x16 shells

[the-chosen-half-of-one]

[ID: A gifset of a grieving Wesley and newly resurrected Illyria having a conversation at the end of Shells (Angel, Season 5 Episode 16), staring down thoughtfully at Illyria's sarcophagus in the lab in the direct aftermath of her taking over Fred's body before discovering her own power ruined.

Illyria *walking toward the viewing area*: We cling to what is gone... *turning towards Wes*

Is there anything in this life but grief?

Wesley *stepping forward alongside her, but not facing her*: There's love.

There's hope... for some.

There's hope that you'll find something worthy.

That your life will lead you to some joy.

That after everything... you can still be surprised.

Illyria: Is that enough?

*She turns to Wes again, almost desperate* Is that enough to live on?

*Wesley merely looks at her, face unreadable, without responding*

End ID]

[mycatismyfriend]

Angel the Series | 5x16 "Shells"

[dailyats]

Best Episode Poll (Poll 10/11)

[ozymandiasdirge]

sometimes one must sit with some chicken strips and some sangria and think about the specific psychological damage of season 5 deancas. specific but not limited to

chuck: castiel? he didnt make it. dean: :(

i killed two angels this week. those are my siblings. i’m hunted, i’ve rebelled and i did it, all of it, for you.

i really debate with myself everyday if they fucked or not during free to be you and me. 

also please the scene with the tie fixing and the upside down fbi badge im soft

dean the voice says im almost out of minutes

end verse is its own separate post but.....dean being jealous of himself stays with me every day.

also thinking about dean’s twin impulses of making sure cas experiences more of humanity to have something fun and nice. and probably feeling very very guilty that he is leading him ever closer to strung out in an opium den cas.

🥰🥰🥰 we had an appointment. 🥰🥰🥰 don’t ever change

when gabriel called cas a pretty boy and dean made the “i am repressed but yeah face”

cas the homo police and okay huggy bear happened in the same 30 seconds

when cas spends all of the song remains the same on a victorian fainting couch with the vapors and dean doesn’t support his body weight so he can hold his hand

also i know i am reaching and clowning but. in 5x13 john only says yes to michael when mary is in danger and things feel hopeless. keep that in mind.

5x14 the phone call staring in the morgue.

i know the necklace scene in 5x16 is supposed to be sad for sam reasons and i have a laundry list of reasons that i feel sad about cas’s shitty dad issues. but cas giving dean back his necklace and saying its useless is really just a gutpunch every fucking time.

cas copying deans coping mechanisms of being an asshole and drinking yourself sick in 5x17. on a bender....iconic.

also cas gets super fucked up is lying there in the car and on the motel bed bleeding. so close to falling....and then dean leaves to say yes to michael. i dont even care if im reaching.

5x18....they spent the whole time broken up. blow job jokes!!!! alley fight!!!! i got laid!!!!! dean sure says things sometimes!!!!! dean doing the eye rolling thing that my dad does when my mom takes too long telling a story to my aunt when cas talks. cas feelings about how whenever he devotes himself to someone (his father, dean) they completely let him down. and then almost dying for him later anyway with no complaint. also mean married comments “at least then i wont have to watch you fail”.

5x21. the whole call in the hospital. cas giving only single word response because he got a scholarship from that bitch university. jensen ackles’ delivery of you wanna ELABORATE on that. “you are not the burnt out broken shell of a man i believed to you to be.”

CAS ARE YOU GOD. and cas healing the hand print :(

[tinkdw]

When do u think was the first time Dean went to a bar? I have this headcanon about him being like five or six, and Jhon like super depressed bc his wife has been killed like yesterday it seems, where he would still feel guilty about dragging his sons bc rage wasn't as solid yet but then he has a break down or just needs a drink (maybe he saw something that triggered him, maybe he had new information, or maybe it was just to much to look at Dean and think about how much he looked like her) 1/2

2/2 and he would just pull over the car in the nearest bar in the middle of the night, with his kids asleep in the backseat. John would go and drink, and drink and drink till he couldn’t walk right. But suddenly Dean would just appear at his side, sleepy yet so worried, and tiny and so much like Mary that he just wouldn’t look at him.

OMG NOOOOOOOOOO. This is too accurate. (also I have another John anon so I will go into more detail on my thoughts on John here).

Personally I actually…. don’t hate on John. I KNOW I KNOW hear me out… I don’t LIKE John and I totally totally totally am all over the “he fucked up his kids and was an abuser by neglect” aspect of the story. However I also feel pity for the guy who was forced out of his will to fall in love with Mary, someone he actually didn’t have anything in common with and disliked when he was himself, clearly had issues with (as per 5x16) but still loved because he was brainwashed to do so… then she died in a horrific and traumatic way, after he was himself probably PTSD-ridden from the war… then found himself a single father to two small children having just found out about DEMONS and… yeah. That’s fucked up. His life was fucked up. He tried in a shit situation and he didn’t do well, he’s human.

So yeah, my thinking is that there’s no real excuse for what he did, but he was actually trying, he didn’t mean to be abusive, he was just so…. ruined by his life.

He was a puppet for Heaven, discovered the depths of Hell and lost his wife in one instant then left with nothing but two kids who relied on him and found out along the way that his baby might be in trouble from said Hell, I can see where the issues arose. I feel pity as well as anger because Dean and Sam didn’t deserve to have this upbringing, they deserved a father who wouldn’t make Dean parent Sam and leave for so long that Dean had to steal to feed him, going hungry himself, probably selling himself too… probably beating Dean when he was drunk etc. That I absolutely don’t forgive John for but I can also see the other side that is so tragic for his story?

ALSO… Dean and Sam have forgiven John. For me this is THE really important thing. THEY forgave him, Sam when he saw him as young John and Dean has had an ongoing troublesome relationship with John and himself and Mary, but 12x22 showed us that he saw John’s own tragic backstory himself, that he was a shell… and John ultimately sacrificed himself for Dean after acknowledging that he did a shitty job and that Dean was a better man than he was...

Season 13 is all about fathers and I imagine we will get some great closure from them both but particularly Dean on John and I hope this is also forgiveness, which is one of the key themes of the show.

It makes no sense for Dean at this point to reject John, scream about how awful he was and ultimately just flat out reject him (same with Cas and the Angels). It makes all the sense that we have a similar thing to with Mary, where he explains exactly how bad it was, maybe goes into some detail as to how bad it really was? That would be brilliant, but ultimately forgives him.

This means a whole lot more to Dean’s own personal arc than hanging onto the hatred and negative feelings. It’s always seen in fiction as such a more positive personal thing for a character to forgive than to hold onto hate, so I hope that is what we will see and honestly that’s exactly what I expect :)