#bobby and michael are partners in crime

[fireburningonthedancefloor]

Rewatch of 9-1-1: 4x07

I’m showing my mom the show 😂 and we’re watching Michael and Bobby and David participate in criminal activity.

I’m laughing at it 😂

And she’s screaming at the TV: “What the F?!” “SHUT. UP.” “OH MY GOD!” “Athena’s going to kill them!”

And now I’m laughing at my mom too 😂

[kaleldobrev]

Without Hesitation, Yes.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Summary: After all these years, Dean finally asks you to marry him.

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Cursing (3x)

Authors Note: Flashbacks in italics | I love me a good childhood friends to lovers story | If you liked this, don’t forget to like & reblog. I really appreciate it! Feedback is always welcome ♡

Dean had known you for as long as he could remember; first meeting you through Bobby. He had met you in the late eighties, when he couldn’t be more then 9 or 10 years old. Bobby introduced you as his daughter – not biological, adopted; but he still considered you his blood nonetheless. From the moment he laid his eyes on you, he felt an instant connection to you; the two of you becoming partners in crime very soon after your first meeting. Even when him, Sammy, and his dad were on the road, he still made sure to keep in contact with you, telling you everything and anything. He would tell you how gross the motel room was that they were staying at, the diners that they would stop at on the way to their next case, and even about their current case – sometimes asking you for your input.

Although Bobby was your adoptive father and you would help him do research for cases every now and then, he had never actually wanted the hunting life for you. But not being in the life was never an option for you; it was something that you had always wanted to do. So, when Dean Winchester showed up on your doorstep in October 2005 saying that his dad was missing and needed your help, you dropped everything, packed a bag and left; even though your father didn’t want you to go. He was mad at you for leaving, but understood that it was something that you needed to do; not only because the Winchester’s were like family, but because he could see the way you and Dean looked at each other – something that he tried so hard to prevent.

For as long as Dean could remember, he always felt something for you; but he never fully knew what that feeling was. He was between three different options for a while: he actually had a crush on you, he only had a crush on you because Bobby told him “Don’t even think about it boy” or he only had a crush on you because you were the most consistent woman in his life. One of the first moments he began to try and pinpoint which of the three it was, took place when the two of you were teenagers. Everyone was sleeping and it was just the two of you up. You had somehow convinced him to watch one of your favorite movies Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even though it wasn’t his thing, he didn’t mind watching it with you because he had thought that Kristy Swanson was hot – but he didn’t dare tell you that. He had remembered how the two of you snuck downstairs to watch it, the two of you making popcorn and grabbing two sodas from the fridge. Dean remembered how engrossed you were when watching it, sometimes quoting from it or even acting out some of the scenes. He could still remember something that you said to him, even though it had been more than 20 years. “When I grow up, I wanna be just like Buffy.” For some reason, you saying that had brought a smile to his face.

There were a few instances in his life when he had planned on telling you how he truly felt about you before the two of you had started dating. But each and every time he had thought about telling you, he would back out, because he didn’t want to ruin one of his longest friendships. Before he went to Hell, he almost broke and told you, but he told himself that there was no way he could do that do you despite the fact that he knew that he was never going to see you again. The last thing he wanted was to tell you that he loved you and then die, and now you had to spend the rest of your life wondering, “What if?” A few years later right before he was going to say yes to Michael, that is when he decided he was going to do it. He had no idea why he had thought that was the moment, but his feelings for you just poured out of him like a dam that had burst. “I’ve loved you for a long time Sweetheart. Ever since we were kids. There are so many times when I’ve wanted to tell you how I felt but…I didn’t want to ruin the friendship that we had. I…I didn’t want to lose you.” For a moment he had thought that you wouldn’t reciprocate his feelings but to his surprise you did. “Took you long enough you idjit.” You told him, kissing him soon after that. “After I go into the pit, I want the two of you to have a normal apple pie, white picket fence life together. Do the whole nine. Marriage, kids, PTA meetings. All of it.” Sam had made the both of you promise. The two of you did have some sense of normalcy for the year – the best you could anyway, but kids, marriage, and definitely PTA meetings weren’t on the table at that moment. Someday though maybe.

Dean loved you more than anything or anyone. You were his best friend, his favorite person, the one that he could always count on; and most importantly: the love of his life. He never thought he would ever get the chance to ever call someone that: the love of his life. He had only heard the term once or twice during his life, mainly hearing it from Bobby and his father. Over the years, Dean had thought that he was in love before, but it wasn’t until he had a relationship with you that he truly would know what being in love actually felt like. The other times he had thought he was, he was in love with the idea of the person, in love with the idea of being in their world – a world that he knew he didn’t belong in. With you, it was different; effortless. He didn’t have to hide any aspect of himself in order to please you. You weren’t afraid of him, even when he was afraid of himself at times.

There was a part of him that knew that he didn’t deserve you – you weren’t as broken as he was. Yes, you had lost just as much as he had, but you were somehow stronger than he could ever be; which is one of the things that he admired most about you. When things got tough, he would hid behind a bottle of Jack and a mountain of self-loathing and sarcasm. Meanwhile, you continued to carry your head high and carry on like it was just another Tuesday with the boys or just another case. The only time he had ever seen you completely break is when Bobby died.

A few weeks before his insanely close near-death experience where he almost lost to a rusty rebar fighting vampires, he had went into town with Sam to go and get you an engagement ring. Even though he knew the type of jewelry that you liked, getting you an engagement ring was a completely different story. He went back and forth for hours trying to find you the perfect ring. “Dude, just pick something. She’ll love whatever you get her.” Sam had told him. It was in that moment that Dean’s eyes landed on one that he knew that you would absolutely love. “I’ll take that one.” Dean said, pointing at the ring in the case.

A month has gone by after his close near-death experience, and proposing to you is something that he no longer wanted to put off. He didn’t want to spend another day, another hour, another minute without seeing this ring on your finger. You had told him once a while ago that you didn’t need an engagement ring; that all he had to do was ask you to marry him and then the two of you could go to the nearest courthouse that same day. He truly loved the thought; but he had wanted to do something more for you than that.

Dean held the ring in his hands and couldn’t wait to give it to you. The only problem that he was currently having though, was trying to figure out exactly what he was going to say to you. “Still trying to come up with a speech there Romeo?” Sam said, his voice sounding a bit amused.

Dean eyed him, placing the ring down on the kitchen table. “I have no freaking clue what I’m going to say to her.” He admitted. “I don’t want it to be a chick flick moment, but I don’t want it to sound too generic either.” For the past several days, Dean has been trying to come up with a good proposal speech for you, but each and every time he thought that he had something, it simply just left him. Yesterday, he had even started writing the speech down, but kept crossing out everything that he wrote because he hated the way it looked and sounded.

“Word of advice? As someone who was going to propose…” Sam sighed a little at the memory; still briefly remembering exactly what he was planning on saying to Jessica. “Just be honest. Tell her…tell her all the things you love about her. Why you fell for her in the first place. You know things like that.”

“I said no chick flick moments Sam.” Dean picked up the ring again and started spinning it around on the table, momentarily forgetting that the ring before him was a couple grand and not something he just picked up at the Gas n’ Sip down the road.

“Then don’t make it one.” Sam walked over to Dean and placed his hand on his shoulder. “She’ll love whatever you say to her. I mean, she’s stuck with your dumbass this far. Nothing you can say now will make her run.” Sam gave him a smirk, and Dean just rolled his eyes.

“Bitch.” Dean said.

“Jerk.” Sam replied.

You were doing what you normally did on a Sunday morning – doing some yoga in the Bunker gym. Ever since you and the boys had made the Bunker your home, you had found yourself attracted to yoga; something that you initially didn’t like until recently. Bobby had tried to get you into it – weirdly enough; saying that it would be good for you. You had told him that you would only do it if he did it with you. “I already get pedicures with you, I ain’t doing yoga too.” He said.

As your eyes were closed and you were currently in Lotus position you heard a small knock on the door frame of the gym. You opened your eyes and a huge smile sprawled across your lips. “Hey you.” You said, your voice calm.

“Hey beautiful.” Dean replied, walking into the gym with you. He pointed to the spot in front of you. “Can I join you?” You were slightly surprised. You had tried to get Dean to do yoga for a while, but he always said that it wasn’t really his thing – he left the yoga portion of the workouts to you and Sam.

“I thought you’d never ask.” You scooted back a bit, giving him just a little bit of room so he wasn’t so close to the door.

Dean sat down in front of you, trying his best to get in the same position as you were currently in. Fuck I’m old. He thought to himself as he crossed his legs, feeling just a little bit of pressure in his knees. “You don’t have to sit like that if you don’t want to my love.” You told him. “I’m happy to just have you sitting here with me.” Your comment sincere.

“I uh, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Dean’s sentence made your heart jump. Not only because of the abruptness of it, but because it sounded like a ‘We need to talk’ conversation. Conversations like these were never your favorite – Hell, you didn’t know anyone who had liked these types of conversations.

“What’s up?” You asked, trying your best not to sound nervous while replying.

“Don’t worry. It’s…it’s nothing bad.” Dean reassured you. “Um…Well, it could be. But…I personally don’t think it is. So, I’m hoping you won’t think it’s bad either.” He sounded like a school boy trying to talk to his crush for the first time; you found it adorable. “Do you, do you remember when we were kids and Bobby would always buy you these ring pops from the store?”

“Yeah…Why?” Of course you had remembered. “One day I want a ring this big!” You told Bobby. “Not if you marry a hunter you won’t.” Bobby laughed.

“I remember, I don’t know if you do but, I remember when we were like…I don’t know, ten? The two of us were playing upstairs in your room and I took the ring pop and put it on your finger and I asked you to marry me. And without any kind of hesitation you said yes.” Dean started smiling from the memory. “Oh Dean! Of course I will! Why wouldn’t I want to marry my best friend?” You said. “You then ran out of your room, leaving my ass behind and ran all the way downstairs where you told Bobby and my dad that I had asked you to marry me. “Look daddy! Uncle John! Dean asked me to marry him! We’re gonna get married!” Bobby had told you years later, “I knew you and that idjit were gonna fall in love. I saw it when you were youngins.”

“Dean –” You began.

“Y/N.” Dean positioned himself so he was now sitting on both of his knees, holding both of your hands in his. “I honestly don’t know what I would ever do without you. Out of everyone that I’ve known in my life, you have been the one consistent thing in it. You have always been by my side even when I know for a fact that I didn’t deserve it. A lot of days, especially in the beginning when we first got together, I didn’t think I deserved you. I thought that you deserved much more than someone like me. Someone that could provide you with the life that you deserve; a safe and quiet one, not one where you’re constantly running toward the things that want to kill you.” He let out a small chuckle. “But, I’ve realized over the years that…Sweetheart, we may not have the most conventional life but, we have each other, and that’s really all that matters.” He released one of your hands for a moment as he reached for something in his pocket. “Close your eyes for me.” Without hesitation you closed them. The second you did, you felt something being placed in your hands. “Okay. Open.” When you opened your eyes there was a red and black ring lying in your hand.

“Dean…” You looked down at the ring and then looked up at Dean, unsure of what to say. For the first time in your life you were utterly speechless. You got up, getting in the same position as Dean, holding the ring in your fingers. Placing your hands on Dean’s shoulder’s, you leaned in and kissed him. You felt his hands and arms pull you in close to him as he deepened the kiss between the two of you.

“Will you marry me Sweetheart?” He asked, once the kiss was broken.

Without hesitation, like you had done all those years ago you said, “Yes.”

[sweetdreamsjeff]

The Rebel: Patti Smith

--I bring Tim Buckley's unreleased demo of the old folk tune ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ for Patti, and she talks about how the singer/songwriter was a favourite of Robert Mapplethorpe’s back in the early Brooklyn days, and chuckles when she recalls how she and her first partner in artistic crime would neck like high school kids to the Goodbye And Hello album. She was delighted when Jeff Buckley stopped by the recording sessions and added a high, ghostly vocal part to ‘Beneath The Southern Cross’, and even more delighted when he raced home and returned to the studio with an essrage, an Egyptian instrument he used to texture the track ‘Fireflies’.--

---

Ben Edmonds, MOJO, August 1996

To R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, she is "one of the premier artists of my lifetime – I’ve blindly stolen from her for years." To Bob Dylan, she is "still the best, you know." She is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s true originals, and on her return to the fray after eight years of joy and tragedy lived out of the public eye, Patti Smith grants Ben Edmonds the most revealing interview of her career.

PATTI SMITH IS IN FULL SWAGGER, WORKING THE ROXY Theatre stage in LA with relaxed authority. She takes the stage alone, wearing a shapeless warm-up jacket with hood tightly framing her face, to deliver a fiery reading of ‘Piss Factory’. With each succeeding song she adds band members until her musical complement is complete. Left-hand man Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty are Patti Smith Group confederates, while bassist Tony Shanahan has played with Kaye and John Cale (and backed Patti on some solo dates last autumn). This core trio is augmented by Patti’s 23-year-old poetry protege Oliver Ray on rhythm guitar and — seated stage left behind impenetrable shades and cradling his guitar like some old CBGB's bluesman — Tom Verlaine.

Smith has a couple of wild cards up her sleeve as well. She introduces Bob Neuwirth as "the person who encouraged me to sing and gave me my first start," after the legendary personage – Bob Dylan road companion, Jim Morrison babysitter, painter, filmmaker, composer of ‘Mercedes Benz’ for Janis Joplin – has sung a typically wonderful song called ‘I Don't Think Of Her’. "Bobby has a new CD out [Look Up on Watermelon Records] on which I appear," Patti announces. "It's available almost nowhere."

Her son Jackson, 13, appears plugged in and joins the troupe for a romp through – are you ready? – ‘Smoke On The Water’. Jack and guitar stand nose to nose with the amp, noodling noisily as Lenny Kaye sings Deep Purple's stirring lament for the tragic death by fire of recording equipment. Mom makes the most of her vocal cameo, belting out "Fire in the sky-eee" in the most godawful screech you've ever heard. It's a small glimpse of what the future might have held had Patti chosen to become the singer of Blue Oyster Cult (for whom she wrote songs) instead of setting off on her crusade to save the soul of rock'n'roll with The Patti Smith Group.

The band has a homemade, slightly ragtag quality that reminds this audience member of nothing so much as the earliest Patti Smith Group when it consisted of Patti, Lenny and Richard Sohl. That trio "toured" California in 1974 to "promote" ‘Piss Factory’, and you felt like you were watching something invent itself right before your eves. This mini "tour" follows almost exactly the same path, and once again you feel like you're watching something in the exhilarating process of becoming.

They attack a fair number of familiar songs – ‘Ghost Dance’, ‘Rock'N'Roll Nigger’, ‘Dancing Barefoot’ (although, curiously, nothing from Dream Of Life) – with gusto. The 10 shows opening for Bob Dylan last winter seem to have jump-started this aggregation's chemistry, and they're now also capable of moments of transcendence that rival anything Patti's bands have attained in the past. ‘About A Boy’, her meditation on the loss of Kurt Cobain, has grown from humble acoustic beginnings into an oceanic noisefield than tonight is staggering. And their ‘Wicked Messenger’ ranks with the great rock rearrangements of Dylan songs. It's a treat that such a thing remains possible in 1996.

The small acoustic shows and guest spots she's done sporadically over the past year have been tentative in tone and occasionally awkward. She is not – nor does she have the slightest inclination to be – the punk tornado who ripped through this room 20 years ago, when the Roxy was LA's premier showcase club, hosting legendary engagements by Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Marley, and live recordings by Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Warren Zevon and others. But she has certainly regained every bit of the belief that the space is hers to command.

The sold-out house is evenly divided between the older soldiers who served in the rock revolution Patti Smith heralded in the early '70s and those who wish they could have been there, having heard their own heroes like Michael Stipe say that were it not for Patti Smith he wouldn't exist. The R.E.M. singer has been all over MTV News this week, quoted as saying that Patti's show at the Wiltern Theatre a few days earlier had been not simply the greatest concert he'd ever seen, but one of the greatest emotional experiences of his life. *

THE PATTI SMITH RESUME: ARRIVED IN NEW YORK FROM New Jersey in 1967 and wrote herself a new identity in concert with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; wrote plays like Cowboy Mouth with Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard one line at a time, pushing a battered typewriter back and forth across a Chelsea Hotel tabletop in a game of attitude chess; published small press volumes of hallucinogenic verse inhabited by James Joyce, Johnny Ace, Jesus Christ, Harry Houdini, Joan of Arc, James Brown, Georgia O'Keefe, the Paragons and the Jesters, Picasso and Rimbaud and Bob Dylan's dog; wrote poems, profiles and record review reveries for Creem and Rolling Stone; put her big ideas into embryonic practice at her Rock'N'Rimbaud readings accompanied by guitarist Lenny Kaye at St Mark's Church, New York's new poetry nirvana; released ‘Piss Factory’ b/w ‘Hey Joe’ in 1974 on their own Mer Records, now regarded as one of the first shots fired in the punk/indie revolt (though at the time it was a shot barely heard in the next block); released in 1975 a debut album Horses, a parable in spoken word and song for the declaration of self that adolescents itchy to slip their skins will probably respond to for generations to come; sounded a clarion call with her amped-to-the-teeth Patti Smith Group that has been answered only in part by punk rockers, alterna-nerds and riot grrrls; fell from a Tampa, Florida stage in 1977 to a concrete floor 14 feet below, breaking her neck; came out of traction and back into action with ‘Because The Night’, a hit single co-written with Bruce Springsteen, yet always gave equal time to noisy improvisational epics like ‘Radio Ethiopia’ that were unplayable on any radio format (and guaranteed to scare the living piss out of anyone attracted by her Brucie ballad); announced her retirement from public life in the shadow of her biggest-selling album (Wave); and immediately following her biggest concert ever (85,000 in an Italian football stadium on September 10, 1979) quietly married former MC5 guitarist Fred 'Sonic' Smith in 1980, and moved to an unassuming Detroit suburb to raise a family. In the next decade she raised her head above the parapet only once, with her 1988 album Dream Of Life.

Since 1990, Patti has suffered the loss of four of her closest comrades. Her best friend Robert Mapplethorpe was claimed by AIDS. Her piano player (and, after Lenny Kaye, longest-serving musical ally) Richard Sohl succumbed to heart failure. Then in late '94 her husband, soulmate, and hero of so many of her best songs (‘Because The Night’, ‘Frederick’, ‘Dream Of Life’), Fred 'Sonic' Smith, suddenly passed away, a shock compounded by the death of her brother and crew manager Todd Smith only a month later.

The release of a new album, Gone Again, and a limited return to live performance is part of a plan she and Fred had mapped out before his untimely passing. Yet there's no denying that these activities have now become, at least in part, a memorial to all her fallen comrades. This mission was launched in earnest last December when, at the personal invitation of Bob Dylan, she opened 10 of his shows on the East Coast, a pairing he dubbed The Paradise Lost Tour.

"A lot of girls have come along since Patti started," Dylan told a Boston audience the first of many times they duetted on his song ‘Dark Eyes’. "But Patti's still the best, you know." Then he kissed her. *

DRIVING TO PATTI'S HOUSE, I WAS THINKING ABOUT something she had told me recently. The subject was her desire to play only those places where she'd been treated well. I wondered, then, what places this might disqualify.

"Detroit," she said without hesitation. "They've never been that supportive of our work. I don't think Fred got the support from the music community that he was entitled to. The radio stations knew who he was and what he'd done, and they should've tipped their hat to him. I guess I feel somewhat bitter about that. Not for me. I don't care; but it hurt Fred deeply."

Patti will soon be moving back to New York. This move is not unexpected. Detroit was where she came to make her life with Fred. It was his town, his family, his roots, and there's probably no place she can turn here and not be confronted by a reminder of her late husband.

This has got to be especially true of their home, which they bought, furnished, and within which they created a family. Patti and Fred even saved it together, sandbagging the place when torrential rains and a rising lake very nearly flooded them out. Because the family was so reclusive, all sorts of rumours circulated about their domestic refuge. One had them living in a sumptuous lakefront estate, another pictured them in utter sub urban tract home anonymity. Neither turns out to be accurate.

They're not on the lake, though they could most certainly see it if there weren't so many other houses in the way. They live in a normal middle-class neighbourhood where many of the smallish homes sport obvious additions to accommodate expanding families, resulting in houses that are a little too big for their modest plots but never quite big enough to contain all the kids' stuff which litters the porches and short driveways. Yet there's no doubting which is the Smith residence. It's easy to spot, being the only castle on the block. A small castle, to be sure, really no bigger than most of the surrounding homes, but a towered and turreted castle all the same.

Seen from the insight, the tower contains the winding staircase that leads to the upper floor. The house is sparsely though comfortably furnished, in casual boho. The usual family stuff is posted on the fridge and scattered about; handmade birthday and Mother's Day cards, postcards, school meeting notices. If it weren't for the guitars and amplifiers in the living room, you'd never know this was the lair of musicians. Where you might expect to find a portrait of some revered family elder hangs a picture of honorary uncle Allen Ginsberg.

Once past the idea of amps in the living room, the closest we get to rock'n'roll excess is an extravagant selection of teas. Oliver Ray brews some camomile for Patti, whose stomach is acting up.

At 48, Patti Smith's hair is unashamedly lashed with gray and worn in simple braids. Her interview demeanour is pretty much as it's always been. She considers each query carefully and answers at length, not looking at her interviewer but staring at some private point beyond the opposite wall, a safe place she always returns to. Though Patti is never at a loss for a forcefully expressed thought or opinion, whenever the conversation touches on her late husband – which is frequently – her voice falters and she has to bear down hard on her words to get them out.

I bring Tim Buckley's unreleased demo of the old folk tune ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ for Patti, and she talks about how the singer/songwriter was a favourite of Robert Mapplethorpe’s back in the early Brooklyn days, and chuckles when she recalls how she and her first partner in artistic crime would neck like high school kids to the Goodbye And Hello album. She was delighted when Jeff Buckley stopped by the recording sessions and added a high, ghostly vocal part to ‘Beneath The Southern Cross’, and even more delighted when he raced home and returned to the studio with an essrage, an Egyptian instrument he used to texture the track ‘Fireflies’.

You find yourself wanting to somehow crack the fog and get her to smile. During the second of our two interviews, conducted at her Michigan home, it is her eight-year-old daughter who unintentionally provides the cue. Patti is expounding on the divine bliss of parenthood when Jesse, who's been yakking to a friend in the other room, suddenly calls out, "Mommy, can I have a cellular phone?"

"No," Patti immediately shoots back, rolling her eyes at the cosmic timing of this interruption, and then dissolving into the best laugh I'd heard from her in a very long time.

In the words of one of those Irish poets, "the healing has begun." *

This album is unique for you in that it has so many solo songwriting credits.

Fred was giving me guitar lessons. He had taught me some chords, basically so I could write songs. We studied song structure and things I didn't know a whole lot about. He taught me enough on the guitar that, after a lot of practice, I could write simple songs. When he passed away...I just…um… I used to spend a lot of time by myself at night with the acoustic guitar just making up little songs. A lot of the songs on the record – ‘Farewell Reel’, ‘About A Boy’, ‘Raven’, ‘Dead To The World’, ‘Wing’ – were written that way late at night. They're all in waltz-time, 3/4, which is the only time signature we worked on so it's the only one I know.

The version of ‘About A Boy’ you played at the Roxy is already far beyond the album version.

That song has really grown in performance. It's the closest thing to anarchy – controlled anarchy – that we have right now, because we let the song completely open up at the end. I always like having a piece where everyone goes out but then returns. That was the beauty of John Coltrane, and what separated him from the noisemakers and indulgent jerk-offs. He would go out there and stay out there as long as he could, but he always returned. That's what we strive for.

When Kurt Cobain took his life, Fred and I were extremely disturbed about that. Both of us liked his work. We thought it was good for young people. I was happy that there was a new band I could relate to, and looked forward to watching them grow. He had a future. As parents, we were deeply disturbed to see this young boy take his own life. The waste, and the emotional debris he left for others to clean up.

I was also concerned how it would affect young people who looked up to him, or looked to him for answers. I guess that's the danger of looking to anyone else for answers, but I perceived that he had a responsibility. To himself, to the origin of his gifts, to his family, to the younger generation.

So I wrote the song for two reasons. One was as a well wish, even after what he did, that his continuing journey be beautiful. But it was also written with a certain amount of bitterness. The chorus says "About a boy/beyond it all." One way of looking at it is that he's beyond this particular plane of existence. But it's also a wry statement, a frustrated refrain. It relates to my sorrow for the various boys we've lost. Whether it be Jim Morrison or Brian Jones; any of these young, gifted, driven people who do feel they're beyond it all, that they can completely ravage and ruin their bodies or have no sense of responsibility to their position and their gifts. We all were pioneering some kind of freedom, but I don't think what's been done with it is all that constructive.

When you were that age how did you deal with those feelings?

All young people feel sometimes that they can't take it, that they'd rather die than get up out of bed. But there was always something that reminded me, it could be anything. The handiwork of man. I could be feeling totally desolate and then look at a beautiful prayer rug or a Picasso, and that would be enough to make me want to live. That's what other people's work did for me. When I say that The Rolling Stones got me through this, or Bob Dylan got me through that, they did. That in itself is a motivation for working. The act of creation is a beautiful thing. That belongs to the artist; he's got that moment of illumination, when a kernel of an idea erupts and blooms. But after he creates it, it ceases to be his. It's really for other people.

What brought you back to New York to record?

I love Electric Lady, which is where we cut Horses; it's intimate but highly developed. It's right on 8th Street, so you can walk out at three in the morning and there are people on the streets. It's a good energy. I don't require privacy and silence when I'm recording. It's the first recording studio I was ever in. The first time I ever went there was also the first rock'n'roll party I'd ever been to. Jane Friedman invited me to this party for Jimi Hendrix because he'd just opened the studio up. I was so excited because I'd never been in a recording studio before. But when I got there I was too nervous to go in, so I sat on the steps. Then Jimi came up the stairs. He was incredibly beautiful; tall, very... he was Jimi Hendrix, y'know? A great-looking man. But really shy. He came up the stairs and I was sitting there so he sat down next to me and just talked. He asked me why I wasn't going down and I told him I was too nervous. He said, "Me too, I'm too nervous to stay." Then he told me some of the things about the studio, and how he wanted to work on a more global kind of music. He said that he was going to London, but that when he came back he was gonna go up to Woodstock with new musicians and then bring them into Electric Lady to record. But of course he never came back from London... That was a great moment for me. So when Robert Mapplethorpe gave us money to do ‘Piss Factory’, even though it was not much money I had to go to Electric Lady.

The equipment has been updated, but it's got a lot of the same things – the late '60s psychedelic paintings and bad murals of Jimi Hendrix playing right-handed. It didn't really occur to me how cyclic it was until I was in the middle of it. I was standing by myself in the hallway looking at those murals, when I remembered standing in that same spot in 1975 and Robert Mapplethorpe taking a picture of me and John Cale. Lenny came out and stood next to me and said, "Amazing, isn't it?" It was like he could feel what I was feeling. The first time we were back in the studio, just hearing those Lenny guitar tones and Jay on the drums, it was so... from the subconscious. It triggered so many memories.

How was this one as a recording experience?

This album was both joyous and heartbreaking to do. We were 80 per cent done with the record and I had to stop. I couldn't take it any more because... I just really missed Fred. It was so difficult, and I was so emotionally depleted. So we stopped for a while. When we did that little mini-tour with Bob Dylan I was supposed to be finishing the record, but I still couldn't face it. But I got a lot of energy and positive feelings from the Dylan experience, and then we went in and completed the album. Those dates gave me my confidence back.

Do you know what made Bob reach out to you?

What I gleaned from Bob is that he felt it would be good for me to come back out, that he thought people should see me. I wouldn't presume to speak for him, but he has been so highly influential that he knows probably what it tasted like to be influential and then get shuffled around somewhere. I guess he felt I could use some encouragement.

We weren't prepared, but I wanted to do it so badly that we prepared ourselves practically on stage. I think we had about five hours of rehearsal. But all of us had pretty much played together, and we all pooled the things we could do. The first night was pretty shaky, but after that I felt like I was back in familiar territory. My mission on that small tour was to crack all the energy, crack the atmosphere and set the stage for him, to get the night as magic as possible, so that when he hit the stage – 'cos he hits a lot of them – that maybe it would feel a little more special. I think we did a pretty good job and I know that he was happy.

Had you been in touch with him over the years?

No, not really. I met him back in the '70s, before we even had a record deal. It was at the Other End on Bleecker Street in the Village. I was told he was in the audience, so I made a few obscure references that I knew the crowd wouldn't get, but would let him know that I knew he was there. It was kinda presumptuous, but that's the way I was then. I was thrilled that he was there, but I wasn't gonna let him know it. When he came backstage I was kinda snotty. "Any poets around here?" he said, so I said I wasn't into poetry anymore – Poetry sucks. Can you believe I said that? But he was very gracious, and even put his arm around me to have our picture taken. The next week it was in the Soho Weekly News, right on the cover, and seeing that was definitely one of my best moments ever. But it also made me kinda sad, 'cos I knew I hadn't treated him well and I felt like I'd kinda blown it, y'know?

A little while later, I was on 4th Street and I saw him walking toward me. I tried to shrink but he saw me anyway. And he was really nice. He pulled out that picture and said, "Who are these two people? Do you know them?" And he gave me this beautiful smile, just to let me know it was all right. So he's been incredibly generous and understanding toward me from the very beginning.

I've admired Bob Dylan since I was 15 years old; he's been an important part of my life for two-thirds of it now. So to have someone like that give you encouragement is... beyond words. [On the tour] we sang ‘Dark Eyes’ almost every night, and singing with him was just like being in heaven. I was so happy. I kept thinking…sometimes it made me think of Fred, because Fred really liked and admired Bob too. He often said that there were only two people that would be able to pull him out of his self-imposed retirement, Keith Richards and Bob Dylan. He'd say, "Now if Keith or Bob call and want me to play with 'em, I might have to come out." So how could I not answer the call? It was a great experience.

Do you still regard Bob with a fan's awe?

Meeting him again, I can't say I'm in awe of him. The way I relate to him at this point in my life is that he's a man that has a fine presence, a very noble presence. He's an extremely attractive man. When I talk to him I still feel sort of like a schoolgirl, but also like a friend and a colleague.

After Fred passed away, the record I most listened to for solace was Bob's album World Gone Wrong, which is all those great old blues and other songs from the trove of his knowledge. I listened to that almost continuously. Once again he helped me through a difficult time with his music. And then to have him reach out to me as a human being... I'll be forever grateful.

And this gave you the confidence to finish the record.

We'd pretty much recorded everything; most of the vocals on the record are the live vocals. It was just a question of pulling all the threads together and presenting the record. But I just... I just needed time to think about everything. We had pretty much everything cut except the title track ‘Gone Again’, which we did right before we came out here. That was Fred's last music and...um...I just wasn't able to...write the lyrics. And finally I…I marshalled my energies and did it. Lenny had a lot to do with making certain ‘Summer Cannibals’ and ‘Gone Again’ came to light. We had a lot of cassette tapes with Fred playing acoustic guitar or chanting or giving some direction...to me, 'cos he often made tapes like that so I could write lyrics. Lenny had to lovingly piece those songs together.

So many people haven't yet discovered Dream Of Life, which I think is your best album after Horses. People are going to be discovering that album for years.

I hope so, because it's the only real document we have of Fred's range, though it's still only a partial account. It's pretty much his album; I look at Dream Of Life as his gift to me. He wrote all the music, arranged everything, a lot of the song titles, the album title, the concept of the songs, especially ‘People Have The Power’, were all Fred's. I told him we should call it by both our names but he wouldn't. But he had promised me that on this album he would sing on it and we'd put both our names on it. So I was really looking forward... I thought this was going to be a great album because people would see his face, hear him sing, and he was getting interested in performing live again. But...ah...it didn't happen. Which has been the heartbreaking part of making this album for me.

There was one thing released under both your names: the atmospheric piece ‘It Takes Time’ that you did for the Wim Wenders film Until The End Of The World in 1990.

Thank you for remembering that one! I love to hear it, because Fred's reciting poetry. Again, that's almost entirely his piece. Not only did he write the music and some of the poetry, he actually dictated how he wanted me to read my parts. Oh yeah, we had some friction, some healthy friction, in the recording of that song. He was the suggester in the family. He was clearly the boss, although he liked to pretend that he wasn't...

How did you first meet him?

It was March 9, 1976, and we met in front of the radiator at that hot dog place, Lafayette Coney Island, in Detroit. The Sonic Rendezvous Band was opening for us, but I didn't know anything about him. Lenny introduced me to this guy. I heard that his name is Smith, and my name is Smith. We just looked at each other and I was completely taken by him. I had no idea who he was or anything about him until afterwards when Lenny told me. Lenny introduced me to him and said, "He's one of the great guitar players." I said, Perhaps you'll want to play with us tonight. And he said, "Maybe so." Then he left and I asked Lenny if he was really any good, and Lenny said, "The best". So I was playing with him that night, and I had a lot of bravado in those days. I didn't have respect for anybody. But I totally submitted to his reign. He came on the stage and started playing, and after a while I just set my guitar down and let it feed back. I just let him take over because I felt that I had met my match, that I had met the better man.

As I understand it, the original plan you'd developed with Fred called for you to begin re-emerging now anyway.

Yes. This would've happened. It was according to plan. A couple of years after Dream Of Life, Fred wanted us to go out with just a percussionist, Richard Sohl, him and I. It would have been more spoken art, more poetry with them doing interpretive things behind me. Fred really wanted to do that, but then Richard died suddenly. It really broke his heart, 'cos Fred was really close to Richard. So we withdrew from that idea.

Then, after a time he really felt it was time for me to walk back on stage. In his own way he had a somewhat competitive nature, and he was watching how the arena of female artists has really widened. The girls have done a great job. Now, I don't consider myself a female artist – I'm just an artist – but Fred had that bit of competitiveness. He wanted me to take a stand, I think. I actually was the one who was reticent. He felt it in me before I did.

We were gonna do pretty much what we're doing now: do a record, do dates in the summer, do things when we could. But he was... actually (her voice slows down)... looking forward to…that. So…

Are any of the songs from that period on this new album?

Two. I didn't do a lot of them, just because I couldn't. It was just too painful. Even doing those two... They're two rock songs. Fred really wanted me to do rock songs again. For all the knowledge and sophistication that Fred had acquired over the years as a musician, he always said there was always room for one more great rock song, and he never stopped trying to write it. It's just so happened to work out that the pivotal rock songs on the album are the two that Fred and I wrote together.

It's funny, but I really always wanted him to go back out. I would've been happy staying at home taking care of the kids. I really wanted the world to see him. I really loved his work, and I do regret that people didn't get to see his full range. But he was his own man, he did what he wanted. He wasn't a guy trapped in a family situation. He wanted a family deeply, and he committed himself to his family... to a fault, I think. He was a great father.

One of the main reasons that I'm able to feel no guilt, nothing but pride when I'm performing, is that I know he wanted me to do it. I never regretted my decision to stop performing. I spent the '80s studying and writing, and becoming a far more facile writer. I learned quite a bit about everything from sports to cooking, whatever I needed to learn at any given moment. And I really treasure those years. I didn't yearn for or regret the past. I didn't even think about it. I was too wrapped up in our present.

What I often did was to wake up early and write from five to seven or eight when the kids got up. I always allowed myself a time, and continued the work ethic that I had developed with Robert Mapplethorpe. No matter what was happening, even when we were sick, Robert and I always worked. Every day. It was sort of a pact we made, and I've kept to that.

I've learned that I don't need to smoke pot all night and then at three in the morning write my poem. I had to learn a whole different system of creation. If I have from five to seven to do my work, then that's when I'll do it. I've completely grasped the fact that it comes from within me, and I take it wherever I go. Whether I'm in a prison in French Guyana or in my laundry room. You don't have to be the victim of inspiration. I learned a lot of things from Fred...

The recent Mapplethorpe biography painted you as a prisoner of Fred's tyrannical whims.

Oh, please... I made a decision about the kind of life I wanted to live. I made it, and I have never even once – never! – regretted making it. I mean, I missed my friends, I missed the camaraderie of the band, I missed certain things. Even though sometimes it was difficult, to me it was a privilege to be with him. I only regret that he's gone. I don't regret nothing else.

It was a treat to see Bob Neuwirth at your Roxy show.

I met Bobby around 1969 at the Chelsea Hotel. I was still kinda hoping to be a painter at that time, but it was beginning to become clear to me that it wasn't my beat and so I was writing quite a bit. I was in the lobby of the Chelsea and I had a notebook. "Hey poet," I remember him saying. "Well, you look like a poet. Do you write like one?" Defiant, very challenging. I thought, Whoah, Bob Neuwirth! He was in Don't Look Back. That's his leg on the cover of Highway 61 Revisited! So I gave him my notebook, and he read it and actually thought about it. He took me under his wing. He was a bit older than me, and really like a brother. He was very kind to me, but tough too. He taught me a lot, and helped me start to develop some sense of myself as a writer. At the same time he introduced me to a world that I hadn't been privy to. He introduced me to all kinds of people – Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead – and introduced me in a way that they treated me respectfully.

After that I met Sam Shepard and he was the same way. He really felt that I was a good writer. He encouraged me to the point of conceit, nearly. He really made me feel good about myself, and made it seem important that I keep writing. He and Bobby did a lot to instill in me not only the desire to keep writing, but they made me feel that I was a writer. That's an important step. I had always felt different from other people, a misfit and an alien, but I never really gleaned myself as being special. Other people seemed to pull it out of me, whether it was Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Shepard or Bobby Neuwirth. I've been very lucky in my life to have people perceive something in me that I didn't always perceive in myself.

When I called your hotel in San Francisco, you were out and they told me that Todd Rundgren had come by with his kids to pick up yours. That seemed like another nice full circle.

Yes. He was very important to me in those early New York days too. I think it was Bobby Neuwirth who introduced me to Todd. And Todd had been so good to Jackson. He let Jack play this beautiful Gibson of his on stage, and then let him take it on the rest of the tour. Todd's another person who really encouraged me. Todd actually thought I had a future as a comedian. I did too.

You mean we almost had Patti Lee Smith in stand-up comedy?

I had that daydream for years. I used to pretend that I went on the Johnny Carson show. He really liked me, and then he got sick and asked me to take over the show until he got better. And I did so well that when Johnny retired he gave me his show. It was one of my favourite daydreams. I still make use of my Johnny Carson studies, as you've probably realised. All the sparring I do, being able to take what hecklers dish out and one-up them, is from years of studying Johnny.

I wasn't really a '60s person. I had lived a fairly sheltered life in South Jersey. I came to New York in 1967, but I lived with Robert Mapplethorpe in Brooklyn. I spent that time working to be an artist or supporting Robert, and I really didn't go through all those '60s changes. I wasn't really involved in the political scene. I was frightened by the '60s, really. The masses of people and all the assassinations and the drug culture and the war in Vietnam...I found all of this overwhelming.

The one positive thing is that I did get a sense of the collective, that there was some sort of unspoken unity thing happening. Even though I was chronologically the same age, I felt younger because I was a bit behind. So I observed it from a slightly different perspective. What I like about it was how it produced its own networking tools, whether publications like Crawdaddy, Creem and Rolling Stone, or underground radio. Number one, of course, was the music itself, which was something new. Generations before us went wild over Benny Goodman or Frank Sinatra, but they didn't necessarily say anything. But our music was in concert with who we were.

So I did learn some good lessons from the '60s. I looked at the best of it, and what I thought would happen is that the '70s would come along and be even better. But then what I saw was the people losing interest, becoming more self-oriented, and I was very concerned. I was sort of disappointed with my own people. I didn't like what I saw, and that inspired me to do the kind of work that I did.

I understand it was Lenny and your brother Todd who helped you through the desolate time after Fred passed away.

Between Lenny and my brother, they wouldn't let me get too deep down. The minute Fred passed away, my brother got on a plane and came out. He devoted the rest of his life – which only turned out to be one month – to getting me back on my feet. Todd was one of those workaholic types who work around the clock and never take vacations, but he left work immediately and came and stayed with me.

Then at Thanksgiving we all went back to my parents', and I was having an extremely difficult time. We always went back to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, and this was the first time without Fred in 16 years. I could hardly even rise in the morning. So Toddie came in and said, "C'mon babe, get dressed," and he made me get in the car. He rolled down the windows – he actually had a car where you had to roll down the windows! –and put on a cassette of the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. Our song ‘Rock'n'Roll Nigger’ is on that, and he turned it up as loud as he could get it, and we drove around to all our old hangouts and the places we used to play when we were kids.

Todd really loved that song, and he played it over and over, singing at the top of his lungs. He was going, "You're gonna be all right. You're gonna get back to work. Fred wanted you to and you're gonna do it and I'm gonna help you do it. Even if I have to quit my job to go on the road with ya, we're gonna pull everything up." He was so full of energy and love and enthusiasm that he made it difficult to disbelieve him. I wasn't familiar with that soundtrack, and he said, "There's another little song on it you'll like." So we parked in front of Hoedown Hall and Thomas's Field where we used to play, and this song came on. It was Bob Dylan singing "See the pyramids along the Nile..." [‘You Belong To Me’]. Fred used to sing that song to me, and I sat there and cried listening to Bob sing it. We had been talking about Dylan and how great he was; again, Toddie would have loved being a part of that tour.

We talked and talked, and he stayed for another couple of days. He wouldn't let me not feel good; it was his mission. He said, "We're gonna spend Christmas together and we're gonna get back on our feet." Todd went back to Virginia, and right after that he suffered a stroke and passed away. Which isn't at all uncommon on my side of the family. It was really terrible, but after the shock of losing him I found that he had made me feel so good, and had brought up my spirits so much, that I made a decision. Since his last mission in life had been to get me feeling good, I wasn't going to have his mission be in vain. So even now when I feel... you know... I just think about that.

You have to let your loved ones go, even as you cherish their spirit as you move forward. Which is difficult, but very important. Then, because of the kind of person I am, I also feel it is my mission to do something in their honour. Like I keep working and collaborating with Robert. [The Coral Sea, her tribute to Mapplethorpe featuring many of his photographs, will soon be published by W.W. Norton.] I have many things to do for Fred, not only in terms of work but of course the lifelong mission of watching over our children. With my brother, my mission is to feel good, be happy and do my work. So in those ways…as deeply as I miss all of their earthly presences, they're still around. Very much around.

"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine" is a line that will forever be associated with you. How do you view it now?

I wrote that line when I was 20 years old. A lot of people misinterpreted it as the statement of an atheist, somebody who doesn't believe in anything. I happen to believe in Jesus. I never said he didn't exist. I only said that I didn't want him to take responsibility for my actions. Because I was young, I perceived myself as an artist, and the artist as a sort of cerebral criminal. I wanted the freedom to pursue all the things I imagined. Things within my art, not in life. In my art, I wanted the right to be misguided, misdirected, slightly criminal, utterly promiscuous, even a murderer. Within the realm of my work. I didn't want to be weighed down with such a conscience that I couldn't trample the earth, every junkyard and every cloud. I wanted to be free of conscience. I wanted free rein.

Over the years I got into studying Christ, reconsidering Him in Pasolini terms: Christ as revolutionary, a person who felt akin to our people. I found, as I got older and studied deeper, His roles, His ideals, His philosophies a lot more interesting. To the point that at our last show in Florence in '79, which was the last time I did that version of ‘Gloria’, I sang, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, why not mine?" I probably would not sing that original line now. Not because I think there's anything wrong with it, just because I don't identify with it now.

You always operated from the belief that rock'n'roll was a force for good. With all that's happened in the culture, do you still think that? Or has this belief in some way been perverted?

Well... I think everything gets perverted. But I'm not really concerned with how it gets perverted up in the mainstream, because that's business. I don't have the time or energy to pioneer against big business at this point in my life. Young people can do that.

I like the way young people are interacting globally. I like the alternative networking they're doing. I'd like to see them develop that, and start seeing what they can do collectively to better our situation on the planet. This planet is in deep trouble. What are we seeing? A resurgence of communicable diseases like tuberculosis, we have AIDS; the whole planet is becoming very viral. I'm not saying we can stop it, but only we can reduce all of these things.

Is music the same energy source for kids today that it was for us, or is it even possible that it can be?

I think there's so much stuff now. Look when we grew up. When I was a kid TV was black and white and there were three stations. They only had cartoons on Saturday morning. The records would come out, it's a big album, you have a big record player, you go home and put it on the record player, you sit and listen to it and really digest what the music’s saying. It was its own experience.

Music is still a powerful force – if you have a powerful individual – but I think it's a lot more convoluted now, if that's the right word.

You and Fred talked about not doing anything for personal gain, that it would have to benefit someone else. How do you reconcile that with everything that's happening now?

With this little tour we're not making any money; we're pretty much breaking even. We did a benefit for an AIDS hospice in San Francisco, and benefits will continue to be a big part of our agenda. I have to get back on my feet, truthfully. If it starts building and things go well, I look forward to a time where I never have to take a cent for hitting the stage. I'm watching people in rock'n'roll make millions and millions of dollars. I see a lot of my friends who've gotten extremely prosperous, and I think they should be doing a lot more. I don't mean giving an autographed guitar to charity. I mean, if you already have $20 million in the bank, take 10 million and find the people that are doing the strongest AIDS research and just give it to 'em. I would encourage performers to take the money they make on stage and give it to the people who need it.

When you first came around the mission was to keep alive and free a certain rock'n'roll spirit. Is the mission this time about this different, though related, spirit? The responsibility that comes with freedom?

I think so. A lot of the things we attempted to do in the '70s were accomplished. Like T.S. Eliot said, each generation translates for itself. I done what I was supposed to do when I done it. It's not my place to do it now. I wouldn't even know how to. All I know is that the planet is full of hands needing to be helped, and I'm trying to see what I can do to get things motivated in a new way. I still think it has to be revolutionary. We still need to redesign stuff.

People are making comeback tours and farewell tours, they're going on Unplugged and they're picking up their lifetime achievement awards. But what are they really doing? I think we've gotten way too cute with all these tons of awards we're giving to each other. Too much bullshit, too much cute stuff. The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. It's another money machine. I did appear at one of those to induct the Velvet Underground. I did that out of respect to the Velvets, and because that recognition meant something to them. But I feel about the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame pretty much the way Fred did: that we should be ashamed. The spirit should be the museum.

‘Piss Factory’ is still one of your more resonant works. But those women you described with such disdain – "these bitches are just too lame to understand/too God damn grateful to get this job to know they're getting screwed up the ass" –with all you've lived since, I'm wondering how you'd regard them now?

Oh, I'd be a lot more compassionate now. Not necessarily for their stupidity, because some of their rules and codes I would still rail against. But being hard-working women... maybe their husband's dead, or their husband took off and they've got six kids to look after. So yes, much more empathy, compassion. Much more respect.

When I was younger, I really felt completely there for the misfit, the person outside society. Artists, and people on the fringes, whether because of their philosophies or sexual persuasion or politics. And I still feel akin to those people, 'cos I'm still one of them. But I've been through so much... life – being a mother, being a widow, being a laundress, all the things I do – that I definitely feel more empathy, a more common bond with people. When I was younger I had so much intensity that it got to the point where I felt I was in a whole other realm. I don't feel that so much – I feel a lot more human these days.

© Ben Edmonds 1996

Michael Stipe on Patti

UNLIKE THE OTHER GUYS IN THE BAND, WHEN WE started I didn't have any particular understanding of the standard history of the pop format, so I pretty much learned as I went along. I had virtually no musical background. I pretty much ignored music until I was about 15 years old, and at the high school that I went to – which was in Illinois in the very heart of middle America – heavy metal ruled. My parents listened to Gershwin, Mancini, Wanda Jackson and the soundtrack to Dr Zhivago. That's all I heard.

I accidentally got a subscription to the Village Voice when I was 15. Right about that time – middle to late 1975 – they were talking about this thing that was going on in New York with Television and Patti Smith and the Ramones and CBGB's. I distinctly remember the November 1975 issue of Creem magazine. Someone had left a copy in study hall under a chair. It had a picture of Patti Smith, and she was terrifying looking. She looked like Morticia Addams. And I think it was Lester Bangs or Lisa Robinson writing about punk rock in New York and how all the other music was like watching colour movies, but this is like watching static-y black and white TV. And that made incredible sense to me. I read about those bands before I ever heard them, and it just sounded so amazing.

Horses, the first Patti Smith album, came out soon afterwards and it pretty much tore my limbs off and put them back on in a different way. I was 15 when I heard it, and that's pretty strong stuff for a 15-year-old American middle-class white boy, sitting in his parents' living room with the headphones on so they wouldn't hear it. It was like the first time you went into the ocean and got knocked down by a wave. It killed. It was so completely liberating. I had my parents' crappy headphones and I sat up all night with a huge bowl of cherries listening to Patti Smith, eating those cherries and going. Oh, my God!... Holy shit!... Fuck!... Then I was sick.

© Michael Stipe 1996

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

How’s the 911 of it all going

It's going well. I've been binging (because I do not know how to watch a show normally rip) for most of yesterday and today and just finished 2x10. First impressions are as follows:

Abby was my favourite and the most relatable (as someone who is also a carer to their mother) character of season 1 and I miss her dearly. Idk if this is unpopular but I am surprised (derogatory) that the Abby/Buck story gone on as long as it has. I think it started well as a 'they were both looking for something that the other encompassed in theory but not necessarily looking for each other in reality' story but I really thought that after a bit it was going to end up with them realising they worked better as friends and then having Abby leave for her adventure.

Athena is the character that has grown most on me. While obviously it was rough for her and I sympathise with that, it took a bit to get over feeling like she was making Michael's coming out about herself while trying to say that it was for the family, even long after the children had accepted it. But that is coming from a spot where myself and a lot of queer people I know had our coming out either delayed or otherwise altered by others making it about themselves so I understand that that is in part a me problem. Her trying to solve all of the cold cases because of that little girl that went missing when she was a child is so interesting and I imagine that will come back later in the series which I'm excited for.

On the note of Athena and Michael, I understand that Bobby is a main character but I do wish they'd put as much, or at least more, focus on Michael's relationship. Like even with the homecoming photos, they got Michael's partner to take the photo so Bobby could be in it rather than someone else so they both could be.

I was surprised Eddie didn't show up until season 2. It's also lowkey hilarious that he acted like he had an 'affair' with his wife. Like I get that they were estranged but yeah it was just funny. Overall I think he's my favourite male character and I love the family dynamic between him, his aunt, his grandmother and Christopher.

It was also hilarious that I thought we were getting a rivals/enemies to lovers story for all of about 2 seconds with Buck/Eddie before Buck was p much like "actually no I am in love with this man" (Maddie saying "does this mancrush mean that you're over Abby?" took me out because older sisters always know lmao).

I want to wrap Maddie up in a bubble and never let anyone touch her again. Like I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable but as someone who came from a background of domestic violence and has had to escape another (friendship) situation of abuse, god she is so relatable and I just love her. Like I would go to war for any of these characters but especially her.

As a whole, I was wary about starting this show knowing that it was a Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk project because the last thing I watched of theirs was Glee and well... let's just leave it with we all know how off the rails that went. But so far this feels fairly stable. I was surprised to find as a whole it wasn't one fire/crime/emergency of the week but typically 3. I think this has its pros and cons and admittedly I do think it works best when they all intertwine like the earthquake episode did, but it's something different and I applaud them for that. I also feel like everything has good setup, even the 'little' things. Like sure at face value May saying "Everyone at school will know" when Michael comes out can be seen as her making it about herself and being worried about the unrealised potential of bullying but when you find out that it's just another thing she can be bullied over and that the bullying already was that bad, it makes total sense that that's where mind went.

Anyway this has become super long but the TLDR is that I'm enjoying it and interested in where it could go.

[nsfwhiphop]

Part 5 - Incoming Text for Jennifer Garner (@jennifer.garner): “An Idea Worth 300 Million Dollars”

Question:

Could you provide detailed information about the 2001 film Heist? Specifically, I'd like to know about the cast, producers, movie studio, budget, box office performance, plot summary, and any other interesting facts or trivia.

Here is the Wikipedia link for the movie Heist (2001):

Heist (2001 film) - Wikipedia (click on the blue link)

Here is the link to David Mamet’s Wikipedia page: David Mamet. (click on the blue link)

ChatGPT Answer:

Certainly! Here’s a detailed look at Heist (2001), covering its cast, crew, production details, and more.

Movie Title: Heist

Release Date: November 9, 2001

Genre: Crime, Thriller

Director and Screenwriter

Director: David Mamet

Screenwriter: David Mamet

David Mamet, a renowned playwright and filmmaker, wrote and directed Heist. Known for his distinct writing style, especially in dialogue and plot complexity, Mamet’s influence is prominent throughout the film.

Main Cast

Gene Hackman as Joe Moore

An experienced and skilled thief planning to retire after one last job.

Delroy Lindo as Bobby Blane

Joe's loyal partner who assists him in the heist.

Rebecca Pidgeon as Fran Moore

Joe’s wife, who plays a significant role in the heist plot.

Danny DeVito as Mickey Bergman

A criminal financier who pressures Joe into taking on one last job.

Sam Rockwell as Jimmy Silk

Mickey’s nephew, whose involvement adds tension to the heist plan.

Ricky Jay as Don 'Pinky' Pincus

Another trusted member of Joe’s team and a longtime associate.

Production Team

Producer: Art Linson

Executive Producers: Elie Samaha, Andrew Stevens, Michael Zimbrich

Cinematography: Robert Elswit

Elswit’s work enhances the film’s gritty, tense atmosphere, making the most of its urban settings.

Editor: Barbara Tulliver

Music: Theodore Shapiro

Production Details

Studio: Franchise Pictures

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Filming Locations: Primarily in Montreal, Canada, with additional scenes shot in Boston, Massachusetts.

Budget and Box Office

Budget: Estimated at $39 million.

Box Office Gross: Approximately $28.5 million worldwide.

Heist did not perform as well as anticipated at the box office. While it did not recoup its budget through ticket sales, it found a cult following among fans of heist films and David Mamet’s work.

Plot Summary

Heist follows Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), a veteran thief looking to retire. When his face is accidentally caught on camera during a job, he decides it’s time to quit the criminal life. However, his crime boss, Mickey Bergman (Danny DeVito), insists that Joe complete one last job—a high-stakes gold heist. Joe reluctantly agrees, but tension grows within the team, particularly with the addition of Mickey’s volatile nephew, Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell). With each character’s loyalty in question, the heist takes on a complex, suspenseful turn filled with betrayals and double-crosses.

Reception

Heist received mostly positive reviews from critics, especially for its intricate plot and Mamet’s dialogue. Gene Hackman’s performance was widely praised, and Mamet’s screenplay was noted for its cleverness and twists. While audiences appreciated the film’s intelligent storytelling, it appealed particularly to fans of crime thrillers and Mamet’s unique style.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 66% (Critics), 56% (Audience)

Metacritic Score: 66/100

Trivia and Interesting Facts

David Mamet’s Signature Dialogue: Known for his unique approach to dialogue, Mamet’s writing style is full of sharp, fast-paced exchanges that make the film particularly engaging.

Gene Hackman and Mamet: Hackman was cast at Mamet's insistence, and his portrayal of Joe Moore is considered one of the highlights of his later career.

Mamet’s Ensemble Cast: David Mamet often works with a recurring ensemble cast, including Ricky Jay and Rebecca Pidgeon (who is also Mamet's wife).

Ricky Jay’s Background in Magic: Ricky Jay, who plays Pinky, was also a magician and used his expertise to contribute to some of the "sleight of hand" aspects of the heist.

Heist stands out as a solid entry in the crime thriller genre, with David Mamet’s distinctive touch elevating its intricate plot and character dynamics. Despite its underperformance at the box office, it remains a notable film for fans of heist stories and those interested in the psychological interplay within a criminal team.

[ao3feed-destiel-02]

Pressure Points

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/wXD8LTu by subzeroflame1216 Alpha Castiel Novak and his Omega Dean Winchester are tantalizingly close to sealing their bond, but Dean's grueling work schedule and frequent out-of-town trips keep pushing their plans into the future. Tensions rise between the high school principal and his FBI agent partner, further complicated by the unsettling return of a menacing stalker from Castiel’s past. As threats loom and their relationship strains under the pressure, Castiel must navigate a web of danger and deception. With time running out, can he uncover the truth and protect their future before it all unravels? Words: 2720, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer (Supernatural), Charlie Bradbury, Donna Hanscum, Sam Winchester, Balthazar (Supernatural), Michael (Supernatural), Eileen Leahy, Benny Lafitte, Garth Fitzgerald IV, Jody Mills, Pamela Barnes (Supernatural), Gordon Walker, Missouri Moseley, Victor Henriksen, Anna Milton, Bartholomew (Supernatural), Gabriel (Supernatural) Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Mystery, Thriller, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alpha Castiel (Supernatural), Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester, Strained Relationships, FBI Agent Dean Winchester, School Principal Castiel (Supernatural), Crime Scenes, Staged Crime Scene, Murder, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Fluff and Angst, Psychological Trauma, Medical Trauma, Explicit Sexual Content, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/wXD8LTu

[docrotten]

STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940) – Episode 142 – Decades Of Horror: The Classic Era

“The only person who ever was kind to me was a woman. She’s dead now.” Wait. What? Join this episode’s Grue-Crew – Chad Hunt, Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff, Jeff Mohr, and guest host Dirk Rogers – as they witness the brilliance of Peter Lorre highlighted by the dark stylings of cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca in Stranger on the Third Floor (1940).

Decades of Horror: The Classic Era Episode 142 – Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

ANNOUNCEMENT Decades of Horror The Classic Era is partnering with THE CLASSIC SCI-FI MOVIE CHANNEL, THE CLASSIC HORROR MOVIE CHANNEL, and WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL Which all now include video episodes of The Classic Era! Available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, Online Website. Across All OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop. https://classicscifichannel.com/; https://classichorrorchannel.com/; https://wickedhorrortv.com/

An aspiring reporter is the key witness at the murder trial of a young man accused of cutting a café owner’s throat and is soon accused of a similar crime himself.

  Director: Boris Ingster

Writers: Frank Partos (story & screenplay by); Nathanael West (uncredited)

Music by: Roy Webb

Cinematography by: Nicholas Musuraca

Art Direction by: Van Nest Polglase

Wardrobe: Renié

Special Effects by: Vernon L. Walker (special effects)

Selected Cast:

Peter Lorre as The Stranger

John McGuire as Mike Ward

Margaret Tallichet as Jane

Charles Waldron as District Attorney

Elisha Cook Jr. as Joe Briggs

Charles Halton as Albert Meng

Ethel Griffies as Mrs. Kane, Michael’s landlady

Cliff Clark as Martin

Oscar O’Shea as The Judge

Alec Craig as Briggs’ Defense Attorney

Otto Hoffman as Police Surgeon

Emory Parnell as Grilling Detective in Dream Sequence (uncredited)

Herb Vigran as Reporter Who Wins Cardgame (uncredited)

Bobby Barber as Giuseppe (uncredited)

Stranger on the Third Floor inhabits the creepier side of, shall we say horror-adjacent, film noir. In fact, some experts argue that it is the first example of that dark genre, later to be labeled film noir. It’s a nightmare-influenced murder mystery featuring Peter Lorre chewing on all the scenery he can. Boris Ingster directs Stranger on the Third Floor with all the style that feels as if it could have been an early Val Lewton production. Yup, it’s Hollywood expressionism, RKO-style. This film is worth the watch, even if only for two 7-minute scenes: the nightmare sequence and the interaction between The Stranger (Lorre) and Jane (Margaret Tallichet).

If you have the urge to view this early example of noir filmmaking (or is it “proto-noir?”), and decide for yourself if it is truly horror-adjacent, Stranger on the Third Floor is, at the time of this writing, available to stream from archive.org or PPV from iTunes. There is also a Warner Brothers DVD available if physical media is your preference.

For more Peter Lorre goodness, check out these episodes of Decades of Horror: The Classic Era:

M (1931) – Episode 113

MAD LOVE (1935) – Episode 81

TALES OF TERROR (1962) – Episode 92

THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963) – Episode 75

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era records a new episode every two weeks. Up next in their very flexible schedule, as chosen by Daphne, will be Diabolique (1940, Les Diaboliques), the French classic directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, based on a novel by Boileau-Narcejac.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave them a message or leave a comment on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel, the site, or email the Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com

To each of you from each of them, “Thank you so much for listening!”

Check out this episode!

[allovesthings]

Athena followed her own advice about wrecking it in order to save her relationship with Michael !

Good for her and us because it leads to an amazing new dynamic that we love to see.

[bucktitties]

Bobby’s like, if I can’t have my chaotic dumbass partner-in-crime Michael, I will take whatever Grant available to investigate with me

[melis-writes]

Moth to Flame [Michael Corleone x Reader series, 18+ Smut] Excerpt Edition!

Read on AO3 / Chapter Masterlist. / Fic Playlist.

[AUTHOR’S NOTE]: Happy Valentine's Day 2022, everyone!! 🤗 To all of my beloved followers and mutuals, I hope you have an incredible day! As a special treat, I'm releasing all of the excerpts/rough draft snippets I've had for our fan favourite "Moth to Flame!" ❤ As you all know, I'm working on a Bobby Axel (The Panic in Needle Park) x Reader multichapter fic at the moment, but once you go to "Moth to Flame", your heart is kind of ensnared there forever! 😅🙏🏻 These pieces did not make the final cuts of chapters, whether I didn't like the content, thought it was unnecessary, or came up with something better. Still, I'd love to share it with you guys for those wanting a sneak peek of the rough drafts as I was still writing the fic! 🥰

[WHAT'S MENTIONED IN THE SNIPPETS?]:

1️⃣ - Some mentions of Alphonse Ricci.

2️⃣ - Our favourite gal (😂) Rita Duvall formally meeting Victoria which never happened in the fic.

3️⃣ - A brief conversation Michael has with Victoria about Don Ferrari.

4️⃣ - A descriptive piece from the chapter "Aphrodisiac" 👀.

5️⃣❗ - SPECIAL: A MAJOR plot-twist and backstory of Victoria and Alphonse Ricci that may or may not be able to heavily impact her marriage with Michael I completely scrapped!

1949. Your name is Victoria Ferrari, and you’re the only daughter of one of the most powerful mafia families in New York—the Ferrari’s. When the Ferrari family began to gain heavy influence and power, it struck a power imbalance with the Corleone’s. To bind the families together as one in an offering of peace, friendship and business, you are to be married to their youngest son, Michael Corleone. As you ensnare yourself in the life of a mob wife by Michael’s side, what you don’t know is his old ties with Kay Adams, your best friend from Dartmouth, and that he returned from Sicily a widower. A ruthless mob boss to be, you unravel Michael’s dark past and the brutality that has changed his personality. You find yourself adapting to your new life, betrayed by those you love most, and in high profile to Ferrari and Corleone family enemies. Falling deeply in love with Michael, you enter a life and marriage filled with secrets and darkness. Bearing his children, supporting his crime empire and following him into the shadows, you’re unable to deny your passion and desire to the new Don. When it comes to Michael Corleone, you are but a moth to a flame.

[ Excerpt 1 ]

Hunted down like animals one by one, Michael Corleone had tracked down each and every one of Don Alphonse Ricci’s men that had been at Antonio Ricci’s trial, adding their bodies to the streets with that of the hired photographer and chauffeur. Two shots to the head, Corleone-style corpses, sending out a clear message to the increasingly weak Don struggling to maintain legitimacy and power in front of the other families.

Don Alphonse had been growing frustrated with each and every failure his men had caused him. Having influence over street hoodlums and petty criminals looking to make quick money rather than solid, mafia-style commitments like his father had hold over decades ago.

One fuck up away from becoming nothing but a whisper in the wind, Don Ricci still clung onto the idea of using words before force, simply because you were involved. Desperate in a way to maintain his criminal enterprises and presence, if he was just able to avenge his father’s long time business partner, Virgil Sollozzo, he could have his foot in the door to the narcotics trade, taking the Corleone’s out of the equation while maintaining a hold over the Ferrari’s.

Seeing it as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, Don Alphonse Ricci’s plan to rise back to the old glory of his family seemed feasible and straightforward to get to, as long as he could provoke Michael Corleone in a way that would catch his attention, and not result in him immediately being found and killed.

Getting to you was a perfect way. He could secure a Ferrari wife, have a hold over Michael’s unborn children, and rise to the notoriety that the six families never would have seen coming. One specific rule remains unchanged—not to hurt you. Wanting you alive and unharmed, Alphonse knows he’d be a dead man if he tried to arrange a meeting with Michael Corleone at this point. But a Ferrari daughter unengaged in mafia business would be the perfect pinpoint for a hefty ultimatum to be made.

Failing to even get a decent photograph of you by the villa, Alphonse’s men were able to tell him exactly what he was hoping to hear—your visible pregnancy. His bodyguard had delivered the news just as his men went missing, gesturing to his face and explaining the bruising over your cheek.

Refusing to believe Michael would have done it to you, Alphonse’s righthand man uses Carlo Rizzi’s broken nose and badly gashed injuries as an example of Michael’s strength, having heard Carlo complain and profess it loudly in a bar with a prostitute the other night.

Don Ricci’s plan was settled once again. He wouldn’t have you remain a widow for long after Michael’s assassination, believing your father would have no choice but give your hand to him and a slice of the narcotics profit.

“She’s a Sicilian beauty, alright. That damned Michael Corleone has it all. The support of both families, the legitimacy, the men on his payroll. We won’t be able to pull a crumb of his attention without getting to his wife first.”

[ Excerpt 2 ]

“Victoria, look whose been trying to find you all evening!” You hear Sandra’s voice ring in from behind.

You turn around with a small, delighted gasp to find her escorting an esteemed guest and colleague of yours from Dartmouth—Tillie Matilda. Tillie had graduated from Dartmouth in 1941 alongside you and Kay with a business degree, and as Kay went off to become a schoolteacher, Tillie and you only grew closer as the two of you pursued graduate degrees together.

In law while she chose to do a master’s degree, campus was a little less lonely with her by your side. With your graduating and passing of the bar exam, Tilly became a professor at Dartmouth only to marry one of it’s wealthiest benefactors—retiring early as an entrepreneur and world traveller.

Due to the nature of both of your lives and her demanding social life with her husband, you were only able to keep some contact with her through letters, holidays and formal events—such as tonight. Naturally, one of the first invitations you sent out to your contacts was for Tilly and her husband to join your family in celebration of five years spent at Lake Tahoe.

Tillie had briefly met the Corleone girls after you married Michael and spent much more time at public events, but this time, it wasn’t just Sandra escorting Tillie alone; she remains next to an unfamiliar, brunette woman whose gaze appears to be insistently over Fredo.

“Tillie!” You exclaim out, pulling her into a hug as the two of you share a soft laugh.

“Victoria, there you are! So good to see you and the girls again! Oh, I thought I may have lost you in the crowd already but Sandra pulled me out!”

“And there’s someone I’d like you to meet, Victoria.” Deanna chimes in, gesturing to the unfamiliar woman by Tilly’s side. “An associate of Senator Geary’s. This is Rita Duvall, from Las Vegas herself!”

Rita Duvall is both an unfamiliar name and face to you. Unsurprised Deanna would have such contacts as she’s in the Hollywood show business herself, Rita doesn’t quite fit the picture for what you expected an “associate” of a US senator to look like.

Dressed in a rather flashy and provocative cocktail dress dipping down to expose her cleavage that wouldn’t surprise you if it was over Deanna, Rita’s body posture remains alluring and almost seductive in the way she carries herself. Her hair is curled in a tight updo with a full face covered in makeup as if she had come along to a party, but entered the wrong one.

“Hello, Miss Ferrari.” Rita smiles back at you coyly.

“Corleone.” You correct, noticing from the side that Fredo has seen her and moved to the other side of the table almost immediately.

“Corleone?” She raises a brow, looking at you as if you just told her a joke.

Connie purses her lips, and you can already tell by her expression she’s not fond of Senator Geary’s choice of an extra guest to bring along.

Picking up on the awkward air between you two, Tilly clears her throat and continues for the sake of introductions. “She and I met earlier this evening as well. Rita?”

“You may have heard of me from Moe Greene.” Rita adds as if you’re supposed to know her. She extends a hand out for you to shake. “I spent many years alongside him in the show business in Vegas.”

“Ah…” She’s a cocktail waitress. You shake her hand back loosely, unimpressed. Now it makes sense as to why Senator Geary has her alongside him, and it more than explains her eager gazes over at Fredo.

“Got a little friend over there you want to introduce us too?” Sonny grins back at Fredo, nudging his arm.

“Who is she anyway?” Tom briefly takes a glance back at Rita.

“Ah, just one of Moe Greene’s old girls from the resort, before Mikey bought it out.” Fredo brushes Sonny off, taking a seat and avoiding looking over at Rita at all costs. “A cocktail waitress, an escort—she did some work as a showgirl when I met her.”

“Was she one of the cocktail waitresses you were ‘banging two at a time’?” Sonny holds back his laughter as Tom shakes his head back in disapproval at the joke.

“Uh.” Fredo chuckles nervously, only fueling the fit of laughter Sonny now breaks into.

“Oh, okay, I get it! You’re the man, Fredo! Yeah, Tom, see—I knew he could still get it!”

“But of course, after the Corleone’s bought out Moe’s business, she came over to me in Hollywood.” Deanna boasts as if it’s something to be proud of. “We’ve been like sisters ever since. At least tonight you can meet the man who bought out your career, eh?” She gives an airy laugh. “Corleone hospitality is like none other!”

“You’re lucky to have grabbed Fredo yourself.” Rita gives Deanna a forced smile.

“Wait till you meet the other ones.” Deanna winks back at her.

“Ahem—” Theresa cuts in, gesturing to the table. “Dinner is about to start, but I’m sure if you have any questions or business related matters, then you could wait to see Mr. Corleone after.”

“And that would be my brother, Michael.” Connie shoots Rita a disapproving look. “Victoria is married to him.”

The same look of utter disbelief crosses Rita’s face as she turns her attention to the Corleone boys—now seeing Michael seated and making conversation with Vito, your father and the Senator. “Is he the…?”

“Dark, gelled back hair, dreamy one with eyes to die for?” Deanna hiccups, “yes!”

“Oh, that’s Mr. Corleone… The head of the Corleone family, is he? I know Moe mentioned he didn’t like him.” Rita muses.

“Why’s that?” Tilly raises a brow.

“Whenever he came by to the hotels, he made everyone leave. The band, the waiters, and all of us—the girls. Fredo though, he loved our company. He was something else, but now I see he’s trying to be a bit more like his brother. Settling down…” Rita lets out a laugh, nudging Deanna, “and with lucky Deanna at that, but his brother over there… So stern and serious.”

Turning back out of reaction, you notice Michael is well within earshot to listen in on the entirety of your conversation with the girls, and knowing him, he’s already heard it all. However, Michael neither budges a muscle to look or turn back, nor does he care.

You stop yourself from nibbling over your bottom lip to keep your lipstick intact, knowing it comes out of reflex from the jealousy tugging at you in your gut. You hate the very feeling itself, brushing it aside for the sake of maturity.

“Michael’s only bad habit is cigarettes.” Connie pulls open her purse, grabbing one out of her pack. “And you’ll find nothing else about my brother but that.”

If someone doesn’t say that outloud, they’re certainly thinking it. While Rita may be outspoken and promiscuous in manner towards what she wants and what she thinks, the idea of having many other women not just tonight but in general and everyday thinking the same isn’t fantasy—it’s reality.

[ Excerpt 3 ]

“I take it your father is not a man who accept apologies or takes thoughtfulness into consideration through letters and gifts.” Michael laces a hand with you as the two of you remain seated next to each other in Michael’s private vehicle.

“Never has been.” You crack a smile, giving Michael’s hand a gentle squeeze. “He’s always appreciated the sentiment, though. He can be appreciative when he wants to.”

“Your father is a good man, Victoria.” Michael glances back at you, “but the notion may be temporarily lost now with your mother’s death.”

“Michael,” you frown back at him, “I’m sure whatever the reason for him asking for us to see him is nothing hostile or the sort. He loves you like his own son and based on the circumstances, I think the two of you have more in common now than ever.”

“Such as?” Michael raises a brow at you, hardly moved.

“Both of you want Roth dead.” You nod back at him, “but he’s still alive.

[ Excerpt 4 ]

He was a different man then as he can admit to himself now, but everything fit perfectly. He knew he needed you, and he knew he wanted you. He constantly searched at your expression and body language to feel the mutual energy off of you. He wanted you to desire him, he wanted you to crave him both physically and emotionally—because all of these things he did towards you.

Physical attraction had to be set aside for the sake of considering and building a solid marriage, but it was still unavoidable. You were not an ordinary woman blending into the crowd, whether you were in downtown New York or in Vito Corleone’s office that Michael had been in a million times. You’re Sicilian, as Michael could tell from your appearance very clearly, and your facial features, your hair, down to your eyes, and even the way your lips are shaped attracted Michael.

He could not get his eyes off of you, even with his father talking. Each time he glanced at you, he wanted to look again—he wanted to see more. He confused himself in the sense that he didn’t know why he couldn’t get enough of you, no matter how he looked or for how long. He quickly came to the realization that no matter what he did or tried to do, he would simply never get enough of you. That’s when Michael Corleone knew he was falling in love with you.

The way you spoke intrigued him. The way you carried yourself caught his attention. Your behaviour, the sound of your voice, how you could have very much been the Sicilian girl he had laid eyes upon instead of Apollonia, but how you also could have been someone he’d want to search through all of New York to find if he saw you even for a moment downtown.

Michael didn’t want to get his hopes up when he first saw and met you. Apollonia’s death was not fresh, but still too soon. He knew what happened the last time he let his attraction to a woman lead him to marriage. It couldn’t be helped, at the end of the day. He could not and would not refuse his attraction to you.

You weren’t a blur or black sheep of your family. You were involved in differently ways, but not enough to use the word “directly”. You were educated, intelligent, ambitious, had a life of your own, goals of your own, were selfless and devoted to your family. You had every trait Michael was searching for in a potential wife.

[ Excerpt 5 ]

“Not the reaction I expected.” Alphonse purses his lips, reaching into his suit jacket. “Maybe this will help you remember.” He slips out a photograph, holding it up in front of you.

Your jaw falls wide open, your face stinging with sheer and utter humiliation at the image before you. Taken years back when you first started at Dartmouth in your second semester, you pose at Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house, your arms wrapped around a younger Alphonse Ricci’s arms as he’s leaned in, kissing your cheek deeply as you give a beaming smile at the camera.

“How did…what…?” Your face burns with embarrassment, unable to believe the photograph before you.

“It was just a semester, but I know you remember me.” He places the photograph back into his pocket, grabbing onto your wrist as you attempt to reach out for it. “Ha—that helped, didn’t it? Look at you…”

“Stop…” You take a step back, “stop this.”

~

[serendipitouscontaminant]

Sincerely, Bobby and Michael’s friendship is such a beautiful thing. It’s way past “we like each other by proximity/we’re being nice to each other/we’re kind of family sort of??” and to, just. They’re best friends. They really like each other, and I feel like they needed each other in their lives at the time when they met. Y’know, their guy they could count on...their partner in crime, if you will. ;)

Tl;dr Bobby & Michael best buddies love them :,)

[crowleying]

Scars

Date: 18.05.2021

Pairing:  Edmundo “Eddie” Diaz x Evan “Buck” Buckley

Words: 2.749

Fandom: 9-1-1

Characters: Edmundo “Eddie” Diaz, Evan “Buck” Buckley, others

Genre: Romance

Length: Oneshot

Warnings: Angst and fluff, emotional hurt/comfort

Requested: No

Prompts: No

Summary: Eddie has seen a lot of scars and has some of his own. He knows the pain they cause is often both physical and emotional. He knows a lot about them, but not as much as he thinks. Buck's scar is still a mystery to him.

Dedicated to: @etre-libre-dit-combeferre

A/N: My brain just started thinking about Eddie's scars and then this came out and I wrote it in two days and gifted it to the Bobby to my Michael or to the Michael to my Bobby (I don't know, we haven't decided yet), my sidekick, my partner in crime, the one who dragged me in this fandom by force though talking me about Buddie, because she took an exam and I'm very proud of her! Now I'm giving it to you because we all deserve a little bit of fluff and comfort after this last episode.

English is not my first language so feel free to correct any mistake and I would love to know what you think about it. REQUESTS ARE OPEN. I posted a List of prompts, so check it out! Let me know if you would like to be tagged in my works.

IF YOU LIKE MY WORKS, PLEASE REBLOG THEM

Masterlist

Ao3

[ID: gif taken from episode 3x03 "The Searchers" of 9-1-1. We see Eddie looking at Buck. He is saying "There is no one in this world I trust with my son more than you." Then we see Buck looking back at Eddie. He is surprised and there are some scratches on the left side of his face. Eddie’s hand is on his shoulder and his thumb rests against Buck's neck. End ID.]

Eddie knew he was lucky. He got out of two tours in Afghanistan with only five scars. One from a bomb. One from a bullet fired in his back while he was helping an injured soldier on the field. Three from that last mission. He knew people who went home with a missing limb or bigger and uglier scars than his in places where there was no way of hiding them. His scars, on the other hand, weren't too big. They were just darker spots on his skin. Some of them were sunken, like the one on his tight, the one from the bomb.

Christopher sometimes tracked it with his fingers, looking at it with wonder. “Does it hurt?” he asked. To him those scars were an evidence of his dad being a hero, just like that silver star he had found in Eddie’s closet.

“Not anymore,” he promised every time. It was only half true. There was no pain cursing through his nervous system when touching them, but it hurt to look at them. They reminded him of everything he had lost when he was in Afghanistan: some of his friends, Shannon, and Christopher’s first years.

The one which hurt the most, though, was the one on his left shoulder. There was no physical pain, but his mind conjured the image of Griggs every time he looked at it. He should have brought him home alive with him instead of coming back with that scar. It was also one of those he saw more often, every time he looked at himself in the mirror without a shirt. For a while, after he came back home, his gaze fell on it every time he brushed his teeth. He felt it was right to feel that pang of guilt in his stomach every time. It was a punishment he inflicted on himself for being unable to save Griggs. But after the funeral, when Griggs' mother thanked him for bringing his son back, he started wearing a shirt before brushing his teeth and the only times he saw it is after the shower.

He was not the only one with visible scars at the 118. All of them had some. Chim had the one on his forehead, which earned him a lot of questions from people who didn’t know the story. Hen had the one from when she was shot as a teenager. Bobby had one from the fire. Eddie knew it didn't hurt physically, but the emotional pain it carried was so much more than that of Eddie's.

The one with more scars was Buck. Eddie was not surprised, seeing as accident prone Buck was. From what Maddie told him, most of those scars were acquired through extremely stupid attempts to have his parents’ attention. For the most recent one, though, Eddie was there, holding his hand. The scar on Buck's leg was not too visible under his blond hair, but Eddie knew that one too was painful, both physically and emotionally. It acted up when it was cold or wet outside. On particularly bad days Buck couldn’t help but limp a little. More than that, though, was the emotional baggage it carried. Eddie had noticed Buck always hurried to get his pants changed and, if he could help it, he waited to be alone in the locker room to get changed. He had made it a habit of getting to work already wearing his uniform.

Eddie figured it wasn’t about the accident itself but all that followed: him almost losing his job, the tsunami, losing Christopher in that hell, and the lawsuit and all that it meant for the two of them. What Eddie hadn’t realized, though, was that the scar reminded Buck of every time he thought he had failed Eddie.

The doubt started forming in his mind the first time he walked in on Buck taking off his uniform after the lawsuit. At that point Buck had already apologized. They had already talked about it and agreed to put everything behind them and after some time they had finally started to really do so.

Eddie was already in his civvies after the shift and was waiting for Buck outside to invite him to spend the day with them, but the man was taking forever. So, he went to check on him in the locker room. When he walked in, Buck's head turned so fast Eddie was worried he might have hurt himself. He hurried to pull his uniform pants back up letting his name out in a gasp. “Eddie.” It was so low he could have as well imagined it. The expression on Buck's face was guilty, like a child caught red handed.

“You okay?” Eddie asked.

Buck nodded. “I thought you were already gone.”

“I wanted to ask you if you want to spend the day with us.”

“Oh...” He seemed surprised, even though they had had dinner together many times already after the lawsuit. Then he nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He smiled brightly, and for a moment, Eddie thought that whatever had just happened was forgotten, but the tension stayed in the air until they got to Eddie's. As soon as Buck saw Chris he was back to his usual happy self for the rest of the day.

Eddie wanted to ask him about it. Buck had many other scars, but he had never felt the need to hide them, he was even a little proud about some of them. It was impossible for Eddie to talk with Buck for a moment without Chris around for the whole day. Chris tended to monopolize Buck and Eddie didn’t mind. He understood his kid, they were both weak for Buck. He figured he would ask once Chris was in bed.

He wasn’t very talkative during the day, not that he ever was, he usually let Buck do all the talking, but when he was with Chris and Buck it felt easier to take part in the conversation. Buck noticed his mind was somewhere else, and even Chris did.

“Daddy, are you sick?” he asked as he was tucking him in.

“No, mijo, why?” he had asked, blocking himself in the motion and looking at his son.

“You didn’t talk much.”

Eddie sighed relieved. “I’m sorry, Chris. I was just overthinking.” He resumed fixing the sheets and kissed Chris on the forehead.

“Did something happen? You should talk with someone,” Chris said sitting up. “Buck said it’s important to talk to someone about what’s going on in your mind. You shouldn’t keep everything in.”

Eddie smiled softly. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk with Buck about it, okay?” He ruffled Chris’ hair.

“Now go to sleep.” Chris laid back down and Eddie tucked him in again.

“I love you, daddy.”

“I love you too. Goodnight.” He turned off the bedside lamp.

“Goodnight.”

He left and closed the door.

As soon as he stepped in the kitchen where Buck was washing the dishes, his best friend turned to look at him. “What’s going on in your head?”

Eddie sighed and grabbed two beers from the fridge.

Buck dried off his hands and took the one Eddie was offering him.

Eddie took a sip from his own. “What was that about?”

Buck frowned. “What was what about?”

“In the locker room, when I came in, you… you pulled back up your uniform.” He paused, expecting Buck to say something but when nothing came and Buck avoided looking at him, Eddie continued. “Look, if it is about the scar… I mean we all have scars, yours is not that visible anyway.”

“I don’t like looking at it and I don’t want others to see it. It’s ugly,” Buck replied quickly, still avoiding his gaze.

“I don’t think it’s ugly. I think it’s a symbol of your strength and bravery.”

“I think it is and I don’t want people to see it,” Buck repeated harshly. Then he looked back at Eddie, his eyes were full of pain. “You should understand,” he added accusingly. It hit Eddie like a slap in the face. Of course Buck had picked up on his discomfort in talking about the scar on his shoulder even though he had never voiced it.

He didn’t have the time to gather his thoughts and say something before Buck put his unfinished beer down on the counter in a way that seemed very final. “I should go.”

Eddie wanted to stop him. He wanted them to talk about it, but he knew he couldn’t force Buck if he didn’t want to. So, as Buck was leaving, the only thing Eddie could bring himself to do was leaving his beer on the counter as well and following him to the front door. “Buck. Hey, Buck.” The man stopped and turned around to look at him, a hand already on the doorknob. He waited for Eddie to say something.

“Are we good?” Eddie asked hopeful but it sounded lame to his own ears.

A beat. Everything was still. Then Buck sighed and nodded, his face barely visible in the moonlight coming from the door and the light from the kitchen. “Of course.” And like that, every ounce of irritation seeped out of his body and he smiled tired at Eddie. “See you at work.”

They had been together almost two months before they managed to have some alone time. Their job was demanding and often tiring, and then there was Christopher, who couldn’t always stay at abuela’s or at Pepa’s, and then the nights out with the 118 and the dinners at abuela’s, or with Maddie and Chim, or Bobby and Athena, or Hen and Karen. They loved all of that. The job was a very important part of their life and those people were their family and they loved spending time with them, but they were a new couple with three years of unsatisfied sexual tension behind them. Of course they still spent time together, just the two of them, after Christopher had gone to bed, but neither of them felt comfortable having sex with Chris sleeping right next door. So, they stuck to kissing, which was great, but not enough.

Eddie only nodded and was left there alone in the dark, feeling stupid.

Eddie had finally decided to ask Hen if she and Karen could have Chris for a sleepover. He hadn’t needed to beg. She had said they were always very happy to have him over, but that hadn’t saved him from the knowing smile she gave him. He had simply shrugged and thanked her.

When the night finally came, they had a nice dinner at home. They didn’t feel like going to the restaurant, they wanted it to be just them. Buck had cooked a nice dinner, while Eddie had laid the table with candles and flowers on it because “if I am cooking, I deserve at least a romantic dinner.”

They didn’t rush things. They chatted and joked and held hands and kissed slowly, just because they could without anyone making comments about it, but they didn’t make it to dessert.

Their clothes laid scattered all over the floor from the dining room all the way down to the bedroom. As they stood in front of the bed, Eddie pulled away from the kiss to gently push Buck back into the bed. He sat, then slowly laid down, his eyes never leaving Eddie. They were admiring each other. They had already seen each other naked multiple times but this felt different. It was more intimate. Eddie scrunched his nose when he noticed Buck still had his pants on. He took them off, so that both would be just in their boxers. Then, he climbed on the bed, lying carefully on Buck, and started to kiss him again. This kiss didn’t last long, because soon enough Eddie’s mouth had left Buck’s to head down and kiss every inch of that pale skin. He kissed every mole, every tattoo, and every scar, tracing them with his tongue.

Buck was so lost. He wanted more, he wanted to feel Eddie everywhere, but nobody had ever taken all that time with him, exploring his body, getting to know it, giving it love and attention. He felt like he could cry. He felt so loved.

Eddie’s mouth went down his legs and landed on the scar from the truck. Buck stiffened and shifted, starting to pull his leg away. Eddie held his ankle gently, willing him to leave it there. Buck could have easily freed it, but he didn’t. “Eddie,” he whined, instead.

His boyfriend was already looking up at him. “Does it hurt?” he asked worried.

Buck shook his head but avoided his gaze.

“Then what is it?” The worry still tinged Eddie’s voice. He didn’t reply. “Buck?”

“Just… please, don’t,” he finally let out, still looking away, feeling the tears forming in his eyes. He knew Eddie meant good, but he couldn’t help feeling his stomach churn at the thought of Eddie looking at the scar, touching it, kissing it.

Eddie stroked his thumb on his ankle soothingly. He tried to meet his gaze, but Buck was still avoiding it stubbornly. “Buck, love, I know you think it’s ugly, but I promise-”

“That’s not it,” Buck blurted out.

“What?” Eddie frowned.

“That’s not why I don’t like it. It’s ugly, but that’s not why… Please, can you just…” Buck bit his lower lip.

Eddie was confused. “But you said-”

“I know what I said. I was lying, ok?” He felt a couple of tears streaming down his cheeks. He didn’t know if they were an expression of his frustration or his pain. He freed his leg and Eddie let it go, sitting upright.

“Why?” he asked softly. “Why did you feel like you had to lie to me?” There was no accusation in his tone, just pain. He must have done something wrong if Buck felt like he couldn’t tell him the truth about something.

“Because…” I didn’t want to be exhausting. “It’s nothing, just bad memories.” He sniffled.

“You know that kid can’t hurt you anymore.”

Buck sighed. There was no way Eddie was letting this go. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?” He shuffled closer to Buck and took his hands in his own. “Please, Evan, talk to me.”

Buck looked down at their joined hands, Eddie’s thumbs rubbing soothingly over the back of his hands.

“It… it reminds me of… of how I failed you and Christopher. The tsunami and the lawsuit.”

One of Eddie’s hands let go of his and he reached up to cup Buck’s face so that he would look at him.

“You didn’t fail us. We both made mistakes. I thought we had agreed on leaving them behind. We fixed them. We are all alive, we are together, and we are happy, and that’s thanks to you, because you never give up. I don’t want you to think of that scar as a reminder of those mistakes. I want you to think of it as a reminder of your strength and your determination, and your love for your job and your family.”

More tears rolled down Buck’s cheeks.

“Okay?” Eddie asked. He would remind him of it every day for the rest of their lives if he needed to. “Okay Buck?” he asked again when he didn’t receive an answer.

Buck nodded.

Eddie wiped the tears away with his thumbs and pressed a chaste kiss to Buck’s lips. He took him in his arms, laying the two of them down. Buck rested his head on Eddie’s chest.

“Why did you think you couldn’t tell me?” he whispered after a while, running his fingers through Buck’s curls.

Silence. For a moment Eddie thought Buck wouldn’t reply. “I didn’t want to be exhausting,” he whispered back, so low Eddie almost thought he had imagined it. He wanted to slap himself.

He pulled Buck impossibly closer. “I’m sorry for that, mi amor. I didn’t mean it. I was angry and I say and do a lot of stupid things when I’m angry. You’re not exhausting. You’re the only person I want to see even after the worst shift of my life.”

He lifted Buck’s face so that they were looking at each other. “Promise me that from now on you will always tell me if there is something that is bothering you.”

Buck hesitated. “Only if you promise me the same.”

Eddie nodded. “Promise.”

“Promise,” Buck repeated joining their lips again.

[writingonesdreams]

Sortinghatchats - 2 Guns

I have been obsessing over this movie, which for me also means trying to find out what about it worked so well to have such an effect on me. I like to turn to @sortinghatchats and @wisteria-lodge explanation of it to do this. It's actually quite hard to sort movie characters thougg? I feel like I need more data, more backstory, more situations to correctly and confidently sort them. But let's give it a try with the evidence I have.

The movie is about two gangsters that deal with the mafia, who are unbeknownst to each other undercover agents for the DEA and the navy respectively. They get into trouble with corrupt CIA and their bosses and have to rely on each other to survive.

I love Michael "Stig" Stigman's character. He has an easy screaming lion secondary that I always enjoy on screen - he makes things happen. He charges, attacks, earnestly acts on his feelings and moral code and it's charismatic and making people follow and like him. Stig doesn't plan, he does the most straighforward daring thing, cause "no one expected it" to be so simple. How are we going to attack the navy base he is home at? Let's just barge in with the car and run. Do we steal the car with our skills with cables? Nah, let's just break the window. Whom should I approach from the navy, who is the most likely to help me with corrupt supperior and how do I frame it? Nah, I will just tell the highest ranking officer everything as it is and hope he sides with me. Stig just beautifully embodies how I understand lion secondaries - this genuine feel about them that they act as they feel and what they feel is very relatable.

It's quite funny though that this screaming lion secondary chose to be part of disciplined navy soldiers, respecs his authorities and then manages to be such good undercover agent with gangsters of all people. How did he manage to play a criminal, when he can't stand injustice in his presence without immediately doing something about it?

The answer seems to be because he is still true to himself. Stig's behaviour doesn't fundamentally change just cause his cover is on or when it’s broken. He is still as foul-mouthed, rude, provocative as he was with the gangsters. At the reveal he mentions to Bobby, that he isn't a likeable person and I think he is right about that. Stig, in his natural state, is good and kind guy, but he isn't the nicest one. And he knows it and uses it to fit in with the gangsters and mafia he spies on, and he feels comfortable there. He doesn't have to play nicer and more polite than he is, challenging people, calling them out on things he dislikes, picking up random fights, flirting with every girl and using creative insults just like he likes it. (Also goes with Wahlberg’s tendency to play rude and unfriendly cops.)

That's why Bobby keeps him from official deal meetings, since Stig doesn't know the word diplomacy at the best of times, doesn't know how to hold back and how good his chances are is his last concern.

Stig opted to be a soldier, a hero, with manners of a gangster and he fits right in with them, not minding the violence or occasional bank robbing or putting things on fire as long as he feels it's right to do them. And he still manages to be charming while doing so just by going around, with people reacting to the realness of his actions even if he is unpleasant and too much sometimes.

His primary is harder. While I can say it's definitly not a bird, since he doesn't orient himself on external information or have systematic adjustments, I'm quite torn about the other three. 

I thought at first he was a lion primary for that clear morality he promotes the whole story. He looks like he cares about being the hero, about animals not suffering needlessly, about not hurting people. He joins the navy and does a really risky unpleasant undercover job for them. Stig wants to be dedicated to a cause. But when he has to choose between the good of the mission and a partner in crime, he risks everything not to kill Bobby, the mission and good causes be damned. He can't help himself - even before he finds out Bobby is a cop, he doesn't want to kill him, cause they are already friends.

So it seems it's not the mission itself he cares about like an idealist would and it's not really about the navy as an institution or group or place he belongs to like for a badger - otherwise he would have felt more uncomfortable being separated from them, and he would have been more traumatized or even burned, when they betrayed him.

No, he believes in the people there being his family, and he mentions it so many times it’s something he obviously cares about having. When his boss betrays him and his colleagues try to kill him, he doesn't have a crisis about his ideals and what he devoted himself to like a lion primary would have, he doesn't readjust his worldview like a bird. I was considering badger, since he cares about such a big community of people, but for calling them his family, he still recovers from it way too quickly and my suspicion is it’s because he didn’t have specific people there to care about. 

While Bobby decides quite cold-heartedly to get rid of Stig once the robbery is over, cause he is just another thug, Stig is torn about it. It's they key moment, where we see him in a loyalty conflict - his brothers in the navy or his shady partner? And he chooses that one shady partner over a large group of people that should be his. Stig proclaims from the start he would go avenge him if something happened to Bobby. He is the one who suggests their cooperation after the reveal and totally lights up when Bobby agrees, so genuinely happy they will be working together again.

And that's the biggest reason why I think he is a snake. Because when the navy betrays him, instead of a moral crisis, he just clings to the one person he bonded with. Bobby became his new person, his family and brother and it's totally enough for him. He can be framed for crimes, hunted down by his own, thrown under the bus by the admiral and government he served - as long as there is one guy next to him he can still fight for, he is okay. He can keep going, be a hero and devote himself to selfless causes. It reminds me of the way snakes can build other morality systems or use models on top of their primary, when their circle of people is secured. 

It's also the fact Stig makes everything personal. Bobby has to hold him back when he finds out about their informant's death, although he was one of the gangsters. He doesn't go after Papi and his mafia mob at the end to complete the mission or to clear his name, he goes after them for vengeance for Bobby's girl and what they did to him. That's why I see him as a snake primary - his loyalty lies not with the ideal, not with the group, not with the innocent, but with the specific person he bonds with.

Robert "Bobby" Trench is a smooth-talker. He is the guy for everything, who can get things done, who has the connections. At the same time he is coldly rational, ready to throw away Stig when he thought he was a criminal. He is a great liar with guts, pretending to be a drug dealer while being a cop right in front of a bloodthirsty mafia boss and can lie just as convincingly to his own police superior to make him prolong the mission. He doesn't get attached to people, he is actually quite against Stig's code of helping the guy next to you. But he gets swept away in it, following Stig at the end and accepting that bond.

His scenes with the Deb are confusing, but also play on his cold-heartedness. “I wish I could love you” he tells her. They have a long lasting non-relationship based on attraction, camaraderie and respect, but Bobby never gets attached, never can make himself love her although he would like to. 

Bobby seems to live for being a cop. He doesn't have friends or a family, he gives himself over complelty to his job, which looked to me at first like goal oriented idealist primary. It's Bobby who is concerned with clearing his name, who complains more about being framed for his boss's death than the guy dying. He is also rather prideful, not being able to get over Stig beating him to the reveal and betrayal and shoots him at the end to even the score.

But wehn you get closer, I think there is actually some serious burning involved with Bobby. He isn't comfortable or happy when we meet him. He doesn't believe in people or ideals, he can't care or admit he does even when he wants to and he agonies over having no plans. It’s through Stig's influence he end up thawing. He actually bonds and starts to trust another person, because he has to rely on Stig to survive and he starts to admire him. Stig's earnest loud charging lion secondary just grows on him so much that at the end he follows him into a trap to help, agrees to be his brother and gets even with him for boosting, shooting him (and then carrying him home) and copiying Stig's tactics of not planning and just throwing himself into action. And he seems much more happy and at peace at the end, like a snake primary unburning and finding his person.

I'm suspecting a snake secondary for Bobby because of how he enjoys his disguises. He can play a gangster or a cop or a resisting criminal or a navy officer walking by. Costumes are what his first instinct leads him to. Although he tries to plan, he doesn't actually seem such a natural at it like when he just improvises and he loves Stig's improvisational secondary cause it speaks to his own. But he isn't the same with charging, he likes to approach each situation from it's own angle.

The sneaky Bobby who can be diplomatic or scary or angry as needed. But his natural state is just so...laid-back. A Bobby that is not playing anyone or having a goal in mind just chills and enjoys the moment. He doesn't have a driving force behind him. This neutral state would hint for me at a snake primary too. Maybe Bobby was a burned snake, only caring about himself and being ridiculously cold to others. He was a snake not being able to love and to care, proof of why he couldn't have a normal relationship with Dep. We don't know why this happened, but Bobby isn't as bothered by being framed and thrown out the police as he pretended to be at first. He isn't a slave to ideals, institutions or missions. He will do what is right and he has compassion for others (how he comforts the crying baby while they they are robbing the bank), but in the end having Stig and robbing FBI banks while having a few millions stashed away looked like the ideal Bobby at peace.

In summary, Stig is a snake primary who builds individual loyalties with a heroic lion performance and with a charging inspirational lion secondary that always acts as he feels. Bobby is a burned snake primary who at the start can't make himself trust and open up to people, but who is dragged along the ride with Stig and unburns, while also embracing his improvisational costume and tricks loving snake secondary instead of those stressful plans that never worked out anyway.

Stig - snake with lion performance / lion

Bobby - burned snake / snake

[athenagrantnash]

Athena telling Michael that she never wanted to play amateur detectives with him again in 4x7 to actively saying that she and Bobby were great at crime solving together in 5x9 just proves that it really is all about who her partner is 🤣 I really hope that’s not the last time we see them working a case together

OMG! Imonna make that parallel gifset when I have a minute which might not be for a while

But for real, these two really are partners in every sense of the word and I love that for them. Everything is an experience that Athena is more than willing to repeat again and again and again as long as it's something she gets to do with Bobby.

And YES!!! I need them to work a case dressed to the nines at least once a season! This episode has ruined me because now I will not be content until we get something similar regularly! 😤😅

[ao3feed-destiel-02]

Pressure Points

Pressure Points https://ift.tt/DlfaH3o by subzeroflame1216 Alpha Castiel Novak and his Omega Dean Winchester are tantalizingly close to sealing their bond, but Dean's grueling work schedule and frequent out-of-town trips keep pushing their plans into the future. Tensions rise between the high school principal and his FBI agent partner, further complicated by the unsettling return of a menacing stalker from Castiel’s past. As threats loom and their relationship strains under the pressure, Castiel must navigate a web of danger and deception. With time running out, can he uncover the truth and protect their future before it all unravels? Words: 2720, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer (Supernatural), Charlie Bradbury, Donna Hanscum, Sam Winchester, Balthazar (Supernatural), Michael (Supernatural), Eileen Leahy, Benny Lafitte, Garth Fitzgerald IV, Jody Mills, Pamela Barnes (Supernatural), Gordon Walker, Missouri Moseley, Victor Henriksen, Anna Milton, Bartholomew (Supernatural), Gabriel (Supernatural) Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Mystery, Thriller, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alpha Castiel (Supernatural), Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester, Strained Relationships, FBI Agent Dean Winchester, School Principal Castiel (Supernatural), Crime Scenes, Staged Crime Scene, Murder, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Fluff and Angst, Psychological Trauma, Medical Trauma, Explicit Sexual Content, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending via AO3 works tagged 'Castiel/Dean Winchester' https://ift.tt/xWjvwAa August 21, 2024 at 02:46PM

[buddiewho]

I was bored this weekend so I rewatched season 4a. Spoilers ahead. 

Honestly, I don't think things get popping until episode 3 [but weren’t actually nearly that great until the last 3 episodes tbh] and I am not even being Buddie biased or Buckley-Diaz family unit biased [this might be a bold face lie, but on second rewatch, I noticed I was paying more attention to everything else as well]. 4x03 is just a really good episode. Good old emergencies, mixed in with Eddie's paranoia over Hildy. Then from there it's Buck Begins and the whole Buckley family secret. Then of course, I feel like when we get to Jinx that starts some kind of path. The universe path, you know? There Goes the Neighborhood also continues on this path. Buck is still trying to work through some stuff; a terrible date, the bit about SAFE SPACES. Then Breaking Point. Everyone has one right? Even Christopher and getting angry or as Buck put it “ I heard you blew up at your Dad” and that’s not over yet though. Taylor needing a friend. Nearly Buck reaching one, but he managed to repair it. Eddie for the sole fact Christopher runs away. Hen and Karen actually not having a breaking point until... Chim and Maddie breaking and repairing it in regards to how Baby Mango arrives in this world. Athena and Bobby just being parents to everyone as usual. 

Fun fact. Breaking Point was on as I typed this and it's the one on one scene between Buck and Chris. "I don't want to miss anyone else," Christopher says after he names all the other people he misses first. Buck is probably also telling himself, don't make it about you Buck, this isn't about you, but you are going to promise, "I'm not going anywhere." The last three episodes (Jinx, There Goes the Neighborhood, and Breaking Point) were like some kind National Treasure bullshit; *Nicolas Cage voice* "The secret lies with Charlotte." "Paul Revere went by horse and it was two lanterns not one" or some bullcrap that movie talked about (not going to lie, I once thought it was comedic), but I just mean the overall premise of National Treasure being about secrets or coded messages and a Treasure Hunt (which if I'm correct is also a name of a potential 911 episode...?)

Can I backtrack a moment to 4x07? You know the awkward double date that Buck invited Taylor to? Buck is sitting awkwardly in that chair, wondering about his life choices and little bit of a song played. The lyrics, "There's someone else for you." Just that bit of the song, for the record and I don't think it was already playing in the previous scene to end so coincidentally over Buck’s face?

I'm also not over Taylor talking about looking for a miracle in which Buck gave to her and Eddie also called Buck a miracle worker.

Okay, the end of Breaking Point: Ana comes over to the house, like some awkward new beginning parallel to Madney being cute as they prepare for Baby Mango. Buck patches things with Albert. Then the not so happy crescendo/breaking point for Hen and Karen. Adopting Nia may not happen.

It's really coded like a treasure hunt and if there's an episode named that, well, that'll be hilarious. I'm forever going to hang onto Future Tense as a way of showing us the future, Buck and Eddie have yet to realize. So when they do realize it, it'll be soo damn good. So if the presumed treasure hunt the universe sends the boys on (with everyone else on their own kind)- but if Buddie doesn’t end with them figuring out what connects them and how they want to be connected...like if they don’t meet in the middle at the X marks the spot (or the universe tether aka Christopher) then I really am just creating this treasure hunt out of thin air and it doesn’t exist like the Dad profusely told Nic Cage’s character in National Treasure...or maybe it’s also like PLAYING DETECTIVES? Cagney and Lacey inspired True Crime podcast brought to you by Buck and Eddie two LAFD firefighters and best friends occasionally featuring their Captain of the 118; plus Bobby’s friend Michael and his partner David who reluctantly participates in these shenanigans but could provide key medical evidence/research. In my mind, they read [mostly Buck and Eddie] their cases/script for this made up podcast as 1940s detectives. Smoky voice Buck: “It’s a locked room mystery.” *1940s detective music* Smoky voice Eddie: “Correction. It’s a locked yard mystery...” Anyway...

Did I mention the clowns to ya'll? We didn't forget abut those clowns did we (Jinx might actually be my fav episode of the season after FUTURE TENSE). The clowns are so pointedly shot after Eddie mentions Ana to Buck. Okay. Then there's also the love languages thing. That's a book Buck’s therapist would've recommended right now or for some reason he’s choosing to read it? As we can see, I think the show might be reeling it back in for Buck. As Eddie put it "I don't know what inspired this software upgrade." Coincidentally, Buck 3.0 is looking to the FUTURE. Anyway, the love languages. NO one immediately thinks about the coffee machine prank. Absolutely no one so I won't even make that a thing, but I notice in that scene Buck "outs" Eddie by telling the team about Ana.

Hen: Ana who?... Is this the one you yelled at? Eddie: I apologized for that. Chim: Yeah okay and you still didn't ask her out? Eddie: She's Christopher's teacher. Bobby: I thought you said she got a new job. Buck: *crickets*

What's the intention behind Buck bursting this supposed secret and then not have him encourage Eddie? Like in his way, Buck could’ve said well, does she do this or that? Words of affirmation? Gift giving? Are yours and her love languages truly compatible? Oh, wait, there’s implications behind the book Buck is reading but also...there's implications behind Chim and Bobby's statements. They're implying okay so go for it. Neither Hen or Buck really do that. Why don’t we have Hen jumping on the encouragement train either? Instead she brings it back to that one unfortunate moment any of them really remembers of Ana... Hmm, it's secrets and coded messages and the one thing that Buck has said from this entire season that truly resonates with me:

Buck (directed to Eddie): The universe is screaming at you and it's like you're not even listening.

Irony is. Neither is he.

Oh wait, another line that resonates with me (and I made a recent post with it too):

Bobby (directed to Eddie): They're so focused on what they don't have that they might miss out on the chance to have something else, something real.

Something real. 

You really want me to think this line is about Ana Flores, even if Eddie thinks it somewhat is? And the foundation of it is to encourage Eddie to think about moving on, to stop being so STUCK (2x04 anyone?). If it really is about Ana then we're actually painting Bobby as the character who has no idea...? None whatsoever as to HOW CLOSE Buck and Eddie could be, if that's what they wanted. Seems fake, but okay. Bobby's line actually should highlight that they both are looking in the opposite direction when in fact the SOMETHING REAL is right in front of their faces. The something real is what Eddie came home to after his supposed date.

Just saying because to me it looks Buck and Eddie are still looking in and RUSHING INTO the PAST TENSE and have yet to understand the FUTURE TENSE.