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benkouji726 · 4 years ago

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Written for alexweek2020. Sequel to “Settled”, but can also be read as one-off. ...I think.

Anyways, “Settled” is based on meet ugly prompt 2: I bought a house three months ago but I’m finally moving in and discover you’ve been squatting because you’re homeless.

Spoiler alert: they ended up living together! And none of them are aliens! Jesse died in the previous work, so all is well...ish.

Home can be a person

They’d been living together for a month now, and Alex still knew nothing about Michael Guerin.

OK that wasn’t entirely true. He knew plenty. Because one, he was a military man, his livelihood depended on his observation skills. And two, their schedules somehow synced perfectly, and after a week of awkwardly bumping each other in the kitchen and waiting turns to use the bathroom, it was simply easier if they just worked out a systematic plan to build their lives around each other, which led to divided chores, respected bathroom routines and shared meals. And when two men spent that much time together, they had no choice but to have conversations, which were really not that hard, because they clicked like magnets and they actually enjoyed spending time together.

So Alex knew plenty. Both from his observations and their conversations. But it was not like Guerin volunteered personal informations, and even he did, it was always surface stuff, so it didn’t really count. Like he knew Guerin was a mechanic, who was really good at his job. So good that he even opened his own auto shop the second year into the business. And based on what Alex saw, money was not exactly an issue for him. Which frankly didn’t match up with his squatting life style, not to mention he owned a perfectly functional airstream, but that topic was always brushed aside.

Alex also knew Guerin had two siblings, who moved away a year ago. They were both married, and apparently lived nearly enough that they did a weekly get together. Guerin would join them via FaceTime, they would laugh and talk, and Guerin seemed so happy when they did this, which did not explain why he was always a little sad when they were done. But again, not to be talked about.

Sometimes Alex would be impressed by Guerin’s topic changing skills. Granted, his go-to move was more often than not flirtation, but it worked like a charm on Alex, so whatever got the job done, right? And rationally, Alex knew he should be grateful, because Guerin was a surprisingly pleasant roommate. He was good company, he wasn’t nosy, he did VERY good repair work around the house, his cooking skills were better than Alex’s, and he slowly became the reason why Alex was looking forward to going back home after a day’s work. And truth be told, Alex wasn’t exactly an open book himself, so he should just respect Guerin’s boundaries and enjoy their easygoing companionship.

But he just couldn’t.

34 days into their co-living arrangement, Guerin came home, visibly upset. It was Alex’s day to make dinner. So he ignored Guerin at first to finish the lasagna. But when he was putting together a cob salad, he heard Guerin throw his tool box on to the floor, and caused a loud clang.

Guerin NEVER threw his tool box.

“What’s got into you today?” OK that was a little harsh. But in his defense, Alex was kind of tired of asking “are you ok” at that point, because he always got a “just dandy” and a too-big-to-be-genuine smile in reply.

Guerin shut down immediately, threw on a well-practiced smirk, and said: “Nothing. Unless you are up for the job?”

And just like that, Alex snapped.

He got up, got his keys, and left the house.

It was when he sat in his car, had no idea where he’d go, he realized that he didn’t even bring his wallet and phone, which was just stupid.

The whole thing was stupid.

He knew he had no right to feel angry and hurt. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. Guerin didn’t owe him anything.

But he had felt their connection the first time they’d met, and it was there ever since. He thought Guerin felt it too.

Apparently he was wrong.

He came back two hours later, because he needed that time to work out an apology and also to learn not to be this naive again. When he got home, Guerin was sitting at the kitchen table, seemingly lost in his thoughts, lasagna in front of him, cold and forgotten.

“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier, it was really none of my busi...” He began but was cut by Guerin mid-sentence.

“I didn’t eat”.

“...OK? Were u not hungry or was the lasagna that bad?”

Guerin looked up at him then. His eyes big, voice raw.

“I didn’t eat because it felt wrong.”

He looked back down at the lasagna.

“After you left, I was angry at first. Because fuck you, you know? I don’t owe you anything.”

“Yes, Guerin, I know, I was trying to apologize...”

Guerin continued as if not heard him at all.

“And then I got up to help me some food, man’s gotta eat, and frankly, lasagna is like, the only food you can make right. So I got myself a plate, and I sat down. Normally at that point, you would begin to nag me about eating some salad or drinking some water first, but then I looked up, and you were just, not there.”

He looked up again. All open and bare.

“So yeah, maybe it was not your business, but it was also wrong of me to assume I didn’t want it to be.”

They stared at each other. Both at lost what to say next. Eventually, Alex sat across the table, reached out, and squeezed Guerin’s hand.

“You reheat the lasagna, I’ll finish making the salad. And we’ll eat. OK? I’m starving.”

“Yeah, you didn’t even bring your wallet. I mean, dramatic much?”

“Shut up, Guerin.”

They didn’t talk about why Guerin was upset that night, but it was OK.

—————————

Things got better after that. They talked now, not just making conversation. Alex learned that Guerin had been in the system for a long time. His siblings, Max and Isobel, were actually not related to him. They had been just best friends in group homes, until they were adopted by the Evans, while Guerin went through many terrible foster families. They were united at the age of 15, when Guerin’s new foster home brought him to Roswell, and they had been inseparable ever since.

“That was, until Max decided to marry someone in LA, and moved there. And then Isobel’s husband also got a job in LA, they moved soon after. So it was just the same old me, again.”

They were at the fire pit in front of Guerin’s airstream, which he still wasn’t using, except sometimes he would go in there and do God knows what, they still didn’t reach the subject why he had been squatting yet. Alex suspected it had something to do with his issues with his siblings moving away, like the bitterness in his voice now had.

“Well, you’re literally sitting next to me now, so not exactly the same, you know?”

Guerin startled, and looked over at Alex with something like hope mixed with fear in his eyes. Alex stared right back, because at this point, he really wasn’t interested in pretending that they didn’t mean something to each other. And he hoped Guerin would drop the “I’m a lone wolf and I don’t care” act too, at least when he was with him.

Whatever Guerin saw on his face, seemed to satisfy him. He smiled, the kind of smile that reached his heart and soul, and said,

“You trying to hold my hand now, private?”

And they did.

—————————

Alex woke up in screaming. Next thing he knew, he was in Guerin’s arms.

He didn’t remember the dream. But he could easily guess the content. It was always the same. Bomb, blood, cries, he looked down, his leg was gone. Sometimes his father was there, sometimes he wasn’t. Either way, he felt his presence.

Normally, after he woke up from such a dream, he would do some breath exercise, get up, get some water, and didn’t even try to sleep again. But tonight, Guerin was right there, humming something like a lullaby, and rubbing soothing circles on his back. He didn’t say anything, or ask how he was doing, just held him and gently rocked him.

At some point, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour later, they lied down, together on Alex’s bed. Guerin’s hand slowly reached down, until he touched his stump. He rubbed it once, twice, and then he just stayed there.

Alex fell sleep.

——————————

Friday movie nights became some sort of tradition between them. They would finish their work, meet at the house, grab something to eat, and then drive to the drive-in theatre. Alex liked those nights, hell, he cherished those nights.

So he was very irritated when some shitty client just didn’t know what it meant to demand something WITHIN REASON, and he had to cancel their movie night via a short text. He was even more irritated when said client walked out in the last minute, so his previous work was totally wasted. Plus his new prosthetic was giving him trouble all day. Safe to say he was not in the greatest mood.

When he got home though, he was met by Guerin’s soft smile and homemade dinner. By the time they finished eating, he felt more or less like human again. Then Guerin gave him a dessert, told him to rest a bit on the sofa, and disappeared in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, he pulled Alex into the bathroom, where he already drew a bath for Alex.

He even lit some candles.

All of a sudden, Alex wanted to cry, except he hadn’t cried in ten years.

So he let out a shaky breath, buried himself in Guerin’s arms, and asked a stupid question.

“Why did you do all this?”

Guerin held him, shifted somewhat awkwardly, and said in a quiet voice.

“You spelled ‘bail’ wrong.”

Of all the answers, THAT was not what Alex expected.

“What?”

“Your text. I guess you meant to say you had to bail on our movie night. But you spelled it ‘ball’. Auto correct or something. And you never spelled wrong. So I figured, you must be exhausted.”

At that, Alex just HAD to kiss him.

—————————

They visited Greg together on a Saturday morning.

At the drive home, Alex was awfully quiet.

Michael didn’t ask. He made coffee. He fetched a blanket. He sat beside Alex on the sofa, and began to read his monthly mechanic magazine.

Alex talked before he decided he wanted to.

“My father was a piece of shit. And out of my three brothers, Greg is the only decent one. But when we were kids, he didn’t know how to protect me or stand up for me, when my father beat the shit out of me.”

Michael dropped his magazine, and silently held his hand. And Alex decided he wanted to keep talking.

“I wanted to make music. He sent me to war. Frankly, war wasn’t even a worse choice than my so called home. It just wasn’t a better choice either.”

“I never felt I belong anywhere, not at home. Not at war. I bought the house because Greg asked me to, because he was the only one who reminded me a shred of the ‘home’ concept. But today, seeing him with his family, I realized, he is my family, but he is not home.”

“I still don’t belong.”

He hadn’t cried for ten years. He didn’t want to begin now.

Expect the hands wiping his tears were so gentle, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I was offered a great job opportunity in New York, when I finished my study at UNM. But four years apart from Max and Isobel were tough enough that I decided to ditch that and move back.”

“I never felt I belonged, too, what with the fucked up system and shitty foster homes, except when I was with them. So I clung to them, a little bit desperately. When they moved away, I felt betrayed, left out and abandoned. I didn’t want to live in my airstream anymore because it felt like a fantasy I built, just to fool myself into thinking I could have followed them anywhere in it, because they were my harbor. But then they were gone, so I decided I wasn’t supposed to settle in anywhere, and that’s when I began to squat in people’s not lived in houses. Because they are just like me, you know, abandoned.”

“Until you invited me to live with you.”

They held each other a long time after that.

—————————

The email came on a Wednesday morning, and Michael was on the plane that very night to LA, because Liz was going into labor and Michael would become an uncle.

He asked Alex to come with him, but he was caught up at work so he just couldn’t make it.

They called each other every day though, Michael showed him so many baby pictures he even dreamed about it one night. He was vibrating joyful energy and Alex was happy for him.

Then on the fourth night since he was gone, he called Alex, hesitation evident in his voice.

“Liz pulled some strings at her university. And they offered me a job here.” He said, without so much as a hello.

Alex felt the world shook for a moment. Then he blinked, and the house seemed the same, intact, but somehow much quieter, and larger.

“I’m happy for you.”

An exhale.

“You are happy for me.” Michael repeated, slowly.

Alex shut his eyes. He thought of all the times Michael looked at the photos of the three of them, and all the times he seemed to be lost after he ended their phone calls, and he opened his eyes again.

“They are your family.” He said simply.

Another exhale.

“Yeah, they are.”

Silence.

After three minutes of nothing else, Alex hung up.

——————————

Michael came back on Tuesday afternoon.

Alex had not been sleeping well, or eating properly, so at first he thought he might be dreaming or something.

But there he was, clearly not been sleeping well, or eating properly himself, eyes glaring with fond anger.

“You are a dumbass, you know? You’re just gonna give me up like that?”

Alex refused to back down.

“It’s not giving up. You always wanted a family, a home. I don’t wanna stand between you and your opportunity of that.”

Michael shook his head, sighed, and pulled Alex into his arms.

“You still don’t understand, do you? They are my family, true. But YOU are my home.”

And there, stood in his embrace, Alex finally understood.

#alexweek2020 #day 1: home can be a person #malex #malex fic #my fic #alex manes #michael guerin

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hellanoragami-blog · 6 years ago

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Chapter 78 Thoughts

Holy moly. A short chapter doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s not much to talk about. In fact, there’s a lot to talk about. (Also, I apologize for the delay! I got mega distracted while writing this.)

We start out seeing Yukine helping Daikoku repair the roof from Take’s abrupt visit. Kofuku was nice enough to make them some lunch, which ends up being Russian roulette onigiri. The pair come down to talk, and Yukine admits that he has no idea where Yato is, and begins to admit that he’s feeling a little worried, despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t be.

He takes a handful of the rice balls and says that he has somewhere to be. Daikoku isn’t too far off the mark, saying that he must be going out to feed a stray cat, or something. The way he words it implies that a few days--at the very least--has passed since Yato’s been gone.

It’s revealed that Yukine’s been taking food to Nora. But Nora sees this as pointless, because she’s dead. She doesn’t need to eat. She even goes on to say that it’s silly for the dead to behave like the living. Nora explains that she doesn’t believe that what she had with father and Yato was family. She acknowledges that they were merely acting the part, but they’re not family, in reality. They were simply tools to spread depravity. She mentions how Yato started rebelling, and how she was not to get in the way of it. But secretly, she hated him for it.

Or... did she? Maybe it was possible that she envied him.

Yato was getting freedom, and he was probably the only good thing she had in their family dynamic. She didn’t want to lose that, but she probably felt helpless to stop it because she didn’t know how. So yes, she was probably angry about losing him as a brother, but envious because he was gaining more freedom to do as he pleased and she felt like she was not able to do the same. Instead, she kept vying for Father’s approval because it was what she had left.

Obviously, this is where she feels like she’s saying too much. I think she’s scared of facing her feelings in that moment. But Yukine steers the conversation to the obvious, that she just kept doing what Father told her to. It’s pretty obvious that Nora feels like she doesn’t have the right to think for herself. But she yearns for a ‘family’, hence the feeling that something is missing.

Maybe she was most happiest when they played house. Or when she got to play with Yato. Because she had purpose in that moment, and a feeling of belonging. It’s something that she wasn’t able to get, no matter how many names that she picked up. No one truly wanted her for her, or wanted to love her as their own. Except for Father, but even still, he uses her more than actually treating her like a daughter.

And there’s something interesting about Nora, as well; if you recall her past, she stopped wearing her kimono the way a living person would somewhere between Sakura’s undoing and Yato’s adolescence.

left over right (living)

right over left (dead)

Father said that Nora knew how she died, not that she knew what her real name was. But at the time of Sakura’s death, it looked like Nora knew what a God’s Greatest secret was; or, at least she had an idea. Yet she seemed shocked that telling a shinki their real name was all it took to destroy them. Up until Sakura, Nora just didn’t seem to think about her own mortality. So she had to have learned about it shortly before that.

(Maybe when Father ‘punished’ her? I’ve considered this. Maybe he hammered the fact that she was dead into her, and this was when they stopped playing that little game of house. Maybe it was after that, that she started wearing her kimono as a dead person, because she thought that it would keep Father from being upset with her. That, or something similar.)

Even Yukine realizes that she just wants to have that, though. She wants to have a real family, and to be loved without her usefulness being the first thing people looked at her for. Family doesn’t have to be by blood; so dead or not, Yato and Yukine aren’t just playing house. They are a family. They made it themselves, and are both content with this.

Nora just... wants that. And there’s no shame in it, contrary to what Father has put in her head. Yukine struggles with his feelings and cheers her up via his own embarrassment--even at the expense of biting into a toothpaste-filled onigiri--and even gets a smile from her. I feel like she genuinely enjoys Yukine’s company, in the end.

But this isn’t all good, from Yukine’s end. There’s no way to know if he’s continued looking for Yato or not, but from the sound of it, it seems like he’s been spending time with Nora instead. But he shouldn’t be giving up the search just yet.

Maybe he feels that Yato isn’t in immediate danger, because Nora is no longer being used as a weapon by Father. (In other words, the guy isn’t a threat if he doesn’t have a weapon.) This is kind of a flawed thinking, though.

Sooner or later, Father will show up to get him. And Nora will have the choice to defend him, or let it happen. It’s hard to say what she would do. On one hand, defending him would be the right thing; he doesn’t deserve it. But on the other hand, if Father named Yukine, then that would give her the opportunity to foster a bond with him. Something that she no longer has with Yato.

Still, I hope that when the time comes, Yukine would have shown her enough kindness to sway her decision.

Then the scene shifts to Yato, who is naming a shinki who suspiciously looks like Kazuma, at first glance. (I see what you played, Adachitoka. But also, thank you for not having Yato name him.) The shinki turns into a pair of scissors, which wouldn’t be useful in battle. So Yato turns him away.

This is interesting, to me. Given Yato’s history, it seems like he’s had a pattern of getting weapons as regalia. Even Sakura, who was a kind and gentle spirit, became a short sword. And Yato even says, every shinki he’s named has just been ‘dollar store junk’. This actually gives me the impression that maybe Yato’s spirit is the one that has changed; he’s become a God of fortune and happiness, one whose goal is to help people. Not much need for a weapon, in that case. It’s hard to say whether or not even Kazuma would become a weapon for him.

Speaking of Kazuma, though... oof. He shows up to once again hound Yato into naming him, which Yato refuses because he knows Kazuma. He’s fond of him, and he doesn’t want him to be touched by a God’s Greatest Secret. But come on, Yato, you’re on a mission to name innocent souls just to get them killed. You’re doing the same thing you’re shaming heaven for. I hope he comes to this realization, soon.

After parting, it is next revealed that Kazuma has a ‘premonition’ of sorts. He intercepts Hiyori, who is out searching for Yato and has no idea where Kazuma has been or what he has been doing up to this point. Naturally, she tells him that everyone is waiting for his return, and that Bishamon would want him there with her. But Kazuma is honestly too far gone to listen.

He recognizes Hiyori’s feelings for Yato, and tells her that Gods and Humans can never be together. That being in love with a God is considered a sin. Which, I just really don’t think is the case. Why would it be? Daikoku and Kofuku are very obviously in love, and there has been no sin to come of it.

Plus, Kazuma wasn’t direct about his feelings, at all. Even if he had been, though, I think he knows that Bishamon just doesn’t have those kinds of feelings towards him. She sees Kazuma as one of her children, and nothing more. She loves Kazuma, but she’s not in love with him. There is a big difference.

This isn’t to say that Kazuma isn’t special to her--because clearly, Bishamon holds him higher than the Ha clan. Kazuma is her last surviving child from her previous family, so of course she would hold him in a different light of appreciation than her other shinki. Maybe Kazuma just misinterpreted these affections.

But there is another thing that separates Bishamon from, say, Kofuku or even Yato, here: Bishamon is an Amatsu-kami, and Kofuku and Yato are both (probably) classified as Kunitsu-kami. Amatsu-kami are heaven-dwelling Gods. Kunitsu-kami, however, are earthly Gods. It seems to me that these two different types of Gods follow different principles in life and love. Kunitsu-kami tend to understand human empathy and emotion more, and they don’t lack the ability to connect with their shinki the same as heaven-dwelling Gods seem to.

I think Bishamon sits somewhere between the two, though, and that’s what makes it so difficult for her. She understands human empathy just enough to have different values than the Amatsu-kami.

I also just really think that Yato would get it, if Hiyori were to tell him that she loved him. But whether he would allow himself to return those feelings is another story. (He does love Hiyori, but he knows that she is technically still a child, at this point. He wouldn’t accept her feelings yet, in that case. People tend to equate love with sexual attraction, but the two are also very different.)

I just think that the way Kazuma’s feelings have been perceived is his own fault. Then Kazuma literally throws Hiyori off the roof with a borderline, just so she can’t get too far. He says that he is going to try transferring his feelings to her, and that he is cursing her to never be satisfied with just pretending to be a family with Yato, and telling her to never go near Yato again. (A bit weird wording, since the scenario had always been called ‘playing house’, not ‘pretending to be a family’.)

I first thought that maybe this curse was metaphorical, like a jinx or something. But one speculator has said that the words were pretty straight-forward and that it was probably an actual curse. (I also shot a question to fast-moon to confirm or deny this, but I haven’t gotten a response yet.) If it is in fact a real curse, what exactly will happen to Hiyori?

She finally confronts her feelings, and starts crying. I think this is because she knows that there really is no going back, now. She can’t just pretend that those feelings aren’t there, because--as Kazuma said--they will never be enough. She’ll either have to be rejected or accepted. (And, even after rejection, it takes a long time for those feelings to fade. And even yet, they may never unless she forgets Yato entirely; doomed to always feel like there is something missing.)

What’s worse is the fact that Kofuku tied their plaques; will they never be at peace with each other? Was Kofuku’s act what lead to this? It’s hard to say.

In the last panel, Hiyori’s tail appears to be missing. I formulated every conceivable way it would be positioned based on her posing, and unless it’s just curled into a spiral under her back or something, it would be shown, I think.

Obviously I don’t think she is dead, but I do think something happened. I don’t know what to think, at this point. I really hope that Hiyori will be fine. She’ll survive, one way or another. But will she actually be okay?

And as for Kazuma... I’m upset with him, but I want to understand. Maybe he got too close to Tsuguha when he killed her, and he’s being affected by the God’s Greatest Secret? (They did say that it had the capability of spreading.) Or maybe this was just something a long time coming.

Maybe he’s so erratic and desperate to keep Bishamon safe because someone he loved while alive died protecting him. I dunno, but something changed him and he’s been on a downward spiral for a long time with no sign of stopping.

Anyway, that’s my own take on things! I hope we get some more answers in the next chapter.

#nana discusses noragami #noragami spoilers #noragami

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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13x22 watching notes

I already miss Bobo

(sometimes I can still hear his voice)

It's 7:15 and I have yoga in a bit and the sun is shining directly on my screen where my cheap ass curtains don't meet but I am gonna start watching because what is flow and continuity in tone to these writers anyways. This is a "may as well rip the plaster off" sort of start.

Regular readers of my notes will know exactly how thrilled I was to have BL handling the big character driven everyone in the same room clusterfuck this episode promises to be and lil update: since then the promos have reassured me that nope they don't have tone or nuance and we're in for some quality characterisation.

This is a damage control set of notes, I assume.

Blah blah plot recap. They cut the conversation from 13x20 to just Sam n Dean talking about going into the apocalypse world, then "we'll die together" which I can't work out in this context (I'm hoping against hope the recap isn't dictated by BL and TJW is cobbling it together) is irony that Sam then went and died, alone, or a yet-to-come omen of the end of the season. At least BL are handing us over to Dabb for the end of season nonsense so I have to rely on him having a wacky emu war of 1932 hits the present day through Shenanigans sort of season 14 premise to build up and fling at us to make us forget all this.

I love Sam's "we're gonna drain you" speech layered over everyone dramatically walking into apocalypse world.

Christ for half a sec I thought they were gonna recap Gabriel in Cas's crotch

Did Lucifer only start calling Rowena "Red" when he was Vince or is that something I missed from season 11? Because hearing boring ass Lucifer say it just makes me miss when he was Vince.

this is such a full recap of 13x21 I'm basically just writing fresh episode notes for it

I don't think I saw anyone talk about how cool it was when Dean shot a vampire and exploded its head off. Like, understandably Sam was dead and it was a high-pressure situation but

ALSO Cas says "he's gone" and he sure as hell didn't mean "I can't find him" he meant "Sam's dead" but that euphemism landed Cas so much fandom flak for not looking for Sam I am starting to feel like he should have just said "I saw eight vampires chowing down on every part of him they could reach" and traded Dean's feelings for clarity.

...

I love that Cas has evolved as a character to the point he uses a gentle euphemism to spare Dean's feelings because there was once a harsher version of Cas that would have said that.

Are they going to recap the whole Lucifer conversation

I mean it means we can't judge Sam at all for what he did

HUGS

Mary's like holy shit he's really here, all shaky hands and scared to touch him. Good. She was criticised so much from the promo for not caring, I'm gonna gif that in extreme slow mo close up if I get even one (1) pissy anon about her

Dean hangs back, knowing that Sam walking in with Lucifer can NOT be good news, and asking "what happened" is basically already knowing what happened

Oh good we already have "I didn't watch the last episode despite the 40 minute recap" syndrome.

Just quickly to get us up to that point - Lucifer is playing all benevolent when Sam says "he brought me back" with the due horror of the situation. Cas, with Jack at his side, also glaring father-like-son, says "that's not what you do" in defiance of what Lucifer has done - good to call him out for his personality traits not matching his actions, e.g. there's always a catch and we know it, but to Jack if there is to be conflict, is in the face of Lucifer's actions and we're manufacturing that TFW judge Lucifer harsher than he deserves. Even when we know Lucifer said that he'd take Jack by force and Sam is pretty much protecting Jack to take this bargain.

Anyway. Cas asks "how did you get in here" perhaps in the assumption a: they're in a walled compound rather than open woodland with perimeter guards and b: that Gabriel didn't melt all the warding last episode meaning it's not even open woodland with perimeter guards and anti-angel warding, it's just a big ass open space that they strolled into. The implication in Cas's words is that it should have been much harder for Lucifer to show up, that this place is better defended, to the point of bafflement about that. It's a smaller thing, but it's irksome because I know BL don't read the other episodes because they've literally said it in interviews, which makes stray details stand out like a sore thumb, especially when characters sound stupider than they should - rephrasing this "why are you here" or "what's going on" would be a neutral way of asking without mis-characterising the situation or having it come across just... slightly odd. Just seems to be an implication that Lucifer didn't just stroll between the trees and through an open gate as his arrival and more specifically, that there were wards or barriers that could have done anything to stop him, and Cas is talking like it's inconcievable he got past them all - what all? :P

Lucifer says "VIP pass - I'm with the band!" which is extra hilarious that I was missing Vincifer a minute ago, because it's downgraded him from that rock god status he wanted, and now he's acting like the whiny groupie and Sam is the rockstar, TFW and family the band, and Lucifer is desperate to get in with them. Of course the Vincifer arc revealed that Lucifer never was a rock god, a year before he fails at actually being God for the exact same personality flaws, but at this point the acknowledgement is pretty much just for kicks and giggles because seeing him mocked amuses me. Seeing him have to admit there's a higher order he wants in with and TFW etc are more important than him and this is like, backhanded grovelling... yeah.

As soon as Lucifer redirects his attention to Jack, Dean comes storming in. Of course Sam is excluding himself from this conversation in raw shame and I can't even look at his face because it is the Worst(TM) but now we have Cas, Dean and Uncle Gabe defending Jack (BL politely not writing any Gabriel dialogue yet and every minute they don't is a minute I don't have a migraine so thanks guys, appreciate it.) and Dean sounds extremely protectively fatherly and Cas is also then weighing in with parental authority... Yeah, last episode Rowena said all 3 of them were Jack's fathers and it's a different dynamic from Claire but I like seeing Cas and Dean as a parent team and I won't apologise for that :P

But, again, Jack is only 7-8 months old with a still tuning moral compass, a teenager disposition, and Cas and Dean are making parental decrees about who he can talk to, and catching him in the middle of a fight over the right to have access to him without asking his opinion. It could possibly be more frustration over that than genuine desire to meet Lucifer that upsets Jack.

Because he's still like *SCOWL* at Lucifer, still being framed with Cas. Cas says he's "kelly kline's son" and I love that Cas continually reminds Lucifer that Jack had a mother too, and that for all her terrible writing in season 12 at the very least we established "human" and "generically nice and loving towards her baby" as traits to call on :P I like that Cas is determined to emphasise where Jack gets his personality from, and that Cas doesn't define Jack by his powers. But that is ignoring that Jack HAS powers and that does factor into his life in a... rather major way... especially as the way he's been flung around so far he's had so little time to develop a personality outside of having powers, except for Sam encouraging him to watch movies and TV to foster a shared taste before Dean could think to twist Jack to his cruel purpose and have another vote on movie night in his favour, so now it's Sam n Jack vs Dean n Cas and -

Anyway. I'm procrastinating.

Lucifer emphasising that he has powers, even if he gets carried away describing how ruthlessly he uses them, is a way of connecting with Jack that no one else dared, when in 13x06 all of TFW are just like, shit, when I had magic powers I unleashed Lucifer/went on a megalomaniac God rampage/hooked up with Crowley, and immediately all get too ashamed of themselves to sit Jack down and have The Talk so he freaked out and left and tl;dr that's how we're here.

Just, like, shit, show him all 3 Spiderman films where Uncle Ben tells Peter "with great power comes great responsibility", and you're set, guys. Sheesh.

"No. Kill him."

*Gabriel side-eye reaction shot with no dialogue but a fascinated amusehorror about what's going on*

I'm starting to get the feeling BL just plain forgot Gabriel was in this episode, but the rest of the peeps involved were like, uh, he's in this episode because where else would he be, so Speight just came to set like he was supposed to, and hung out in all the scenes as appropriate.

I will now watch and interpret this episode based on that fact.

Sorry, Jack's going through a lot of conflict because Dean just point blank ordered him to melt his biological father on the spot, and I'm bitching about how someone forgot to add any pointers for Gabriel's existence into the script, not even in a character stan way, just in a sheer disbelief way, because of my horror of this being an episode with double digit named important characters in it and all in one location and being handled by the writers who can't even deal with Sam and Dean having distinct personalities in a scene with 3 characters half the time.

Okay, Gabriel ad libbed a "Dean" in there. I'm assuming after like 3 minutes of contact he's quite chuffed to have a nephew and knows Dean can be too harsh so he was being protective.

But yeah, of course it was Dean getting too angry about Lucifer (rightfully too angry, but still, emotionally mis-handling it) and making Jack disappear that sets this off, because Lucifer can just be a hub of chaos based on his reputation and act chill in the knowledge it will infuriate everyone around him into acting irrationally. Dean's been especially anxious and angry this recent year - and is building up to something awful perhaps if he is possessed by the end of the season - so it makes sense with his history of acting irrationally and being harsh on Jack from the start of the season that at the end he causes this.

Look, I'm complimenting character choices as much as being baffled by them, but what is clear is I need to be this in depth to have a chance in hell of grappling this episode >.>

Long shot where everyone just stands there in mute horror and Cas is the only one who looks around like he might see Jack hiding in a tree.

Remember back in 9x11 where I was like... did they just confirm he can see through walls... and literally no one ever replied to me about this hypothesis because it was too batshit? Well I am gonna have to assume that Cas looking around like that would only make sense if he can X-ray vision Jack hiding nearby >.>

Dean's like "He does that when he's scared. Way to go, dad!" despite the fact he was the one responsible for scaring Jack - I mean, Jack is probably FREAKED OUT about Lucifer showing up in general, but Dean's reaction is upsetting as well, especially when he's already emotionally in a bad place and now Dean is asking too much of him.

This episode is where all the stuff about fatherhood lands, and Jack is playing Dean and possibly Sam, while Sam, Dean, Cas and Lucifer are probably all playing shades of John Winchester.

It's a shame Lucifer changed his clothes because the Nick vessel was wearing up to a point always the same clothes that John had been wearing last time we saw JDM on screen, and that was a subtextual "brrr" about Lucifer in season 5 - that he was mirroring John in some ways.

We got enough parents here that they could literally all play, like, a seven deadly sin or something of John's.

Dean, of course, playing explosive anger. Sam seeming at the moment to play the part that shut down in horror and wasn't there for his boys and made all the bad choices for good reasons that exposed them to the bad stuff. Lucifer playing the abusive side that manipulates, uses as bait, and was in general dangerous - the John that Dean thinks of in 5x16 when not saying what he did when Sam ran away. Cas is playing the side that truly loved his boys, but saw their mother in them and there has been plenty of analysis of how this messed up the dynamic in any way from John withdrawing from Dean for reminding him too much to the parentification thing.

Gabriel is like, I'm not meant to be in this episode, so I'll just... go look for Jack... to explain why I was not in the following conversation.......

Lucifer drops the parent thing as soon as Jack is gone and switches to saying they "need" him to use against Michael, while bragging he "beat" him (good to know his ego and lying remains intact - the same boasting that got him in trouble with Heaven when he said he could make new angels and give them their wings back).

Cas immediately does the most #married thing I've ever seen him do to Dean - the "we're on a hike together and I want the trail mix in your bag honey so i'm just gonna open it up and get it out while we stand here" thing.

But with handcuffs.

Look, Dean n Cas are special and perfect in a way no one else can get on their level and sometimes it's because this is their dynamic.

Anyway Cas is being a BAMF to Lucifer and that is a good and important part of his characterisation this season.

Not Taking Shit!Castiel

as I call him

Party!Cas

I can literally see a manifestation of Jared that has left his body in distress, wrapped around Sam in a hug, as he's forced to casually ask Lucifer a question on screen that he didn't ask at any point on their hike down here but now the scene is about everyone else who was standing around watching (except Gabriel, who was never in this scene) so Sam gets to butt in with a question that literally anyone else would have been better suited to ask for both character and mechanical reasons.

Oh that "31 hours" thing was a total lie because of course Lucifer did no such thing. He knows the rift will probably close in either 24 from when it was opened or 24 from when he was punted through it, but that telling them a number that seems to add up that it's from then but plus an extra dose of grace, means they will let it close and they'll all be stuck here, and that's a tomorrow!Lucifer problem and in the mean time he can utterly fuck them over by thinking that they have a comfortable window to operate in. The countdown is meaningless, however. It all depends on if Rowena can strengthen and stabilise the portal on her end, and nothing else.

I love how the contracts are set up in such a way we got all the main stars, "And" Misha, and then we get all the guest stars, "And" Felicia Day. Also this episode is an over-stuffed mess.

RO RO

I didn't think she'd be in this episode, but we see her hard at work with... bagpipe music playing in her head/the Bunker's sound system? *shrugs, moves on* - anyway, either dramatic irony or Buckleming literally are working on the 31 hours thing depending on how much they read about other episodes. I hope dramatic irony. This is a dialogue-less insert so it's very possible TJW stuck it in to help.

"Are you good?" "I'm alive, yeah."

guys, you fuckers know "alive" ain't the same as "good" but in this case Sam's consequences for being alive are the chaos playing out with Lucifer and Jack so that's like... whatever, we can deal with it, so yeah he IS good, and no he doesn't have anything to apologise for, and in a way this is all fairly straightforward so yay!

Now hug

Oh shit, that never normally works

HUGS

\o/

"What are we gonna do about Lucifer?" "I'll handle it. I will, Dean. Let me handle it."

THE POWER OF HUGS. YOU RIDE THAT DOPAMINE RELEASE, YOU BRAVE BEAUTIFUL MOOSE

I feel like I spoke this episode into being by complaining "not enough hugs" as my tagline for last episode.

Anyway Sam is doing WELL because sure he is a guilt ridden bloodstained mess but he has inner strength and outer beauty so he can do this.

And Dean says "okay"

Which holy hell is a character growth of utter, sincere trust in Sam. Not that he wouldn't trust him because, you know, in some ways every moment of character growth is "we already covered this in the opening scene of 5x22 where we sat on the car and had a huge BM" because Kripke spitefully wrapped up the entire story pretty much to piss off every future showrunner when it came to deciding how to write Sam and Dean going forwards. But in the sense that Dean is trusting Sam not to turn this into a ridiculous tragedy again, perhaps. Since that BM was about Dean allowing Sam to die for the cause - as I've been following with Gabriel, I think there's a probable theme of learning to LIVE for the cause now, through a character whose main trait is to die to solve the cause and then run away and not deal with consequences, over and over. And Sam would embody it well to confront Lucifer with a desire to live and not to self-sacrifice, but to fix this so that their family can go home and have a belated pizza birthday party for Sam. FOR SAM.

You aspire to that pizza party, you magnificent moose. Get selfish. YOU DESERVE PIZZA. YOU'RE ALL INVITED

(Except Gabriel)

Nougat!

"Hi Jack, I'm your mom!" At the end of the season we're getting back to all the stuff that has been shoved down since the start. Jack has accumulated more parental figures than he knows what to do with and now he has to sort out how he feels about them, and how much each influences him.

Cas, his father who was supposed to be his guiding figure, the person he was searching for from the moment he stumbled naked and Bambi-like into our world (oh shit he's Bambi, shit. Stay away from Bobby!!) insists that he is most like Kelly, who only Cas can vouch for as a fellow person with a, like, personality, because hell knows if we or any of the other characters spent any time with her :P Cas is supposedly Jack's trustworthy rock, and his insistence that Jack is most influenced by Kelly rings true to the sympathetic audience who sees Jack as a nougat-centred boy. Named by his mother, of course.

"No one would blame you if one day you went looking for your dad" have they been holding this back since 13x23? I feel like this was all recorded then and they set up Jack's arc based around it. Because now he is flashing back to memories of Lucifer bound circa 12x13 or 12x15 when he was calling out to Jack in the womb (while dressed in those John Winchester duds). And in 13x09 they used this in a recap before the episode, and I was like this ain't the last we heard of it, and sure enough all the pressures that have been on Jack since before he was born are finally being addressed one way or another. Having held back the lines from Kelly - his Cas-approved moral beacon - telling him that there's nothing wrong with at least looking for your bio father no matter how much of a prick he may turn out to be - means that this is a pressure that's been on him since 13x03 and despite the fears in 13x09 that he was looking for Lucifer with this in the recap to remind us that Lucifer had been exerting his will on Jack since the womb... Now that Lucifer has found Jack, it's KELLY telling him that it's okay to at least be curious about him in a way that presumably resonates a lot with adopted kids who may have always known they had a terrible bio father but still felt curious/that pressure internally or externally to investigate their roots if only to find out who they themselves are...

I feel like this is an all the cards on the table moment, in any case - something Dabb set up about Jack which has been the secret behind the season, something only Jack knew up to this point, even from us the viewer, and we have been the most active participants in the story this season.

"Jack, don't let anyone tell you who you're supposed to be. You are who you choose to be."

Kelly has all the best words.

But yeah, this may not work well in the context that Lucifer has come seemingly in peace, Sam is hanging his head in shame, knowing the terms of Lucifer's non-violence are that Sam doesn't reveal that Lucifer was gonna storm in and steal Jack, and only making it easy for Lucifer to have access maintains his peace - that same peace in turn which sows the conflict simply by Lucifer existing there.

It plays into Lucifer's game that everyone who he has abused and or killed is there acting with justified rage at his presence, and telling Jack how to react to it based on their past experience. But Nougat is 7 months old and can not make these calls. Which means Kelly's words are now ones of conflict instead of the comfort that he's been choosing to be good and heroic like the real and fictional characters he wished to emulate.

Now we move on to Sam, the first living voice of comfort. "Maybe I'm not worth all this." "Your mom thought you were," Sam says, using her as a bridge from the parental authority (and he's also the one who brought her words to Jack). "So did Cas, so do I." It's building these steps of people Jack knows love him, the moral authorities he looks to, to Sam next. Sam's death worked so well last episode not just because of what it did to Dean, or even how the Lucifer thing was so wonderfully tuned both in Sam's personal arc to be in that room with him and the vampires, but also that Sam is the most hurt by and connected to Lucifer but he's the one walking him into the camp. But also that Sam was the one who reached out to Jack first of the living parents he encountered in life, and therefore caring for Sam and being upset by his death was such a horrible thing for Jack to experience, where we see his anger with Dean, Cas and Gabriel for not bringing Sam to him alive.

We get the montage where Jack's powers were in their early stage, harming people at random, and Sam empathised because of all he'd been through with his own powers. A connection that was so hugely imporant to both of them, that Sam could even start to guide Jack through who he was and how he was related to his powers, and feeling that he didn't belong.

Now we get Jack's mess up where they rushed in to Michael's place, and Kevin self-destructed everyone but him and Mary, and his connection to her - the grandmother sacred object to save and protect because she is Loved and Good and this is how all the men he knows relate to her. (I have talked about how Jack's represented accidentally ingrained toxic masculinity before >.>)

And the scene changes at this point, leaving us with Jack's reflection on not just his powers, but his own personality, and who he is supposed to be, whether it's his choice, his genetics, or just who he is in some intangible cursed way where he hurts people and all around him his choices lead to pain. And how much could Sam's guidance and trust help when even up to last week he was still getting people killed... Bleh.

Since it keeps on working... Someone hug that nougat child by the end of this ep?

Promo scene, now with context!

"Hey momma," Lucifer says, also defining Mary only by her relationship to her sons, and his own creepy interest in her.

She punches him because she is more than just momma

Cas continues to be a BAMF Party!Cas in the background but very in the background, hauling Lucifer away with a sharp word.

(Incidentally that means everyone from the opening was in this scene, except Gabriel, who they forgot to write into this episode.)

So this is post-shower Sam, and I'm gonna assume that he's either dressed in Bobby's clothes or dressed alike to Bobby, and either way it continues the Lazarus Rising parallels to Lucifer's creepy resurrection of Sam after he was dragged away underground after being torn apart in front of his brother - when Dean got back he wore Bobby's clothes for the first part of the episode. Finding Sam new clothes from AU!Bobby's wardrobe both puts him into this military camo jacket which almost certainly has some symbolic relevance at some point but at the very least is important for now that Sam's resolved to deal with Lucifer, and also just has the connection to Bobby.

Anyway now Mary has to break the news that she's planning to stay, after spending months defending and fighting for these people and very much getting embedded in the fight.

Dean looks on blankly, Sam shifts like he's realised what she's going to say as soon as she says "about that..."

And now we have that "need" thing again. Lucifer just said these people needed him to fight. Mary now says they need her too, for the same reason. One of them is probably a LIL MORE SINCERE than the other.

but Dean turns that into "we need you, mom. *WE* do." because she's the thing he needed the most, and this entire process is playing out now about how that even affects them.

And that "we" is sincere because the thing is, Dean might have learned a few times over that is sucks not to have Mary but as horrible as it is, he CAN cope without her but still hasn't been given a chance to fully actualise that in a healthy environment where Mary is not wildly endangered and dangled out of his reach for true character development (in much the same way his shit with Cas has been hovering on the edge since, like, season 8), but Sam - Sam needs her. Every time they lost a chance to find her, he slumped into utter despair. He only kept going as long as he did at the start of the season on the belief she could be retrieved and was alive, and his depression has been a strongly flagged thing since the midseason where he struggled with it bad enough he was having depression sleeps in 13x11, and 13x14 showed how bad it was, and his despair and desperation have been oozing off him.

Dean knows how much they need to bring Mary and Jack back, for SAM.

(Which is why I think there's something horribly disingenous about thinking Mary can just be written off to stay in the AU... Which is fine if you don't like Mary and don't think to look at it through the POV of how her being alive-ness has been wrecking Sam for TWO SEASONS now and taking her away again to teach Dean a lesson he's been through three times already (one of them being the entire run of the show 1-11) about how to lose his mother, just hurts Sam an incredible amount. He deserves that fucking pizza party, and he wants his mother to be more than a mirage that an alarm clock can shatter. And sure the story may not grant this wish instantly, but it's dreadful to want her gone for good because that will harm Sam on a MOLECULAR LEVEL to have an alive and well Mary teased in front of him but never to have her. We need to hold on to her returning in some solid way so that she can throw him a damn birthday party)

Ew, Lucifer calls Cas "old sport" fuck off with that, Gatsby.

"I am not your sport" he may misinterpret the reference (come the fuck on, Metatron must have read that book) but he does it in a way that at least gets in a sharp statement of party!Cas's new line of taking no shit.

But before he can decree for certain that he will not let Lucifer near Jack, refusing to accept Sam's deal without even really knowing that this WAS the deal, Jack shows up because he's at the very least taking some agency in all this.

And at this point, my nervous eyeballing of the clock suggests it is time I go to yoga. D:

I hope Gabriel shows up at some point again. The fact that he was gone looking for Jack but Jack has now been "found" by turning up voluntarily means that Gabriel vanished completely pointlessly unless they were just moving him out of the way because he's not in this episode :P

"Speak of the not-Devil" - in 13x09 they played on this with a "speak of the devil" preceding Jack's entrance. As usual, Buckleming taking a clever line someone else used, and turning it around in a way that's just a bit too silly and contrived >.>

"Son." "it's Jack."

Good. Please keep Lucifer at that arms' length. Regret will only come if you let him in >.>

"It's not a good idea to talk to him." "i'm not going to talk, I'm going to listen"

Sweetie, that's even worse. I know you're curious but oh boy Lucifer is evil, unredeemable and a master manipulator. I know what Jack means - he's not opening a dialogue, he just wants to hear what Lucifer would say to him, and not talking indicates hearing him out without weighing his words with any critical weight, but on the other hand, it can come across that he's going to sit and let Lucifer fill his head with whatever, without arguing or reasoning what he says, and it depends on how much you think Jack can resist being taken in by it

And in this scenario Lucifer's smugness and everyone else's horror of the situation already has a strong weight. We can HOPE that Jack prevails but I'm nervous that Lucifer might exert some magical influence over him as much as I feel like a season worth of Jack nearly is enough to make me feel like we are supposed to trust his instinct to be good, unaltered. If there is to be tension about it, that has to be affected.

Oh dear, now Dean's ranting to Mary about what he and Sam have been through, saying "we" about every statement, including "we've been possessed" but isn't it true that almost nothing has ever possessed Dean except a few small MotW moments of control? We statements possibly creating a dramatic irony gap to fill with Dean being possessed, if he is.

He says they never walk away ever, even when they should have, which is acknowledging at least that there were times when with hindsight they should have left each other well enough alone. Thing is he's talking about how he and Sam clung to each other when it was just them, but for Mary it's not about walking away from family here, it's about walking away from this war where people are being killed and she has been helping them to save people and to fight back against the angels. To her, leaving now just because there's a door back to her old universe - which she has felt adrift in ever since she was resurrected - is walking away. And this is a cause she can believe in far more than the bad cause she got in with the BMoL. There's a very very clear right and wrong here.

Dean is trying to argue that this isn't a fight that they can win, that Apocalypse World is doomed, and they're just going to have to leave it to its fate.

Sam is inclined to listen to Mary more often anyways, went with her on the BMoL thing, and this time reads it as her making up her mind, rather than her being right - he is telling Dean the argument is not worth it, rather than immediately that he understands where Mary is coming from. More than he has seen how Mary feels. I hope he says they should stay and help.

"Mom doesn't to leave these people."

...

"So let's take them with us."

I mean. I guess it works???

You just going to empty all the survivors of this war into another universe???

This feels... unsustainable.

Oh okay he wants to get them out the way long enough to work out how to fight Michael, then to come back and fight the fight. More like, the portal is the time pressure here, and on the other side of it is safety and resources and time to think.

Except for everyone who they can't take with them in the first place.

This episode is titled "Exodus" so I mean it COULD end up being about this exact thing, or that's referring to some other thing and this is just a concept they're floating but not what ends up happening. If they set off with the entire camp, they're going to be very vulnerable.

Anyway seems Mary likes the plan?

And she looks proud of Sam so that's something.

Dean says they've got 9 busting out. Uh, were they planning on taking AU Charlie and Bobby back with them? I am genuinely confused because the core team is 6, and they should PROBABLY not litter the AU and take Lucifer back with them so 7... Maybe Ketch if they take back everyone from their world who shouldn't be there? But who is 9??

Mary says 25 people which is not like... a whole army at least. I'm legit confused about the numbers, especially as it seems like more than 25 people at the camp, never mind that Mary was talking in 13x20 about how many people they had to look after now. I don't know, maybe it's just how many extras they could convince to come/plausibly film. But it's weird to me that this whole thing is... well, a thing.

Okay so Jack is all resolutely glaring at Lucifer, and Cas is allowed to hang out and stand there watching, so I guess this is ... something at least between them.

Mrghhh I hate Buckleming dialogue so much especially when Lucifer is saying it. Starting with "I don't know what to say" is admitting writing weakness, that they didn't have a hook or enough sense of the characters for them to come up with any declaration or question or comment that would have been more meaningful. Even just a sense of drama to have Lucifer introduce himself and Jack to immediately ask his first question.

"Why does everyone hate you?"

Because you SUCK

Also: apparently no one wants to tell Jack in graphic detail all the pain and suffering that Lucifer has inflicted to them personally >.>

And then, Lucifer said, yeah we've been waiting for this moment all season in a way, but not only is his blathering on but then when asked a hard question, it turns into an excuse to make him say "fake news" and sure the comparing him to Trump thing is funny a few times (I mean he was literally possessing a president when Jack was conceived) but it's taking tension out of this moment entirely. This should be for Jack, and he doesn't deserve this awful writing where nothing Lucifer says matters, because he's just rambling on in generalities and answers which sound like all the moaning he's ever moaned about.

Like, yeah, sorry kiddo, your bio dad is a whining whiner who has had the same line about how misunderstood he is as long as we've known him, which he usually says when standing on a literal pile of corpses he made while complaining no one gets him and everyone typecasts him as evil.

But yeah, Jack's question is just met with rubbish being spewed, instead of Lucifer even trying to explain the misunderstandings he's had personally with TFW

He's just talking about how humans suck and are easily led into temptation instead of focussing on why he feels the need to do that.

Oh him talking about Kelly to Jack is absolutely revolting. I'm confiscating the nougat child and BL can have him back when they earn him.

Thank goodness Cas is here to scowl at Lucifer for us.

"That's a vast over-simplification" thanks buddy.

But yeah he's right, the point is that Lucifer is talking in ways where he can rabbit on about ethics and shit without falling into real human pain. He doesn't talk about how his betrayed Kelly's trust, tried to kill her, or sent a minion to harass her while calling her the container. He talks about how awesome it was to kiss her. (And not even getting into him cheerfully talking about losing his virginity to Kelly like it was some sweet first love thing rather than rape by deception and some new gross evil he had discovered was a horrible thing to do to people.)

Also, fuck Buckleming for pretending they can stump Cas with "I was locked up for eternity so how did I do all this evil?" we literally have seen how. It's called the plot of the fucking show.

It's ethics as angels would learn it 101.

WE FUCKING MET GADREEL A FEW YEARS AGO, MAYBE ASK HIM

Cain who?

AZAZEL? You fuckers killed the last YED like 4 weeks ago

Fuck you entirely

That is in ratio of intelligence and easy answer on hand to presented moment, the biggest stupidity drop they've ever made. And that's saying something.

Somewhere Edlund is clutching his head and he doesn't know why but he doesn't feel so good.

ABBADON?

So, there's this place called "hell"...

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmrgghghhghghgfghfgghfhaskjfhaskjghfsjlasdjaghfs paskfh;asdgkflsdjg sgkjhlfk gha

Well, the zen from yoga lasted all of like 4 minutes of episode

Anyway now we have to deal with Lucifer's hurr blurr about waaah God locked me up because I stood up for myself and told the truth, which, again. One note character. He met Chuck and didn't even change. Rowena got more character development out of meeting Chuck than Lucifer did. Heck, I think even Cas got a little personal satisfaction just from ignoring him and finding a clearer sense that his path doesn't lie with God's validation.

And then he starts talking about how garbage humans are and we get Cas's reaction because Cas loves humanity, and Lucifer is like "he loved humans so much he couldn't see their flaws" and Cas is like excuse you I tell Dean to get his muddy boots off the chairs in the Bunker like six times a day but I still fucking married him."

But telling Jack how humans suck is not, like, the best path, because Jack has spent a lot of time bonding with humans.

"I had my reasons, I just want the opportunity to get better" dude, you are so the abusive fuckwad of a drunk father who comes stumbling in late to the kid's life, promising to do better while in no way capable of it because mean and selfish person...

Jack's micro nod to wanting to do better shows that despite every indication that this was one of the worst written conversations ever, Lucifer has somehow manipulated him with this nugget that Jack feels like he wants to be a good person and Lucifer's promise he wants to be a better person is affecting him, and A: Alex is a great actor to try and sell this and B: honestly Jack falling for that garbage rant is like... the second biggest stupidity drop ever >.>

Cas is like, fuck this entire concept you fucking fuckers, I'm out of here to go sit with Gabriel wherever he is. We're gonna... go skip rocks.

Nope, Cas went for emotional back up, seeing that Jack was starting to be suckered in by this and decided he needed Sam, Dean and Mary to come Winchester some sense into Jack

Uncle Gabriel is having a great side adventure

He is probably doing the equivalent of End!Cas in this camp.

Ew they're sitting together, just chilling ew ew ew ew ew

Lucifer going on about how Jack's grandfather is literally God, trying to stir a little egomania in Jack.

Remember in 13x07 when he was so excited to know if Jack killed anyone? If he had a killer instinct?

Yay Dean comes to shout at Jack and Lucifer, I have never been happier to tick the Everyone Is Irrationally Angry BL Bingo Square.

"Dean, he's in chains." "His mouth isn't."

That's the good side of Buckleming banter. Have we swapped writers?

"I need to know about my powers. My family." "Jack, we are your family."

Oh no, Cas is starting to sound a bit desperate. Pleading with Jack to remember he's their family. I don't wike it *hands Cas a blanket*

Sam showing up like, "You have no idea who Lucifer really is"

Like, I know it's horrible but could you go into graphic detail right about now?

Or... is he still bound by the promise to let Lucifer see Jack?

"Jack..." "Dean! He's my father!"

Aaaaack, so there's the slip from 13x01 where we thought he meant Lucifer but it was actually Cas, and 13x09 where he disowns Lucifer casually and talks about how they're his real family instead...

Oh ew I paused the screen on Lucifer looking all smug, hang on

Anyway, yeah. This is the first time Jack has proclaimed that, and I think this is revealing the greatest miscommunication this season - something we picked out a while back, in the first few episodes, about how everyone was so unwilling to tell Jack just how horrible Lucifer even was. I mean. I don't think he even knows for sure that he's the reason why Cas was dead? And does he know how Sam was destroyed by having powers BECAUSE he was raised to be Lucifer's vessel? And - even basic info like this, if not the murder and torture in his wake...

Without telling Jack the harsh truth, he's vulnerable to falling prey to Lucifer's manipulations, because for him, new to the world, it's just not a given that Lucifer is evil. Even "speak of the devil" is ironic, because they DON'T speak about him, and so that phrase is meaningless to Jack because it doesn't describe anything about evilness.

And I think this goes back in a way to the theme of confronting trauma, that TFW just do not talk about what has hurt them, aren't open when they ARE hurting, at least until it's too late, and so the damage that Lucifer has done to them, even when he can taunt he's in a room full of all his favourites to kill and torture, when he's killed Rowena twice, tried to kill Gabriel and Dean, and caused the worst suffering to Sam, they just aren't a Lucifer damage support group >.> And all season they never told Jack a full story about who they were, what they've done, and what has happened to them along the way...

Anyway I guess Edoras is moving to Helm's Deep now?

Ew Jack and Lucifer are walking together

I can't even see Cas in shot so I'm gonna assume he's bringing up the rear with Uncle Gabriel

I mean

I hope someone friggin told Gabriel they were leaving. He's gonna pop back to camp in half an hour like, so I looked everywhere and I could not find - waaait a minute. Where is everyone? Are we playing hide and seek? Sexy hide and seek? .... Nope, I've just been forgotten.

I'm not in this episode, am I?

Anyway Dean sends Sam back to lurk on the Jack and Lucifer conversation

Which leaves Mary and Dean free to chat!

Dean is like, I am listening but I am also sulking. About everything. Mary starts explaining that Nougat is getting hardened by war, having been fighting and losing people. Turning into one of them, a scarred, miserable Winchester.

I love that Mary is defending Jack, that she has spent so much time with him - more than anyone else - that she is the sympathetic character towards Jack. He's not an object to obtain to her, he's very much a kid who has landed in it and is doing his best.

And, of course, a surrogate for the sons she never got to know growing up, when they were being fucked up in the exact same way Jack is currently being fucked up, which means, hopefully, she will learn to relate to them better through seeing what Jack goes through??

And cut to Jack telling Sam that he was telling his father that together they can take down Michael. Which... Isn't super reassuring tbh, if you flip it to season 5 where Lucifer getting a surefire powerful boost like a Nougat to help him take out Michael would have been dooooooom and that is why they sent Jesse on a surfing holiday in Australia.

This also means Sam has to walk alongside Lucifer and Jack all chill and like... we're on a walk together

Ooops and Sam is like, but that's not the plan, and Jack is like, hi, while you were gone I fixated on killing my AU!Uncle Mikey.

Again, Mary reasons that Jack's interest in Lucifer is not unexpected, based on curiosity, and Dean complains about the threat that Lucifer corrupts him. Mary sounds both confident in Jack not being evil that it seems a little laughable to her, and also that Jack will soon see Lucifer's true nature.

And honestly, this is the longest Lucifer has held it together possibly EVER without doing something petty. Maybe just because with the handcuffs on he can't get irritated and melt people who are annoying him. I'm not sure how much restraint he has left not to say something wildly wrong. Like a homophobic relative at a family dinner with all your nice gay family, and you know Some Shit will leave their mouth sooner or later, even though they're playing it nice and got a pride pin before they knocked on the door.

Mary is proud of her big gay family

sorry that metaphor wandered off

not sorry.

Hi Cas, love it when you *gestures him walking innocuously around a corner*

"Hey, did you find him?"

"No, Gabriel isn't in this episode for some reason. I think BL have a restraining order?"

LOL here he is! RUN LIL GUY RUN!

"ANGELS!"

Aw no, the handcuffs. They were Dean n Cas's personal ones.

blah blah joke about impotence, Lucifer got to melt some things so he might be able to stay chill for a while longer having scratched the itch to murder...

I just took a lil break to complain to Mittens about the geography, she assured me Singer Salvage Yard isn't in South Dakota in the AU, and I'm just like... debating whether I think this is better or worse. it's a headache, for sure

Hi AU!Bobby! They immediately discuss how Bobby decided not to put his salvage yard in Sioux Falls because the weather sucks, and I am sitting here wondering if TJW looked at the script and was like... there's no Gabriel... they WALKED from Ohio to Bobby's on the way to Kentucky... I -

Why do they always give me their scripts to un-fuck?

AU Bobby makes me miss Bobby while simultaneously filling the void not having Bobby puts in me and I feel weird

He's telling them their idea sucks in colourful language and it's like oh I am home, but at the same time... it's not in Sioux Falls

Dean automatically protective of Charlie when Ketch is around and again, the weirdest feeling that Ketch killed Charlie hits me, but he still didn't and it's still just because BL like him so much they've made him their new toy.

Bleh more Jack and Lucifer

He's now explaining the archangels to Jack. Mansplaining, in fact, since Jack already knows.

it seems this was just a way to say they were both tortured by Michael in order to bond some more

Lucifer forces Jack to do a high five and Jack is baffled

"That's your Uncle Gabe" *points at him throwing rocks at a car* Jesus christ he's literally... off throwing rocks... I was kidding when I said he was off doing it earlier... I was kidding... holy shit they literally forgot to write Gabriel into this episode.... in the script it was "then there's your uncle gabe" without pointing, just, in the abstract, like, yeah, he exists, and Jack is like yeah I sort of noticed him existing. And then they both pause. Funny, that. Gabriel existing. Anyway - and they move on?

Woah, no, they're actually going to talk to him.

Hey, Gabriel, did you know you're in this episode?

His expression says, wow, no I did not. But now I hear them coming over, I need to Deal With This Shit

Lucifer describes him as "class clown" which is automatically reducing him back down to the Trickster, and of course he's said tricks are for kids and is trying to be all mature and the new version of Gabriel.

I hope new and improved Uncle Gabriel tells Jack what's what, even if it's just with eyebrows and pointed looks

"And you're an ass clown"

That works.

Oh ew, Lucifer immediately pulls Gabriel's torture on him as a hey how are you lol that was funny when you were tortured and metaphorically raped for 7 years huh?

Jack, again, seems to lack the context of what happened to Gabriel, the state they found him in, all the stuff we've seen on screen, so the dramatic irony of what we know vs what Jack knows...

Also how does Lucifer even know?

Oh whatever.

Gabriel has no time for this, and turns to walk off, like, fine, I didn't even want to be in your stupid episode anyway. Lucifer follows, Jack walking along beside him, eyebrows furrowed.

Gabriel has a headache at Lucifer rambling on (and they've literally just forgotten about Raphael. Wonderful.) Anyway, super relatable.

Here he goes. "You think Dad was a bad guy and you were a victim?" Well Scout will be happy, Gabriel standing up for the ole God n Gabe relationship. I mean, much as it sucks, Gabriel still has a connection with Chuck that no one else does, just in personality.

"That was just your excuse." "For what?" "For it all, Lucifer! For it all!"

Thank fucking God for Gabriel. He wasn't even meant to be here so he's like the one person who can call Lucifer out, from outside the narrative, fed up of this whole stupid charade.

Gabriel is not a Buckleming character, he's here because he deigned to be, and he will leave on his terms too.

(I've legit been having issues that I keep thinking Speight-directed episodes are Gabriel episodes, and at this point he's such a meta character to me I literally think he's transcended the story)

Nice of him to walk off screen with both middle fingers raised.

Oh my GOD how stupid was that trap that Charlie just fell for?

My unspoken comment from earlier that the dumbest drop in intelligence Buckleming ever inflicted on a character was Charlie's death feels like I should have said it, because making her fall for that dumbass trap was just... wow.

Wow.

Blah blah manufactued drama, Ketch has stubble now, apparently a conscience about not letting Charlie get killed because Dean was once attached to his world's version of her

Goddd I am with Andy the sceptic about their fairytale world where everything is pretty. They don't want to abandon the fight, and like, there's a sizeable chance Dean and Sam just wanna shove Mary through a portal with them and call it a day.

Why are we getting this when we could be getting Sam and Dean learning from Mary how they need to fight for this cause against Michael? Whyyyyyyy. This whole plan is so stupid.

I mean, it wouldn't be wholly stupid for Sam to pop back through the rift, grab all the weapons he's promising, and come back to arm them, in their world, on their turf, somewhere defensible from angels.

Like, even the odds a bit so they can finish this fight so they can take Mary and Jack home and stop stressing about this

Now Sam's making his Inspiring Speech of the season, about how even if they aren't people from the AU and were never born there, all these masses of people fighting back are still like them and represent what they do. Like, how all the random hikers you might meet know vampire lore these days. Everyone's a hunter in these times.

Andy narrows his eyes

cut to: Ketch being tortured and using American monopoly references to fuck with the angels.

he is presumably secretly American, because there's no way he'd casually think of American locations on the board unless he coincidentally grew up with an American monopoly board for some reason

While complaining about this Mittens reminded me that Metatron made a reference to always winning by building hotels on the expensive square and that gives us an indirect connection between the two of them for some reason.

Ooooooooh the exterior reveals they're being tortured in the creepy Gas n Sip.

Well. I wonder who is about to show up

Twitchy!Castiel

Who inexplicably looks 10 years younger than our Cas.

Dean really did a fucking number on him.

Anyways of course Castiel is the expert... He's terrifying when he gets going, and this one hasn't been Dean'd.

Our Cas seems to be doing some scary manhandling on this guy

And some really scary looming

Uhoh

And that was with one lil look from Dean, like, go on, babe, read his mind and do what you do

No, apparently he wasn't even reading the guy's mind, he was just hurting him

Lucifer's whining, in the least breaking news to ever break.

Gabriel's like, Dean told us to stay behind, because I'm not in this episode, so I have to babysit your dumb ass before you say anything else stupid to my nephew.

"Do you see any version of this where he sticks by you?"

I mean that's probably what's stressing Lucifer out, knowing he has nothing to offer as a father. Gabriel is kind of enjoying it. And sitting watching Lucifer from a distance, where he can mock him. Again, he seems weirdly out of the story, the one person who isn't affected by all the bullshit and somehow has this glossy shine on him, un-Buckleming'd even as the empire crumbles around him.

It's like... he doesn't feel a part of all this because he's seeing clearly and calling out Lucifer in real time instead of standing dumbly while Lucifer poses questions to prove he's good that only a 7 month old babyman would fall for.

"He's a kid. He likes shiny objects and magic tricks."

:')

"But he's not like you. You can see it in his eyes." YUPPERS. He has Cas's eyes.

his father's eyes

(Thinking of which, I had to go back because my video went a bit wonky... am I right in thinking AU!Castiel has a bad eye? That's not meta interesting at aaall)

Gabriel mentions his mother's bloodline, the Winchesters' influence... is Cas included in that?

"He'll see who - what - you are."

"I've changed."

"Dude. It's me. I've known you since the stars were made. You can't change. You're incapable of empathy, love. You live to be worshipped! Or feared! Or both!"

And now Gabriel is calling out that Lucifer says that God made up all the lies about him, which has been his fallback for literally ever about how woe is me misunderstood God was so meeeean

It's like Gabriel and Lucifer were having that argument back in 5x19 and then Lucifer killed Gabriel and then 7 years passed and now they're alone together again and they just pick up where they left off.

Gabriel praising how humans are innocent and beautiful has weird overtones of how protective Dean was of the Scooby Gang and I think that is adorable.

Gabriel is officially tearing Lucifer a new one after dropping by to be in the episode and I am gonna stan this fucker forever.

LOL he made Lucifer cry

God, I mean I am never ever going to feel sympathetic to Lucifer, but if Gabriel helps him like, sacrifice himself for Jack later at some point, I'm cool with that.

AAAH AU CASTIEL IS THE WORST. I HATE IT. MISHA, NO

Nice coat though.

In a horrifying way.

They did, however, find a coat that actually makes Misha's shoulders look huge in a sexy way

you can hear the Cas voice in there, but it's so messed up.

This guy is BFFs with Bartholomew I bet.

okay I'm rewinding and actually trying to pay attention to wtf he's saying.

It's so messed up that he's in a Gas n Sip. It's like showing how broken his soul is. And the fact his soul is a Gas n Sip absolutely murders me

Also AU Castiel doesn't have a soul, probably, unlike our Cas

He's mirroring Dick Frigging Roman while eyeing up Charlie and telling her there aren't many like her.

Castiel mirroring Dick in a Gas n Sip is how to cram in the most awfulness you possibly could to show a ruined version of Cas.

He's parting his hair on the other side.

It seems Castiel pretty much has destroyed himself by psychically harming humans.

Can we rewind so our Cas stops torturing that other guy so that he doesn't remotely turn into this guy?

OH NO, I was gonna ask where Jack was back in the previous scene but it seems he's flapped off to deal with this before I could ask him where he was.

Now he's gonna meet Worst!Castiel

Meanwhile: stabby stabby, the rest of the Winchesters are here. Never mind, Cas got the intel from that other guy. Jack isn't going rogue :P

I hope party!Cas doesn't meet worst!Castiel

Party!Cas is beating up Worst!Castiel

"More than one of us. Fascinating." "I've gotten used to it."

Party!Cas is basically just a bundle of one-liners in a trenchcoat.

LOL Dean freeing Ketch but will we ever be free of Dean x Ketch nonsense?

Sam randomly hugs AU Charlie because he hasn't got over the guilt of getting our Charlie killed, and can't separate the two on instint of seeing her face again and this is awful.

When I said more hugs I meant more NICE hugs

"Sorry"

She punches him in a hey it's cool we all freak out sometimes

Oh jesus christ after the saving hanging Ketch by getting all up in his space, now I turn out to have had the screen paused on Ketch and Dean getting all cosy and looking at each other in alarming proximity

"oooh... hello. You saving me? It's about bloody time."

Dean looks furious

good.

"You aligned yourself to humans?" "I *vastly* prefer them to angels"

Love you too, babe

"Don't think you are better than me. We are the same." "Yes. We are." *STAB*

Bye bye worst!Castiel

Man, I never thought I'd be glad to see Cas die, but that was satisfying watching Cas kill this awful version of him who had been utterly destroyed by being an angel while affirming to himself that humans are the best. And being an angel sucks and is destructive to his very sense of self.

I like that a lot.

Long live Party!Cas

And we begin and end the season with a dead Cas

I mean we're not quite at the end but we're close enough that this counts as bookending symmetry.

"For whatever reason, I have a good feeling about you two"

it seems a little worrying that apparently the entire lot unanimously voted to go to the pretty AU. I think they're making a joke that Bobby feels some sort of cosmic fatherly vibe towards them but in truth Bobby complained they were idjits with terrible plans quite often, as he did earlier... I'm not sure it's going to be good that everyone Exoduses with them and I feel like them celebrating a win with 10 minutes to go before whatever leads into the finale is a terrible thing. All in all we've got a last 10 minutes of a Buckleming episode vibe going on and I do not like it.

Okay Lucifer helping Dean revive the bus is the weirdest cooperation I've ever seen on this show.

Making Lucifer drive so they can keep an eye on him is the worst idea ever and I don't care what Dean justifies it with, Gabriel came rushing in from left field to say hey hey hey this is a dumbass idea and Dean's like shut up you're not in this episode but Gabriel is the one voice of reason here because he's the guy who's not in the episode so can see it for what it is.

Dean's supposed to always want to drive.

Where is Nougat going?

Why are you even upset?

Oh, he's realised they're all fleeing to plan to kill Michael later and even though this plan was all worked out a while back he is reacting now - is it just that they didn't include him in the planning and he buckleminged between the cracks of an episode ABOUT HIM and only found out now...

He's like but I wanna kill Michael NOW

Okay, no, he's got a cool heroic mindset

but you know what, after hanging with Lucifer, there is something about how they've put Jack in a position where he is driven to Kill Michael just like Lucifer was originally driven to Kill Michael. Of course everything around them and the utter horror of worst!Cas proves that killing Michael is necessary for this world to even have a sliver of a chance of survival, but at the same time, Jack is now irrationally stuck on a mission purpose identical to the one that once powered Lucifer to start the entire apocalypse. And having Jack mirroring that need, to the point of irrationally leaving the party bus when the plan IS to regroup, arm up and return to kill Michael, shows that he has -

At least this one brewed up fast, because the longer you leave the apocalypse to stew, the more complicated it is to start a fight with Michael??

Sam goes after Jack because he cares and then Lucifer saunters over because he wants to latch onto Jack, and once again we get Jack caught between two parent figures - in his flashes of choosing who he wants to be after thinking about Kelly's message he had flashes of both Lucifer and Sam - not Cas and Dean.

Look

I'm just sayin' as a random aside

which I should not be saying but I mean I hope I earned some sam!girl cred earlier so let me ruin this

because they're framing it as Lucifer vs Sam

it sets aside Cas n Dean

and they're like

A different set of parents on like, a different level. If Jack has 4 dads, Cas and Dean are one pair and Sam and Lucifer are the other... Thematically... but like... also Cas and Dean are weirdly in a different sort of world when it comes to relating to Jack apparently.

Sam is all concern about Jack, Lucifer tries to talk Jack out of it with seeming concern which is really just about how he isn't very good at fighting Michael. Lol.

UUUGHHHH Sam having to hear Jack say "my father makes a valid point" and then Lucifer claps Jack on the shoulder and walks off with him in front of Sam and it feels like Lucifer somehow retroactively has kicked off this whole nonsense JUST to spite Sam.

Oh my GOD Dean isn't even ON the party Bus with Lucifer what the heck who PLANNED this plan

I like Gabriel just chilling with like, an RPG launcher or something.

nice callback to last episode re: lol penis

Also Jack is sitting with Uncle Gabriel in the jeep! Good! I hope he is saying lots of good sensible Nice Uncle Who Gives You Candy things to Jack, and then makes a coin appear out of his ear.

Portal's closing

Run run run

Amazingly, Lucifer's maths about the portal were not wrong?

I mean... do we just assume that that was a lucky guess?

Rowena has been reading the entire time, and I can tell why we haven't seen her since the start of the episode but it's still a total waste of her.

Maybe Gabriel was slipping off and hooking up with her whenever he wasn't in the episode.

You know I am not 100% Rowena was in this episode either. I do appreciate her and Ketch making eye contact like, oh, you.

With 6 minutes to go you know some serious shit is about to go down

JACK IS BACK

Lol Sam is like no you stay here, Lucifer. Fuck you being in the same universe as Jack for any length of time.

Okay we got a Mary and an AU Bobby here, good, good. And a Charlie! Wonderful!

The last 6 minutes of the episode might be all like, 30 people coming through the rift one by one to dramatic music.

If the Winchesters don't make it back then there's going to be one hell of a kegger thrown here by all the gnarly post-apocalypse peeps suddenly filling the Bunker unsupervised.

CAS!

He does not count as a responsible adult. Party!Cas is in the Bunker, currently unsupervised, with Rowena.

That is going to be a fucking wild kegger.

Oh good they sped up the dramatic entering the portal bit when it was randos we've never met who are now all filling the Bunker

Guys, you do realise if you leave BOTH archangels on the other side of the rift... you don't have any grace on YOUR side of the rift?

I mean

that... did occur to you?

Oh great the angels just crashed down on top of them and of all the people on screen, we get a close up of Andy the doubter dead. Nice going, BL

Michael! Badass wings in the dust!

Oh that's why Asmodeus did the ridiculous grace hurling. They wanted Lucifer to do it to Michael.

Now Michael is doing it to Lucifer

Just... like... kill him for us... put us out of our misery...

Gabriel, no, don't do this... D: If I have to watch you die again I'm suing.

Like, worst time to suddenly show up in the episode.

Dude you can not die, you have to come back and run Heaven and bang Rowena on the weekends.

Sam and Dean are like... just not running away.

I'm suing.

Gabriel better be behind Michael and stab him now

I mean I'm just assuming he's standing behind a tree like, wow, it's amazing how often people fall for that

"How did you think this was gonna end?"

I love you Sammy

You get the no.1 dad mug

Oh good, Michael is alone with a weakened miserable Lucifer. Can you just stomp him out of rage now?

Cut to: Bunker kegger.

I immediately spot Cas and Dean standing together not in the main party, with AU Charlie. AU Bobby and Mary together, Rowena sitting down needing a rest, and Sam wearing just a t-shirt and chilling with her. Ketch and the girl from the vampire mine sitting either side of the stairs, probably both like ???? about events, from completely opposite directions.

AU Charlie and Ketch are weirdly friends. I am so conflicted.

FINALLY FOUND JACK

he doesn't look very happy. He's a corner child. Sitting in the corner. With a beer he is like 20 and a bit years too young to drink.

Anyway guess Samwitch is still on the cards even if we can be really miserable about Gabwena or whatever you call it ending too soon.

Cas and Dean are talking about I guess a toast to Gabriel, presumably prompted by Cas being really sad about Gabriel, probably because now there's no one to teach him magic tricks to amuse Jack.

Cas really isn't much fun at parties, now I think about it

I'm not backing down from my stance. He just needs to get BETTER at parties.

"Been here 5 minutes and he's taken over the joint"

I've wanted to see Bobby in the Bunker a million years and while I am miserable it's not the real thing, it does still feel at least kinda right.

*sighs forever*

What is Jack going to do

Why are people toasting Sam and Dean but not Cas

Cas isn't toasting them either, he's standing there with his hands in his pockets like yeah I always knew these two idiots were the best, thanks for catching up.

Jack continues staring into the void

Cas continues standing there

Awww no why did you give us a closeup of Gabriel lying there? Also his eyes were wide open. What does that mean? I mean is it because no one's bothered to close them, or is it a symbolic thing?

anyway Michael you are not stabbing Lucifer fast enough. Don't bargain with him. He just wants to go be a pest in the main world.

What the hell was that last look about? UGH. Do not want.

tl;dr Gabriel is probably fine. He sneaked through the portal when no one was looking and flapped off.

Rowena will probably get a series of bizarre sexy presents delivered to whatever hotel room she's in

Cas needs to work at parties

Jack is contemplating what the hell fathers' day even is.

#13x22 #season 13 spoilers #hmm #buckleming appropriate wank for ts #my stuff

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once-upon-a-ouat · 6 years ago

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OUAT Rewatch 1x20 “The Stranger”

OUAT’s writers are no strangers to exploring human nature, family dynamics and big stakes and in this episode we see how good they are at doing it.

I loved the way they showed the connection between Geppetto and Pinocchio. They were both ready to die for each other and the love between them established a solid foundation on which to build the rest of the episode. Once again the writers showed to what lengths parents are ready to go for their children. It’s both endearing and heartbreaking to see the darkness that settles into parents when it comes to protecting their children. I loved the work they did with Geppetto because you sympathize with him but you can also acknowledge the fault in his actions (he put everyone at risk so that he could save his son). It doesn’t make him any less likable though, only human, and you’re still rooting for him to be reunited with his son.

With that said, I think he let his despair blind him a little bit. He entrusted too big of a responsibility to a too young child. I know he believed in his son but I think he believed a little too much. Leaving a baby in the care of a seven-year-old was not the smartest move and we saw that it didn’t really work out. I think that scene didn’t really do the trick though. Pinocchio gave too easily into the temptation which might have made a little more sense if we had seen how the responsibility became too much for him. Additionally, his relationship with the other boy wasn’t established and the proposition he received came off as random. So on the one hand you have the promise he made to his father and the desire to see him again, and on the other there’s some random boy who offered him some cash and a companion in escaping a supposedly shitty foster home. I really don’t see the second option winning out here but it did and it was unbelievable.

We’re almost through with the first season and I still don’t hate Blue. Wow! I understand where she’s coming from better this time (I guess I’ve also grown as a person).

The mystery of August Booth was finally revealed. That beginning of the scene in Gold’s shop was painful to watch. God, I’m so glad there was some resolution (even as insufficient as it was). August and Gold’s scheming and banter were interesting to watch. It was cool to see August try to fix his mistake even though his motivation was selfish. I’m kind of pissed with Emma because she didn’t believe him. He had some proof but she just didn’t want to see the truth. I understand her though. All her life she’s doubted herself because nobody wanted her and suddenly she has to confront the idea that a whole town full of people desperately needs her and the responsibility for them falls on her shoulders. I’d freak out too. That scene was so emotional and heartbreaking.

On the other hand, I simply loved the scene between her and Henry in Granny’s. Henry was as adorable as ever and I loved how quick Emma was to respond to his call. But did they really just figure out that there was a story added? You know, that book didn’t stay locked in the Sheriff Station all the time. How is it that Henry’s only figuring that out now when it’s convenient? And there’s no way Regina didn’t know that they were meeting (but I doubt she paid much attention to that, seeing that she was preoccupied with keeping Mary Margaret and David apart. Only one of Henry’s mothers has her priorities straight and it is not Regina).

Gold was such a dick in this episode and I loved every second of it. It was cool to see him pestering someone else other than Regina for a change. I have a feeling he purposely called Marco to his shop just so that August could see him.

Regina was a delightful mix of evil, hurt and desperate in this episode. It was entertaining to watch her plan fall apart but there were also more genuine moments of her that make you sympathize with her. I’ve said more than a few times that I hate it when anyone (no matter who) uses Henry so I’m not that thrilled about Regina doing it either. But I loved that she used her own real-life problems to get David to stay (what the hell was going on with the roof of that house while they were walking towards it though?). I still don’t support it but it was interesting to see her exploit her own pain in order to get what she wanted. I loved how she played the ‘having found him’ card, but am I glad her plan failed. Honestly, if David had screwed up this time too, I wouldn’t have been able to look at him anymore. I actually really liked the way he handled the situation though. I can’t help but feel like Regina was actually a little hurt by his rejection.

Talking about hurt, it was painful to watch her interactions with Mary Margaret and Henry. I actually loved that Mary Margaret faced her and found it in herself to forgive her, but the “He’s with his mother” part was horrible. Forget for a moment that it was Regina on the receiving end of that line and imagine how that would’ve felt to any adoptive mother who loved her child and was scared of losing him. And her conversation with Henry wasn’t any better. I loved that he was so convinced that good would win and firmly refused to change classes but I still sympathized with Regina. Even though he was right, I couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

Favorite scene: August and Marco’s conversation in the end. I loved the fact that August finally found enough bravery in himself to face Marco (probably due to the fear that he would turn to wood before Emma broke the Curse and he wouldn’t have the chance to reconcile with his father). He was as honest as he could be and I loved that. That clock turned out to be an important detail and I loved it. It was as if time started moving for them both now that they found each other once again (although they didn’t really find each other) but it also meant that they don’t have much of it. I love the symbolism on that show.

Least favorite scene: The last one. I understand Emma’s desire to be with Henry but kidnapping him wasn’t the best idea. What did she plan on doing? Staying on the run and hiding from Regina? Because Regina would’ve gone after them the second she figured out Henry was missing. And when she found them, Emma would lose Henry forever. It was a rash decision (Emma had her reasons though) and it could’ve backfired in her face. Also, you can’t just kidnap a child (even if it is your own).

Favorite line: “Sometimes we have to lie to protect the people we love.” - Geppetto to Pinocchio

I don’t support this in general and I think that you shouldn’t lie if it isn’t absolutely necessary, but in the context that it was in it was a great line. We saw how much of his virtues Geppetto was ready to let go of if it would save his son and I loved it despite not agreeing with him completely.

Least favorite line: “Your debt to me can never be fulfilled.” - Geppetto to Jiminy

This was a little cruel and unnecessary, and would’ve probably landed better if we had seen more of their relationship. It’s just that... in Storybrooke Marco and Archie are good friends and I can’t believe that their relationship improved while they were under the Curse. Which means that they should’ve been even closer in the Enchanted Forest but we never saw that.

This episode has never been a favorite of mine but I have to admit that I enjoyed it a lot this time around. Geppetto and Pinocchio’s relationship simply melted my heart. It was good to see a parent being ready to do whatever it took to save his child (considering the last two episodes). August and Marco’s reunion in Storybrooke was bittersweet but I’m glad it happened. I’m a little sad that the mystery around August is gone though. Emma is being very frustrating with her refusal to believe in what is right in front of her eyes although her behavior is understandable. She was pushed beyond her limits here and the tension got the best of her. With only two episodes left and the events from this one, we’ve entered the final phase of the season – the climax of the story – and I can’t bloody wait to watch how that will play out.

#ouat rewatch #once upon a time #ouat #season 1 #1x20 #the stranger #operation end

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amycathryn · 7 years ago

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Empathy 101

Mantis is My Hero

Caveat: Long read. It's less of a blog and more of an empathy course...

Not gonna lie. Mantis is da bomb.com. She is the first superhero on the big screen to have empathy as an actual superpower. If you don't know who Mantis is, and aren't as nerdy as I am, she's a prevalent character in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I'm genuinely excited about her character for 2 reasons:

She has all of the abilities an advanced empath would have.

Her character is an inspiration for empaths.

As someone who's been empathic as long as I can remember, it's refreshing to see this ability interpreted as a superpower more than a curse. I myself have traversed the interwebs only to find articles mostly on how to tell if you're an empath, or how to cope with it—not really any on how to harness it or increase it.

Another reason I'm writing this is because clients and friends alike keep asking me how to deal with their empathy on an overwhelming scale. So, I'll not only go into detail on what empathy is, why we have it and the signs of empathy (along with external links), but also the pros, cons and empathic hygiene. I also fully intend to come out with an Empathy 201 blog/course at a later date that goes into more detail.

Ok. So What is Empathy?

Well, from my research there are two definitions. One is used by psychologists, while the other is more prevalent amongst spiritualists.

The psychological definition of empathy defines it in regards to emotional intelligence—The ability to understand what others are feeling within their own frame of reference. It's the ability to gauge the emotions of others and "step into their shoes" so to speak.

The spiritual definition of empathy is having the ability to sense other people's energy and take on the feelings of others as their own. An empath is often times energetically influenced by people around them (even if they can't see the person). They can take on another person's dreams, emotions, physical pains and even mood swings.

The difference between the two terms is their origins. The psychological term relates to how well one person can psychologically understand another on an emotional scale (which can be a learned trait), while the spiritualist term is more energetically-based (and is an inherent gift that manifests both naturally and with discipline). In this blog we'll go into detail on the spiritualist meaning of empathy.

Signs You're an Empath

Here's a list of the traits that most empaths have in common. If you find yourself saying "that sounds like me" to a majority of items on this list—then chances are, you're an empath too!

Caveat: I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist or doctor. Some traits may also be signs of potential psychological issues. I leave that to your best judgement—so if you feel you may need help, then please seek out a professional.

You can feel the emotions of others regardless to proximity. They can be the person in the cubicle next to you or a good friend in another state.

You always have an uncanny way of telling how others really feel, even if they put on a mask. You can know how they're feeling even if you don't see them or hear them at all. You just know.

Being highly sensitive either physically, emotionally or both. This can include foods, music and having emotions that run deep. You may bruise easily or have odd skin allergies. You may have even been called "too sensitive" because of these feelings.

You love nature. Nature energizes you and you feel at home when out in nature—whether it's camping, walking in the park or simply just being outside.

Crowds drain you. Especially after being around people for a period of time.

You're introvert or lean introvert. This one is huge amongst empaths that I've seen. Usually the stronger the empath, the more introvert they are.

You crave solitude. Being alone recharges you and helps you focus both mentally and emotionally.

Animals love you and are drawn to you (because they can sense empaths).

People say you're a great listener and find it easy to talk to you.

You are drawn to help people through teaching, counseling or healing.

It pains you or discomforts you to come into physical contact with others.

You always know how the people closest to you feel.

You can tell when someone is lying to you.

You can tell if someone likes you or has feelings for you—and maybe even how much.

You get reliable gut "feelings" about people—you know good people from bad people when you see them.

Perfect strangers walk up to you and start talking to you about their personal problems.

You get odd mood swings when you're in crowds more so than when you're at home.

You get odd physical pains (such as headaches or cramps) in crowds more so than when you're at home.

You get stressed or anxious when you have to go to the grocery store or places where large groups of people congregate.

Anxiety attacks happen primarily around groups of people (versus when you're by yourself).

You drink or use other drugs because it "numbs" you—you know it "helps" you deal with being around people for extended periods of time. Caveat: Imbibing to cope with empathy is never the best solution. Please read the empathic hygiene section on healthier ways to do so.

You loathe liars. You can not only tell a liar when you see one, but you have a very low tolerance for them.

You actively remove yourself from drama and drama queens—because they drain you. You can tell a drama queen from a mile away and they always leave you feeling drained after you've been around them for any period of time.

You have weight issues. Many empaths have weight gain or weight problems because they're subconsciously creating a physical shield against others due to their hypersensitivity.

You're a people pleaser. It's hard to say "no" when you know it will bring someone else joy—even if it hurts you.

You have an unshakable drive to help/serve others.

When you're having a conversation with someone, especially if it is emotional or deep, you have a hard time discerning where your emotions stop and the other person's emotions begin.

You can always see both sides of the argument—which can even make arguing difficult because you forget your emotional position!

You're creative and a creative thinker.

People find it easy to tell you deep, personal stuff.

You make friends VERY easily, but don't feel close to a majority of them as it tends to mostly be the friend talking and you listening.

Music, inspiring quotes, movies and other creative outlets have a tendency to provoke deep emotions within you.

When you touch someone, you can feel their emotions with a deep and almost indescribable understanding.

You dislike horror movies or movies with excessive yelling or violence.

You tend to be drawn to people who are suffering. It's not uncommon to find empaths in a toxic or enabling relationship.

You avoid being "in the way" of others or asking for help because you're afraid you will be a burden to them.

What Being an Empath is Like

It's easy to forget the energetic aspect of life when you're in "work mode" or doing daily chores—but the empathy never really stops. Even I forget that sometimes. Touching people is difficult, and sometimes even painful—so big crowds (regardless of the amount of shielding I do) can be a challenge. I usually have to mentally prepare myself before going into a grocery store.

Perhaps the biggest issue in overcoming being an empath (for me at least) is finding friends that are energizing. Those are the people you can have deep, meaningful conversations with that spark your drive (versus the people who just want to talk about their problems). There are plenty of people out there who want the empath to be their friend—but only so the empath is there to listen more so than have a mutual relationship. Discovering friends with a deep zest for life that actually listen can be an absolute treasure of a find.

On the same token, it's a privilege to see the humanity in every individual I encounter. Just about everyone feels and has some goodness in their hearts. Being able to see that is a gift and a blessing. Helping people foster this spark through empathy is also a privilege. Touching someone and allowing that deep, emotional connection to establish with them, sometimes just for a moment, is also a gift—even if it's painful sometimes. The best way I can describe it is it restores my faith in humanity—being able to feel the humanity in another. Being momentarily a part of the humanity in another.

Pros & Cons

Pros of Being an Empath:

Here's a list of the positive attributes of being an empath. Please don't abuse your gifts. Karma can (and will) be a real bitch if you use them for selfish reasons. Always ask for a sign from God to use your empathic gifts with others, and if you are going to do heavy empathic work on an individual, their verbal consent is mandatory. Always remember: just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

Automatically knowing the emotional mood of a crowd (and have the ability to sway it).

You can easily gain the trust of people .

The ability to sense the types of connections people have with the the ones they're close to (both good and bad).

You can change the emotions of another person .

You can tell when someone is lying.

The ability to see into another person's emotional memories—what their memories are (especially the emotionally charged ones).

The ability to see into another person's home.

The ability to see into another person's soul—you can see the good, the bad and the potential in their hearts.

The ability to sense other psychics, intuitives, psionics and basically anyone who knows and is aware of energy on one level or another. More advanced empaths can sense the degree in which the abilities others have, and possibly even latent abilities.

The ability to change the emotional state of a crowd.

The ability to alleviate the pain in others by taking it on as your own (but don't do this—just send it into the ground).

Cons of Being an Empath:

Here's a list of the negative attributes of being an empath. I put these out there as a sort-of caveat for those wishing to increase their empathic gifts. Be prepared to deal with these issues on a higher level if you intend to increase your spiritual gifts.

Intimacy can be difficult—touching others is something an empath may subconsciously or actively try to avoid.

Feeling drained after being in a group for a long period of time.

Getting headaches, emotions or pains out of the blue that aren't the empath's own.

Being drained around certain individuals (usually energy vampires or bad people in general)

Going weeks without being alone for an extended period of time can increase anxiety, fatigue, mood swings and even depression in some highly sensitive empaths.

Knowing things about others that you don't want to know because they touched you (i.e., that they like you, hate you, or a bad childhood memory).

Having difficulty focusing in large crowds.

You get fed up with your lower-vibrating (energy) friends. Fast. This happens a lot with people who experienced an empathic "boost" later in life. You become much less tolerant to those around you that aren't your "true" friends.

A subconscious tendency to take on the moods of others. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on the circumstances. I put it under "cons" because if you're not consciously guarding yourself empathically, you can subconsciously be emotionally swayed by others very easily.

Empathic Hygiene

Just like brushing your teeth or putting on deodorant, empathy requires hygiene too. We try to remember to use deodorant and brush our teeth every day—so should that mentality flow into taking care of our energetic selves and our empathic gifts. To not only increase your abilities, but also be a healthy empath, you must know and practice these three things: Cutting Cords, Grounding, and Shielding.

Cutting Cords

Cutting cords is probably the most important thing any empath should know regarding their gifts. This is because cords are what make up empathy. Every time you come into contact with someone on any level, you are connecting to them via an invisible energetic tether. You do this (subconsciously) with everyone you are near, touch or even make eye contact with every day (to one degree or another). You will also tend to have very strong cord connections with the people you're closest to.

Cutting these cords is necessary for the well-being of every empath—otherwise, we'll be continuously bogged down with the emotional energy of all the people we have ever come into contact with. Often times we can have both good and bad cords connected to the same person—so it's helpful to understand the difference between the types of cords before cutting them (don't throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak).

An exercise I like to do on a daily basis is what I like to call the "guillotine" method. I imagine a guillotine "slicing away" at the negative cords I have with others. Works like a charm every time. Other methods include praying for Archangel Michael to clear the energy away, the "plucking" method (where you "pluck" the cord out of you), and just plain standing with your back to a tree. Trees are amazing about taking our negative energy and grounding it.

The trick is visualization. Visualization is key to understanding and utilizing energy—and empathy.

Grounding

Grounding is necessary to stay focused and also a great way to remove toxic energy from the body. It helps us center ourselves here in the physical world. I ground all the time—especially before and after every reading I do. Many religions and even some forms of martial arts (such as qigong exercises in Tai Chi) incorporate grounding into their practices.

Grounding, in summary, is connecting to Mother Earth—putting your energy in the earth, so to speak. Grounding is an excellent way to reduce stress, anxiety and helps bring balance to your body's energy. I'll often times recommend grounding to a client that I see is unfocused, afraid or "fuzzy brained". There are a number of ways to ground, but my favorite method is what I call the "roots" method.

The roots method goes like this: You can be sitting or standing—it doesn't matter. Just begin to imagine roots growing out of your feet and into the ground. You can be 30 stories high—just imagine your feet growing roots that sink into the ground. It may take time, especially if this is your first try, but you'll feel a "shift" when you've successfully grounded your energy.

Then imagine all of the negative energy in your body just falling into the ground. The earth can take whatever energy you throw at her—and she transmutes it into good energy.

Stones can also be an excellent method for grounding. Sometimes I'll recommend darker stones to clients who need assistance with grounding. Good stones for grounding include smokey quartz, black tourmaline, hematite, nuumite, shungite and obsidian. Darker brown/black stones in general tend to be great for grounding, protection, and even transmuting negative energy into positive energy. If you're interested in using stones to assist in grounding, I would recommend going to your local metaphysical shop and picking up a few of the aforementioned stones and see what resonates with you. One of them will just "feel right" when you hold it.

And finally, another excellent way to ground is to take a salt bath. Salt baths rock and can become highly addictive! I recommend this to a majority of my empathic clients. It's excellent for extracting toxic energy and calming the mind. I do this probably about twice a month. It's a great way to "reset" the energetic body if you're feeling tired or drained. Not to mention, it helps with softening the skin and muscle aches if you use epsom salts. The only down side is you'll probably need to clean out your bathtub first.

Shielding

Shielding, simply put, is an energetic term for blocking the energy of others. It's a great way to protect yourself, much like you protect your feet by wearing shoes when you go outside. It acts as a barrier against the "raw" emotions of others.

There are probably a thousand methods to shield—ranging from simple to advanced. For the sake of this blog/course (being a "101" blog/course) I'll keep it simple. I may write on the more advanced ways to shield at a later date.

Shielding, as with other ways to harness energy (empathic or otherwise) requires "feeling" and visualization. A great method of shielding I recommend for clients is the "Glenda the Good Witch" bubble. If you've seen the Wizard of Oz, you probably remember the scene where Glenda the Good Witch in all of her splendor floated down to the good citizens of Munchkin Land in a beautiful rainbow bubble.

Well, like Glenda, imagine yourself in this beautiful rainbow bubble—filled with light and peace. Imagine it surrounding you from front to back, head to toe. Visualize it growing a thick, impermeable shell—and tell it to last all day. I recommend shielding every day–especially if you will be around other people. This shield will help keep you from establishing unnecessary or unwanted empathic cords with others and vice versa.

When you shield (and do so often) you'll notice an improvement in your energy and ability to be around others for longer periods of time without growing tired quickly.

Increasing Your Empathy

So after all that reading you still want to increase your empathy, eh?

Well, there are several methods to do so. The first being meditation. Yeah, I know. None of us really have the time for that. But we make time for the things we want, and meditation is the best way to increase your abilities overall. This is because meditation helps you become more aware of your energy and sense it better because it forces you to inflect.

Porcupines.

Yes, porcupines. I see empathy and the empathic abilities of others as porcupines. It's like a thousand tendrils spilling out of a person—with many of them connecting to the tendrils of another. Visualize your tendrils—your porcupine needles—growing. If that is difficult, inflect on your relationships with others. watch how that shifts your mentality and thought patterns. This is what empathy feels like. It's that shift because you're "honing" in on that person. You can even practice with a friend that's interested in increasing their empathy as well. Focus on connecting to each other and notice the shift. That's the energetic shift of empathy. Just be sure to always cut the cord after you're done with the exercise.

Another method is to work with a friend and guess how they're feeling without looking at their face or body language. Try standing with your back to them and feel what their emotions are. Then turn around and see. Take turns putting yourself into different emotional states (with your backs turned) and get a feel for their emotions.

In Conclusion

The key to increasing empathy isn't power or energy per se—it's discernment. It's the ability to keenly understand the energy around you, and how it works.

Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility. I strongly recommend reading my previous blog post on the ethics of being psychic.

Please use your superpowers for good. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

Good Luck!

#empathy #empathic #blog #spirituality #psychic #intuition #spiritual

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