#but it's always good to have it confirmed! they should be co-leads forever

[cuntylestat]

two takeaways:

1. justin kirk will definitely play a body switched lestat at some point

2. jacob is still gonna play a major role alongside sam hallelujah

(source)

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️ Ranking Richonne

#15: I'm Gonna See/You Ready? (S5E11)

Ok, one last tie. 🤗 The Distance is one of the goated Richonne pre-canon episodes. I always enjoy this one for showing all throuhgout why Rick and Michonne are the most dynamic duo. They lead so well together as partners, parents, and as two people who genuinely care about each other. The episode has several great Richonne moments, but two specific ones get a tie for 15th place on this list because they're both really special...

(Also honorable mention to their scene at the top of this ep when they give married vibes as Michonne lets Rick know her look was not a "let's attack that man" look lol. I always love that Michonne knows her look at Rick might have played a part in him punching Aaron and that Rick has this brief entranced look at Michonne like he's making a mental note to get better at reading her looks. 😋)

Rick and Michonne were undeniably partners and co-leaders during this whole episode. And after Michonne makes the call and tells the group they're going to Alexandria, Rick co-signs and they share this look in the barn that suggests 'we should talk privately' - which leads to their lovely top 15 moment alone outside.

Their private moment outside the barn begins when Michonne approaches Rick, who is working on a car. He's immediately getting this Alexandria plan in motion because when Michonne convinces him of something, his mind is genuinely made up to do what she thinks is best. #RealOne.

I love how the first thing Rick says is stuff about the plan, showing he’s really up for this and not at all upset about Michonne taking charge of the group. In fact, Rick seemed somewhat alleviated (and low-key turned on lol) by Michonne taking the initiative earlier in the barn. Then he voices that he wants Michonne to be with him when driving with Aaron cuz of course. 🧲

Rick mentions how Carl and Judith are safer in the RV, and this just tells you loud and clear that they’re the parents. That was evident when Michonne mentioned not wanting to pass up a place for Judith to live in this ep and then with Rick talking about the kids here. Look at this beautiful mom and dad, y’all. 🥰

Michonne is silent hearing Rick say this, and I will forever love that Rick notices the silence, looks up at her, and so sweetly asks, “You okay?” Like she always matters to him and even after trusting her instinct over his own with the plan, he still wants to check in on her and ensure she’s good with everything.

Michonne knows she can be candid with Rick, so she asks if he was for real when saying they’re going. It’s sweet cuz right here she gets to learn just how much Rick continually trusts her and will follow her lead.

And then Rick stands up and assuredly says they’re going. Michonne wants to confirm that they’re going no matter what it takes, and what proceeds to me has always felt like this moment of Rick really letting Michonne into the thought process he often has as a leader because he officially knows that she's his co-leader now.

So he shares this important insight and leader perspective with her and does it by asking good questions rather than just outright stating it, which is great and effective. I really like the dialogue in this scene.

Rick asks her what she heard outside the gates of Woodbury and Terminus, and Michonne answers "Nothing" both times, quickly getting and respecting where Rick is going with this. Their communication is just A1, even when they have a few different feelings about things.

Rick tells her how sometime tonight without seeing inside the walls he’s going to have to decide whether to bring his family in. I love the way he emphasizes 'family' when he says this. The best family man on TV. 🙌🏽 And I love that Michonne is included in that family that he’s so passionately talking about.

And again, I talk a lot about how Rick looks at Michonne throughout the series cuz I adore it, and he’s super attentive to her in this scene - but y’all, the way Michonne looks at Rick is also just so passionate and filled with love and respect. They both have this arresting effect on each other, and I’m beyond here for it. 

Then I love this part where Rick says Aaron asked him what it would take to believe his offer is real, and he admits, “Truth is, I’m not sure if anything could convince me to go in there…but I’m gonna see. I’m gonna see.”  Tell me this scene is not giving romantic. ❤️‍🔥 The way he pauses and leans toward her as he says he’s going to see. He looks right into her eyes as he softly repeats, "I’m gonna see." It’s for her, y’all. 🥰

The reason I love this scene is because Rick is pretty much saying that there’s only one thing that could really get him to take this kind of a leap...and it’s her.

What would it take for him to believe it’s real? Michonne. What could convince him to go in there? Michonne. Why is he going to see? Michonne. Of course, he wants a great place for his family to call home too. But at this point, Rick doesn’t seem to trust that Aaron’s story is even legit, so he really is taking this big leap because he is willing to trust Michonne’s gut even over his own. 

It’s a big deal and this scene was just a beautiful exchange between them that really further watered the seed for how Rick and Michonne will continue to operate as leaders and sounding boards for each other.

Richonne was just in their bubble the whole episode, and I know as a newcomer Aaron had to be looking at the rest of team family like...

And then there isn’t a better way to end this Rick and Michonne-centered episode than with this moment right here. 😍 One of my all-time favorite endings to a TWD ep.

I love that the very first scene at Alexandria is one between the two who will lead this place. Rick and Michonne pull up to the gate and sit side by side in the car outside the place tf will call home for the next 6 seasons, the place where they will build their life as husband and wife and expand their family.

But without knowing just how much this community is going to work out for them, right now in this 5.11 moment, they're just preparing to take a huge leap of faith to try and make yet another community work after experiencing many a fallen community.

Just from the jump, I’ve always loved that Rick and Michonne were in this car with their kids while the rest of TF was in the RV. It’s already setting them up as this inner family unit. Like there's found family among the whole group which is a beautiful thing - but then there's immediate family which for Rick is the three people in this car with him.

In this car are the people Rick feels most fiercely protective of which is why he wants the three of them with him as they approach this unknown territory.

Also I know Richonne didn’t become canon until they entered those Alexandria gates but, truly, in this moment they were already a couple. It was so clear, and it was only a matter of time before they called it what it was. 

They pull up to the spot, and Andy just does incredible acting with his eyes alone as his face softens upon hearing kids playing on the other side of the wall. 👏🏽 Andy really should have won every award for his acting throughout the series, but especially for his work in season 5.

Something subtle I’ve always loved about this moment is the fact that Rick is already looking at Michonne once the car stops. I used to think it was her putting her hand on his that grabbed his attention. But no. Even before then, in this extremely stressful moment for Rick where he has to fight to put his PTSD and paranoia aside and bravely go and see for the sake of his family - what does he do?...he looks to Michonne. 😊

She led him here. And he needs her reassurance right now. After all, pretty much the only reason he’s outside these gates right now is because of her.

Rick’s the leader who often has to put his own fear aside for the sake of his people, but here he can be a guy who's anxious and needs some reassurance cuz what they’re about to do is risky.

And because Michonne is his elegant and calming soulmate she gives him such precious reassurance when she takes his hand and smiles and asks, “You ready?” 😊

I appreciate that she asks him the question and how it’s also this motivational encouragement. And I love that this is Michonne's first time initiating this type of physical contact with him. That touch alone shows they’ve come a long way and she has come to trust and feel comfortable with Rick so much since her "don’t you ever touch me again" days in season 3.

And the smile and everything just feels like that attraction, that “something more,” that magnetic connection between them is slowly but surely becoming fully realized. The way she does this just communicates loud and clear that these two are in it together. Whatever’s on the other side of that ASZ gate - and I do mean whatever it may be - Rick and Michonne are going to get through it and ultimately come out stronger and closer than ever because they have each other to guide them. 

Another poetic element of this to me is that Michonne knows what it's like to walk up to a fence and not know exactly what you're going to find on the other side. That was her experience arriving at the prison in season 3.

But by showing up at those prison gates, she found something more valuable than gold - she found her family and the love of her life. The leap Michonne took to show up to a new place more than paid off.

And now here she is, side by side with Rick this time, and facing a new gate. And she's able to instill hope that this gate too can have good on the other side. 👌🏽

Also, it hit me that yes this is a shining moment of Michonne’s calming presence in Rick’s life - But Rick’s words also have an impact on Michonne too.

In that “I’m gonna see” scene, Rick tells Michonne how not hearing silence outside a community doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe. So when they’re outside Alexandria, the fact that they hear children laughing and playing is a sign for not just Rick but Michonne too that this is different from those other places. I feel like she's recalling his words at this moment and finding comfort in them.

And to make even more of a connection, Michonne knows how reassuring it can be to see kids in the community cuz when she showed up at the prison, I truly believe that Carl and Judith being there and cared for by all the adults in the group is a factor in helping her know this place was more genuine than others.

Her conversation with Rick and the valuable insights he imparted helps her to feel more confident about getting out of this car and taking on this community. And she’s able to transfer that energy to Rick like only she can. 

After receiving the calming reassurance from Michonne, which always resonates with him, Rick then nods and gets out and goes to grab Judith and takes this huge game-changing step to enter this new community.

The power and love between Rick and Michonne is what got them here. Richonne is what got the entire group to their new home. And I love that in that sedan was the greatest family the show has seen. And once they entered those gates they’d only become more and more of a family. 👌🏽

In retrospect, I love this closing 5.11 scene for being the moment Alexandria got their king and queen. 👑 Those two upgraded the heck out of this place over the course of the seasons, to where it became a community that really thrived.

Don’t get me wrong, Alexandria threw them some obstacles when they first arrived, but they overcame them because when Rick and Michonne are united, this power couple can rise above anything. 

These two tied scenes show the way that Rick and Michonne are truly co-leaders and partners who care so much about each other as human beings and are in it together always. And I love that these scenes served as this reminder that Rick and Michonne are only growing closer and have something special between them that will flourish even more once they take the leap. 😌

[spiritsoulandbody]

#DailyDevotions The Promises Of The LORD Encourage & Preserve Us

#DailyDevotions The Promises Of The LORD Encourage & Preserve Us Psalm 16 6The land allotted to me is in pleasant places; yes, my inheritance is something beautiful. This alone should give us peace in this life. David is prophesying. He is not just speaking for himself but for his seed, Jesus Christ and all who are united with him. What land, what inheritance can we have that gives us peace in this world? Jesus tells us in Matthew, the meek shall inherit the earth. Paul reminds us we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. God Himself is our inheritance. Our lack of things in this present age should not alarm us. The things of this age are passing like the leaves on the tree during the course of the year. They look good for a little bit and then turn brown, fall off and decay. What Jesus has promised us last forever. ?I praise the LORD Who gives me counsel; also, at night my deepest feelings show me what is right. 8I always keep the LORD before Me. With Him at My right hand, I can't fail. As we dwell on the word of the LORD it will give us counsel if we subject our thoughts and plans to its light. As such we should praise the LORD who counsels us from His word. “My deepest feelings,” is from the Hebrew word for kidneys. It is where the seat of our emotions are. We think today of butterflies in our stomach. Our deepest feelings can only show us what is right if they are instructed by God's word. Now David is speaking for Jesus Christ here as the end of the psalm will show. His kidneys are probably trustworthy. Perhaps it is also the seat of our conscience. I haven't confirmed that though. If we haven't seared it yet or we are born of God, it can lead us to some extent into what is right and what is wrong. More importantly, David says, he keeps the LORD before himself. With the LORD at his right hand he cannot fail. Certainly we see Jesus doing this as he spends much time in prayer. He trusted his Father and our Father to be with him in his mission. We too should keep the LORD before us by being in His word and praying like Jesus from His word. We, in times of doubt, need to remember the promises of Jesus which tell us of perseverance. He promises to sustain us with the Holy Spirit through all our days to keep us from falling. We should, on our part, make use of the gifts he has given us to preserve us. 9That is why My heart is glad, and My soul is delighted. Also My body will rest securely 10because You will not leave Me in the grave nor let Your Holy One experience decay. 11You show Me the path of life —plenty of joy in Your presence, delightful things at Your right hand forever. So here David sees his descendant, the promised seed, who will live and reign forever on his throne. He can be glad in heart and have his soul delighted in this. Jesus who is the seed and descendant of David is not left in the grave. He is the Holy One who does not experience decay. He is risen from the dead on the third day never to die again. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father where he reigns forever. This is good news because Jesus promises us that what has been given to him is also given to those who put their trust in him. While David and we may experience decay, as we are united with Christ Jesus, we shall be raised from the dead on the Last Day. As Jesus sits on his Father's throne, Jesus promises us that we will sit with him on his throne. He is our path of life. He is our joy. From his right hand we receive pleasure forever more. Heavenly Father, grant us to take joy in our inheritance. May it preserve our faith in Christ Jesus until he bestows it to us in the world to come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.  Read the full article

[ahtsumu]

LOVE PERSEVERING, EP 1. “The Plot Twist”

pairing: nanami kento x f!reader

synopsis: the nanami’s have an evening full of surprises – the most surprising of all, however, is the one that comes without explanation.

tag(s): loose (very loose) wandavision!au, humor, domestic fluff, suggestive content, profanity, can be read as a standalone! ; wc: 2.6k

love persevering m.list

“SORRY I’M LATE.”

Nanami Kento closes the front door behind him and changes out of his oxfords for house slippers. The traffic was crazy, there’d been an accident on the 101, a Maserati collided with a Ferrari and the two drivers were hashing it out in the middle of – no, that’s a horrible story and even worse lie. He doesn’t even drive to work. He takes the Caltrain to his job in San Francisco every morning and takes it home to Sunnyvale every evening.

Shit, Nanami thinks as he tries to hide the evidence of his… offense. Can he cover it up with something? Maybe if he held his briefcase in front of it… No, that’s so obvious. It’s so… red. And big. There’s no way it’d stay concealed.

It’s not that Nanami is in any way dumb or easily frazzled. No, he’s quite intelligent and levelheaded and the fact that he works as an Associate at Goldman Sachs should be proof enough. It’s just that he strongly dislikes the thought of lying to you. Technically, he doesn’t even have to make up a story to explain his tardiness. You probably don’t really care that he’s – Nanami checks his watch while setting his briefcase down – an hour late home. But having a story would quell your suspicions about the true reason he’s late.

See, today his co-worker Archie was talking on and on about how he surprised his wife with a bouquet of fifty roses the other night and, well, Nanami felt inspired. He’s not typically one for large romantic gestures, so he thought that maybe he should step up his game and at least remind you of how much he loves you the one day he’s given a sign to.

“First, you gotta lower her expectations, y’know?” Archie says like he’s giving a pitch. “Make her think the conversation is gonna be far from romantic. Say something totally boring. ‘Hey, honey, I had a great day at work today.’ Somethin’ like that, y’know? Then you just whip it right out. Bam.”

Nanami looks at the pink peonies in his hand with a small smile. Happy marriage, the flower shop attendee had said. Hearing your footsteps leading out from the second-floor bedroom, he quickly places the red bouquet behind the living room sofa before rushing back to his original place by the door. At first sight of your figure descending the stairs, Nanami starts (perhaps too exaggeratedly) loosening his tie.

“Ken.”

Oh. Oh, this doesn’t sound too good. Pausing his movements, Nanami assesses the damage. Your arms are crossed over your chest and your head is slightly cocked to the side, and you’re shooting him an expectant look. To be frank, you look a little pissed. You’re not even smiling. This definitely isn’t too great.

“Honey,” he starts, flashing you a conciliatory smile.

“Did you know that we were supposed to leave for our reservation an hour ago?” you interrupt.

Reservation? It doesn’t ring a bell.

Oh, is that why… fuck.

Taking your husband’s silence as evidence that he’d forgotten, you let out a sigh and walk up to his frozen frame, stopping when you’re right under his nose. “Did you?”

Nanami looks up at the ceiling as he tries to recall anything about reservations, but his mind turns blank. Actually, he thinks as he furrows his brows, he can’t even remember what he did yesterday.

“No,” he admits truthfully, looking into your eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m really sorry but I don’t remember at all. Listen, I –”

And then, you laugh.

“I was just messin’ with you, babe.” Still giggling, you pull him in for a hug. “The reservation’s not today.”

Nanami blinks as his arms wrap around you. There’s no reservation. “You’re ridiculous,” he chuckles. “I genuinely thought that I’d done something wrong.”

“No, definitely not. You’re wonderful.” Lifting your heels off the floor, you capture Nanami’s lips in a short kiss. He eagerly responds, pulling you closer into his firm body. This is, without a doubt, Nanami’s favorite part about coming home. You. Always there, at the end of the day, with your sunny little grin and sweet, adoring eyes. A little piece of paradise.

“You are so much trouble,” he murmurs as you pull apart. You hum at that, unable to disagree.

“We do, however, have a reservation at eight tomorrow.”

He frowns. “I genuinely don’t remember making plans for that, darling, I’m sorry.” Nanami glances down at your face and notices your surprised expression.

“Me neither. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me something about that.”

Well, that’s odd. It’s not often that either of you forgets anything, let alone something as easily remembered as a dinner reservation. It’s utterly peculiar that you would both happen to forget about the same thing. Today’s turning out a lot stranger than he’d ever expected. “How’d you find out?”

You pull your phone out of your back pocket and show him the email confirmation.

Dear Mr and Mrs. Nanami,

Thank you for making a reservation with us at Gary Danko. As a reminder, your reservation is for two people at 8:00 PM this Friday.

If you have any questions concerning your reservation, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to serving you!

Thank you,

The Gary Danko Team

“This is… strange,” Nanami notes, studying the little screen.

“Very,” you agree.

“Should we cancel?”

“Should we?”

“I –”  Nanami’s stomach grumbles, putting a pause on your conversation.

With a chuckle, you slide your phone back into your pocket. “Never mind. We can talk about it during dinner,” you say, helping your husband out of his suit jacket. As the blazer comes off, you affectionately rub a few circles on his back, feeling his posture relax under your touch. Honestly, he works too hard. You always tell him this but he really should take a few days off and drive down to the beach – maybe with you, if he’d like – and forget about the world for a while. God knows he could use the rest.

Nanami hums in approval. “You go on first.” He kisses your forehead before gesturing at the briefcase on the floor. “I should put this away.”

The moment you disappear into the dining room, Nanami moves his briefcase onto the coffee table and brings the bouquet of pink peonies out from their place behind the sofa, this time holding them behind his back. A reservation neither of us remembers, he suddenly thinks as he strolls quietly towards the dining room. Truly odd. Tucking the thought away in his mind (there’s always time to figure out mysteries like these), Nanami calls out, “Actually, honey, there’s a reason why I came home late today.”

“I was just about to ask. What was it?” You’re almost done setting the table when Nanami walks through the archway with a bouquet of flowers almost as broad as his shoulders.

“Holy shit.”

He laughs, filling the room with its bell-like sound. “For the lady.”

Shaking your head in disbelief, you walk over and take the bouquet from his arms, cradling it like a baby. Each petal is fresh and alive and so vibrantly pink. It’s obvious that a lot of care went into this bouquet, and it only touches you further that your husband went to such lengths to guarantee you’d only get the best flowers possible. “Thank you, darling. What’s the special occasion?”

“No occasion,” Nanami says, shrugging. “Just that I love you. And I wanted to remind you that, even on days where nothing happens and it feels like we’re just going through the motions –” he takes your free hand and hunches over to kiss the ring on your fourth finger “– knowing I get to share every day with you gives me joy to look forward to.”

Happy marriage. It’s true and that’s all there is to say about it.

You’re unable to form words. Nanami Kento, the subtle, quiet lover, being loud with affection for once. An indescribable warmth spreads all throughout your body. “Ken…” Tears prick at your eyes as you set the bouquet down on the table and rush into his arms, peppering his face with kisses. “I love you,” you murmur in his ear. “I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you. Thank you.”

Nanami grins, cradling your face in his large palms. “I should do this more often,” he says, letting out a breathy chuckle when you nod instantly. “I’m sorry. I’ll work on – ” You cut him off with a slow but eager kiss, snaking your arms around his neck and tugging him closer to deepen it. If Nanami had been surprised by your interruption he doesn’t show it – his lips, soft and plump, move in complete synchronization with yours. He tastes like tea and honey and he smells like he always does, of wood and spice and the beach. It’s intoxicating and completely dangerous how irresistible he is and you can’t get enough of him.

The truth is, every real kiss with Nanami feels like the first. And you can never get enough. But you are running out of air, so you break the kiss first and rest your forehead against his, feeling his hot breath fan across your cheeks.

“You’re perfect,” you whisper, stroking his cheek with the pad of your thumb. “I wouldn’t want anyone else as my husband.”

Nanami quirks one corner of his mouth up and covers your hand with his, turning his head to kiss its palm. “If I had another life to live after this one, I’d marry you in that one, too.”

A prolonged growl from Nanami’s stomach interrupts your sweet moment.

“I think your stomach objects.”

“Maybe we should shove something down it, like dinner.”

Grinning, you slip out of your husband’s reach and beckon him to follow you into the kitchen.

“This salmon is delicious,” Nanami remarks, taking another bite off his fork.

“Thank you,” you beam. “I found a recipe while I was at work today and thought I’d try it out. Honey garlic salmon. My life is forever changed and so is yours, by extension. You’re welcome.”

Nanami chuckles, ready to respond with a dry comment about ‘having no choice,’ but then that odd email you’d shown him earlier resurfaces in his mind. “Speaking of changes. Should we cancel that Gary Danko reservation?”

You hum, thinking back to the letter as you chew. It seems like the most logical thing to do. After all, neither of you remembers making the reservation. The ambiguity surrounding its existence is unsettling enough to warrant cancellation, but something in you just wants to see what might happen. Swallowing your food, you say, “Don’t you think it’s strange that it has our names on it? I think we should consider going.”

“What if it’s a scam?”

“Then we go home, order Indian takeout, and watch a war documentary until we both fall asleep.”

Unconvinced, Nanami sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, the navy fabric of his button-up tightening around his muscles. “We should call them first, figure out if they know anything.”

“You’re right,” you say, and then you pause before adding, “And if they don’t?”

You’re done speaking but Nanami knows that sentence isn’t finished, and that the other unspoken half is: can we still go? The truth is – and he’s told you many times – that your unpredictability is the most predictable thing about you. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything, eyes darting across your face as he contemplates his answer.

It’s not that Nanami is an overprotective husband or needlessly suspicious of every odd thing in life. It’s that he somehow cannot remember a single second of his life before today, the same day this email arrived. To be more accurate, he feels like he has those memories inside him. Somewhere, deep in his brain, he vaguely remembers what things like a “fifth birthday” or “first wedding anniversary” look like. They just feel out-of-reach. Regardless, he’s absolutely certain that things aren’t exactly right. But you look so excited and utterly unaware of his predicament, so it must be something only he’s experiencing and he doesn’t want to burden you with this problem.

“If you really want to go, then we’ll go,” Nanami concludes, taking a sip of his wine. “After all, the wife…”

“… is always right,” you finish for him. “Well, sometimes the husband is, too, but in this specific context, for unspecified reasons, the wife is most definitely correct.” The grin on your face almost puts his worries to rest.

(Almost.)

You call Gary Danko after dinner and they confirm your reservation.

“Sorry if this sounds, um, weird, but would you mind reminding me when we made this reservation?” you ask, walking in circles around the kitchen.

“Not at all!” Some typing noises travel through the receiver before the man you were talking to says, “Actually, you didn’t make the reservation.”

You make eye contact with Nanami who’s lightly rinsing the plates from dinner. “Pardon?”

“No, it was a Miss Amanda Priestly who called us and reserved the table for you two days ago on October 31st. Does that name sound familiar?”

Nanami raises his brows. That’s your boss.

“Um, yeah. I know her, thank you,” you say, frowning. What on earth is your boss doing reserving tables at Michelin-rated restaurants for you and your husband?

“She left a message, too, in case you were, quote, ‘confused,’ unquote. She says, ‘Mimsy, thank you for your help on the Modish Winter look book. Dinner is on me. Kisses, AP.’”

And suddenly, everything falls into place. All those late nights you spent analyzing old trends and predicting the next season’s rush into your memory. For a month, you pretty much lived in your office down the hall from your editor-in-chief. You barely even had time to sleep. It makes sense that Amanda would show her thanks for the effort you put into the project, but you hadn’t expected her to. After all, she’s Amanda Priestly. She still calls you Mimsy instead of your real name.

“Oh, of course!” you laugh, looking over at Nanami. He sends you a curious look before putting the rinsed plates into the dishwasher. “Thank you for your help.”

“My pleasure.”

The call ends and you tuck your phone in your pocket as you say, “Mystery solved.”

“Hmm,” Nanami says, drying his hands on a kitchen towel. “The Modish Winter Look Book. For some reason, I don’t remember you working on that.” In fact, he doesn’t remember you working at a magazine company at all, although he can’t put his finger on what job he used to think you had. What is going on?

“Really?” you ask, reaching for his hand and lacing your fingers together. “You don’t remember that time I ran into our office with four different tweed blazers and asked which one looked the most wintery?”

Nanami furrows his brows as a memory comes back to him. It was a sunny morning in early November when you ran into the home office with two blazers draped over each arm and forced him to rank them based on how well they exuded “winter energy.” Truthfully, he had no idea what he was doing, just that the one with more blue seemed most appropriate for wintertime.

“I just remembered,” he says, a look of amused confusion coming over his features. Today has been so strange. “Did the blue blazer make it to the final look?”

“One moment,” you say, disappearing into the living room and returning with an advanced, rough copy of Modish’s Winter Fashion Edition. “It’s not out yet, but…” you trail off as you flip through the pages, pointing when you get to the one you were looking for “… here’s your contribution to the magazine.”

The blue blazer, in all its glory, smack dab in the middle of the section that says “TRENDS TO SAY GOODBYE TO.”

“Ouch.”

“Well, you predicted something,” you giggle, placing a hand on his chest. “Fashion might be your calling, Ken.”

He smiles wryly. “I’m hanging up.”

[i-may-have-a-point]

Review of 17x14 “Look Up Child”

It has been three years since I wrote my last review of a Grey’s Anatomy episode.  After Sarah left, I stepped away from my fan accounts and did not plan on ever looking back.  Somehow though, through the dedication of our captains and the strength of the Japril fandom, we got one more episode that confirmed what we have known all along – Japril is forever.  

The episode opens to Jackson driving through a storm and we can see in his eyes that he is fighting an internal storm as well.  He winces at his injured hand while his mind flashes through thoughts of holding Harriet with April for the first time, the pain of watching April marry Matthew, and meeting his dad.  These moments, along with many others have led Jackson yearning for more out of life, and so he returns to Montana hopeful he will find answers there.

The last thing Robert Avery expects, for a second time, is to find the son he left behind standing in the doorway of his restaurant.  

“Everybody alive?” Robert asks.

Jackson making this journey again, after the way they left things before, could only be for one reason in Robert’s mind.  Jackson reassures him that is not the reason he came, and Robert relaxes easily into his friendly charm, offering coffee and a place for Jackson to “take a load off.”  He has no idea of the “load” Jackson truly bears.

Robert is awaiting the arrival of his co-worker so they can deliver pre-packaged meals to families in need in their community.  This gesture may seem small, but to Jackson, this is a subtle sign that he on the right path.  There is more he can do than what he has found within the walls of Grey-Sloan Memorial. Their small talk is awkward, and Jackson wants to get right to what he came for – answers.  Robert has other ideas.  There are sandwiches to be made and they can talk while they work.

After following Robert to the porch, Jackson realizes this sandwich-making process is going to be more time-consuming than he thought.  And so is getting the answers he came for.  He reiterates to Robert that he doesn’t want anything from him – not turkey, not coffee – just answers.

Jackson presses his dad for information about why he left the foundation, the problems he saw with it, and Catherine’s perspective on it all while Robert deflects the questions with vague answers and praise of the ham and turkey sandwich.  Robert is not ready to answer these questions because answering them would mean dealing with the memories of the past and the regret he carries.  So instead, he smiles kindly and puts Jackson in charge of the meat slicer, which leads to the first moment in Jackson’s life where his dad taught him how to do something. (Although we all know he didn’t teach him well!) This interaction allows Jackson to let his guard down just slightly and they find they have some common views on the Avery name, money, and pressure that comes with it all.  Jackson tries some of Robert’s “best in the state” turkey and Robert opens up about his own shame and abandonment by his father. It seems pain runs through generations of Avery men.

Maybe it is that realization, or the cup of Robert’s coffee in his hand, that makes Jackson relax enough to begin opening up.  He shares his desire to do more to change the system has seen fail so many people.  He isn’t even sure if he can, but he knows he feels compelled to try.  Robert agrees that people should do what makes them happy.  He did and he “never looks back.”

But Jackson does.  He can’t stop looking back and wondering why his dad was absent from every moment that mattered.  

“I realize that it’s really messed me up…pretty badly. And, um, it just made it hard to maintain relationships and stuff.  Having this inclination to run away all the time.  And I know, I know, running away doesn’t actually solve anything.  I know that. So…and I’ve tried.  I’ve tried really hard to rid myself of the shame and the pain that comes with all that, and uh, you know just kind of doubled-down on being the best at everything – the best father I could possibly be.  I probably stayed in my marriage longer than I should have, went along with foundation business longer than I should have, but no matter what, when it gets rough I just end up right there, running into the woods trying to fight the you in me.”

What begins as a tearful explanation builds to all of Jackson’s pent-up emotions overflowing at his dad.  He is distracted and emotional, cutting his hand on the slicer with blood pouring out, while his heart pours out at the same time.  

Robert tends to Jackson’s injury, and they both feel it is a simple gesture that holds more weight than they know what to do with.  Robert tries to make light of the situation by joking about a family practice, but it is the idea of them as family that sends Jackson to find fresh air on the porch. It is here where Robert finally answers Jackson’s question of “Why?”

Running is what Robert does when things get too difficult, and that is what makes Jackson so afraid. He feels the same pull.  Just before he cut his hand, he was running down the long list of things he feels he has done wrong. Does he truly believe he stayed in his marriage too long?  No. But to Jackson that is just one more way he is like his dad.  He is so messed up by the fear of turning into Robert that he breaks things off before they get too difficult, before he gets to the point Robert did.  If he can maintain a safe distance to the important things in his life, he won’t lose them and he won’t be like Robert.  “My divorce…maybe that would have been a good time for you to step in and share some wisdom.”  This isn’t who Jackson wants to be, but he is too scared of moving in either direction – scared of moving both toward or away from the things that matter, like April.  So instead, he suffers in an ambiguous middle ground.  One where he hasn’t completely abandoned anyone or anything and one where he hasn’t fully committed to anything either.  It is a balance he has tried to find for years, but it is also what is breaking him now.  

Truth be told, even Robert cannot fully run from what matters.  From his cabin in the woods, he admits that everyday he regrets leaving, and he buys gifts for a little girl he has never met in hopes that one day he will.

“You’re not a runner. If you were, you’d have been long gone by now…you have it in your soul to do the right thing.  To makes things right.  And you didn’t just fix a disaster, you made it better…on your worst day, you are ten times the man I am.”

And it is with those words Jackson makes his decision.  He is going to do the right thing.  He is going to take what seems like a disaster and make it better.

Arriving back in Seattle, Jackson goes straight to the people who matter most.  

Catherine is his first stop. He needs her blessing to take over the foundation.  Their money and influence can make life better for all people by bringing justice and equity to medicine and build a better future for Harriet.  Catherine’s Mama-heart breaks a little to see him go, but she cannot deny how proud of him she is.

With the rain still coming down, Jackson rings April’s doorbell and stresses over how he is going to approach asking her to move across the country for him.  How can he explain to her that this is not impulsive, this is not something he is doing on a whim?  

Yet, when the door opens, all his insecurities are quickly forgotten because seeing April only reminds him of why they have always been each other’s person and how she has always trusted him no matter what.  She trusted him the night of the boards with her heart and virginity, she trusted him with the decision to induce her pregnancy with Samuel to stop his pain, and she trusted him to run away from her wedding and the life she thought she was supposed to have.  But this is different.  So much has changed in the past few years.  Would she trust him now?

Jackson will have to wait to find out, though, because April is frantic.  Harriet is sick and April cannot get her fever down.  Jackson sees how stressed she is and immediately gives April what she needs.  He takes Harriet into her arms, both consoling her and helping April calm down and have a moment to breathe.  They fall into their usual banter and affectionate teasing.

Their conversations and interactions throughout the episode give us small glimpses of what we should have had the past several years had their story been written they way it should have been.  They naturally fall into their place as the loving, concerned parents unable to sleep while caring for their daughter.  They move through the house and around each other as if this is a familiar dance that they have done hundred times before.

Harriet’s sickness doesn’t seem to be the only thing April is stressed about.  Her living room is strewn with laundry and she quickly tries to clean it up while Jackson reassures her in his “bank voice” that it is fine. Too many pillows, but otherwise, fine. Jackson continues Daddy Duty by dancing with his daughter and April gets a chance to take a much-needed shower…until the storm knocks the power out.

Jackson and April alone at night in a storm, surrounded by candles, is the perfect set-up for an epic reunion, and while they may not have utilized the kitchen counter like we wanted them, too, they did reconnect on a level of clarity and maturity that shows how much they have grown.

There is also that not-so-little issue of Matthew.  Japril fans spotted early on that April was missing a particularly important ring, but it was even more telling when Jackson asked her directly if her and Matthew are happy, and she responded with simply, “We are busy.”  For a marriage that the terrible writing of season 14 wanted us to believe was ordained by God, how sad that you can’t even pretend to be happy. That one line conveyed so much more than what was stated.  It was clear from that point that Matthew and April’s marriage was over.

April is not the only one beating around the bush.  She quickly calls Jackson out on his “cagey” behavior of commenting on her exposed brick instead of saying why he actually showed up at her house late at night in the middle of a storm.  She can read him so well she knows there is something more, which is when we finally find out his plan – he is going to take over the Avery Foundation. The catch is, that means Jackson, as well as April and her family, have to move to Boston.

April responds by questioning if this is what Jackson actually wants because it never was before.  Is he going to move to Boston and then fail or regret his decision?  And while this seems unsupportive and harsh, April has to ask these questions because, as we find out later, that is exactly what happened to her.  She thought she was choosing the right path by marrying Matthew, but not only has their marriage failed, she regrets that they even tried. But Jackson doesn’t know this yet, so to defend his decision he uses Matthew proposing to April as an example of how he unconditionally supported her which not only hints at Jackson’s jealousy, but reinforces April’s fear that making a decision this big may not be the best choice.  She sees happiness for Jackson in the safe choice.  He can continue to rebuild faces, give little boy’s hands, and help people breathe again.  Maybe if she can convince him to stay with what he knows he won’t feel the hurt she is feeling right now. “Why would you want to give all that up?”

Jackson knows he can do all of that and more in Boston.  He can make a positive change in medicine, April can continue her work with the homeless, and Matthew will just follow because it is April, and that is the one reason Jackson likes him.  “He is gonna want to follow you anywhere.”  Jackson understands the urge to follow April anywhere.  The night continues with wine, snacks, and comfortable conversation but they don’t come to an agreement on what their future holds.

The storm breaks and morning comes.  Jackson, recognizing that April has been overwhelmed lets her sleep in, and she wakes up to the sounds of Harriet and Jackson happily eating breakfast and we get a glimpse of their happy, family mornings that we all know Boston will bring.  The three of them laugh and talk over pancakes, orange juice, and throw pillows and April admits that she should have been more supportive of Jackson’s plans.  If only they could get their timing right.  

The morning has brought with it clarity for April and she tells Jackson her answer is yes.  Yes, she believes he is “that guy.” Yes, she believes this could work.  Yes, they are going to Boston.  Shocked and surprised, Jackson offers to help talk to Matthew, but we find out that won’t be necessary.  As most of us suspected, the marriage that should have never happened is over.  One of the best lines of the episode is the slight dig that the writers (Sarah/Jesse?) took at the ridiculous story of April marrying Matthew.  “We kept trying to tell ourselves that our whole winding road was God’s plan to bring us back together.  But he was still so angry and hurt.  I mean, I left him at the altar and his wife died.  You know, you don’t just stop feeling hurt ‘cause it’s a better story if God brought us together in our pain.”  Enough said. And as much as we are not sad to see Matthew go, April is hurting, and Jackson recognizes that.  He takes her hand in a small gesture of comfort because he never wants to see her in pain.  (Thank you, Jesse, for improvising that.)  He gave her a reason to smile again.  Their family has a fresh start ahead in Boston.  

The episode closes with Harriet calling out for “Mommy and Daddy” as Jackson pulls April into a hug before leaving to prepare for their move, and April folds perfectly into his arms where she is supposed to be.  Fingers crossed for new horizons.  Maybe they finally did get their timing right.

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 208

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 10 - “It’s Here! The Power of the Blue Rose!" Date watched: 16 April 2021 Original air date: 6 April 2008 Screenshots Transformation Gallery Project info and master list of posts

~mysterious~

Scorp knows his days at Eternal are numbered if he doesn’t get his act together, so he and Bunbee conspire on their most devious plan yet, pushing the Precures to exhaustion. But at the eleventh hour, a savior appears.... let’s dig in!

The Plot

The girls are hanging around at Natts House on a day off, goofing around, when suddenly the Rose Pact starts to glow intensely. The group assumes it’s King Donuts at first, but he’s already standing beside it. Instead, Flora emerges, and the opening credits play.

After the intro, she warns them that darkness is gathering its strength to tear apart the Red Rose, and they’ll need to bring together the power of the Red and Blue Roses. Somehow, her message manages to be both literal and cryptic at the same time. As quickly as she appeared, she disappears back into the Rose Pact, leaving everyone to stew on her words.

Meanwhile, at the Eternal Mansion, Scorp comes to deliver his report to Anacondy and finds Bunbee eavesdropping outside of her office. Bunbee mentions he heard her say something about an underground storehouse, which scares Scorp. After handing over his report, he talks privately with Bunbee and explains that Eternal is unforgiving to employees who fail to perform, condemning them to an underground labyrinth for all eternity. Bunbee freaks out hilariously, but Scorp tells him that he has a plan to save both of them.

We rejoin the girls at school, tending to the lawn with the rest of the student body (cultural note: Japanese students are usually responsible for the upkeep and general maintenance of their schools). They discuss Flora’s prophecy, somehow having a conversation despite all being a considerable distance from each other and facing different directions.

They recognize that the Red Rose being torn apart refers to them, but they still don’t know much about the Blue Rose. Nozomi assures everyone that everything will be fine, because they always pull through. She gathers her friends to hold hands in a circle, hearkening back to when she rescued them from the Kowaiina masks in the previous season.

Syrup and Coco show up to further discuss the warning. Syrup is very cynical but Coco, who knows firsthand the kind of trials the girls have overcome before, reassures him, and they agree to walk home together with the girls after school. The wind blows, scattering some rose petals, which leads to a transition to Natts House where Nuts picks up some rose petals of his own. He flashes back to an earlier conversation between the fairies about Flora’s prophecy, where King Donuts warned them that her predictions were absolute and the Precures should be extra cautious. Although not directly confirmed, this is probably why Coco and Syrup were so concerned. Nuts stares at the darkening sky in concern.

After school, the girls wait for their escorts home, but Scorp appears first, sarcastically offering to take them himself. They transform into Precure, but instead of fighting them, Scorp teleports to a short distance away. The team gives chase, and Scorp teleports again as it begins to rain. He continues to teleport, leading the team further and further away from the meeting point. The farther they chase him, the more intense the rain gets. Meanwhile, Coco, Nuts, and Syrup appear at the meeting spot, confused about where the girls are. Suddenly, Bunbee appears before the human fairies, saying that his business is with them as he transforms in an intimidating manner.

Scorp ultimately leads the Precures to an open field, where he finally stops and declares this should be far enough. The girls barely have enough time to ask him what he means before Bunbee teleports beside him, holding Coco, Nuts, and Syrup in their fairy forms, all looking a bit worse for wear. Scorp remarks that they are a part of the collection after all, just not very high on the list, and the two villains laugh. The Cures are all aghast at what’s unfolding, but Dream is the first to snap and charge at the villains, ready to kick their asses and retrieve her friends. However, when she tries to punch Scorp, he teleports out of the way, causing her to lose her balance and fall on the wet ground. Rouge and the other girls rush in to save her and get the fairies back, but they all slip and slide on the wet grass. Scorp and Bunbee just block and repel their attacks and throw them about. It’s a pretty brutal throwdown. At one point Mint charges Bunbee, demanding he give the fairies back, so he maliciously complies by swinging them directly into her trajectory, forcing her to stop her momentum. He takes advantage of this to punch her away. After a thorough trouncing, the girls are in shambles. Scorp remarks that he doesn’t understand their cause at all, because the fairies are too weak to even protect themselves. Naturally the heroines rebut this, saying he wouldn’t understand their bond and the way they support each other, regardless of their physical limitations. Their words fall on deaf ears though, and Bunbee tells Scorp he’s going to go ahead and return to Eternal HQ with his captives (probably should have done that to begin with). Dream and co attempt to give chase, but Bunbee bombards them with his stinger missiles, and the girls are unable to withstand the barrage. Feeling too weak to move, all they can do is stare hopelessly as their old enemy flees with their precious comrades.

Suddenly, the sky clears and a gentle breeze blows, carrying blue rose petals. The source is quickly revealed to be a mysterious girl standing on the peak of a nearby rooftop. The camera slowly pans up, allowing the audience to absorb every detail of her costume before revealing her face. It’s an outfit vaguely reminiscent of the Cures, similar enough to signify that she’s not just an ordinary person. She has long purple hair and if there was any lingering doubt about her identity, she wears a blue rose right in the middle of her chest, as well as smaller ones on her forehead and the backs of her gloves. Her entrance is backed by celebratory triumphant music, making it clear that she’s on the good side.

She orders Bunbee to release Coco, Nuts, and Syrup. When he doesn’t, she jumps over and kicks him hard enough to make him let go. She grabs the fairies in midair and safely returns them to the Precures, who are still taken aback by her sudden appearance. Their mysterious savior doesn’t mince words though, scowling at Dream and telling her she isn’t good enough. Before she can continue her lecture, Bunbee tries to divebomb her, but she turns around and stops him with one hand without batting an eye. She then performs a kick, a block, and an elbow thrust that knocks him backwards into Scorp.

There is a tremendous amount of power in her strikes, even by Precure standards. With the villains indisposed for a moment, the girl in purple returns her attention to the Precures. She sternly reminds them that the most precious treasures are easily lost, and they need to work extra hard to protect them. There’s a sense that she has an attachment to the fairies but it’s not dwelled upon here. As Scorp and Bunbee recover themselves, Dream and the other Cures launch a final attack as well. Lemonade separates the two generals from each other with her Prism Chain, and then Mint and Aqua use their special attacks on them as well. Bunbee teleports out of the way and tries to attack the mysterious girl from behind, but she grabs his arm and yeets him across the field. As Scorp swoops in for another pass, the purple heroine prepares to retaliate, but Dream leaps over her and performs Shooting Star instead. He resists being crushed, but he’s barely able to hold her back. Bunbee urges him to retreat and they reluctantly disappear, leaving Dream to crash head over heels on the ground.

“I’m okay!”

Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua rush to her side along with Coco, Nuts, and Syrup. She says she’s fine. The mysterious girl glares from afar, before turning her back and walking away. Dream notices that she’s gone, and everyone is silently questioning who she was. Some blue rose petals blow past again, and Nozomi ponders whether this girl was the Blue Rose. The scene fades to black and the ending theme plays.

The Analysis

At long last, the payoff to the Blue Rose arc! It’s far from over, but for now, the warrior with the power of the Blue Rose has debuted and that’s what counts. I have a lot to say about our new heroine, but much like the episode, I’ll build up to that.

The pacing in this episode is excellent, it almost feels longer than what it actually is. The suspense builds up throughout the first few scenes as we’re told that the Precures are going to be split, and then separately that Scorp and Bunbee may be condemned to a fate worse than death if they don’t shape up. There’s uncertainty on both sides of the fight, and we soon see the girls ruminating over it in the garden scene. However, after a healthy conversation and considering all the obstacles they’ve overcome so far, they choose not to let it bother them. The team’s unshakeable confidence is enough to reassure Coco, though Syrup is less certain. This is consistent with their differing history with the team. Coco has seen firsthand what the girls are capable of, from overcoming the depths of despair to defeating Despariah by appealing to her humanity, and rescuing the lost citizens of Palmier Kingdom. Meanwhile, Syrup has only more recently gotten involved with the girls’ activities and isn’t aware of everything that they accomplished before he met them when they battled Nightmare, only some of their fights against Eternal, and he’s not sure they can fight back forever. Nonetheless, the callback to the pinnacle moment of the previous season is wonderful and a great reminder of everything the girls have overcome before now, including previous attempts to separate them. They’re stronger than that.

history shows that yes, you will be okay

With the tension being assuaged by the girls’ moment of solidarity, it is quickly reinjected by the following scene, where King Donuts cautions about Flora’s prophecies to the other fairies, and then we are shown Nuts being concerned about everyone, emphasized with some looming clouds. This cues to the audience that it’s not going to be just another battle, so it brings all the fear and concern right back to the forefront, and from there it’s all high stakes. The non-fight with Scorp as he leads the girls away from the school makes it clear that something unusual is afoot, and the next thing we know the fairies are being kidnapped. All of this tension culminates in the intense fight scene in the rain.

However...I found the actual battle to be a bit lacking and underwhelming. Obviously, the writers had to give Eternal the upper hand to allow for the Mysterious Girl to save the day with a badass entrance, that’s just the rules of the genre. Even so, all the Precures made at best one strike each and then fell to the combined force of the villains, when we know from numerous instances of them fighting MOTWs and generals alike that they can tank more than that. Is this the same team that burned the incarnation of despair herself with their power of hope? The same group of girls who defeated the strongest executives of Nightmare? The same Nozomi who befriended her evil clone? (okay that’s technically not canon but I am not letting Dark Dream be forgotten.) Those same legendary heroines, now succumbing to two punches from a mid-level manager? It doesn’t sit well with me. Bunbee’s strategy of using the captive fairies as a shield, knowing the girls wouldn’t want to hit them, was clever. I can understand Mint getting flustered at that moment, but the other Cures I’m less forgiving of.

The wet, slippery ground was a cool idea but the writers/animators didn’t do enough with it for my liking. And not to poke too many holes in Precure villain plots, but if Bunbee had just teleported back to Eternal with the fairies to begin with, they would have had a stronger bargaining chip to get the girls to hand over the Rose Pact. Things do turn around fast when the Mysterious Girl shows up, but even then she also only gets a few good hits in and spends half her screentime lecturing the Cures. Effectively, this is more of a tease of her abilities, her proper debut is in the next episode. I would rather this entire battle, from start to finish, had been a bit more desperate so as to not undersell the main heroines, even when introducing a requisite powerhouse of a new character.

Conversely, from a villain standpoint, Scorp and Bunbee going at it so desperately plays very well. They’ve had an interesting dynamic throughout the show so far, but despite his irritation with Nightmare’s former lackey, Scorp knows both of their jobs are at stake and he explains this to him plainly. After a great comedic overreaction, the next time that we see them when they hatch their plot to kidnap the fairies, they’re all business. You get the sense they’re giving their all for this fight in a way they haven’t before, and that could contribute to the Precures having such a hard time (though they should still be able to do more than they did). The next episode will show that Scorp still has a trump card to play, but he’s trying very hard here to avoid doing so. It’s a refreshing level of intensity for the duo, which in turn makes it incredible when the Mysterious Girl still tosses them around like ragdolls.

One plot point that was a bit unclear to me was Flora’s prophecy about evil attempting to scatter the Red Rose, because that’s not really what happened in this episode. I skimmed summaries through to the mid-season climax and didn’t see anything specific, so it may be more of a general warning that Eternal will try to break them apart, and that they should work with the Mysterious Girl for assistance, as she is the inheritor of the power of the Blue Rose.

Let’s talk some more about the Mysterious Girl. She fights HARD. She single handedly sends Bunbee flying across the field twice in about 4 minutes, and the weight of her blows is tangible. They make sure you know she stands apart from the Cures. She can hold off the recurring general with relative ease after he laid out the entire team, and this isn’t just a case of wanting to show how cool the new character is, although that is part of it. She’s going to remain strong and powerful throughout the show, and even in future crossovers. I dare say she’s unrivaled in Precure canon, inasmuch as power levels mean anything (they don’t). I’d also like to note for the record that the reason I only call Milky Rose the “Mysterious Girl” in this review is because that’s how she’s credited.

That’s her credit on the bottom: 謎の少女 (Nazo no Shoujo), literally “mysterious girl”, and her actress is anonymous, which immediately suggests that there’s something to hide. Watch this space over the next few episodes. (I mean, yes, I know who she is, and you probably do as well, but for the time being I’m going to limit this to in-universe knowledge.) Related to the mystery of her identity is her connection to the fairies and the Precures. She seems to be familiar with them at least, as she offers a kind, knowing smile when she rescues Coco, Nuts, and Syrup, then turns around and lectures Cure Dream about protecting him. Maybe I’m reading too much into the subtext, but I picked up a hint of implicit “You’re always like this”. For some reason she’s always glaring at the Cures, especially Dream, which conjures to mind another less than ideal relationship Nozomi has. When combined with the preceding episodes, there’s just enough evidence to suggest who the Mysterious Girl is without making it completely obvious, and when you do know, you can identify more key patterns, and her fight against Bunbee becomes much more personal.

Her outfit bears similarities to the Precure uniforms, but is also distinct enough from them to carve her out as a unique entity.

She wears a white two piece dress with magenta trim on the skirt and shoulder straps, as well as some lacing down the front in lieu of the jacket of the team’s uniform. I already mentioned the number of blue roses on her dress, but if you think that’s on the nose, wait until next time. She is not subtle. The separation between the top and skirt forms a V shape that exposes her navel, a la Cure Black and Cure Dream from their first seasons. She shares the color-coded shorts under skirt design sensibility of the main five, also inherited from their predecessors Cure Black and Cure Bloom. She has three-tiered shoulder pads that again are more reminiscent of those worn by the various Futari Wa Cures than the style of the current team. Her arm guards are two pieces, with the portion from her palms to forearms being the same style as the Precures’, but she also has a  white sleeve underneath it that extends all the way up to her bicep, and again has magenta trim. Most uniquely, she wears a thin, wire-like tiara that extends to the sides and back of her head, which along with some ribbons splits her hair off into two side sections that augment the main portion. It still all flows downward, but the side sections have a visible divide at their point of origin and give her a unique silhouette, somewhat like a set of ears, before the hair recombines down her back. She also wears pearly teardrop (or perhaps flower petal) shaped earrings, in contrast to the butterfly earrings worn by the main five. As usual, her eye color matches her theme color, in this case magenta eyes that are a shade lighter than the accents on her dress. All put together it’s a striking look and as a big fan of the color purple, I admire the outfit.

In the art and animation department, this episode is fairly good. There’s a few really standout shots, such as the one below, while most of the episode falls into average territory, and there’s a small number of sequences that are really lacking. Unfortunately, the fight in the rain is among these. However, some visual gems make up for it. The entire garden sequence is pure delight. It’s well-lit and places the girls in a welcoming environment, which helps to offset the doom and gloom of the rest of the episode.

This arc shot is a wonderful piece of animation. That’s not easy to do. Famously even The Lion King struggled with a similar shot, so while Precure doesn’t pull it off amazingly, there’s still effort. They change the angles on the characters slightly rather than just doing a lateral tracking shot with a loop, which is something they have been known to do before. Last episode in fact. However, there’s one aspect that stretches the imagination, in this show about middle school girls transforming into superheroes in frilly dresses to fight an evil corporation of monster people. And that aspect is that they are way too far apart from each other in the garden scene to be able to effectively communicate. They’re all facing different directions and are easily several feet (or meters) apart, their conversations would either be lost in the wind, or they’d have to call out loudly enough for everyone around them to know what they’re talking about.

Okay yes this is a stretch but it was funny to me.

Put everything together and you’ve got a tense, moody episode with an upbeat middle section that technically ends positively, but finishes with a hollow ending. This is an effective tool that leaves you wanting more without being an abject cliffhanger. It starts strong and ends well but has a subpar climax, being unable to fully deliver on its own promises. Nonetheless I like it, it’s a dramatic turn from the laid back last few episodes and a transition into the meat of the series. It’s not Precure at its best, but it’s quite solid.

Next time, it’s Scorp’s final stand and the Mysterious Girl’s first true fight. You won’t want to miss it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 kettei!

And now at long last, after 620 days since I started writing about YPC5 on the blog, and 244 days since my first Go Go review, I can finally uncover Milky Rose on my banner! Rejoice!

hopefully I can get to Fresh by 2022

[thebibliomancer]

Tides of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 7

Tides of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because I need to get back into it. Being on a trip really kicked me off my momentum. Something about a boat? Some Gelfling?

Last times on book: Amri, Kylan, Tavra, Naia, and new party member Onica set sail on a quest from Aughra and/or the Crystal to unite all the Gelfling clans in resistance to the Skeksis. Presuming the Vapra good and united thanks to the All-Maudra claiming support, the group heads to Cera-Na next to appeal to the Sifa Madura Ethri. On the way, Amri learns some swording and Kylan learns some sailing. A good time is had by all except for all the hurt feelings.

Chapter 7

Amri and co meet with Maudra Ethri but don’t quite get the response they’re hoping for.

"Though Sifa ships may sail alone for many trine at a time, we always return here... and when Omerya is in port, we are all home again,” Onica explained ass he brought them into port and tied the ship to one of the many white coral spires rising from the coastal floor.

Love it. Love the lore. Love the description later of Cera-Na being a forever changing city of ships depending on which ones are at port.

Love the description of the Sifa “looking like wind and fire” due to their red hair sometimes streaked with black or blue or turquoise.

And I love Amri realizing that the Sifa also welcomed Gelfling from other clans as well and recognizing attributes of Spriton or Drenchen or Vapra.

“That is the beauty of Cera-Na, and Sifa tradition. We are bound together not by blood or by the confines of the earth. We are bound together by heart and by the changing wind. If the prophecies and signs say one must become Sifa, one does. We accept that.”

Given that its an explicit trait of the Sifa, I wonder how the other clans view intermarriage. In the comics Mayrin married a Sifa. In the books, Tavra is totally dating one to her mother’s disapproval. Kylan is of mixed Spriton and Stonewood heritage.

Would Rian have faced resistance from her family if Mira hadn’t exploded into goo?

We’re getting descriptions of Gelfling who have heritage in multiple clans like its an unusual thing so I guess the clans marry internally as a matter of course. Castle guarding is an unusual situation that would expose Gelfling to those from other clans. The Sifa interact with a lot of clans due to traveling around.

Anyway.

They run into an old friend of Onica’s, Tae, “a freckled Sifa with golden-red hair” (gosh she sounds pretty) and they get to chatting. Even though Tavra has been hanging in Onica’s hair and whispering to her this entire time, she doesn’t pipe up or identify herself when Tae gives Onica her condolences over what they heard happened to Tavra.

Onica tells Tae that she needs to speak to Maudra Ethri and Tae says she’ll try to arrange it but warns that Ethri has been preoccupied with a dot dot dot guest and with a thief on the loose.

Man, this feels exactly like rolling into town and getting hit by a whole bunch of sidequests all of a sudden. I really wish there was an open world Dark Crystal RPG. Choose a clan to start with to get a neat clan perk, that sort of thing. Alas.

Tae and Onica turn away from the group to have a whispered exchange, annoying Naia greatly, and then Tae scampers up into the Omerya.

She then waves them inside and they follow her through the maze of passageways up to the deck. Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, Amri is reminded of Domrak and sees a hearth, thinking to himself thats the common thing between all Gelfling clans, that their center is the hearth before noticing that the hearth is cold and hasn’t had a fire in a long time.

Hmm.

A Sifa came striding from an exit across the deck, every step jangling with metal chimes and bells. She had wild, dark crimson-and-black hair, accented with glittering beads and copper wire, ears strung with gemstone earrings. One of her green eyes sparkled more than the other, catching the light like a stone.

“Gem-Eyed Ethri,” Tae said with a curt bow. “Maudra to the Sifa of Cera-Na.”

She also sounds pretty.

Ethri surprises the non-Onicas by being so young, being the same age as Onica and having grown up with her. And also that her very sparkly eye is actually a gemstone jammed into her head. I guess Gem-Eyed isn’t just figurative language. And if you’re going to need a false eye anyway why not go for the glitter?

The maudra asks what they need to talk to her about and after confirming that Ethri has seen the plot recap flower petals, Naia bluntly asks if the Sifa will join them.

“Join you?” the Sifa maudra asked, as if she didn’t understand the question.

Naia frowned, taken aback. “If you don’t believe us...”

“I believed the instant I saw the dream stitched in the pink petals. But you’re asking me to pledge myself to... what, you? To Aughra and Thra? If I agree to join you, who am I even joining? How will we know when the time is right - is it you who will tell us? Is this a war or an idea?”

Huh. The unite the clans thing is a little short on details actually, yeah.

Amri feels like Maudra Ethri is laughing at them and is about to get confrontational when Onica tells Ethri that its all true, that she saw the dream herself, that Aughra gave them the mission, and that the All-Maudra is on board.

But Ethri says Doubt. Hey if you have the Vapra, why do you need me? And if its so important why didn’t Aughra ask her directly? So this unitification thing is nice and all but Ethri is just going to go do what’s best for the Sifa and the other clans can do whats best for themselves too.

“Be assured?” Amri cried. He bit his lip, trying not to speak out of turn, but he couldn’t help himself. “The Skeksis are eating our people. That’s the long and short of it! Devouring us like moss from the cave wall!”

Ethri waves off his outburst and tells them that she has to get back to her important guest. She dismisses the group, tells them that they can spend as much time as they like in Cera-Na before they dash off to try to convince another maudra, and then asks Onica to stay behind for a word.

Onica tells them to go on ahead, that this isn’t the Ethri she knew and that she’ll try talking to her. An apologetic Tae reappears to show them out.

After the group minus Onica is alone, Tavra finally shows herself (having been transferred to POV Amri when the group was leaving).

Amri asks why she’s been hiding and Tavra replies simply “I don’t want people to know.” Whatever emotion or motive attached to that hidden beneath her usual Tavra stoicism.

Tavra tells the three to return to Onica’s ship and wait there while she sneaks aboad the Omerya and tries to spy out who Ethri’s mysterious guest is. Then in the morning, they’re going to force Ethri to commit to the united Gelfling.

“Force her!” Naia exclaimed, surprised and impressed. “How?”

“You’re not the only one whose mother is maudra. There is a reason the Vapra have led the seven clans since the rise of the Skeksis rule.”

So, look, that sounds like you’re going to try to pull rank on her which I feel is going to go not how you’d prefer.

Anyway, she tells them to stay out of trouble while she’s gone but she should know better by now. When has this group ever listened to her about staying out of trouble? The instant she’s gone, Amri suggests going to the beach (mostly because he’d prefer to be on solid ground instead of a ship).

Amri gestured, away from the Omerya and Onica’s ship. “I think we should do what all good Gelfling do when something strange is afoot in a strange land. Seek answers.”

Naia grinned in agreement. Apparently she wasn’t eager to retire to the ship, either.

“Great,” she said, leading the way. “Let’s find ourselves some trouble.”

See?

Tavra’d be better off instead just point blank asking them what they plan to do instead of listening to her. That way she’ll know where to find them later.

[farouchelyoptimistic]

Hyunji: Rekindle

Part 1

"So, you're telling me, I should move to another agency? I still don't get it." Yea Ji leans back on her seat as she tries to wrap her head around what the CEO of the company she's under is trying to tell her.

She fully understood what they were saying, but what she wanted to understand was why. She had been under this company for nearly ten years, ever since she had started her career in the business. She knew everyone from the first floor up to the last floor up top. And everyone knew her inside and out. The familiar staff around her was considered family.

And now, at the near end of her contract, instead of talking about renewal, they were talking to her about transferring to another company, a company that hasn't even been established yet.

"It's not like we want you to move, Yea Ji-ah. But their offer is great for you and you'd surely benefit from it a lot. They were formal enough to invite you by contacting us first, and I personally appreciate it." Her boss starts, leaning over the table with his hands clasped together.

"We've been taking care of you for so long, and we would love to do so for some more. But they're offering you something we couldn't get you ourselves. You're like my daughter, and I want the best for you. Even if it means letting you go. Gold Medalist will be established January next year, it's new but it has massive foundations and connections. They're also co-producing a drama under TVN, and they would want you to be the lead if ever you join them. I've heard about the script, Yea Ji-ah. It's going to send you into a breakthrough, one you've been waiting for. This is good. It's hard to let you go, but this is what's best for you. And, after the drama, if they don't treat you half as much as we do, come back to me. We'll have you back in a heartbeat. "

She almost wanted to cry at her boss' words. How could someone, totally unrelated to you, treat you with so much care. She thought about it for a few minutes, silent as she sat in her chair buried in her thoughts.

She had trusted them for so long, and they had never lead her to anything that was bad for her. If they were so sure about this, then there was no reason she shouldn't.

The pen felt heavy in her hand when she signed the exit contract. This was it. She was cutting ties with the company that had handled her for so long. Adding to that, leaving the people that surrounded and took care of her felt nothing more than melancholic. It felt like saying goodbye to her family.

But she believed that it wasn't the end. They were still going to see each other at some point, treat each other as long time friends. They have already carved out a space for them in her heart, and it was theirs forever.

She spent the remaining months of the year traveling and staying at home with her dogs. Somehow, she enjoyed her unemployment. She was basically jobless, not forever, but she tried to enjoy it as much as she can.

Her schedule was usually demanding and draining, sometimes sucking the life out of her. But she also enjoyed the rush, and the thrill and even the sleepless nights and days. More to it, she enjoyed mastering her craft, improving her skills, and developing her prowess. And most especially, she enjoyed putting a smile on her fans' faces. That was the most important thing.

Funny how she never even considered acting as a choice before. She went to a different country to study and finished a totally different degree. When she came home, it came as a surprise also to her when she started working as an actress. Destiny, probably.

Acting was not her choice, acting chose her. Good thing she had a natural knack for it, born with the gift of excellence in anything she dived into. She was a natural-born actor, exemplary in the craft that had grown on her. She had learned to love it.

She was fairly underrated. Mainly because she had started later than everyone else. Compared to others whom everyone saw grow up in their screens, she was still seen as a fresh face, shadowing her magnificent talent.

The awards and all the recognition meant nothing to her though. It was merely unimportant. She wasn't in the game for fame, she was in it because she enjoyed playing. Strengthening her skills, bettering her capabilities. That's what was important for her. Improving, getting better. She wasn't someone who settled for less and provided for less. She wanted to be better, not only for herself but also for her co-actors and the people who are looking up at her.

She was happy with her career already, but the breakthrough her old boss talked about made her feel a little excited. Who doesn't want a breakthrough? She's read the script for the drama they were offering her and it gave her goosebumps. It was going to be a challenging character, but it was complexly marvelous. She always loved a challenge, and this one was a challenge she was willing to take.

That's what she thought about as she walked through the unfamiliar halls of her new company. It was a new environment she needed to get used to.

It was a new journey, she thought. And she'll make sure it was a journey worth traveling.

Signing the contract was quick. The new people that were meant to take care of her seemed kind, and they all welcomed her with warmth. She almost felt like they were family now, a new family.

Just as she makes her way to leave the conference hall, the door opens, sending everyone turning their head to one direction.

What came in after was something she never expected. Someone, rather. Her feet were stuck on the ground, heart rate gradually raising, hammering against the walls of her chest.

"Annyeonghaseyo!" The familiar voice filled the silence.

She hadn't noticed that she was holding her breath until she felt her chest ache from the lack of oxygen. This was what he did, not only to her, but to everyone. He took people's breath away. His presence replacing the air in the lungs.

When he locks his eyes with hers, her breath falters out in a shaky blow.

Those eyes.

"Kim Soo Hyun!" Her new boss exasperates, a loud laugh following as he welcomed him with a hug. She could only stare, watching them exchange hugs and greetings. She swallowed an invisible lump in her throat because just like her, his eyes never left hers.

"Yea Ji-ah, I'm sure you know our Soo Hyun-ah here." The CEO's voice thunders inside the room as he gently pulls Soo Hyun with him, walking towards Yea Ji who was statued in her spot.

She summons all the strength and might from within her and clears her throat lightly. She forces out a smile, nodding her head politely.

"Sunbae-nim." She eyes him for a spilt second, nodding once more.

It almost takes him aback. Sunbae-nim. Oddly, the way she addressed him bothered him. It had been five years since she first called him that, the memory crystal clear in his mind. He could never forget the first time he heard her voice.

What he didn't expect was how she's back to calling him that. It had been embedded in his mind the way she used to call him Soo Hyun Oppa. How it felt warm and comforting whenever she did, how it brought a certain degree of serenity. But now, it felt like they were meeting once again for the first time. Back to square one. Total strangers. The barren coldness in her voice made him feel empty.

He forces out his own smile, though reluctant. He nods his head, unable to look away from her.

"I heard you two worked together a few years ago." Both of them nod in unison. The memory of the ad they shot a few years ago flood their memories. The first time they met.

"De. Just for a quick ad." It was Soo Hyun who decided to confirm. Glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

"Well, if you accept the role, Yea Ji-ah, you guys would be working again."

"What do you mean?" Finally, Yea Ji found her voice.

"Well, he's the male lead of the drama we're offering you. If you choose to accept it, then you guys would be the main leads. So, I really hope you accept it, Yea Ji-ah. Both of you look so good together." Their boss nods his head as he looks at them back and forth.

She could only nod. She was totally taken aback by the information poured over her. Work together, both of them. Again. If only someone else knew about what happened the last time they worked together.

After a few more small talks, she finally managed to excuse herself. Her new boss bids his farewell with a warm fatherly hug, wishing her good luck and anoother triumphant welcome. She only looks at the man behind him, slightly nodding her head before she slides past the long table and walks out the door.

She releases a breath once she was out. She knew it wasn't impossible to run into him at some point. They were revolving in the same world, same business. It was inevitable. But she successfully managed to work without having to cross paths with him for so long, that when she met him today, totally unprepared and overwhelmed, she felt a slight rattle in her stomach.

And now, she was signed in the same agency with him, and may or may not work with him too. It felt like a train was rushing towards her in full gear, ready to slam against her out of her wits.

She was barely ten steps away from the door when someone suddenly grabs her hand. She immediately turns around, the shock making her jolt on her feet.

"Yea Ji. . . . ssi."

She stammered at the sight before her. Kim Soo Hyun, holding her wrist, so gentle and warm. His eyes were fixed on her, watching her as she looks down on his hand against her skin.

He immediately lets go, wary of the rationality of his impulsive action. He swallows an invisible lump, placing the hand he once had on her to the back of his nape. He suddenly felt warmth creep up to his cheeks, shy. He felt flustered with her presence and the way her eyes pierced through his.

There was something new in the way her orbs glowed. It was different from the ones that were blanketed with sullen shyness and sweetness. It was still there alright, but now there was something new. Confidence, a lot of them.

It made him weak in the knees. Flustered. Swivet. Now, he felt like he couldn't look her straight in the eyes. He can't even bring himself talk clearly.

"Uhm, " He lets out a breath. "Yea Ji-ssi. Do you want to go grab something to drink? They serve good coffee at the cafeteria." He tries to hold her gaze, but it was so intense he felt like he needed to look away.

He needed to look away to stop himself from advancing into something that might just freak her out. And that's the last thing he wants, freak her out.

Coffee. She almost wanted to chuckle. It also started with a cup of coffee. She unconsciously bit her bottom lip, thinking it through.

"You know, for old time's sake?" His anxiety was growing as he anticipated her answer. He was slowly trying to ready himself for whatever her answer is, slightly terrified if she said no.

She let's out a breath. For old time's sake. There was no reason to deny an old friend, acquaintance rather, a cup of coffee to share. It was just coffee. Well it was what she thought a few years ago too. Just coffee.

This time though, it's just going to be coffee. It had to be.

When she nods her head and releases a small smile, he almost wanted to jump up and down, fist the air like he did the first time she agreed to have coffee with him.

Shoving the fireworks of feelings erupting in him to the back of his head, he smiles. Stepping aside to lead her the way. She took cautious steps beside him, the fat obvious distance between them is failed to be unnoticed. But he doesn't push. He doesn't speak. He tries to bask in the silence between them, it wasn't as comforting as it was before, but it was with her, so he'll take it.

"Here." He enthusiastically pushes the glass door open, letting her enter first. Immediately, the smell of the freshly brewed coffee fills her nose, making her smile. She loved coffee. It never failed to comfort her in any way.

He found himself significantly jumpy, yet careful. He runs pass her, pulling a chair for her. He smiles, eyeing her shyly as she courteously nods, sitting down as he gently pushes it back.

He basically runs to the counter, ordering two cups of iced coffee. Watching her from behind, made him stop in his tracks. Her black silky hair cascaded down her back, sparkling under the sunlight that seeped through the glass walls.

Just as he remembered her, she sat with her back straight, her broad shoulders flat and hands clasped together on her thighs. She was anxious. She was like that the first time he had coffee with her.

And for some reason, it pulled out the melancholy in him.

He smiled through it as he carefully slides the cup of coffee towards her. He eyes her for a second as he took a seat, looking down immediately. She mumbled a soft 'thank you', her low voice sending a calm chill down the pit of his stomach.

His foot continued to tap against the tiled floor, his eyes fixed on his cup, his fingers holding it tight. He was nervous. Yet, he was excited.

Letting out a breath, he finally looks at her fully. Her light make up accentuated her features, her smooth glass skin glowing. She was beautiful, she has always been. And like she did the first time he saw her, she took his breath away.

He couldn't help but smile.

"How have you been?" He bites his bottom lip, anticipating her response.

She smiles. She's been trying to hold it in for a while, but she couldn't help it anymore. She smiles.

"I've been doing well. I guess you have too. I've heard you just got discharged from the military. Congratulations." She tells him with genuine sincerity, looking straight into his beautiful brown orbs.

He smiles, nodding his head. He had a scarcity of words. When he heard about her joining the company, he had thought of a million things he could say to her. Now that she was merely less than a meter away from him, he had nothing. He was enticed by her presence.

He didn't have this problem before, because whenever he had nothing to say, he would listen. He would sit in front of her, listening to her talk. She has the most beautiful, most attractive voice. And she loved to talked.

She talked endlessly whenever she was with people she was comfortable with, and he used to bask in the serenity and the calm that her voice brought. Her silence made him weary, has she lost the comfort she once felt for him long ago?

"It's nice to see you. It's been a few years since. . . . we" Broke up?

"Went our separate ways." She finished his sentence for him. She knew he had thought about saying they 'broke up' but they didn't.

It wasn't considered a breakup when they weren't anything, to begin with. They had just decided not to proceed with anything and went separate ways. It was complicated, but it was a mutual decision. Both agreed upon.

What happened to them was like fireworks. Sudden, beautiful and electrifying, yet short lived. It was a beauty not meant to last.

"Anyways, welcome to the company. I hope you consider taking the role, it would be nice to work with each other again. I would love to work with you." He says, hoping she feels the same way. It was true, he wanted to work with her. He had secretly watched all her movies, all her dramas, even the variety shows she was in.

She was a gem in the industry, and he hated how underrated she was. He saw how marvelous of an actress she is, and as an actor, he would love to work with someone with such dynamics.

It was just a bonus that it was her as well.

"I'll think about it. It would be an honor to work with you too, Sunbae-nim." She says, reluctantly nodding her head. There's so much to think about. So much to consider. But she was enticed by the complexity of the role that it would be so hard to let go of the thought of playing it.

As much as she would want to deny it, acting alongside him is inviting. He was a seasoned actor, talented and marvelous in his own right. The opportunity is one of a kind.

"Yea Ji-ah." The informality surprised her, making her stare. Making her heart make a small flip inside her chest.

"We were friends. We shouldn't be too formal. We are friends. Let's be friends? I-I want to be your friend. Yea Ji-ah." His voice almost started to tremble.

He was aware of how much she's changed. Evolved. She was already intimidating back then, now she was more than that. He almost felt like she was out of his league. And it slightly terrified him.

His breath falters when she pushes her chair back, fishing her phone to read a message. She stands up and politely nods her head.

He stares at her in bewilderment, slowly pushing himself up. His heart suddenly raced and slammed. Was she rejecting his offer of being friends?

He was about to say something, anything. But he doesn't get the chance because she smiles at him. Small but genuine.

"See you around, Soo Hyun Oppa."

He lets out a breath. A breath of relief as he watches her turn around and walk away. Dumbfounded, slightly, but he releases a triumphant smile.

The universe had been fairly cruel to them, but maybe it wasn't entirely. Sometimes the world breaks things apart so they could grow individually, so that when it's time to bring them back together, they would form an unbreakable beautiful whole.

[what-is-your-plan-today]

CSI Rogers and Barnes: The Serious Cereal Serial Killer  Ep 14- Second Star To The Right

Co written with @icanfeelastormbrewing​

Episode Summary: The team desperately try to figure out where Rumlow has taken Katie, and their investigation leads them to a place that’s a little far from home and a very familiar face to one of the team in particular…

Episode Warnings: Bad Language words.

Episode Pairings:  Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Song for Episode: Stars by Simply Red

A/N: Who’s up all night to get Loki??? As always we live for re-blogs and comments

CSI R&B Masterlist //  Main Masterlist

Can’t you see that I wanna fall from the stars, straight into your arms.

Steve, Bucky and Thor sat in the squad car as it raced through the streets of Brooklyn, sirens blazing.

“Can this thing not go any faster?” Steve looked at Thor, his tone snappy.

“I know you're worried about little Stark, Captain, but we don't want another car accident do we?” Thor replied to which Steve gave a frustrated growl but before he could snap again his phone rang.

“What have you got Nat?” he demanded.

“Stark’s car left the precinct” She confirmed “And it pinged a few ANPR cams along the route so she was definitely heading to the lab.”

“Thanks Nat.” he sighed “Do me a favour, call Tony will you? Get him to head outside, see if her car is there.”

Without another word he cut the call and focussed ahead once more. At least they knew she had left, and they were following the right tracks. Even if it seemed to be taking forever.

“Are you flooring it?” he said exasperatedly.

“I can assure you I am driving as fast as I can.” Thor replied and from the backseat Bucky noted the patience in the blonde officer’s tone.

“I should have gone with her.” Steve slammed the palm of his hand over the front of the dash in front of him. “Why didn't I insist and for once ignore her fucking stubbornness?”

“’Coz you're a stubborn ass as well.” Bucky said gently, attempting to lighten mood a little.

“Buck, just don't...please.” Steve sighed.

His phone started to ring again. He glanced at the screen and swallowed, before he answered.

“Tony…”

“Her car is here but there’s no sign of her.” The scientist spoke quickly. “There's a bag on the floor, an evidence bag...”

“Fuck!” Steve cursed loudly.

“Cap…” “Just hold fire Tony.” Steve pinched the bridge of his nose “We’re not far off, I’ll explain when we arrive but don’t let anyone touch her car or the evidence ok?”

He cut the call and turned to look at Thor then Bucky “Rumlow must have gotten to her at the lab. But how the hell did he know she was gonna be there?”

“I'll call Nat.” Bucky said, “Tell her to check the Traffic footage carefully, see if it looks like she was being followed.”

Steve tapped his phone against his palm, nervously as Thor continued to speed through the streets, the traffic parting for them as the sirens and lights were both blazing and flashing respectively. With every rise and fall of the wail, he was repeating Katie’s name in his head, like a mantra. The thought that Rumlow had her somewhere was enough to knock him physically sick and the fear of what he could be doing to her cascaded over him in waves which were drowning him, suffocating him. He could feel the rising panic in his chest growing stronger and stronger and he closed his eyes, struggling to keep control of his breathing. He felt a hand on his shoulder, strong fingers squeezing softly. Just once. But that was all it took to bring him back from the brink of sliding under the surface of his panic completely and he glanced round at Bucky who simply gave him a reassuring nod.

After what seemed like an age but was, in reality, little over 15 minutes since leaving the Precinct they arrived at the lab. Thor had hardly brought the car to a stop when Steve was out, heading over to where Tony was stood, waiting by Katie's car.

“What the fuck is going on Cap?” he demanded, glaring at Steve.

“Rumlow.” Steve gulped “I think he's taken her Tony.”

Tony looked at Steve, blinking before he shook his head. “No…that’s…” he held Steve’s gaze and Bucky noticed the almost identical looks of devastation the two men wore. There were no smart quips from Tony to Steve as usual, nothing but a stunned silence which in itself was enough to tell everyone how upset the man was. Knowing that Steve wasn’t faring much better, Bucky decided to step up into his second in command role and glanced up, taking a relieved breath when he spotted what he was looking for.

“Tony.” he spoke clearly and the man turned to him as Bucky pointed to the CCTV cameras “Do those work?”

“As far as I'm aware.” he nodded.

“Ok, let's start there.” Steve said, Bucky’s observation kick starting his brain. He turned to Thor and pointed to Katie’s BMW “Thor, keep the scene secure.” “I’ll send Banner out to take a look.” Tony declared before the 3 men headed inside. No one spoke until they reached the main part of the lab and no sooner had the door closed when Tony rounded on Steve, his eyes blazing.

“How is this possible?” he spat, his finger jabbing Steve in the chest “How did you let this happen Rogers?”

“I didn't.” Steve sighed, his head dropping as shook it sadly from side to side.”I didn't let anything happen Tony.”

“Well Rumlow obviously knew where and how to take her and you didn't foresee any of it!”

“I don't know Tony ok?” Steve’s voice cracked as his blue eyes locked onto the dark irises of Tony’s holding his gaze as he assured Katie’s brother “But I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back”

“Sometimes I admire your giddy optimism” Tony shook his head.

Bruce who had been watching the pair of them from his desk gently walked across the lab, his white coat billowing slightly around him. “Erm what’s the rumpus?”

Bucky once more took the initiative and jumped in as he could see Steve was tearing up. “Katie has been taken Bruce, we suspect by our killer, Rumlow. Her car is in the parking lot but there's no sign of her.”

“Which reminds me Banner, I need you and Pete to go down and give it a sweep.” Tony turned to look at him. “And just so you know, if it takes all night, you stay all night…” “I didn't pack my toothbrush.” Bruce said in an attempt to lighten the mood but it fell flat.

Peter, in contrast, enthusiastically nodded “Yes Mr stark...whatever you need.”

The two men bustled around, grabbing what they needed for their kits before they scooted out of the lab.

“Tony…” Bucky turned to him “We need to speak to security and view the CCTV of the parking lot.”

“Yes…” Tony said, clapping his hands together, his left hand worrying the finger of his right “Jarvis, he’s our head of security…”

Steve was hearing words but not taking anything in. He was aware he was being of no use whatsoever but he felt like all his effort were being taken simply to keep him upright as the ground below was wavering dangerously as if it was going to swallow him at any moment. NO matter what he did, no matter what he tried to focus on the same thought swam to the forefront of his mind-the fate of all the other victims. His girl, his beautiful Star was completely at the mercy of a man who had shown them exactly what he is capable.

And Steve was scared.

Bucky glanced at his friend, saw the look on his face along with his slumped shoulders. He was dejected and he needed kick starting. He knew that all the needed was a glimmer, a slight lead that would give Steve something to focus on and go at like a dog with a bone. But until then Bucky had to keep him from spiralling. And when Steve was like this, the only way to get through to him was being brutally honest.

“There’s no body Steve.” Bucky said bluntly, ignoring the wince Tony gave besides him because he was being blunt on purpose. To drive the message home to Steve that Rumlow wanted her alive for whatever reason, and that worked in their favour. “That's a good thing.”

“I guess you're right.” Steve looked at him “But that doesn't make it any easier or…” “Come on pal, we’ll find her.” Bucky said, clapping his hand on his shoulder and holding his friend’s eyes. But it didn’t have the desired effect. Instead Steve gave a derisive snort and turned his head to the away.

“Yeah, because we've done such a good job of finding Rumlow so far.” he said sarcastically.

“Ok enough.” Tony snapped “We need to move and check that CCTV instead of just standing around here, kicking up a storm...”

Tony led them down to a small office on the 2nd floor which contained a desk and 3 rows of security monitors, each showing a different feed from the various CCTV inputs around the building.

“Jarvis…” Tony spoke and the dark haired man spun to face them, smiling.

“Good afternoon Mr Stark.” he nodded “What can I do for you?” “This is Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes from the 101st.” Tony introduced them.

“Pleasure to meet you Sirs…” Jarvis nodded to them.

“Yeah, erm, we need to see the CCTV of the parking lot. Start from…” Steve glanced at his watch. It was now 10 past 12 and Katie had left the station with the evidence roughly half 9, meaning had she driven straight here she would have arrived at 10 am give or take. “09:45…” Steve said, looking at Jarvis.

“Of course.” Jarvis turned and started to tap at a keyboard.

“Why does he speak like a British butler?” Bucky asked but Steve completely ignored him. As Jarvis brought up the footage, Steve instructed him to scan through and eventually, at 10:02 Steve spotted her car pull into the lot.

“Roll it from there.” he instructed. Jarvis hit play and they all watched the scene play out in front of them. Katie climbed out of her car and no sooner had she done so she was immediately approached by someone dressed in a black hooded top and jeans, their face hidden. Katie dropped the bag and her hands slowly raised to either side of her face, and Steve swallowed as he can see the form of a gun pressed into his girl's back. He watched her carefully, as she was led around the car, to a waiting black Volvo SUV at which point she turned and looked directly at the Camera, making sure it got a clear shot of her face. Then, the kidnapper grabbed her hair and shoved her in the car before slamming the door.

At that point Bucky reached over and hit the pause button.

“I'll get Nat to run that plate.” he said. Steve nodded, running his hand over his face as Bucky stepped outside of the room, phone in his hand.

“Cap need to get her face out there, get everyone looking for her.” Tony looked at him

Steve shook his head “that might risk him doing something stupid…” “More stupid than abducting her in broad daylight?” Tony’ tone was incredulous.

Steve swallowed, Tony had a pretty good point. By doing what he had, taking Katie in such a well monitored spot showed he wasn’t bothered about covering his tracks anymore. This was about ending it, in whatever sick and twisted way he had planned.

“Ok, I’ll have Gina call Fury, get him to speak to the press office” he agreed, turning to Bucky a he walked back into the room.

“The car is registered to a hire company. Clint and Nat are on their way over there now.”

“Thanks Buck. Let’s head back to the station, wait for them there.” “I’m coming with you.” Tony insisted, and Steve didn’t argue.

The Captain spent most of his time on the way back barking orders to Gina on his phone, which meant by the time the strode back into the bull ring of the office she was ready and waiting for him with a print out.

“Any news?” she asked kindly.

“No, not yet.” Steve shook his head.

“I called Fury like you told me to and he sent this over.” she waved the paper. “He said that now Pierce is dead, it seems there's suddenly information available on Rumlow, and that you and Thor should see this in particular.” “Me?” Thor frowned as Tony, Steve and Bucky both turned to look at him.

“Yeah.” Gina nodded. Steve took the paper from her, scanning the information and his mouth dropped open. "Son of a…” he grit his teeth and let out a growl “Seems like we finally found out what prison he was in..." he handed the paper to Thor.

“This…” Thor frowned “This is the same as my brother. He shared a cell with him on Asgard?”

“Asgard?” Bucky frowned.

“Yes it’s a wing of the Nine Realms Prison.” Thor replied.

“When was the last time you spoke to your brother?” Steve asked.

“They day he was charged…almost 4 years ago now Captain.”

“Then suit up, I think it’s time for a family reunion” he said, gravely a he turned to Gina “Call ahead, tell the Warden we are on our way.

***** The Nine Realms was a little further out of town than the Lab so would take a little longer to get there, even with the sirens blazing. Steve remained quiet, lost once more in his own thoughts, his eye flicking to the radio set when it blared out an all Units alert for the car Katie had been taken in.

He groaned inwardly as a sudden realisation hit him. If this was going to hit the news, then there was someone who needed to hear it first. Pulling out his phone he hit the relevant speed dial button.

“Hey Ma.” he said as soon as his Mother answered.

“Hey Son! Make my day and tell me you're coming for Lunch!” her voice was jovial and hearing it broke Steve that little bit more. “Are you bringing Star? I can make another pie and-"

He swallowed thickly “No, Ma, I just called to warn you... “ his voice cracked again and he stopped, forcing himself to keep it together.

“Warn me?” Sarah’s voice was surprised before she suddenly grew stern “What have you done Steven Grant?

“Nothing Ma...just listen.” he pressed “Try not to worry but don't watch the news, please,”

“Steven, you're worrying me. What's happening? Are you ok?”

“Not really. Katie is missing.”

There was a pause before Sarah responded, and Steve could picture the puzzled face she would be pulling on the other end of the phone “What do you mean she's missing? How? What...i don't understand...”

“We were working this case...you know....and... “ his voice choked and at that point he felt Thor’s eyes on him. Unable to hold it back anymore he drew in a ragged breath, trying to quell the sob of anguish that was threatening to rip from the very depth of his heart. Thor gripped his shoulder as Steve scrunched his face up, and he felt the phone being gently pulled from his hands.

“Little Stark has been taken Mrs Rogers. This is officer Odinson by the way...” Thor said, his deep voice calm. “Yes....ok...I understand. Yes madam.”

At that point he looked at Steve who wiped his eyes and nodded, taking the phone back off him. When he spoke again his voice was small, he felt just like that little kid from Brooklyn, way before he had gone off to University. “Ma?”

He could hear his Ma’s sniffles at the other end. “Stevie, darling, I just...”

“Don’t cry…just try not to worry and don't listen to the radio or watch the news. I'll keep you updated, ok?” he said, glad that his voice had returned to normal.

“Ok son. I love you....be careful.” she whispered back.

“Love you too.”

“Oh and Steve?”

“Yeah?” “Bring her home ok?

At that Steve could do nothing but choke out a “Yeah.” before he hung up.

"Don't worry Cap, we'll get her back.” Thor said confidently, looking at him.

“I hope you're right Thor, because I don't know what I’m gonna do if we don't.” Steve mumbled as he glanced down at his phone. His screensaver was a pic of him and Katie taken on their date. He’d changed it the moment he had chance after taking it. They were in Times Square, and he had his arms round her from behind, chin resting on her shoulder, his cheek pressed to hers. Huge smiles lit up both their faces, their eye shining with happiness at finally getting that moment together, to be with one another, admitting what they’d both been too stupid to realise for almost 10 years.

It felt like forever ago since Steve had taken that phone, but it wasn't even a week. In fact, a week ago today they were busy screaming at each other in his apartment after the whole Compound incident with Wanda and Storm, before they ended up furiously fucking against the door. He'd give anything to have her back, just in his arms...

“You and Little Star are destined to be.” Thor’s voice cut through his thoughts. “This will work out Captain, I have faith.”

Steve didn’t bother to tell him that he didn’t believe in fate. Like Howard had always told him, “You make our own luck in this world, Steve.” The problem was, right now he felt like whatever little they had made was fast running out.

**** After going through the usual security check, which took a few minutes because apart from the usual phones, wallets and keys, they were carrying their guns and badges, they were led to the Nine Realms Prison Warden's office. There, Mr. Selvig, who offered to receive them personally seeing as he was Thor's friend, explained to them he had instructed for Loki to be taken to an interrogation room so they could talk more privately and comfortably.

Thus, after a bit of small talk and thanking Selvig again, a prison officer showed them to a room just off the Asgard Wing which was where the troublemaking prisoners were locked. When they entered the room they found Loki sitting at a table, handcuffed to the ring on the surface in front of him. Thor sat on a chair on the opposite side while Steve remained standing.

Despite everything going on, the Captain couldn't help but notice how physically different the two siblings were. While Thor was huge and blond, Loki was slight and dark haired. But then again as Thor had pointed out in more than one occasion when his brother's deeds were brought up in a conversation, Loki was adopted. What was the surname Selvig had mentioned again? Lauki... Laufeyson was it.

"Great to see you brother." Loki said, and Steve was snapped from his thoughts by the silky voice of the prisoner, surprised by the smooth and elegant ways of the man. Was that even a soft British accent he could detect? Had Katie been there she would have surely spotted it, but she wasn't...

Steve tried to brush the negative thoughts out of his mind and focus the conversation between the two siblings.

"I wish I could say the same, Loki. Last time I saw you, you tried to stab me. Again" Thor snarked.

Steve could see Thor certainly wasn't pleased with his brother's behaviour and a stern look adorned his face whereas Loki merely grinned, as if he was recalling the fondest of childhood memories before sighing.

"Yes. I would rather be at home, in a robe, eating grapes but... here I am."

"You're evil, brother. This is where you belong. Father would..." Thor began again, his voice raising with anger.

Steve saw Loki's smug smile fade at the mention of his father, a second before he hissed "He wasn't my father..."

And that was it. Steve lost his temper and walked to the table. He had to get whatever information he could to figure out how to rescue Katie and he felt like the mischievous dark haired man was stalling.

"Ok. That's enough." he said, leaning over with both palms flat on the surface of the table. He looked at Loki, studying him for a few seconds, before softening his glare. "Loki, we need your help."

"What do you have for me in return, Captain Rogers?" Loki asked, studying Steve as well with curiosity.

"You're in no position..." Thor growled.

"Oh, and here I was thinking you came bearing gifts..." Loki said calmly, leaning back on his chair.

"Loki, we know you shared a cell with Rumlow." Steve offered, looking at the man. His voice was steady but his eyes were pleading and he felt like Loki might have sensed it.

"Crossbones." he said, looking at Steve in the eyes.

"What?" he asked.

"Crossbones. That's what he called himself. Rather crude if you ask me but there you are." Loki shrugged and paused at the two men in front of them who were waiting for him to continue "Yes, I shared a cell with him until his release. Now I have a cellmate called Korg. It was a bit rocky at the beginning but we have an understanding now. We discovered we both love the same videogame. It's called Ragnarok and you have to..."

"Brother! About Rumlow..?" Thor cut him off.

"Oh, yes. He was an odd man. Used to mutter in his sleep. Strike was what he would say the most. Always had letters to go into the post."

"He was writing to someone?" Steve asked, suddenly interested.

"Well, I don't think he was writing letters to himself... do you, Captain?" Loki quipped, raising an eyebrow at Steve.

"Who?" Thor asked, visibly irritated at this point.

"How should I know? I can't read minds, I'm not a witch." Loki snapped at his brother.

"Then why do you dress like one?" Thor asked, nodding towards Loki.

"Hey..." he protested.

Steve was getting frustrated by the minute. Last thing in his mind was discussing Loki's choice of attire, which truth be told was conspicuous to say the least. So he pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned on the table again before speaking.

"Loki, we need to know."

"And like I said, I have no idea. He wasn't exactly friendly..."

"You're a murderer, Loki. You killed 18 people in 2 days. You're not the friendliest either” Thor interrupted again.

"Relax brother. You've had a stick up your ass ever since Jane dumped you..." Loki jabbed at his brother.

Thor shook his head in disbelief, as if he couldn't believe his own brother had brought up this old flame of his, and looked at Steve "It was a mutual dumping."

"I don't give a shit." Steve snapped. As far has he was concerned the only love life that mattered, because it was at stake, was his own. He turned to Loki and started pacing the room, trying to calm his nerves, before speaking again. "Rumlow has taken someone very precious to me... I need to know anything you have that may help. Otherwise we're wasting time here."

"Precious, you say? A woman I presume." Loki mused and he then looked Steve up and down, his eyes stopping at the Captain feet "Kneel."

"What?" Steve asked, obviously angry.

"Kneel, Captain. The laces to your boots are undone... I'd hate for you to fall." Loki explained, shrugging.

Steve looked at him for a few seconds, dumbfounded, before glancing down only to corroborate Loki was right and, just as he was about to bend his knee to lace them up, Loki stomped his foot beside him, which startled both, him and Thor.

"Sorry, I had an ant on my boot..."

"Enough of the theatrics, brother! Now tell us what you know!" Thor yelled standing up, his large fist banging on the table.

"Ok, look... he was bitter. Very bitter. Used to mumble all the time in his sleep about revenge and striking back. When I asked him what he meant he said once he was out he had a plan. A plan to take revenge on everyone he deemed to have wronged him. He would pick them off one by one, building up a grand finale." Loki explained, loquacious all of a sudden.

Steve gulped at Loki's words and straightened up, turning away.

"But I can guarantee he wasn't working alone." Loki added, tuning his head to look at Steve's back.

"What?" Steve snapped back round.

"I said I would lay odds on the fact he wasn't working alone. He's not the brightest person I've had the displeasure to speak to... and I would further bet this is who he was writing to. If I was you I would look for someone in your immediate surroundings. Someone with a grudge against you Captain, or maybe against someone you love dearly..."

No sooner had Loki uttered those last words than Steve and Thor shared a glance and the latter growled "Maximoff..."

They burst out of the room without so much of a glance back at Loki, almost tripping on the guard that was perched outside the door, and Steve could hear a faint “You're welcome” but he couldn't care less about manners given the situation. As soon as he had gotten his phone back, he turned it on and called Bucky who immediately started talking, without giving him a chance.

"Steve, listen... Natasha and Clint got back. The car was hired by a woman. Steve... they got a copy of the driver’s license used, and it's a fake name but the photo on it is..."

"Maximoff." Steve finished for him, almost panting as he was running down the prison parking lot, Thor a few steps ahead of him.

"Yeah, how did you..."

"Doesn't matter. Gather the Avengers and meet us at Wanda's place. We're heading there now." Steve ordered.

***** When they arrived at Wanda's apartment block they met Bucky and Tony at the entrance talking to the landlord. Bucky explained they had arrived a few minutes ago and had contacted the landlord on the way after asking Gina to pull some strings from the station to get Wanda's address and the landlord's information. He informed Steve that Clint and Nat would be coming after a while as they were trying to get a search warrant from Judge Hill. They tried buzzing the intercom a couple of times but there was no answer, which didn’t surprise any of them. So, after being let in by the landlord, the three officers ran up the stairs followed by Tony, taking their guns out in the process, until they got to the tenth floor and Thor signalled to Wanda's apartment door.

He looked at Steve, who nodded, before sticking his ear to the door. Thor shook his head after a few seconds.

“Nothing…”

Steve nodded again before Thor and him raised a foot.

“Wait!” Bucky said, and they both turned to him. “Steve, if we go barging in there without a warrant, you could jeopardise the entire case.” “I don’t give a fuck about the case.” Steve shook his head “All I care about is my Girl.” with that he looked back at Thor “One, two…” With that they both raised their right feet and with a large kick each they successfully booted the door in. Steve could tell there was no one in there. But they still waited for Thor who entered first to make a quick sweep and then give them the green light before entering the apartment.

"Spread out. Look for anything that might help. Any evidence Rumlow has been staying here." Steve ordered, Captain Rogers taking over from the concerned boyfriend again.

They started sweeping the apartment looking for something that might belong to Rumlow or that might be evidence of what they were plotting and, most important, where they were planning on taking Katie. If ever there was a plan to take her seeing as the MO in her case had been a little sloppy. They rummaged every drawer and cupboard in the apartment, they even searched the kitchen high and low but nothing came out. At this point Clint and Natasha arrived, Clint clutching the warrant and they started the search but it all seemed rather pointless as they found zero evidence of anything that would help….until Tony spotted what seemed to be a small utility room or toilet which had a lock on the door.

"Really? That easy, Wanda?" Bucky heard Tony mutter when he found him bent over the lock.

"Found something?" Bucky asked.

"Might as well. Have you got a hair pin or something?" Tony asked, standing up straight again.

Bucky looked blankly at him.

"Guess that's a no. Ok, then. Do you think you can boot the door open? S.W.A.T like?" Tony asked.

"Stand back." Bucky answered, before tearing the door open with a swift kick of his foot.

"Good job. I'd have done it myself, but I'm wearing loafers" Tony thanked Bucky.

They both peered inside only to discover that the room wasn't as small as it had seemed from the outside. It was like a spare room with a wardrobe, a single bed, a desk and a chair. Bucky immediately reached for the wardrobe and found a few items of men clothing hanging on the inside.

"Steve!" he yelled.

A few seconds later Steve emerged in the door followed by Thor, Clint and Natasha.

"What's all this?" Steve asked, looking from the wardrobe to the various folders that were on the desk and that Tony was inspecting.

"I bet they're Rumlow's:" Bucky said, nodding to the clothes.

"I'll call the lab and send Banner to process all these. I don't trust anyone else with this.” Tony offered as he fiddled with his phone until Natasha stopped him.

“We already called him.” she said. “He’s on his way.” Tony and Steve both nodded. “Thanks”

Tony picked up one of the folders he had been flicking through, frowning slightly.

"What is it?" Steve asked, nodding to the file held in his hands.

"They're basically pictures but.." Tony trailed off as Steve moved to take a look. He felt the blood pounding in his ears as he looked down.

"Son of a bitch!" he cursed, snatching the pile from Tony's hands. There was shot after shot of Katie and Steve. Most seemed to have been taken outside of his apartment as they headed towards his car, hand in hand. One of them showed Steve giving her a quick kiss before he opened the passenger door for her. Another one showed them leaving the station together. Then there were several of her own, walking out of Tony’s apartment to her car. There were even a few of Katie and Bucky as they headed out of the station together.

“That was Thursday I think…” Bucky mumbled “We went for coffee. This is sick."

Steve’s chest was heaving with the exertion of trying to keep his temper at the photos of in his hands.

"Cap?" Tony called Steve’s attention and he turned as Tony held out another pile he had just inspected. Steve looked at Tony who had gone pale and felt his hand shaking a little as he grabbed the snaps off Katie

What saw as he shuffled through them froze his blood. They were single, close up head shots of each of the other victims, however they were all crossed off by a large, red X drawn directly over their faces. Only one remained still untouched as he reached the end of the pile. Katie's.

Still, Steve thought to himself as he run his thumb over Katie's smiling face.

He looked up as Banner walked into the room, nodding to them all and made his way to Tony who wasn’t listening. Instead he was frowning at another picture he had found, presumably from another pile on the desk.

"Hey Cap.." he said waving it at Steve. Steve looked at it and saw that it was a photo of Pierce and Howard in NYPD training gear, "... isn't this..?"

"Camp LeHigh" Steve confirmed Tony's suspicions "Me and Katie were only talking about that last night... " he trailed of at the memory of his girl cuddled in his arms only a few hours before he pushed it to the back of his mind. "What are Pierce and your dad doing there in their sports stuff?"

"Dad said in the 60s, before it was an activities camp, it was an old army base the NYPD used to use for drills." Tony explained. "They must have been on one when this was taken. But why does Rumlow have it? Why does it mean anything to him?"

Steve then looked at Bucky and swallowed before looking at Tony again whose eyes were glued to the picture.

"Tony... Rumlow is Pierce's son." Steve said, almost whispered.

"What?" Tony asked, his brow furrowed and his eyes wide open in surprise.

"Katie was on her way to tell you before." Steve paused, taking a deep breath "... he got a 16 year old pregnant. She died in childbirth and the child, Rumlow, was adopted. We believe he found out and was using the information to blackmail Pierce over the rape case and later the assault charge on Katie. It looks like your dad found out and..." he trailed off again, shaking his head.

"Spit it out, Rogers." Tony growled.

"We think Pierce killed your parents to keep his secret from getting out. Katie wanted to tell you herself, that's why she was alone when she brought you the evidence..."

Tony fell speechless for a moment, which was something to say the least. Steve saw him blink twice and then look at him  "This...all this is what was on that drive?" he asked,his voice quiet.

Steve nodded but he didn't see what was coming when Tony rushed forward and gripped his shirt tightly. Steve stumbled backwards into the wall in surprise.

"So you're telling me...Pierce KILLED my parents, and now his BASTARD SON has my sister?" Tony hollered at him, his face only a few inches apart from Steve's.

"Tony, I'm sorry." Steve whispered, his face flinching in anticipation for what was coming. And came it did in the form of Tony’s fist connecting straight with the left hand side of his upper lip. Steve’s head snapping to the right as there was suddenly a lot of commotion in the small room as Nat, Clint, Bruce and Bucky both rushed forward. Bucky jumped straight in between the two men as he saw Steve made no attempt to fight back, reverting once more to that little kid from Brooklyn that Bucky was persistently bailing out from fights throughout their entire childhood.

And Bucky knew the reason for that was simple. Steve thought he deserved it. He believed that Tony was right, this was all his fault because Katie shouldn't have been alone.

Bucky held Steve by his arms and shook him slightly to bring him back from the place he was in.

"Hey, are you ok?" he checked.

Steve nodded, pushing him away as he wiped a trickle of blood from his split lip.

"Tony, look, I know you're upset...but this isn't gonna help anyone." Bruce said, his hands on the man's chest as he wrenched his arm out of Natasha’s hold from where she had grabbed it to stop him throwing another punch.

Thor, who had left a few minutes before to speak to his troops at the station, appeared again on the threshold of the door. Bucky saw him take in Steve’s split lip and how Bruce was pushing Tony away, but he didn't pass any comment. Instead, he looked at Steve. "Captain...dispatch called... we have a ping on the plate. It tripped one of the cameras 10 minutes ago on the interstate, heading out to New Jersey."

"Bucky, Thor, we’ll go after it." Steve, ordered.

"I'm coming too." Tony said.

"Tony...I don't." Steve began.

"Listen to me Rogers, that's my fucking sister, so I'm coming." Tony hissed.

"Tony maybe that isn't the best idea...." Bruce intervened.

"Steve, if he wants to come let him, we don't have time..." Bucky urged.

Steve then nodded and ordered Nat and Clint to help Banner get the evidence to the lab, and asked Nat to instruct dispatch to secure channel 7 and keep all related coms through that channel alone.

"Channel 7 secured." Nat said a minute later as she fiddled with a pair of gloves. "What? I can multitask." she said to Banner who was looking at her in amazement.

"Ok. Let's go." Steve said and the four men sprinted out of the building to the patrol car.

"Jump in." Thor ordered as he fired car up.

As soon as they set off heading in the same direction as the suspect car had been travelling in Steve called Fury to explain what they had discovered and where they were headed.

"Leave it with me Captain." Fury assured him once Steve had finished explaining.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Something dramatic I hope. Stark, Maximoff's and Rumlow's photos are currently being sent to all news networks...soon there will be a Nation-wide alert for them and I'll order a code red on the plate of the car too." Fury informed.

"Thank you, Sir." Steve said quietly.

"Keep me up to speed." Steve could almost see Fury nodding fondly.

As Thor sped the car along, weaving through the traffic as it moved out of the way, Steve could feel his anxiety growing and tried so hard to keep the negative thoughts at bay and focus on what they already knew. But he found himself drifting through memories, memories that went way back over the years they’d been friends. Happy memories, tense memories, fond memories, sad memories…none of them he would change for a damned second, and even the shit times he’d go through a thousand times over because it brought him to the now. To being with her, to laying with her, making love to her…

He was pulled out from his thoughts as they got a call on the designated dispatch channel to inform them that the vehicle had been found somewhere on the road to New Jersey. Steve keyed the coordinates into the navigational system and Thor concentrated on following the directions.

After what felt like an age they arrived and were met by two officers from the New Jersey force who informed them the car had been abandoned a few hundred yards or so down the small dirt track off the interstate. Thor took charge in talking to them and as the other three ran to the car, Steve could hear him instructing them to keep area clear as a potential crime scene.

"2 sets of tracks in, 1 out." Tony, who was looking at the ground as they walked towards the car, pointed out.

"So they swapped cars." Bucky surmised.

Steve was already looking around the abandoned vehicle, peering in with his hands on his hips, whilst Tony was getting his kit ready and putting a pair of gloves on. From where he was, Steve could see nothing other than an empty water bottle, but as he moved to check the back seats he noticed something sparking in the light in the footwell of the left hand side. He leaned forward to take a better look as he called for Tony and Bucky, who had also put a pair of gloves on. He was almost sure it was Katie's star necklace.

Steve had an epiphany moment as Tony grabbed the necklace and showed it to him before putting it in an evidence bag before handing it to Steve.

"Oh, Baby...you clever, clever girl...." he breathed out, shaking his head proudly. He smiled at Tony and then wheeled to the officer who was talking to Thor and barked "How far is camp Lehigh from here?"

"About 6 miles sir...but it's been shut for 6 months..." the officer said, not fully understanding what that would have to do with anything.

"Steve what is it?" Bucky asked, sensing the change in Steve's behaviour.

"Everyone, get in the car, now! I'll explain on the way." he shouted as he started sprinting back towards the patrol car.

Thor, Bucky and Tony shared a glance and Tony shrugged before the three of them followed Steve's tracks and all jumped in the car. Steve was already re-programming the sat nav as Thor sat back in the driver's side and fired the engine.

"He's taking her to camp Lehigh...Like Katie said...he's a narcissist...and he's made it personal." Steve turned back to inform Tony and Bucky as he pointed to the navigator for Thor to check it.

"Personal?" Bucky asked.

"Of course. That's the point of all this..." Tony groaned.

"She must have figured it out, that's why she left the necklace behind." Steve said, this time his eyes fixed in the road ahead. His mind picturing the moment Katie sussed where she was being taken and yanked her necklace from her neck.

"Necklace? I'm not..." Bucky asked.

"Me and Katie...we took a trip to the Camp a while back. It's where I bought her the star pendant." Steve cut him off, his hand fisting around the bag in his pocket "... to help her remember that even in the darkest of nights, the stars are always there, even if you can't see them." he explained, choking up slightly at the last part.

She was his star, always there.

Bucky saw he was getting upset again and leaned forward to squeeze his shoulder. "Star spangled man huh? Or should that be Stark spangled man..." he joked.

Steve gave a small smile. Bucky was right, he was the Stark Spangled Man. He had been over the last ten and a half years and was determined to keep it that way even if he had to strangle Rumlow himself with his own hands. He ran that mental image through his mind and felt a strange sense of satisfaction washing over him as the vision of him kicking the shit out of Rumlow hit his brain.

That was settled, he would get his girl back and Rumlow was going to pay for real this time.

When you gotta go, you gotta go and now it was that bastard’s time to go, Steve thought as the car sped towards its destination.

[izzielizzie]

Hi I have a request, but it's VERY au, but I've been thinking about it for a long time. So it's basically this: Maeve and Phoebe are best friends during the OOUIN time, I guess, and Maeve tells Phoebe about her cancer symptoms and her crush on Luis and they're at Brandon's funeral and they sit at a hidden place and Phoebe talks about Maeve's cancer and how she needs to talk to Luis and Addy, Kris, Nate, Cooper, and Luis hear. I think it would be interesting! Thanks love ❤❤ (love ur writing btw!)

ooo wow I love this idea, I’m going to pair this with another one-shot request I got where Brandon Weber is Mr. and Mrs. Rojas’ godson because they know Brandon’s parents, so basically Maeve is forced to go to the funeral to support her parents and because Brandon was her god-brother. Maeve and Phoebe are childhood best friends in this, like you suggested. Enjoy! Also this is the first time I’ve written from Phoebe’s pov so if the narration goes flat for a little while, it’s because I’m still trying to get a hang of her. Also Phoebe is being very sneaky in this fic, sorry, I like, ran out of ideas at some point. Okay I also read this over like two seconds ago it’s been in my drafts for forever basically, and I hate it but also kind of don’t? so let me know what y’all think. 

“Wanna get away?” Maeve whispers in my ear as I sidle up next to her. She looks cute today in a short black dress and leggings, and her hair is down for once. Although maybe noticing that someone looks cute at a funeral is socially unacceptable. 

“Sure,” I say as her hand slips into mine. I squeeze it once, our childhood code word for “are you okay?” that was invented when I visited Maeve in the hospital. She squeezes back with three quick squeezes: not really.

We’re standing between the church pews waiting for the funeral to start. Maeve’s been standing with her parents and Mr. and Mrs. Weber. and she looks so bored it’s actually amusing. 

“Mom, we’re gonna find seats,” Maeve whispers into her mother’s ear. 

“Sure honey,” Mrs. Rojas says absentmindedly patting the top of Maeve’s head. Maeve makes a face. “Oh, hello Phoebe dear,” Mrs. Rojas says wrapping me in a one-armed hug. She’s practically my second mother after having known her since I was three. 

“Hi,” I manage to say back before Maeve yanks me out of the aisle and down the pews to one of the doors leading to the balcony. We pause for a moment, look around, and push through the door when we’re positive no one is watching us. I don’t need to know where we’re going. Maeve and I found the perfect alcove for hiding a long time ago: on the upper part of the balcony on the same side as our family’s pews, where we can see all of the churchgoers, but they can’t see us. It’s saved us from many boring church services.

“I hate it here,” Maeve says once we drop into our usual seats. Maeve scrunches down until all I can see is the top of her head and her feet that she’s propped onto the bannister.

“Of this I am aware.”

Maeve holds her hand up and I take it in both of mine. Hers are too cold. I was honored when Maeve chose me out of all of her friends to tell me about how worried she is about her cancer coming back, but now I’m scared I’m gonna lose her every time I look at her. She’s withering away in front of me and there’s nothing I can do. “Wake me up when this is over.”

“Okay,” I say. The funeral itself doesn’t start for another twenty minutes, and Maeve spends the entire time with her head on my shoulder, her eyes closed. I’m not sure if she’s sleeping or pretending, but I squeeze her hand in mine and lay my head on top of hers. I’m drifting off too when I feel someone tapping my shoulder. I turn to see not only Addy Prentiss standing over me, but Cooper Clay, Nate Macauley, Luis Santos, and Cooper’s boyfriend Kris too.

“Hi,” I whisper.

“Is she asleep?” Addy asks, reaching forward to tentatively run a hand through Maeve’s hair. I glace up at her, and catch sight of Luis looking at her with that longing look he reserves for only her. I love Maeve with my whole heart, but even I have to admit that running out after their kiss was a jerk move. 

“Very,” I confirm.

“She’s so adorable,” Addy whispers as she drops her hand to her side. “We’ll sit back there so we won’t wake her.” She says, waving to the seats a few rows back. I nod as Maeve stirs against me.

“I know,” I whisper back with a nod as Addy steps away. Before I can think much of it I call Nate’s name. 

“Yeah?” He asks, looking at me weirdly.

“Bronwyn’s not here?”

Nate shakes his head. “She couldn’t get a plane here fast enough. Why?”

I shake my head, pursing my lips. I want to tell him and all of Maeve’s friends about her cancer so badly, but I can’t betray Maeve’s trust. She’s been my best friend for thirteen years. I’d be lost without her. 

“I hate funerals,” Maeve mumbles to me a moment later when the priest’s microphone screeches so loudly Maeve startles out of her slumber. 

“I know babe.” 

“God I can’t believe he’s gone,” Maeve says. She shifts a little, her right foot slipping down the banister. 

“Neither can I.” I’m hyper aware of the people behind us even though they probably can’t hear us, and I really hope Maeve doesn’t bring up my relationship with Brandon.

“I feel bad for my parents. I mean, god to lose your godson.”

My head snaps towards Maeve, who’s staring up at the ceiling. “I forgot about that. Jesus, I just called your godbrother an asshole. I’m so sorry.”

Maeve raises an eyebrow at me. “I hated him Phoebe. I just feel bad for saying that about him now that he’s not...” Maeve trails off.

“With us because of illicit activities?” I offer.

Maeve smiles. “Let’s not make it sound like he was a cult sacrifice Lawton.”

For some reason, that makes me double over laughing. Maeve sits up and shakes me. “Shut up someone will hear us.” I wave Maeve away and sit up. 

“Okay, okay, sorry.” 

Maeve smirks at me as she slides back down in her seat. I glance behind us and see Addy holding onto Cooper’s arm as she laughs. I catch her eye, glance down to make sure Maeve isn’t looking at me - she’s not - and then point to Addy, tap my ear, and then wave at Maeve and I. I’m trying to ask if they can hear us, but I must look like a madwoman. Thankfully, Addy understands because she nods vigorously. I give her a thumbs up and turn back towards the priest as he lists off Brandon’s virtues. None of which he actually possessed. 

I bite my lip as I contemplate my next words. Maeve doesn’t know that anyone’s behind us, and asking her about her cancer and her crush on Luis would be deceptive. But I also know Maeve. She’ll never talk about those things unless pushed. 

Oh what the hell? You only live once and all that crap. 

I start off with a logical question: “Are you gonna miss him?”

Maeve turns to me. “Who? Brandon?”

“Yeah, I mean he was your godbrother.”

“And?”

“And you’ve always wanted a brother, right?”

“I’ve wanted an older brother Phoebe. Not a jerk who pushed me into a pond, poured coffee onto my lap when I was wearing shorts, and called me Cancer Girl for like, three years.”

Ouch. When she puts it that way, my question was pretty dumb.

“Right. Well, it’s too bad you don’t have an older brother that’s nice. Not that Brandon would have counted anyway, he’s younger than you.”

Maeve gives me her you’re such an idiot look. “Um, Phoebe, have you met Nate?”

“I have,” I say.

“Then you’ve met my older brother.”

“Right. Sorry, I should have remembered that.”

“Mhm.” Maeve goes back to staring at the ceiling, and I glance back to Addy and co. Addy’s mouthing “awww” at me with her hands over her heart, and Nate’s smiling a little at the back of Maeve’s chair. Oh yeah they can hear us all right. 

“Too bad Knox doesn’t have older brothers,” I say.

“Why?” Maeve asks.

“Because then they would have been like your brothers when you dated him.”

“I suppose so.”

“Luis has an older brother.”

Maeve’s still staring at the ceiling, so I risk a glance back behind me. Addy’s grinning at me and Luis is rolling his eyes. 

“So?” Maeve asks.

“So if you dated him, Manny would be like your brother.”

Maeve rolls her eyes. “Good to know,” she says in her end of conversation voice. 

“I know right? You could ask him out you know.”

“No.”

“But Maeve why not?”

“No.”

“Maevey.”

“No.” 

I can’t stand seeing Luis’s disappointed face, so I don’t turn around.

“Okay, give me one reason why you shouldn’t date the very kind, very handsome, and very in love with you person, who would say yes in a heartbeat.”

Maeve looks at me, her eyes searching my face. “It would be unfair,” she finally says.

“To who?”

“To whom,” she corrects, sounding and looking exactly like Bronwyn. 

“Right, that.”

“It would be unfair to Luis. Because I’d be dating him under false pretenses.”

“What?”

“False pretenses Phoebe, it means-”

“I know what it means, I just don’t understand what you mean.”

“Because I’m dying.” 

Wow okay. I pause for a moment. I glance behind me to see five equally stricken faces. Looks like Maeve really didn’t tell anyone other than me. 

“But Maeve you don’t know that. because you won’t tell anyone.” My voice rises with frustration and I’m scared I’ll start yelling and won’t stop. I’ve had weeks of pent of fear and anger inside of me, and the fear of losing my best friend is the straw that might just break this camel’s back.

“God, Phoebe, stop yelling. And I do. I mean, I’ve had every symptom except joint pain.”

“Well that’s good,” I say sarcastically. “We’ll just wait for you to rot and die and if your joints start hurting along the way we’ll consider telling someone.”

Maeve stares at me. “Don’t you dare tell Phoebe Lawton.”

I’m too angry to think about the consequences when I wave dramatically behind us. “I didn’t need to babe. You did it for me.”

Maeve sits up, turns around so quickly I’m afraid she’ll get whiplash, sees Cooper, Kris, Addy, Nate, and Luis sitting behind her, sighs, and slouches back in her chair. 

I’m taken aback. “You’re not gonna yell at me?”

Maeve doesn’t answer, her hands over her face. Fear surges through me and I lean forwards to take her arms and shake her. “Maevey, Maevey are you okay? Please don’t be crying.”

There’s a cry of alarm behind me, and within an instant, Nate and Addy are on Maeve’s other side. 

“I’m not crying,” Maeve mumbles, her voice angry but resigned as she pulls her hands away to reveal her bloody nose. 

Nate’s pulled a napkin out of his pocket before I can even realize what’s happened. 

“Where are your parents Maeve?” Cooper asks urgently. He, Kris, and Luis have joined us.

“Downstairs.” I glance down to see the procession leaving the church. I catch sight of Mrs. Rojas’s red curls in the sea of black. 

“Hurry they’re leaving,” Addy says urgently, but Cooper’s already gone. I turn back to Maeve as she sobs into Luis’s shoulder. Fear surges through me causing my heart to thump and my head to hurt until Mrs. Rojas arrives with Cooper on her heels. 

The next hour and half is a blur. I’m in the waiting room of Bayview Hospital next to Addy. My head is on her shoulder and she’s stroking my hair. “She’s gonna hate me,” I say, staring at the wall.

“She’s not,” Addy says.

“Yes she is.” I insist. 

Cooper puts his hand on my knee. “You did the right think Phoebe. Maeve knows that.”

“I hope so. But if she doesn’t die, I’m gonna kill her. Did she really expect me to be able to keep a secret like that?”

Nate shakes his head. “That’s Maeve for you.”

I smile at him. “It’s cute she thinks of you as a brother.”

Nate gives me a half grin. “She’s been my little sister from the moment I had an actual conversation with her. I’m just glad she feels the same way.”

“She talks about you a lot. Well, all of you. You mean a lot to her.”

“Glad to hear it,” Luis says darkly. He’s thinking about their kiss, I can tell. 

“Especially you,” I say to him. “She’s just scared of hurting you. Give her time.”

“Time for what?” Maeve asks as she walks into the waiting room behind her mother. 

“For admitting you’re in love with Luis.”

“Right,” Maeve says. She looks too tired to be embarrassed. “Want to sleep over Phoebe?”

“What? You don’t hate me?”

Maeve smiles. “I could never. I needed a push, and you knew it.”

“Well thank god I thought I’d have to start asking Emma for rides to school.”

Maeve rolls her eyes at me as we all stand and walk towards the exit. “Love you Maevey Laevey” I say, using my childhood nickname for her as I throw my arm around her. 

“Back at ya Phoebe Jeebies.”

[sabinemorans]

Mission Impossible: Nanny

Quinn McKenna x female reader

Words: 2,679

Warnings: none!

A/N: This was co-written with @nothing-but-a-comedy the title credit goes to @sailorsquadgoals

Quinn was finally starting to get the hang of caring for Rory, but there were some days he wished he had some help. Shared custody with his wife was already a bit of a struggle, and Quinn knew that Rory could use an extra caregiver or two. It eased his mind that Rory was actually the one to suggest this idea since his mother had hired a nanny recently. Of course he said it in his way– very blunt and matter-of-fact– but Quinn enjoyed it actually.

Even though everything had changed after the Predators had come, this was a good thing to come of it. He felt closer to Rory now than ever and it would take a special person to be good enough to watch him, and a very special ad to draw them in. It was a normal ad detailing the basics up until it mentioned protection for his son, including the lines “people with ex-military or security background preferred.”

It took a little longer than Quinn had hoped, even if it was a unique ad, but he finally found the perfect candidate hit. She was educated, well reviewed, and passed a background check on the nanny site with flying colors.

That would have been enough for anyone else, but Quinn knew with his line of work, he’d have to do a deep search just to be on the safe side. He sent her name to Nebraska, knowing he could trust him to find out about any red flags. Surely she would understand, and if she didn’t, then Quinn would know she wasn’t right for the job.                                 

The best part was her suggestion for a secondary nanny as the request had mentioned this was protection for the child as well. The second one, a man, also passed with flying colors and was sent to Nebraska. When there were no red flags to be found after Nebraska had essentially done a deep dive-Quinn emailed them. Cause if Nebraska couldn’t find anything, then there was nothing to find. 

It looked like a solid deal, and Quinn was a little excited to be getting some extra help and a chance to make Rory happy. What he wasn’t expecting, however, was how attached he would become to her. To you. 

~~~

You’d partially given up on finding a new nanny job when finally good news was in your email. Quinn McKenna wanted to interview you! Grinning, you immediately called your backup and very best friend Din, telling him the news. 

“If he wants to see me, he probably wants to see you too, considering,” you said, moving from your kitchen counter to your stove where pasta was boiling. You had your headphones on so there was less chance of you dropping your phone into boiling water which had only happened once but Din acted as if it had happened a dozen times. Honestly, it couldn't have happened after he had left your apartment?

“Good, his was the only interesting job on there. I wonder if he’d be ok with me bringing the baby along at times. Maybe if the kid takes a liking to us, it might be good for him to socialize with a baby.” Din had adopted a baby at the beginning of the year. He’d gone with a mutual friend of yours to an adoption agency and just fallen in love. It had taken forever but as he put it, he’d just known as soon as those big dark eyes had found his that they were meant to be. 

“We’d definitely need to build some trust first. I know my little one doesn’t cry much, but to a child on the spectrum, it can be very hard to handle. That would be the best case scenario though since there’s two of us. Though this McKenna guy mentioned protection, so maybe he’s a political person or something. We don’t wanna bring that dark eyed angel into any danger.” You strained your pasta and dumped it a bowl, pouring sauce on top and beginning to mix.  

“Fair enough. Guess we’ll see, sweet girl, huh?” 

You smiled and shook your head at the affectionate nickname. “Don’t call me that Din, you know better. I always think you want something from me when you call me that.” 

“What me? Never,” came the reply where he was so obviously grinning like an idiot. God you hated him sometimes, it was so hard to love someone so ridiculous but you managed it even with knowing him as long as you did. You could ask for better company than him sometimes but you couldn’t ask for a better best friend. Bastard knew it too. The two of you were bonded for life, for better or worse.

“Smartass. I’ll call you with the details when he emails me back, love you Din.”

“Love you back, sweet girl.” You heard a laugh before he hung up and you pulled your headphones off. 

“Silly man,” you muttered as you began to eat your pasta and homemade sauce on the way to your couch. Turning your TV on, you settled with a comfort show so your brain could wander as you ate. Quinn McKenna...what an interesting name.

~~~

Mr. McKenna had been busy with work over the weekend, so it took a few days for the interview to happen. You arrived with Din by your side, as Mr. McKenna had proposed you had applied more or less as a team and would be interviewed as such. He told you that he liked your forethought to mention a second you already trusted, and that compliment made you smile. Thinking ahead had always been a strength of yours. 

“Should you knock or should I knock?” Din looked at you and you shrugged back with an indifferent look on your face. 

“Do you think it matters?”

“I guess not.”

“...you want to knock don’t you?”

The door to the cozy two story house had an old school knocker on it and Din’s grin gave you all the information you needed. 

“Go on then,” you chuckled, waving your hand at it. 

He knocked three times and sighed, satisfied with that stupid grin on his face. You shook your head. Ridiculous man. 

The man who answered the door looked anything but ridiculous. He was absolutely not what you’d been expecting at what-six foot two? Filled out well too with bright blue eyes you could get lost in, blonde hair shorter on the sides a little bit flopping at the top and a smile that screamed “good ol’ boy” more than anything you had ever seen.

And you were fucking hooked.

But you were a professional and despite the sudden mental images of jumping on him and pressing your body to his (likely muscular and strong and maybe even a bit pudgy) body you simply smiled brightly and hoped that Din would keep his professional manner even though Quinn McKenna was definitely one of your types. 

“Mornin’, thank you both for comin’,” McKenna said before waving the two of you in. 

Din let you lead and he followed both you and McKenna to the dining room table where your possible employer sat in front of both of you. He was prepared, both your resumes sat before him and he had them side by side with what looked like prepared questions written down. Din and you shared a glance that spoke volumes. He was very serious wasn’t he? Maybe he was political, maybe he was a part of the mob or maybe he was some kind of paranoid kook. It was a nice house and it actually reminded you of David Lieberman’s house in ‘The Punisher’ and then a fourth option to what Mr. McKenna did crossed your mind quickly followed by a fifth. 

Either he was a government spook, or he was the Punisher. Either way you weren’t that mad about it.

“Take a seat,” Quinn gestured to the chairs in front of him with a face that didn’t betray much emotion.

You noticed that he glanced at you a few times too many, but he made it hard to read what was going on in his head. He must have noticed the confused looks on your faces, because he gave you a reassuring smile as you sat down before clearing his throat. “You must be wondering why I needed two nannies with your type of background,” he chuckled.

You exchanged a look with Din for a split second before Mr. McKenna broke the semi-awkward silence. “I’m in the military too and I wanted people I could trust with my kid’s safety,” he explained. His answer was still a little vague for you, but you figured you’d ask him more about it later. It was nice to know he would understand the two of you though, you’d worked security for a little while and were amazed at how much people pushed back when asked what you thought was safest. With Mr. McKenna you might fight over strategies but at least he’d understand them.

You found yourself wondering what branch he was in, what his rank was when Din spoke, pulling you back to the present. 

“Well, in that case, you found the right people for the job,” Din said in a professional manner. “We both served in the Marines. I was a Corporal and she was a Sergeant as I’m sure you saw by our records.” Din explained, and you took a moment to admire how well he always pitched the two of you as valuable assets. He went on to detail (as much as he was allowed to) how you’d worked together for years. You did chime in here and there with details Din couldn’t remember and explained your individual special skills. 

Din was a master of stealth, infiltration and quiet extraction were his specialties. You on the other hand were a sniper. Your furthest confirmed kill was clocked at 1110 yards– a near record. The pair of you were well trained in hand-to-hand combat and familiar with most guns that could be thrown at you though with the choice between a gun or a knife, you favored the K-Bar while Din favored his Sig Sauer.

Mr. McKenna  crossed his arms in front of his chest, giving Din an impressed look as he heard his pitch. His eyes had lit up when you said you were a sniper and you smiled back, recognizing the look of a fellow sniper in him. The fact that you had something so specific in common was mind blowing really!  While you both derailed for a moment to talk about things you saw Din smirking a little. Ass. He knew exactly what it meant when you grinned like that. Trying to stay professional (and not give Din the satisfaction of knowing your thoughts too well) you locked down the thoughts of the two of you on a date, seeing who could  hit the farthest target even if it would probably be you. 

“Both of your resumes are impressive, but I’m wonderin’ why you guys left after spending so much time climbing the ranks.” Mr. McKenna quirked an eyebrow at you, so you chose to answer this question instead of leaving it to Din.

“It was just time for us to get out. With all the jobs I’ve had in the world I’ve listened to my gut about when it was time to seek out something else. Din trusted me enough that when I said the Marines wasn’t the right career for us anymore that he put in to leave when I did. A few months after we left we got word that a lot of our unit had been badly injured in an ambush masquerading as a rescue mission.” You shifted your hair from one side to the other and kept eye contact with Mr. McKenna, who let out a sigh through his nose and nodded. Nothing else needed to be said about that.

After that it lightened up. You felt at ease answering his questions; he didn’t seem as intimidating as you initially thought him to be, and the interview eventually flowed more like a friendly conversation than a job interview. You all even laughed about things! Maybe it was the fact that the three of you could bond over your military backgrounds (Quinn as he insisted on being called after the third time he was referred to as Mr. McKenna, was a Ranger Captain), or maybe it was because of the way that Quinn looked at you differently than he’d look at Din. You didn’t have time to put your finger on what kind of look it was exactly before a young boy came walking out of a nearby hallway but it certainly warmed you all over. It was nice to talk so freely with another man besides Din too, someone else who understood.

Din’s face lit up as he saw him, and you couldn’t help but smile as he exclaimed, “Oh hey, little man! Is that Rory?” He asked as he turned to Quinn with a bright smile.

“Yup,” Quinn responded, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he gestured for Rory to sit beside him. He ruffled Rory’s hair and pointed in yours and Din’s direction to introduce you to him. “These might be your new nannies, whaddya think of that, bud?”

Din held his fist out for Rory to bump and you shook the little guy’s hand in a greeting, smiling widely at how cute he was. You glanced up at Quinn as Din and Rory exchanged a few words, already acting like they were the best of friends. Quinn was obviously very protective of his son, happily watching the exchange, but you could tell he was watching closely to see how Din would get along with him. Din was being his usual self around children, boisterous but at a respectful volume, which was so different from how he was around most new people. You laughed at a stupid joke Din made which made Rory smile before running your hands through your hair again. Your eyes were pulled towards Quinn in soft glances and you noticed when he glanced at you as well, carefully timed to when you were listening to Rory talk about what he liked to do and how he liked things to be.

Before your eyes could meet Quinn’s and you could really analyze those glances, you heard Rory mention something about a fight. 

“I’m sorry sweetheart what did you say?”  Quinn looked at Rory, stunned and then at the two of you. 

“Now hang on buddy I don’t-“ His father started but Rory kept going anyway. He was definitely determined and had been waiting to say this. 

“I wanna see you guys fight, you know, see who’s better. And the winner can fight my dad! If you can beat my Dad or just hold your own you’re definitely good enough to be my nanny.” The sweet faced little boy was so succinct about his needs that you laughed a little incredulously but with no small amount of humor.

“You know what you want sweetheart I’ll give you that,” you said with a grin and shrug to Quinn and Din. “I’m game, but we probably shouldn’t swing to really hurt each other. Do you have boxing gloves maybe or we could do more Jiu Jitsu and grapple rather than throw punches.”

“Yeah no, no real hits. But if the little man wants to see a fight he’s gonna get a fight.” Din was already standing, making to take off his nice jacket and you were following suit when Quinn stood and waved his hands. Jesus-his hands were huge. How had you not noticed that yet?

“Hang on hang on,” he said looking at the pair of you, both paused with your jackets pooled at your elbows.

“But Daaaaad,” Rory whined, looking up at him.

Quinn raised a brow at his son before smirking and letting out a small chuckle. “You guys shouldn’t fight…” He grinned at Rory before adding, “...in the house.”

[weaselbeaselpants]

Rewritten Alastor notes (TW: NSFL, Cannibalism, Vore, animal abuse)

This is unexpected I know, but I’m suffering from a major headache and I need something to do.

Alastor the Radio Demon in my non-existent Hazbin repaint. Things he has in common with his canon self:

Human soul of a man who died in the 1930s. Was a cannibal in life.

Tried (and succeeded) to corrupt a bunch of lesser demons. 

Respected by the big-bads of Hell, like Valentino and Vox. Feared among them as well because he creeps even them out.

Deer + wendigo motif still very much still at play.

Still asexual, though I wouldn’t recommend putting him on any pride flags.

Gets along with Charlie and loves antagonizing Vaggie.

Treats Nifty and Husk as goons and/or pets.

His weird hair tufts emote along with him like ears. I don’t know if they are ears though. I think Viv has the right idea not confirming what the frack is up with his anatomy.

Can’t ever stop smiling. Ever. That aspect of Al’s design is something real special that I think Viv has the right idea implementing. A character who can not stop smiling makes for a lot of terrifying and hilarious reactions. Just look at Sans near eternal smile. 

Inexplicably likes pineapple pizza. Funny out-of-character gag.

AGAIN: CONTENT WARNING ESPECIALLY FOR ANYONE WITH TRIGGERS TO THE STUFF ABOVE. KEEP READING AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Changes made to his character:

I do not mind Hazbin being crass and vile and offensively-over the top as long as it has a good grasp on what the joke is (like Helluva Boss :>). My Hazbin thesis is that all of the characters are “demons” in as much as they’ve done bad things or were bad people, but are not maniacal or sadistic + there’s hope for some of them. THEN there’s Alastor who absolutely lives up to the demon-reputation and did genuinely evil things in life. Alastor’s the kind of person who absolutely should be purged but has escaped because those who are supposed to be for justice aren’t threatened by him.

He isn’t involved in voodoo or has any affluent Creole background. With all do respect that aspect feels just a little too lifted from Dr. Facilier. My Alastor’s background is American “mutt” with an Algonquian-native grandmother.

His sin in life - and in Hell itself - is Gluttony. Taking a page from the OG Wendigo mythos, which describes them more as pulsating, gorging Elderitch abominations, Al’s MO in the show is to consume everyone and everything there is. 

Alastor’s demonic powers are presented as a wave of high frequency radio static that messes with a demon’s psyche so much it physically hurts them. Al then scoops up his victim’s souls to power his microphone and everything that demon had in it’s possession beforehand crumbles or becomes his.

Angel is afraid of him. Unlike in the canon cartoon, Angel is the one who recognizes Alastor and knows he’s dangerous, not Vaggie. Turns out, Angel had a run in with the Radio Demon sometime during the mid twentieth century (so when they were both pretty young in demon years). Angel tried to steal Al’s microphone but Al flung a nasty radio-frequency in Angel’s face, taking out one of his eyes. Angel was present during Al’s first attempt to take over Hell, so he immediately knows Al’s bad news and Alastor never misses the opportunity to mess with Angel in season 1.

Alastor is a shape-shifter. In what is probably the most grizzly detail about my take, he technically self-mutilates in order to re-imagine himself ala the Hellraiser Cenobites - which he does quite a bit to hide from Charlie’s parents.

Technically, Al is naked. What looks like a suit is actually his flesh. Look closely at you’ll see that he’s all stitched together like a crude taxidermy piece. Beneath his “skin” are his bones; which all look like mechanical radio parts and move independently of another. Sometimes Al tears them out if he thinks his “wiring needs to be reworked”, which is Al for ‘feeling an emotion’ and he doesn’t like that.

The motif my Alastor is supposed to invoke is everything about him was “stolen” and crudely pieced back together: he collects and traps other demons inside his microphone; he eats by unhinging his mouth and swallows in one gulp. Alastor’s anatomy invokes a lot of vore imagery as well as Ero Guro. Despite being ace, there is a sexual (but not arousing) edge to his character, which leads to a lot or horror and humor.

Alastor does not like that he was human. He’s even in denial of it and insists “I was always a demon. I simply had a nightmare that I was a man. Now I’m awake and the nightmare is long gone”.

Alastor’s human name was Edward; he was a sad, pathetic little man whom everyone walked all over. Edward wanted to be a radio host but was denied that position cause he ‘couldn’t smile’. Edward was deeply disturbed and fixated on ingesting human meat (a condition called ‘wendigo psychosis’). Despite committing murder and then eating all his victim’s bodies, he can’t recall most of the process and was frightened by his behavior, knew what he was doing was wrong. BUT he never went about treating his addiction with meat; he’d have “cold periods” where he didn’t kill and thought he was ‘fixed’ only for his psychosis to resurface.

Alastor’s demon self aims to be all the things that he wasn’t in life: happy, fulfilled, complete, confident, cheery, and satisfied. Al relishes in his self-made creepy image and no doubt took his demon name from a famous Alastair from his youth. 

Al’s character arc throughout the ‘show’ (there is no show, why am I treating this like genuine pitch bible blah) goes as follows:

For the first season leading up the the finale and beginning of season 2, Al pretends to be Charlie’s friend until he backstabs her and takes over her hotel to harvest the ‘redeemed’ souls so he can restart his broadcasting-takeover that was just barely stopped years before. Charlie, Vaggie, and Angel intercept him however and destroy his microphone - which holds all the souls - causing him to loose his power. Charlie personality terminates his physical form leaving only his ‘heart’, which Lucifer makes Charlie eat so that Alastor will forever be under her control. The downside to this is Al’s soul+heart+person exists within Charlie now, and he of course speaks to her within her mind, trying to discourage, belittle, threaten or taunt her plans and feelings throughout the second season. Season 3′s opening would be about the main cast trying to get Vaggie out of Heaven once they learn it’s as corrupted as Hell. Charlie needs Al’s expertise, so she vomits him up. Al agrees to help her but is obviously not happy and vows to get his freedom back. In the second half of season 3, the main characters have to lay low while the angels partake in spiritual warfare against Lucifer. So Charlie and co. escape to the human world disguised as humans. Though an agreement, Alastor comes along and aquires a foreclosed motel for the demon’s to live (he intends to trap mortal souls while he’s there, though Charlie intercepts this too). 

Angel and co. end up discovering Al’s human identity (something he tried to cover up any evidence of having in Hell) and invite his now elderly human daughter to the motel. It works too well however, and the fright of seeing his daughter again triggers an all out anxiety attack in Alastor causing him to merge with the motel. Charlie has to traverse his insides to try and get to his crumbling psyche which would be very Akira-inspired.

Meanwhile, inside Alastor’s mind we see his demon form finally baring a frown and freaking out as the pathological spirits of his victims sing to him in a radio booth about the life he’d chosen and the lives he took away from them. (Yes, this is absolutely taken from Bojack Horseman)

Once Charlie cuts to his core+Al faces the fact that there never was another demon responsible for his actions, it was always just him, Al relinquishes his hold on that motel and his physical form become that of a baby deer, whom Charlie nicknames ‘Deerlastor’. Deerlastor doesn’t appear to have any of Al’s powers, memories, or personality but Angel and the other demon’s Al’s abused insist on killing it, sure that this is just another one of Al’s weird forms. Because of Alastor’s absence, it takes a lot longer and harder for the main cast to get back to hell and help Charlie’s dad’s stop the (previously human) angels who want to wipe purge ALL of hell.

To take out the main ‘enlightened’ angel that’s in the middle of trying to purge ALL of Hell, the demon’s need a power of their own. Deerlastor agrees to sacrifice its body and because of that, Alastor pops out from the deer’s body and head on collides w. the big bad angel-villain, eliminating both their souls. Alastor gets no proper redemption arc kids, he just gets to be the one to take out the main villain.

Edward/Alastor’s daughter’s name was Lavinia and she was the closest thing to genuine ‘love’ he had in his life and the only person who obviously looked up rather than ignore or abuse Edward. When Ed was arrested and confessed to his crimes, his daughter wasn’t allowed to see him and the knowledge that her father was a cannibalistic serial killer haunted Lavinia all her life.

His crimes were not sexual. This is NOT AN EXCUSE for what he did though because - 

- two of his victims were children. Yep. 

Unlike the rest of the filth-spewing demons, Al doesn’t appreciate racism or sexism. He thinks himself a feminist for his day...despite also having killed women and children. Keep in mind he’s also from the 30s, so he’s as “progressive” as people could be for back then, AND he believes that his partial native ancestry means it’s okay to call himself a ‘wendigo’.

In reference to an oooooooooooold ref sheet Viv made for Alastor back in the day, Deerlastor gets shot in the head and dismembered a lot but always gets up like nothing’s wrong.

Alastor does not like electroswing. He likes jazz, doowop, twist, show jingles, and lots of American Folk ballads. You know, the stuff they’d jam the radio’s with back in the 30s.

Big influences on my Alastor are They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, American Murder Song, My Friend Dahmer (a graphic novel), Llamas with Hats and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. 

(Ima thinking of renaming my Hazbin gang to better distinguish them between the canon. Alastor’s the only one who won’t be renamed though, just probably spelled a different way. (Alystar, Alaster, Alastar))

[rexsjaigeyes]

Mission Impossible: Nanny - Part 1

Quinn McKenna x female reader

Words: 2,679

Warnings: none!

A/N: this was co-written with @sabinemorans​​ and the title credit goes to @sailorsquadgoals

Quinn was finally starting to get the hang of caring for Rory, but there were some days he wished he had some help. Shared custody with his wife was already a bit of a struggle, and Quinn knew that Rory could use an extra caregiver or two. It eased his mind that Rory was actually the one to suggest this idea since his mother had hired a nanny recently. Of course he said it in his way– very blunt and matter-of-fact– but Quinn enjoyed it actually.

Even though everything had changed after the Predators had come, this was a good thing to come of it. He felt closer to Rory now than ever and it would take a special person to be good enough to watch him, and a very special ad to draw them in. It was a normal ad detailing the basics up until it mentioned protection for his son, including the lines “people with ex-military or security background preferred.”

It took a little longer than Quinn had hoped, even if it was a unique ad, but he finally found the perfect candidate hit. She was educated, well reviewed, and passed a background check on the nanny site with flying colors.

That would have been enough for anyone else, but Quinn knew with his line of work, he’d have to do a deep search just to be on the safe side. He sent her name to Nebraska, knowing he could trust him to find out about any red flags. Surely she would understand, and if she didn’t, then Quinn would know she wasn’t right for the job.

The best part was her suggestion for a secondary nanny as the request had mentioned this was protection for the child as well. The second one, a man, also passed with flying colors and was sent to Nebraska. When there were no red flags to be found after Nebraska had essentially done a deep dive-Quinn emailed them. Cause if Nebraska couldn’t find anything, then there was nothing to find.

It looked like a solid deal, and Quinn was a little excited to be getting some extra help and a chance to make Rory happy. What he wasn’t expecting, however, was how attached he would become to her. To you.

~~~

You’d partially given up on finding a new nanny job when finally good news was in your email. Quinn McKenna wanted to interview you! Grinning, you immediately called your backup and very best friend Din, telling him the news.

“If he wants to see me, he probably wants to see you too, considering,” you said, moving from your kitchen counter to your stove where pasta was boiling. You had your headphones on so there was less chance of you dropping your phone into boiling water which had only happened once but Din acted as if it had happened a dozen times. Honestly, it couldn't have happened after he had left your apartment?

“Good, his was the only interesting job on there. I wonder if he’d be ok with me bringing the baby along at times. Maybe if the kid takes a liking to us, it might be good for him to socialize with a baby.” Din had adopted a baby at the beginning of the year. He’d gone with a mutual friend of yours to an adoption agency and just fallen in love. It had taken forever but as he put it, he’d just known as soon as those big dark eyes had found his that they were meant to be.

“We’d definitely need to build some trust first. I know my little one doesn’t cry much, but to a child on the spectrum, it can be very hard to handle. That would be the best case scenario though since there’s two of us. Though this McKenna guy mentioned protection, so maybe he’s a political person or something. We don’t wanna bring that dark eyed angel into any danger.” You strained your pasta and dumped it a bowl, pouring sauce on top and beginning to mix.  

“Fair enough. Guess we’ll see, sweet girl, huh?”

You smiled and shook your head at the affectionate nickname. “Don’t call me that Din, you know better. I always think you want something from me when you call me that.”

“What me? Never,” came the reply where he was so obviously grinning like an idiot. God you hated him sometimes, it was so hard to love someone so ridiculous but you managed it even with knowing him as long as you did. You could ask for better company than him sometimes but you couldn’t ask for a better best friend. Bastard knew it too. The two of you were bonded for life, for better or worse.

“Smartass. I’ll call you with the details when he emails me back, love you Din.”

“Love you back, sweet girl.” You heard a laugh before he hung up and you pulled your headphones off.

“Silly man,” you muttered as you began to eat your pasta and homemade sauce on the way to your couch. Turning your TV on, you settled with a comfort show so your brain could wander as you ate. Quinn McKenna...what an interesting name.

~~~

Mr. McKenna had been busy with work over the weekend, so it took a few days for the interview to happen. You arrived with Din by your side, as Mr. McKenna had proposed you had applied more or less as a team and would be interviewed as such. He told you that he liked your forethought to mention a second you already trusted, and that compliment made you smile. Thinking ahead had always been a strength of yours.

“Should you knock or should I knock?” Din looked at you and you shrugged back with an indifferent look on your face.

“Do you think it matters?”

“I guess not.”

“...you want to knock don’t you?”

The door to the cozy two story house had an old school knocker on it and Din’s grin gave you all the information you needed.

“Go on then,” you chuckled, waving your hand at it.

He knocked three times and sighed, satisfied with that stupid grin on his face. You shook your head. Ridiculous man.

The man who answered the door looked anything but ridiculous. He was absolutely not what you’d been expecting at what-six foot two? Filled out well too with bright blue eyes you could get lost in, blonde hair shorter on the sides a little bit flopping at the top and a smile that screamed “good ol’ boy” more than anything you had ever seen.

And you were fucking hooked.

But you were a professional and despite the sudden mental images of jumping on him and pressing your body to his (likely muscular and strong and maybe even a bit pudgy) body you simply smiled brightly and hoped that Din would keep his professional manner even though Quinn McKenna was definitely one of your types.

“Mornin’, thank you both for comin’,” McKenna said before waving the two of you in.

Din let you lead and he followed both you and McKenna to the dining room table where your possible employer sat in front of both of you. He was prepared, both your resumes sat before him and he had them side by side with what looked like prepared questions written down. Din and you shared a glance that spoke volumes. He was very serious wasn’t he? Maybe he was political, maybe he was a part of the mob or maybe he was some kind of paranoid kook. It was a nice house and it actually reminded you of David Lieberman’s house in ‘The Punisher’ and then a fourth option to what Mr. McKenna did crossed your mind quickly followed by a fifth.

Either he was a government spook, or he was the Punisher. Either way you weren’t that mad about it.

“Take a seat,” Quinn gestured to the chairs in front of him with a face that didn’t betray much emotion.

You noticed that he glanced at you a few times too many, but he made it hard to read what was going on in his head. He must have noticed the confused looks on your faces, because he gave you a reassuring smile as you sat down before clearing his throat. “You must be wondering why I needed two nannies with your type of background,” he chuckled.

You exchanged a look with Din for a split second before Mr. McKenna broke the semi-awkward silence. “I’m in the military too and I wanted people I could trust with my kid’s safety,” he explained. His answer was still a little vague for you, but you figured you’d ask him more about it later. It was nice to know he would understand the two of you though, you’d worked security for a little while and were amazed at how much people pushed back when asked what you thought was safest. With Mr. McKenna you might fight over strategies but at least he’d understand them.

You found yourself wondering what branch he was in, what his rank was when Din spoke, pulling you back to the present.

“Well, in that case, you found the right people for the job,” Din said in a professional manner. “We both served in the Marines. I was a Corporal and she was a Sergeant as I’m sure you saw by our records.” Din explained, and you took a moment to admire how well he always pitched the two of you as valuable assets. He went on to detail (as much as he was allowed to) how you’d worked together for years. You did chime in here and there with details Din couldn’t remember and explained your individual special skills.

Din was a master of stealth, infiltration and quiet extraction were his specialties. You on the other hand were a sniper. Your furthest confirmed kill was clocked at 1110 yards– a near record. The pair of you were well trained in hand-to-hand combat and familiar with most guns that could be thrown at you though with the choice between a gun or a knife, you favored the K-Bar while Din favored his Sig Sauer.

Mr. McKenna  crossed his arms in front of his chest, giving Din an impressed look as he heard his pitch. His eyes had lit up when you said you were a sniper and you smiled back, recognizing the look of a fellow sniper in him. The fact that you had something so specific in common was mind blowing really!  While you both derailed for a moment to talk about things you saw Din smirking a little. Ass. He knew exactly what it meant when you grinned like that. Trying to stay professional (and not give Din the satisfaction of knowing your thoughts too well) you locked down the thoughts of the two of you on a date, seeing who could  hit the farthest target even if it would probably be you.

“Both of your resumes are impressive, but I’m wonderin’ why you guys left after spending so much time climbing the ranks.” Mr. McKenna quirked an eyebrow at you, so you chose to answer this question instead of leaving it to Din.

“It was just time for us to get out. With all the jobs I’ve had in the world I’ve listened to my gut about when it was time to seek out something else. Din trusted me enough that when I said the Marines wasn’t the right career for us anymore that he put in to leave when I did. A few months after we left we got word that a lot of our unit had been badly injured in an ambush masquerading as a rescue mission.” You shifted your hair from one side to the other and kept eye contact with Mr. McKenna, who let out a sigh through his nose and nodded. Nothing else needed to be said about that.

After that it lightened up. You felt at ease answering his questions; he didn’t seem as intimidating as you initially thought him to be, and the interview eventually flowed more like a friendly conversation than a job interview. You all even laughed about things! Maybe it was the fact that the three of you could bond over your military backgrounds (Quinn as he insisted on being called after the third time he was referred to as Mr. McKenna, was a Ranger Captain), or maybe it was because of the way that Quinn looked at you differently than he’d look at Din. You didn’t have time to put your finger on what kind of look it was exactly before a young boy came walking out of a nearby hallway but it certainly warmed you all over. It was nice to talk so freely with another man besides Din too, someone else who understood.

Din’s face lit up as he saw him, and you couldn’t help but smile as he exclaimed, “Oh hey, little man! Is that Rory?” He asked as he turned to Quinn with a bright smile.

“Yup,” Quinn responded, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he gestured for Rory to sit beside him. He ruffled Rory’s hair and pointed in yours and Din’s direction to introduce you to him. “These might be your new nannies, whaddya think of that, bud?”

Din held his fist out for Rory to bump and you shook the little guy’s hand in a greeting, smiling widely at how cute he was. You glanced up at Quinn as Din and Rory exchanged a few words, already acting like they were the best of friends. Quinn was obviously very protective of his son, happily watching the exchange, but you could tell he was watching closely to see how Din would get along with him. Din was being his usual self around children, boisterous but at a respectful volume, which was so different from how he was around most new people. You laughed at a stupid joke Din made which made Rory smile before running your hands through your hair again. Your eyes were pulled towards Quinn in soft glances and you noticed when he glanced at you as well, carefully timed to when you were listening to Rory talk about what he liked to do and how he liked things to be.

Before your eyes could meet Quinn’s and you could really analyze those glances, you heard Rory mention something about a fight.

“I’m sorry sweetheart what did you say?”  Quinn looked at Rory, stunned and then at the two of you.

“Now hang on buddy I don’t-“ His father started but Rory kept going anyway. He was definitely determined and had been waiting to say this.

“I wanna see you guys fight, you know, see who’s better. And the winner can fight my dad! If you can beat my Dad or just hold your own you’re definitely good enough to be my nanny.” The sweet faced little boy was so succinct about his needs that you laughed a little incredulously but with no small amount of humor.

“You know what you want sweetheart I’ll give you that,” you said with a grin and shrug to Quinn and Din. “I’m game, but we probably shouldn’t swing to really hurt each other. Do you have boxing gloves maybe or we could do more Jiu Jitsu and grapple rather than throw punches.”

“Yeah no, no real hits. But if the little man wants to see a fight he’s gonna get a fight.” Din was already standing, making to take off his nice jacket and you were following suit when Quinn stood and waved his hands. Jesus-his hands were huge. How had you not noticed that yet?

“Hang on hang on,” he said looking at the pair of you, both paused with your jackets pooled at your elbows.

“But Daaaaad,” Rory whined, looking up at him.

Quinn raised a brow at his son before smirking and letting out a small chuckle. “You guys shouldn’t fight…” He grinned at Rory before adding, “...in the house.”

[sebsallowapologist]

Pothos Part: 5

Hi.... so I finally did it, sorry for the weight! Life can be pretty crazy even when you’re inside your own apartment so please be nice! Tell me what you think!

If you would like to read the first four parts of Pothos you can do it HERE.

All of a sudden my hair stood on my arms, my eyes darted around my room so fast that everything was a blur. I had tunnel vision, where was he? My whole body shook and it felt like I was going to throw up my entire stomach. I stumble out of the bed and crash into my nightstand, stumbling forward into my living room, frantically looking for what I knew wasn’t here.

There was no one here, no one standing in the kitchen or sitting on my couch. Why would he be? He didn’t belong here.

Once my eyes confirmed what I knew, I just let myself break. It had taken me years to become something that resembled a functioning human behind and now I was back to square one. Maybe even worse. I grab the wall and slide down, my ass hitting the floor a little harder than what was comfortable. I was fucked. I already knew I would never be normal again, but who was going to help me now? I couldn’t let my dad know I let it happen again, my mother would try to visit and lord knows that would just make me feel worse.

Or hell- maybe I’d made it all up. Maybe I spent last night walking around my apartment in a pretty dress talking to no one. I’m not even sure if that was better or worse.

My lungs start screaming at me- reminding me I needed air to survive. I mean to take in a deep breath which just comes as a gasp, which leads to another gasp, and another, until I’m taking in air and pushing it out faster than my lungs can handle. I must look like an idiot, on the floor of my apartment hyperventilating about a ghost.

I dig my nails into my arm to try and center myself, but it doesn’t work. My mom always told me that if you were in pain to pinch yourself and your brain would get distracted, but my nails weren’t long enough to inflict any real pain, nothing that could rival how my empty chest felt.

My hands went into my hair and pulled at the root, looking for the desired effect until I heard his panicked voice, “Bella?”

My neck snaps up and I see him, I was seeing things again- officially. The angel in my living room looked anxious. “Bella are you alright?” He asks, setting the plastic bag he was carrying on the floor and in an instant he was sitting next to me. I jump out of my skin when his hands are all of a sudden touching my face. “Are you hurt?” He asks and I can’t describe the feeling.

“Bella stop gasping.” He says. I didn’t know I was still doing that. He picks up my hand and places it on the center of my chest. “Deep breath in.” He says and I try to mimic that. His chest pushes out on the inhale and I try to do that. He exhales again and I close my eyes, trying to focus on that. I start breathing normally and a small part of my brain wonders how he’s breathing so deeply so close to me. That had to be a sign this wasn’t real.

My hand curls and brings the light cotton shirt he’s wearing into my fist. “Bella, are you alright?” He asks again and puts his hand on my forehead. “You left?” I ask and he nods. “You didn’t have much in the way of food- and I was going to make you breakfast. I wasn’t gone long.” He says and I nod.

“I thought you left.” I sigh and let his shirt go, dropping my hand. “Oh, Bella.” He breaths and I’m immediately embarrassed. I must look like a toddler who had a temper tantrum. “Sorry.” I mumble and lean on the wall. “Next time text me or something.” I say and he nods. He stays on the floor with me, looking anxious.

I put my hand on the wall to help me up and he follows me, slowly going back to pick up the bag. “You cook?” I ask, trying to move the conversation away from being a fucking mental patient, and he nods. “I watched a video on breakfast while you slept. I’m fairly confident I can follow instructions.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” I smile smalley and walk over to the coffee maker. I had a raging headache from my episode. God- he was going to try and put me in the hospital like Charlie did. I wasn’t doing a great job of trying to convince him to stay.

He puts the bag on the counter and points to my table. “Sit. Relax.” he tells me and there's a smile on his face but his eyes are just- blank. Shut down. I nod and walk to the kitchen table, picking up the TV remote that sat there. I put on some music and turned the volume down just to fill the silence. If it was silent I was going to think about how horribly I’d just behaved.

“What’s the name of this band?”

“What you’d never heard of Catfish and the Bottlemen? What are you? A hundred years old?” I smile, looking over at him, cracking an egg into a bowl. A smile pulls at his lips as he nods his head rhythmically. “About that.”

I smile back. I just sat there, pointing to cabinets while he asked for things like teaspoons and whisks. When my eggs and toast were done he brought the plate over to the table and sat down across from me, waiting patiently for my review.

I pick up the fork and grab the hot sauce that always resided on the table, dabbing some on the eggs before I try them. I chew and swallow- a tad over done but they were really good for a first timer. I smile and nod, “Very good.”

He picks up the bottle of Chalupa and turns it in his hands a few times. “You like spicy now?”

“I do. I have a very mature palette.” I joke and he pops the lid off of the bottle, placing a drop on his finger before putting it on his tongue. “Spicy?”

“It just tastes bad.” He chuckles and I eat some of the toast. He lets me finish my meal before he takes my hand in his and squeezes gently. “You thought I left you this morning? After how amazing last night was?”

“I uh- yeah. I guess I thought I didn’t give you much of a reason to stay or maybe that I made you up- that I’m still making you up.”

“I’m not imaginary, I promise.” He laughs lightly, but theres no humor behind it. “I’m not leaving, I promise you.”

I take my hand out of his and put it in my lap, sitting back in my chair. “I’ll never forgive myself for how I hurt you, I was insensitive and cruel- to both of us.”

“You didn’t want me. How am I supposed to think you want me now with the grey hairs and the laugh lines?” I frown. “You’re not 80, Bella.” he sighs. “And your looks were never why I was with you.”

“Well thanks.” I scoff and his eyes widen a little, “That’s not what I mean- I meant it didn’t matter if you had three heads and a hunch back I wanted to-”

“Kill me.” I smirk and he nods. “Among other things, yes.”

I sigh and push my hair out of my eyes. “This is- emotionally exhausting. I still don’t know why you came back.” I wanted answers but I wasn’t sure which questions to ask. And I wasn’t even really sure if I wanted some of the harsh truths that could be coming my way. “I told you- I could no longer be away from you.”

“So what- we’re dating? We’re what? Where do we go?”

“Well you have a career and a life here, we can be whatever you want to be. I’m done making the decisions. I’m clearly not very good at it.”

“You can say that again.” I mutter and put my head down on the table. What did I even want? Him- Obviously. But I’d written off him coming back years ago, I’d spent my adult life living day to day, thinking about the future as little as possible just to make the present manageable. Now I had options. I wasn’t used to options.

“I have to think.” I sigh and he nods. “I understand that.” He says and I bite my lip, looking up at him. “You really came back for me- and only me?” I ask and he reaches over the table, taking my face in his hands. “Yes.”

His eyes don’t deviate from mine, I swear he’s telling the truth- but I just can’t be sure. I bite my lip and he smiles a little. “You still look like my Bella, trust me.”

***

We move to my couch for the rest of the morning, my back on his chest as he holds me from behind and drills me- with questions on what I’ve been up to. I’m able to sneak in a few about the last few years of his life now and then, but it was hard to focus. I was too busy thinking about my future.

“So what are my options?” I ask during a lull in my interview.

“Options?” He asks and I roll my eyes. “Yeah. For the rest of my life what are my options here?”

“Well anything. You can kick me out and go back to how your life was last week-”

“That's not an option for me.” I interrupt and he chuckles. “Alright then. Well then I could live here with you and just be with you for the rest of your life, or we could go back to my family, or we could fly to Paris tomorrow- it’s whatever you want.”

“Would you take me forever?” I ask and he chuckles. “For as long as you’ll have me, Bella.” He promises, moving my hair over my shoulder, kissing my cheek.”

“Not right now on this couch but- would you change me? In theory.” I ask and turn my head to look up at him. He freezes. “In theory?”

“I’m just trying to understand my expectations.”

“That would be... a discussion.” He sighs and I nod. “Yeah it would be- I just wanted to know if I should think about it.”

“I didn’t know you’d even have to think about it.” His lips move to my neck, placing gentle kisses in his path, trying to distract me. “I mean- it’s a big deal.” I huff and he chuckles. “I know, I just thought the idea of immortality was irresistible to you.”

“I was young and stupid.” I hum. “I thought the idea of living forever was good. But not I’m not so sure.” I sigh. “25 years is already a lot.”

“25 years isn’t that long.” Edward laughs and I roll my eyes. “Well it feels like ages.”

I sigh and reach over to the coffee table, picking up my neglected phone. A text from Charlie, hey bells, you didn’t call me yesterday. Call me please. Giving him my old iPhone 6 was a real treat for the guy but he still only liked talking on the phone once a week. Always about what I was up to, but sometimes I managed to get a few details in about him and Forks.

A text from my co-worker, complaining about our boss.

A few notifications from various social media platforms.

And a text from Mike that was sent to the “Fork LA” group chat which consisted of Anglea and I. I got the Sunday scaries- Umbrella tonight. Thats an order.

“You’re friends with Mike... Newton?” Edward asks and I laugh. He said his name like it was a curse. “Yes. He’s a good hometown pal.” I laugh. “Are you surprised that I have friends?” I ask and he shakes his head. “No, just surprised that one of them is Mike Newton. Doesn’t it get tiring fighting off his advances?”

“No he stopped wanting to fuck me years ago.” I assure him, after one very failed kiss sophomore year of college the whole idea was forgotten. Thank god.

Edward cringes when I curse and I roll my eyes. “Edward you’re going to have to get over me cursing, it’s just apart of my dialect now. You know I read somewhere that people who curse are smarter than those who don’t.”

“So are we going to Umbrella tonight?” He asks and I roll my eyes. “You want to go hang out with Mike and Angela at a bar?”

“Do you want to? I would like to join.” He smiles and I bite my lip. I couldn’t see Edward at a bar. “Do you have a fake ID?”

[overhighways]

final spn thoughts

the memes have me rolling with laughter, because after a finale that bad all you can do is laugh but, i also can't stop thinking about the fact that they said the perfect ending for dean, the depressed character who finally became stable and built a found family, was to die without any family or friends around besides his brother that really... was yikes...

so i initially quit the show on the episode that kevin died. i had stuck it out thru so many sexist and/or racist deaths and acts of violence on the show but that was kinda my breaking point. additionally, looking back over my old liveblogs and op eds on tumblr, i was getting really tired of the fact that for the 8 or so years of the shows run the brother's had never grown emotionally, and continued a constant cycle of being dangerously codependent but also continuously lying to each other and hiding things from each other which always resulted in some catastrophe, causing them to come into conflict. it was bad writing and a bummer for someone who liked the universe and the characters but wanted a satisfying change in their state of being from the beginning to the end of the narrative.

for a hot second in college i dropped out, because one semester cos i was just so depressed, and in between bringe drinking and smoking i thought i should watch supernatural but i literally only made it like half a season further then my initaly quitting point before being like "wow this is shit and i feel bad maybe i should stop and get help". so i really hadn't thought of the show except for when i saw a funny meme clowning superwholock for about five years now but then all the posts about 5.18 tricked my gay clown ass into sitting down and marathoning all of the episodes i had missed so i could watch the finale live.

and what i have to say is i know they experienced a couple shifts in show runners and head writers over the past five years so it was still inconsistent in quality (its a CW show so like, who is surprised?), but they actually really broadly improved the show i think. i remember that the first 5 seasons or so were more carefully planned and ben edlund provided so much good writing, that i think when edlund and kripke left the show lost its way for a while, and there were moments that were decent, but when they finally brought cas into the bunker and jack was brought in as a main character it felt like they got back on track. they were able to refocus the show on family while also allowing the dean and sam to grow as people and build a much healthier found family. the three of the boys bring in claire novak as their charge, jodi and her hunter family become regulars; the show kind of felt like it was closer to reaching its potential, like back when we all thought bobby and ellen were gonna be forever main characters, and dean and sam would have a family and semi normal hunter lives. so i kind of felt like sam's arc was mostly complete seasons ago, he was a pretty normal dude who was gonna end up with eileen and that was cute and lovely. but for dean i really think it was more complex and the whole final season being about killing god and truly giving everyone full free will to create any possible future they wanted, was gonna tie in more to dean's struggle to define himself outside of the role of his father's blunt instrument and his brother's protector. but instead they establish this amazing free will for everyone, cas literally dies to give dean the chance to finally be free, and then they wrote a finale that essentially says "free will doesn't exist and you will always be bound to certain expectations". like dean dying on a hunt is fine and arguably in character, but to not include any of the family that he painstakingly learned he could have? bullshit. they just completely disregarded all of the character growth they spent the last five to ten seasons giving us. also i find it nearly impossible to believe that sam would not specifically be searching for eileen after literally killing an entire coven of witches to get a spell to bring her back from the dead, so his weird faceless implied wife was confusingly bad writing as well. and dean not trying to get cas back? the dean winchester who had a complete emotional break down every time he thought he had abandoned cas or failed him or let him die? bullshit. jack not immediately bringing cas back to them? bullshit!!

and it felt like a really odd ending for cas, whose entire character arc has also been about learning how to act of his own free will and not be a mindless soldier of god, to just disappear and be implied to have suddenly returned to being... a mindless soldier of god. like i know its a new and better god who is also his son but like... you are telling me cas was really okay with abandoning his friends on earth and just sitting in heaven doing boring celestial paperwork for eternity? the writers threw away the potential narrative symmetry of having dean pull cas from the empty the way cas pulled him from hell, they threw away the potential symmetry of implying that jack brought cas back and having cas appear in the barn and save dean to mirror his first appearance in the barn where dean summoned him... and okay say misha didn't wanna risk covid and flying back to canada, they threw away the ability to literally just have a prerecorded line where cas found dean in heaven and said his iconic "hello dean" line. idk very bad writing. like obviously i had always assumed that at the very best the sbow would end with sam having the most normal life, and dean kinda fucked up but finding peace and dying on a hunting trip, but the execution sucked.

my final addition is that i have read quite a bit about all the drama behind the scenes but i genuinely cannot forgive the show's head writers and producers for queer baiting their audience like that. it would have been one thing for dean and cas to remain implied, but to confirm offscreen that they were in love and never acted on it, mention it only briefly onscreen before killing off their only on screen confirmed queer leading man, and then never resolve dean's sexuality was... quite hateful. and to know that you won't resolve it, but dangle the possibility of a resolution in the hopes of getting better numbers on your finale is... incredibly hateful. my heart goes out to misha, jensen, and berens who apparently worked very hard to get the little representation viewers were granted, and who subsequently were treated very poorly by the show's main writers and the network.

its been a hell of a 15 years...

[not-a-perfect-metaphor]

Well, I deleted this original answer (and then deleted it again as a post...and then deleted it one more time after that), so here it is for a fourth time with a screenshot of the original ask, and LET US HOPE that I can manage to see it through to completion.

This ask has taken me quite a bit of time and thought, because what I’m hoping to give you is a summary that helps you to better understand without being too overwhelming/containing way too much information.

First, thank you so much for reaching out, and I’m really glad you did! The point you’re at right now (or the point you were at when you sent this anyway) is where every single one of us started, and it’s an amazing journey from here if you find yourself wanting to take it! Seeking out resources from others is absolutely the way to go about it, and I hope that you always feel free to ask me (and other tinhats) for any info/thoughts/anything you need in the future! I can’t seem to include links in-post, but I’m going to message you a link to Speak the Truth, a site documenting J2 ‘happenings’ so to speak from a tinhat’s perspective through the year 2011. And, basically, whether someone’s been a tinhat from day one or for one day, we all have different pieces of the puzzle, and that’s really why it’s so important for us to connect with each other and work together as a whole.

So, let me try to figure out where to begin.

I, like quite a few other tinhats I’ve spoken with over the years actually, didn’t put much stock into any of this when it first started to emerge. People fantasizing about two celebrities having a romantic relationship (especially two leads in a movie or a TV show and especially when those leads are of the same sex) is far from a new thing and has been going on forever, and naturally I assumed in the beginning that J2 tinhats were no different. Had I not actually looked into all of it further and eventually then started really paying attention to the comings and goings of Jared & Jensen/watching all the footage I could find/reading the interviews/seeking out candid photos etc., I might not have ever changed my views, and it still took me quite a while to fully come around to where I am now even with all that.

What caused me to start looking more deeply in the first place was the simple fact that Jared & Jensen, even during the still-fledgling days of their relationship (however you happen to define that relationship), had a very unique and pretty immediate closeness that separated them distinctly from everyone else.

***As an aside, like I always bring up, most Wincest shippers were born from that intense J2 chemistry that bled into the characters of Sam & Dean.

The Js had clearly connected on a deep level that they not only spoke about openly from the beginning but that was also more than evident in the ways they interacted with each other, looked at each other, talked to each other, and even just existed in each other’s spaces (they even shared and share clothing and have freely admitted that).

Jared: “It didn’t feel like a blind date. It felt like we were continuing a relationship. There’s no rhyme or reason to what happened.”

They’ve also frequently phrased things like that *points up,* using very couple-y terminology.

(note: speaking of couple-y terminology, they’ve been heard calling each other “babe” and “baby” on several different occasions)

They’ve always had the kind of body language with each other that you really don’t see often in non-platonic relationships and that you especially don’t see often between two actors who’s paths have crossed initially in a purely work-related setting, and it was that special intimacy between them that first sparked my curiosity.

Let’s take a very brief look at just a few of those examples (a mix of the early years and beyond):

And below I’m including an example of the clothes-sharing I mentioned:

My curiosity expanded VERY rapidly (almost explosively) from that point onward as I began to dive more heavily into ‘J2-research.’

Like I said above, I’m not going to overload this post with specifics (although I’m happy to send specifics to you by the boatload if you’re interested), but I will just wrap up this first part of my answer by saying that it was the candid J2 moments I came across that really started to sell me on the possibility of a non-platonic J2 dynamic, the pictures and footage where they didn’t know they were being recorded or photographed, largely during the earlier years when they weren’t as cautious, but certainly not limited to those years, pictures/footage in which they interacted with each other in ways that I certainly would not interact with someone I wasn’t romantically involved with or at least romantically interested in).

Here are a couple of well-known examples. Less intense than some choice video clips (that I’ll have to find a way to post in the future) but still beautiful and intimate. I actually just posted that first one a few hours ago!

-which ‘arguably’ could depict the body language of two very close platonic friends (more so than the first photo, above it, anyway), but...look more closely at the giddy, love-struck expression on Jensen’s face as he watches Jared:

It’s kinda a bit harder to call it platonic when you really see it like that....

And...gosh, I poured over so many of these moments, just...so, so many.

Even then, though, I wasn’t necessarily convinced of the fact that the two were together in any kind of serious way. I, like this blog’s first owner, co-owner (who became a tinhat almost right alongside me, actually, time-wise) felt that the Js were certainly at least not strictly straight, quite possibly that they weren’t at all straight, and that they were definitely attracted to each other, an attraction that had likely yielded physical results, but I had no reason to think at that point that they would go to the great lengths (and put themselves through the unimaginable hardships) of leading such intricately and immensely false lives, at great personal expense, if they were actually in a serious, romantic relationship with each other that they both felt would be long-term.

Not when it was almost 2008 (at the time) and being a gay celebrity wasn’t anything to even bat an eye at anymore...right?

But I still had a lot to learn back then.

The next ‘milestone’ for me, upon looking even more closely (and not just at the Js anymore but at those around them/in their circle/etc., not to mention the Js lives pre-meeting each other, just all kinds of stuff) came the discovery(discoveries) of the many inconsistencies, which I’ll explain further, that were ultimately at the heart of my transition from on-the-fence to full tinhat.

A good example to use, because most people have at least some knowledge of this, centers around the period of time that the Js publicly lived together and the many...many different stories that were told explaining their living arrangement. I actually posted a pretty humorous account detailing some of it, and I can link you to it if you’d like. That’s just one example of many, but perhaps it’s the example with the most number of slip-ups/cases of the Js forgetting the details of the lie/etc.

To briefly cover one of those “living together” slip-ups, at separate meet-and-greets, Jensen once told people that he had moved out of Jared’s house while Jared said that Jensen was very much still living with him. And that’s probably the least suspicious but the easiest to quickly explain of the slips.

Another example, from later on (that I’m using because, again, it’s one that people are generally aware of) is when Jared told a story about being out to dinner in Italy with his wife and accidentally flipping off the waiter and then Jensen retold the exact same story at another con, only that time, he was the one who’d been with Jared.

Once I knew to look for them, I was blown away by how often these kinds of inconsistencies had already occurred and continued to occur, things being covered-up or overly-explained, stories changing sometimes three or more times in ways too significant to be excused away as memory lapses, even attempts at erasing things altogether...which doesn’t work very well in the age of the interwebz.

And why...why would these cover-ups and excuses and erasures exist if there was nothing to hide?

•••••••••

Retracing my steps for a moment to talk a little about the Js lives prior to meeting each other, which was one of the other things I’d started looking into by this point and definitely played an important part in confirming my tinhat beliefs.

The first example that comes to mind is Jensen’s ex-roommate (and just ex, period, at least that’s what I personally think), Ty Vaughn, the one underneath Jensen in this photo:

And I’ve spent a good 24 hours trying to track down footage I once had of Chad Michael Murray teasing young Jared about flirting with him (to Jared’s extreme embarrassment), but I cannot find it ANYWHERE. If anyone reading this can help me out, I would be forever in your debt.

Other noteworthy things (just a few): An ex-girlfriend of Jensen’s has admitted that she used to beard for someone, and her only celebrity ex is Jensen, and a few of Jared’s teachers from high school have expressed surprise that he’s married now to a woman...so, make of that what you will!

•••••••••

Okay, back to the inconsistencies!Another big one for me has always been the Js saying “we” or “us” (and meaning each other) when, according to public knowledge, it should have been “I” or “me.”

(as well as other synonyms of the above like “our”)

“We got to spend some time with our family yesterday.”

“They were knocking on our trailer.”

etc. etc.

And on the exact opposite end of the spectrum...also ironically what continues to fuel my certainty that the Js are together even more than the “we”-and-“us”-isms: the separation-of-the-Js tactic (varying in severity/frequency), sometimes for an evening or even a single event, sometimes for lonnng stretches of time, but always very suspicious, because, like I’ve been saying for this entire time, everyone knows that Jensen and Jared are extremely close, even those who believe that their closeness isn’t sexual or romantic. What I’m referencing with ‘separation of the Js,’ by the way, is what many tinhats believe to be the PR tactic used to paint pictures of the Js as being much less involved in each other’s lives to (in theory) control rumors. But the Js’ are and always have been intrinsically interconnected, so the reason that J2 separate narratives feel so forced and unnatural, often cringingly so, is because they kinda directly violate who Jensen and Jared are as people with each other, and if anything, that’s likely caused some new tinhats to come aboard, but it certainly hasn’t succeeded in convincing anyone who’s already a believer that they must have just been mistaken all along.

And I should definitely mention the suuuper-duper weirdness surrounding Jensen and Jared’s respective engagements and then weddings, as well as the information, or lack of information in Jared and Genevieve’s case, that was presented to the public about both ‘courtships,’ because almost every single aspect of all of that was drenched in tinhatty suspiciousness right from the start and all the way through. Again, I can link you to posts that detail the topic thoroughly, but to summarize very generally: Jared and Jensen, in leu of increasing rumors about the nature of their relationship, even more so in recent months than had previously been the case, were most likely counseled to straight-en up their images drastically, and fast...the only real way people can do that, by marrying members of the opposite sex (pretty much simultaneously, by the way, & much to the startled disbelief of many, including a very-public-about-his-skepticism Ted Casablanca).

Ted: “Jensen and Jared would sooner marry each other than who they’re currently rumored to be getting hitched to.”

Alright. Yikes. I’m really slipping here with my “not too many details” plan. I’ll start reigning it in again, I promise.

So, around the same same time as the weddings was when I started researching the practice of bearding (fauxmances) in the entertainment business in general, although not as heavily as I’ve researched the topic in recent years, and what I discovered and continue to discover was and is both eye-opening and heart-breaking. I actually just posted about this a couple of days ago, so instead of rambling on about it again, I’ll refer you to that (under the tag ‘toxic industry stuff’ for anyone reading this in the future). A quick summary: the reality that Jensen & Jared face every day and the decisions they’ve made to enter into false marriages are tragically common in the industry....yes, even and especially in today’s age, and for many gay actors and actresses specifically, the choice can really come down to either living honestly or protecting their careers/livelihoods/even their true relationships should they have them.

Since then, I’ve come across a lot of information as well about personal reasons, alongside industry reasons, that might have played a role in the decision to go the route of bearding for Jensen and Jared, like family history, their relationships with/views on/obstacles surmounted to succeed in (etc.) acting as a career, past experiences that have been hinted at, parental influence and sacrifice, not to mention the significant detail of who they happen to play on SPN...brothers (far too many ignorant people out there wouldn’t be able to move past the incest connotation, if a romantic relationship between the Js had been revealed).

By about midway through 2009, I was 100% convinced of the fact that Jared and Jensen were absolutely in a long term relationship that I would guess began around season two of Supernatural but had been on its way since the end of season one and during the hiatus between seasons one and two (want to know why I think that? I’ll do a separate post on it), and that the relationship was, of course, being hidden from the public.

The things that ultimately convinced me as they kept adding up are what continue to convince people today, the same things I’ve been going over at length (too much length) in this answer: intimacy between Jared & Jensen that extends beyond friendship-

-inconsistency in the information presented to the public that revolves around J2 and their time together/circumstances relating to both of them/etc., Jared and Jensen’s respective pasts before meeting each other, and even what some people believe to be hints dropped by Jared and Jensen themselves about their true relationship.

A well-known example (again, among many) that I’ve talked about pretty extensively is Jensen posting a photo in front of a mural that reads “love is love,” a well-known LGBT slogan, and then Jared posting a photo of himself in front of a mural that reads “love will win” on the very same day and captioning it “every time.”

This did turn out to be pretty overwhelming *sighs* but I hope at the very least I’ve succeeded in giving you a somewhat clearer idea of why us tinhats feel the way we do about Jared and Jensen, and I want to encourage you again to reach out whenever you like about anything you’d like to know!

There’s no such thing as a dumb question, and there’s no such thing as too many questions.

Just remember that! ❤️