#cas said horror and I said you wanted trauma?

[angelsdean]

Also, since I'm divorce arc posting today, what if i said Dean wasn't wrong to say this:

CASTIEL The plan changed, Dean. Something went wrong. You know this. Something always goes wrong. DEAN Yeah, why does that something always seem to be you?

LIKE !!!!! Sure it was harsh and if emotions weren't heightened already and Dean wasn't still dealing with the very recent death of his mother and that grief (anger being a stage of grief!) and ALL the Chuck shit on top of that AND his own complicated feelings re: Jack's death (bc Dean was Not going to kill him, despite Chuck trying to manipulate him into doing that) he probably wouldn't have said that to Cas but like?? he's not really wrong.

You can easily trace a lot of the major season conflicts as a long line of dominoes starting with Cas's s6 betrayal. Leviathans. Purgatory. The tablets. Angels falling. Lucifer getting out of the cage via Cas possession. Etc etc. And most of the time Cas was doing things from a place of good intentions in his POV. Trying to fix things or spare others the burden of doing the hard thing. But still, these plans often backfire for Cas. Going it alone, not letting Dean (+ Sam) in on his plans, it usually does not end well !!!! They are TEAM Free Will for a reason. The show (and Dean) continuously emphasizes the importance of team and family and not going it alone. So, while what Dean says to Cas in this scene is definitely a harsh pill to swallow and not something I think Dean would say to Cas in normal circumstances, he technically isn't wrong. And that's what makes it such a heart-breaking scene.

And even more-so, he's saying this but he still, at his core doesn't want Cas to leave. ("Of course I wanted you to stay.") At the moment he needs space and time to process his grief re: Mary, and all the other stuff going on, but he still wants Cas there and ultimately wants to fix things. ("I'd rather have you." "We can fix this." "I was there where were you." etc etc)

But to fix things they need to address his huge persistent, recurring issue between them: not communicating effectively and Cas continuously leaving, going rogue, and/or deciding for them when to involve Dean.

Dean wants to work together, as a team. Dean wants to be involved. Dean wants Cas to not just up and disappear and "deal with things" on his own like he always does. Cas, in his own POV, sees his actions as perhaps a form of care. He's protecting! He's taking on the hardships! Also, his hubris, wanting to be the strong protector type. Wanting to be a warrior. Powerful. Securing "wins." And these desires stem from his years as a soldier of Heaven, of equating worth with Results. Not something Dean has put on him or required of him.

But Dean doesn't see Cas's actions the way Cas perceives them. We as the omniscient audience know more about Cas's motivations than Dean does too. Dean often just sees Cas leaving, prioritizing the mission and shutting Dean out. However, I do think it's important to note that Dean is also usually willing to give Cas the benefit of the doubt, defend him, and forgives easily / implicitly.

They both care deeply about each other and don't maliciously mean to press on each other's specific insecurities and traumas but like, Dean is abandonment issues boy. And Cas keeps leaving. Or ignoring his calls when their daily lives are a constant life or death battle because they are literally living in a horror show! Dean is not unreasonable to be worried when he doesn't hear from Cas for days, weeks, months on end. He's not being "clingy" or "demanding." Expecting some base form of communication from the people you care about is normal in any relationship. Cas refusing to communicate in these moments IS a problem between them.

So, when Dean says, "Yeah, why does that something always seem to be you?" re: Cas being the "problem" it's harsh yes! But it's pushing them toward addressing this recurring issue (Cas going rogue often = plans backfiring) and the root of that issue which is Cas continuing to leave to do things on his own, change the game-plan without running it by anyone, and keeping others out. This moment is a breaking point. Because Dean, under normal circumstances, is generally one to defend, forgive, and move past Cas's mistakes. Cas himself says it in this very scene: "You used to trust me, give me the benefit of the doubt."

But at this point something needs to give, they need an explosive moment to just bring all these issues to light. It's a rupture.

Yes, Dean might "still blame [Cas] for Mary" but Cas also knows deeply, as he expresses to Jack, that Dean needs time and space to process his emotions. That he feels things more acutely and intensely but that ultimately he usually comes to a place of acceptance / forgiveness / is able to move on.

That's what Dean wants and needs in this moment. He needs space to deal with his feelings and his grief (clearly in the anger stage of it). And he also wants to finally address these issues! But Cas is also struggling himself and in his own mind he's feeding old insecurities. He let Belphegor get under his skin. He thinks he's not needed or wanted anymore. So, he does what he tends to do. Leave.

CASTIEL Well, I don't think there's anything left to say. [Castiel makes to leave.] DEAN Where you going?

Cas decides to leave and Dean immediately asks where are you going? Because even now, feeling how he does, he doesn't want Cas to leave.

What Dean wants is to have a confrontation. He wants to get to the root of their issues. He asks Cas why didn't he just stick to the plan. And emphasizes the concept of WE, of being a team. "We would've figured it out....after. With Rowena." He wants them to stick together, work together. But he's struggling. He's grieving. And still, he wants Cas to stay, of course I wanted you to stay.

And I say it all here in this post but the whole "I left but you didn't stop me" is just, Cas really? From Dean's POV he sees Cas's leaving as a choice Cas makes. He respects his choice and doesn't ask him to stay because he also does not feel he deserves to ask people to stay for him. He is always putting his own wants and desires second to those of others. He thinks, if Cas wants to leave, who is he to stop him?

Anyways, I think too much of divorce arc puts blame on Dean or makes Dean out to be "the bad guy" and "the reason" Cas leaves and the one who needs to "grovel" and apologize / be forgiven. But Cas is not blameless. Cas leaves because Cas leaves. Cas leaves because he chooses to and because he does not want to confront the realities of the situation or his own role in their issues. And after Cas leaves he continues to bury his head in the sand and be avoidant (thee core issue!) while also going out and working a solo case in an effort to secure a "win" and prove to himself that he's still capable of getting things right and not always failing.

And all of this, the complexity, the layers, Cas's stubbornness and flaws, is deeply delicious to me. Cas is not a blameless innocent little baby who got his feelings hurt by "big meanie Dean" in this situation. He is someone who heard a hard truth from someone he cares about and made the choice to leave instead of confronting the issue. And throughout it all, they both still deeply care about each other. It's evident in everything they do. And they want to work it out, but are both at different places and struggling with their own feelings too.

[iamnot-theboynextdoor]

OFMD EP3 REACTION

we open with zheng's crew raiding a ship

"who's the captain" "he calls himself the soul reaper" "i'm not calling him that" zheng is great

WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE SUICIDE STUFF

"you've bested me" camera pans to stede and olu

"culturally, this must be very hard for you... but your last act on this planet WILL be surrendering to a woman" ZHENG IS GREAT. and the Very Confused expression on bartholemew's face like

stede's job is to ferry the champagne dslghskjgs

zheng chilling out and having a nice charcuterie board with the guy she's raiding... have i mentioned that she's the best because she's the best

zheng practically twirling her hair going "omg noooo forget it it's just a crazy idea aha....." she's a fucking genius. you work for her now, idiot

"that's what i always say! olu, don't i say that?" "no" olu's not havin it

zheng "this is a 'join me or die' situation" zheng's not havin it

STEDE PUT DOWN THE ABACUS THERE HAVE BEEN ENOUGH ABACUS CASUALTIES

oh fuck first mate aunty's seen the revenge

stede's running out the room

ooh the revenge is fucked. anyone who isn't a named character is probably dead

STEDE HURLS HIMSELF FUCKING OVERBOARD WITHOUT HESITATION GOOD LORD

he has a one track mind and all the stations are labeled "ed <3"

he fucking bellyflopped into the ocean i am begging him to grow a single brain cell

it plays the music that ed and stede kissed to... and then stede gets onboard the ruined ship with nobody there and it goes silent... i am eating my desk

there's blood streaks all over the walls, stede's portrait has daggers in it

the crew are eating a seagull

fucking scene from a horror movie right there

IT IS JUST THE FIVE OF THEM SGSKJGHSFJG

"where's ed?" "there's no good way to say this, stede, but we-" "OH IS THIS STEDE" archie i love you but please

"just thought you'd be taller, y'know, muscly, charismatic-" "why are you saying that" "...this is good soup" ARCHIE BABYGIRL

"bonnet! good to see you" izzy positively DRIPPING with stank. if we thought lucius hated stede, we ain't seen nothing yet

"frenchie, where is ed?" oh god he knows frenchie's so shit at lying "...he retired" to where, Pirate Heaven? well. Pirate Hell considering what he's been doing

everyone nodding at that, even izzy. i can't believe izzy wants to fucking spare stede's feelings

"you just wanna keep the soft one happy" LET ZHENG HAVE A GUYWIFE!!!

izzy saying HE stabbed stede's portrait and being remarkably unconvincing

and here we go with ed in purgatory!

edward teach, died on a beach

i know who this is i've seen the spoilers it's a vision of hornigold. the question is how much am i going to hate him

he's got a pet pig named ruthie so unfortunately that is a point in his favour. god damn it. let me hate someone

hornigold's got this ghostly reverb on his voice and i think he's wearing a sail as a coat? it looks cool

HE LOOKS LIKE IF MY GRANDPA WAS EVIL

"open up for the cargo ship" ...i already know people are gonna be weirdly horny about hornigold. i don't like it.

"LAST TIME I SAW YOU YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA FLAY MY SKIN AND FEED IT BACK TO ME" "yeah alright alright that was messed up i'm sorry. i was in a bad place back then... too much on the rhino horn" oh god ed's become him. is there generational trauma but for pirates. captaining trauma?

aunty please don't scare fang he is a delicate flower and he has been through enough

JIM AND OLU!!!!

"eu-caly-ptus-es. eu-ca-lump-tus" i'm never gonna say eucalyptus the same way again thank u olu

(shoulder bump) "i missed you" AWWWW "i kissed someone" OH FUCK RIGHT AWAY

they are still so fucking cute!!!!! zheng/olu/jim/archie endgame!!!

"i saw her boobs" "oh ok" "both of them" "ok that's enough" SLKFHSDGKJSHKG

stede's back on the ruined revenge STOP PLAYING THE KISS MUSIC I'M GOING INSANE

montage of stede retrieving all of ed's daggers

aaaaand izzy's there

"we just redecorated" "i don't mind actually i think the knives really help bring the place together" stede's priorities are 1) ed 2) being a bitch to izzy

"he was either gonna watch the world burn or die trying, so which is it?" STEDE KNOWS

"he was a wild dog and we dealt with him like one!" "you sent him to doggie heaven." GODDDDDD

"no. i could never do that. we deserted him on a beach, left nature to do the rest, more than he would've done for us" but it's a dream, so izzy is a lying liar who lies. to protect STEDE

"you and me did this to him, and we cannot let this crew suffer any more for our mistakes" if you told me last week that this line would come up in a conversation between stede and izzy, i would not fucking believe you when you told me who said it

"bet you're wondering how i ended up here" "nope" ed's just standing there like a five year old following their parent around

"you're worried you're insane" "yeah a little bit" YEAH SO AM I ED

SOUP AGAIN

SOUP HEALS EVERYTHING

"ed can be quite troubled" "girl, how ARE you" thank you zheng. how else do you respond to the #1 ed apologist

pirates do not know how to handle break-ups without having a little massacre as a treat huh

aunty has found Something!

"i thought about opening an inn" BLACKBEARD'S BAR AND GRILL AND FISHING EQUIPMENT AND GIFT SHOP ENDGAME PLEASE

and now ed and hornigold are play-acting it out

JEFF'S INN BY THE SEA okay WHY is ed's fake name always jeff. is that a tragic backstory too lmao

ed's little leaf for a pin

he really is just a little kid playing with his dadptain who really does not want to be playing with a five year old

"why are you being a dick" "i'm not being a dick, you're gonna have to deal with customers like that" this is unfortunately true

THAT POST ABOUT STEDE BEING GOOD AT FRONT OF HOUSE AND ED BEING GOOD AT BACK OF HOUSE. ENDGAME ENDGAME ENDGAME

"grown man covered in tattoos? with daddy issues?" hornigold woke up and chose violence

"i never told anyone about that" "but you did. and he left you" hornigold isn't just hornigold or a stand-in for ed's dad. he's all of ed's inner demons. welcome to purgatory bay bee

"and it all boils down to this: you're afraid you're unlovable" aaaaaaaaaand ed has snapped hornigold's neck. but he's not real so he's fine probably

yeah he sat up

"you can't kill me, eddie" montage of ed killing him over and over

man if eddie was hornigold's nickname for ed, izzy calling him eddie has a whole new context

OH FUCK AUNTY FOUND ED'S BODY IN THE HOLD

stede's face

frenchie leaning his head against izzy in the brig....

"go on, bonnet, give me your worst" and stede can't even say anything. and izzy's crying. and i'm crying.

pirate purgatory bay bee

is this a "ed can go back, but only if he chooses to" thing? with ED'S suicidal ideation? i know he does but let's see how they resolve it

"you're talking about purgatory" "no, what's that?" hornigold calling me out personally???

"what do you like about life?" "okay, warmth. good food. intercourse. orgasms." IS THIS FORESHADOWING HMMMMMM

cons: "i don't think anyone's waiting for me" i am rubbing my hands together babyboy you don't know how wrong you are

"pick up my fuckin' staff" dream hornigold is committed to being a wizard

olu trying to convince zheng not to execute izzy and co

BOAT-MANCE

"what is the status of that is it ongoing or?"

zheng: pro for killing jim is you will be single

"we're best friends. family." honestly no matter what form olu and jim's relationship takes i love them

"how would this execution affect-" (caresses olu's chest with her sword) "-us?" AAAAAAAAAAAA

honestly olu if you don't get with zheng. jim might. if they don't get executed

"what do you mean us?" "i was trying to seduce you" "oh" "was that not clear?" "no" i love how even the hyper-competent pirate queen is allowed to be a lil awkward

AND SHE'S KISSING OLU WELL WELL WELL

"towel service! ...it's chamomile!" it's CHLOROFORM BAY BEE

stede's organising a jailbreak!

"i never said [i had perfect aim]" "you said it today" lucius is not havin it

"the entire escape relies on this" this is the type of action movie hero shit that s1 pete would eat up. s2 pete, however, has at least a fraction of a brain cell and doesn't want to risk it. and you know what that is? growth.

FUCK YEAH ARCHIE

lucius ziplining across while going "ohgodohgodohgodohgod" big mood

"where's olu?" "go find him!" uh oh and jim's gonna walk in on him and zheng. they'd better join in or i'm rioting

HE'S SITTING ON HER DESK SWINGING HIS LITTLE FEETIES AS SHE KISSES HIM

"did you know about this?!" oh no she's gonna think he was playing her this whole time!!!

zheng runs out and jim runs in and olu is torn BUT HE TAKES JIM'S HAND

"set the sail!" stede there is barely half of a fucking sail

olu awkwardly waving at zheng and she's heartbroken oh god. she wasn't kidding when she said the timing was bad. now they've made a very dangerous enemy

izzy tries to THANK stede and stede just has a thousand yard, devastated stare and walks away

"you already made your choice" and ed suddenly has a very large rock tied to him oh god oh fuck

"i'm not me. i'm you. you brought me here." "why would i do that" gee i don't know ed maybe because you like torturing yourself

"so if you hate me and i'm you..." "...i hate myself" "bullseye! finally!" i'd say i feel sorry for ed but he did very much do all that shit

"...i'm not lovable" OKAY I AM NOT IMMUNE TO FEELING SORRY FOR ED

ed still needs someone else to pull the metaphorical trigger

only when stede goes down to the hold by himself does he allow himself to mourn

and there's ed in the ocean RUBBING MY HANDS TOGETHER

I'M CRYING

stede pulls the cover off ed's face and in the dream ed suddenly starts to struggle for air!!!!!

HIS FINGER'S TWITCHING

stede's crying i'm crying

god it's like a "come here" gesture i'm going insane and also crying

"I'M HERE!" AND THE ROPE FALLS OFF ED'S WAIST AND I HAVE TO PAUSE AND SOB LOUDLY!!!!!!

THE LITTLE MERSTEDE!!!!!!!

AND ED WAKES UP!!!!!!!

end credits sequence is just the sun shining through the water. i really thought it was gonna be ed sitting up and headbutting stede in the face

[adornesibley]

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH: a Newsletter

Reading: Vaesen: Nordic Horror Roleplaying, The Future by Naomi Alderman

Finished Reading: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Podcast: Old Gods of Appalachia

Playing: Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (PS3)

Making: DOOM levels and Zines

Writing: Project E

Word Count: 167578

TLDR: Looked at old work: liked it. Editing trenches: *cries in author.* Put trigger warnings on books, please. TTRPGs: I have a group now. Writing stories with others is sick as. TTRPG recommendations. Beetle Knight was funded fantastically. 

This month I decided to take a short three-day break from the editing mines to go crack open an older WIP that I last looked at about a year ago. I couldn’t stop laughing through the first three chapters and legitimately couldn’t remember what I’d written scene to scene. I got to feel the intrigue as a character picked up a shoebox beneath their bed, and got angry at myself for not telling me what was in it! What a gloriously strange experience it was. I likely won’t spend too much time on this WIP in the coming months, but it’s good to know that when I’m done with my current big novel’s rounds of edits, I’ve got a project that I’m massively excited for waiting in the wings.

Speaking of my current big novel. Let’s look at that word count. Seems pretty similar to last month. I have done SO MUCH EDITING. I’ve realized that right now, my biggest concern is making sure to correct errors, cull old plot points, and generally tighten up dialogue. I feel that I’ve been too focused on culling words and maybe the more important thing is making sure this book fucking SHINES. Besides, while I shop this novel around, I can be happily chugging along on my other WIP, so no wuckas.

I am part of a writer’s group which meets once a month. It is quite a large group with many people who flow in and out. It is a beautiful group and an invaluable fount of knowledge. Every second month we have a discussion topic. This month was talking about the ethics of being an author and how much responsibility we have to our readers in regard to the topics we write about. 

This led to talk of trigger warnings and the suggestion of books having them. (SPOILERS! I think they should have them) There were varying ideas on all sides of the spectrum, but there was one point made that has stuck in my head. Trigger warnings are just like nutrition labels. If you are allergic to nuts you need to know before you buy a product if it contains nuts, right? Trigger warnings are the same. You don’t want to be taking a big bite out of some delicious morsel and then suddenly you feel your throat closing up. Same same. You don’t want to put hours into a book, invest in the characters, only to suddenly have your exact trauma thrust into your eyeballs. You can’t unread it. If you have been honestly triggered before, you understand how it can be hard to stop that spin when it starts. And from an author's standpoint, you don’t want to turn off potential readers also. One scene that may seem insignificant to you, may be terrifying to another. Then they may never pick up your books again, for fear of said thing.  

Speaking of this delightful group, near the end of the meeting a friend was talking to a brand new member about TTRPGs and I just so happened to be carrying CY_BORG with me! We chatted a bit and I enthusiastically suggested I should and would run a one-shot for them, their partner, my friend, and another writing buddy of mine. SO I’VE FINALLY GOT SOME TTRPG FRIENDS TO PLAY WITH! WOO! I am thrilled about the idea of introducing these fine folks to all the strange and interesting TTRPG systems I’ve picked up over the last year.

TTRPGs are such an invaluable resource for storytelling. With a few dice, some rules, and a setting, you and a few friends can end up creating an entire world and a compelling narrative together, even if no one in the group is a writer! Now… if you are writers… well then, something truly incredible can happen. I think authors often think of the writing process as a solitary pastime. Traditionally, it may be, but I think we undersell how satisfying and freeing collaborative storytelling can be. Hell, plenty of fantasy writers started their careers (See Raymond E. Feist) dictating and polishing up their D&D campaigns that they ran with their friends!

And in the spirit of collaboration, I want to recommend some small projects that need your help! I’ll be personally backing these later this month when I’ve secured my own funds.

Budgeon: A digestible mini adventure zine with a VERY old-school feel. The art is all first person a la Combat Heroes, but can be played as a party or solo! It even encourages you to draw your own maps, very similar to how you might have played Stonekeep on DOS. (Big nostalgia for myself) As of posting this, this project needs additional support right now! Go give them some love. The basic zine is only FIVE USD. (And THREE USD for digital~!)

Thirty Horrors: A bestiary designed to be used with Mothership 1E. Let’s be real people, that means it could likely be converted for just about any system with minimal pain. The art is shaping up to be suitably uncomfortable and this project blew the hell up! They’ve reached heaps of stretch goals and it still has half a month to go~

SPEAKING OF BLOWING UP. Holy hell Beetle Knight did well! It ended up earning 22,898 USD out of the required 3,500. WHAT A SHOWING! I absolutely adore seeing small weird projects become more successful than anyone could have imagined. Certainly, it was more than the original creator expected as that final total completely blew past their final stretch goal.

Support weird. Support indie.

[seoafin]

aaah omg I wish I followed you earlier then! I cannot judge I also think chrollo is very attractive and the yorknew city arc is my favorite. Also Chimera ant being your favourite? I did not see that coming but I respect it! May I ask why? I think hxh was the first anime I watched and I remember being flabbergasted at how long the arc was…and now i’m watching one piece so there’s that

LMAO nothing beats one piece in terms of length but i think what people mostly didn't like abt the CA arc that i really enjoyed was the narration. i think hxh2011 in terms of following the manga does an amazing job but one of the criticisms that i've seen leveled against the arc because of the narration is the fact that on the basis of being animated the arc didn't need narration (which is typically a tool used for mangakas for exposition) but i completely disagree because i think it's literally the only way to fully comprehend and understand that arc. ANYWAY SORRY IM RAMBLINGGGGGG but i loved CA because the arc is a turning point for gon and killua who up to that point have surpassed every single trial (I don't want to say with ease but up to that point nothing has troubled them to the extent of discouraging them). gon and killua are geniuses one of a kind they've overcome everything thrown at them and then you think the chimera ant arc is going to be another trial to overcome with the power of friendship and hard work and intent! nope! the chimera ant is so BRUTAL. like i said it's THE turning point of the manga. this happy go lucky shonen becomes a tragedy (which has only been hinted at by the manga prior think the kurta clan massacre and kurapika's character arc). togashi really beautifully but also. brutally . deconstructs what it truly means to be a shonen protagonist and all the trauma and baggage that comes with it. it really makes a point that wow these are just two kids experiencing war crimes war and horror after horror. obviously they're not going to be sane. obviously they're going to react in non sensible ways!!! obviously they're going to be traumatized!!!

[antigonewinchester]

13x01 So Jack is being set up to reflect aspects of Sam (his powers, the yellow-eyes), aspects of Dean (kid forced to grow up too fast in a dangerous world), and aspects of Cas (naive abt humanity / how to exist in the world). 

The framing of Cas as Jack’s father, Jack searching for him & not be able to find him calls to mind Sam and Dean searching for John in S1 (although Cas is staying away because he’s dead, not because he’s choosing too). There’s also how Lucifer vs Cas sort of parallels the Azazel vs John dichotomy. Altho S13 removes the more metaphorical demon-father aspect and instead makes it the more literal bad vs good angelic dad.

13x02 Dean being rough around the edges w/ Jack, Sam being more sensitive. I get what the show is going for, but the writing is really unconvincing & makes both Sam and Dean into pod people to me. Like the scene of Jack getting his anti-possession tattoo–neither Dean or Sam tell Jack that getting a tattoo hurts to set up Jack inadvertently using his powers, but c’mon, there’s no way Dean or Sam would’ve been that stupid as to not realize they should warn Jack about it.

13x03 Ah, Berens. As I’ve said before, not a fan. One exchange that stood out to me:

DEAN He is [right]. This life, hunting, monsters, there’s no joy in it. There’s nothing but pain, horror and death. So if you get a chance at normal, you take it. [DEAN turns to the IMPALA and PATIENCE moves back to her house. JODY goes after her.] JODY Patience, wait. I may be out of line here but you don’t have to listen to him. To either of them if it’s not what you really want. I had a daughter, I guess, Claire, and I asked her to stay in line, to fight who she really was because I thought it would keep her safe. It didn’t work, it never does. Your gift… or maybe you’re right, maybe it’ll go away. But if it doesn’t? You try to force it down to make someone else happy, you will only make yourself miserable. It’s your choice. But if you ever need someone to talk to or someplace to go, my door is always open.

Berens clearly wants to do a kind of superhero, kind of YA take on powers and hunting. Patience has her powers, and she can use them for good, implied as a hunter (and then made more explicit later on in the season). Similarly, Claire has her gift for hunting, which is subtextually a gift, we take the parallel Jody is making between Patience and Claire. 

So the show has dropped its framing of hunting as something that was driven by grief and trauma and anger – but it’s awkward because it was grief and trauma and anger that started Claire down the path of hunting in the first place. I guess you could argue Claire in S10 wasn’t technically hunting, but it was definitely hunting-esque, and there’s the implication in 11x12 that Claire is hunting as a way to deal with / avoid her feelings. And then it transforms into… being a hunter is “who” Claire is. Self-empowerment, badassery instead of tragedy & trauma.

[checkers-dance]

HELLO CHECKERS. IM SO FUCKING SORRY. IM HERE AGAIN JVJFNVFNVJV. listen. whenever anything tragic happens to me i feel like i need to report back to you, its a tradition to me. anyway, this actually happened a few days ago but i was so emotionally distraught and so embarrassed of myself that i was avoiding telling you about it but here i am. im sorry to you and your followers for making u read this shit but i was going through an arc.

SO ANYWAY. after the lucas apparition my dear friend rebo became suddenly obsessed with what happened. you need to understand she's relatively normie, like, she knows abt the weird shit i get up to but she knew nothing abt the enceeteeverse, i think she was deliberately ignoring it for her sanity. but the lucas apparition devastated her and i think as some sort of coping mechanism she tried to find meaning to our shared trauma. so she was wondering. why did lucas choose us. what do we have in common. for some fucking reason she got the idea to combine our discord colors and she got lilac. she then googled lilac enceetee (IM TRYING NOT TO SAY THE ACTUAL NAME BC MY ASKS TO YOU SHOW ON SEARCHES AND IF ANY NORMAL PERSON SEES THIS I WILL DIE) and apparently they released A SPECIAL VERSION OF STICKER THAT WAS LILAC???? so my friend was determined. she decided to listen to the WHOLE ALBUM. i joined her eventually. our thoughts on the music are irrelevant, but what you need to know is that at some point we started looking for clues on the lyrics and if something reminded of us a song we would jump to that song and try to find a meaning to it. we called it the nct arg. this went on for A WHILE. eventually noxia and our friend lynx and joined us and we were all just fucking around deciphering the clues.

we got so into it. and at some point we did actually find what you could call a message if you want to, except it was in all in our heads. its such a good example of the way the brain searches for pattern.

after a long search, our clues lead us to this video. i can still remember the way we were all screaming at like 1am... you need to understand that at this point i was so invested in our made up story that for one small second it didn't compute that this was a a prank. like my heart dropped to my stomach vnjfvfnvjvnjv OBVIOUSLY I IMMEDIATELY REALIZED WHAT WAS GOING ON BUT THATS HOW FAR GONE I WAS...

so the rest of the night was us trying to figure out who the fuck made the video. i was so tired at this point, so while everyone was arguing i was just looking up dumb shit on youtube. and i thought haha wouldnt it be funny if i looked up "lucas horror game." so i did. checkers.... i found a game called LUCAS THE BASEMENT. I THINK THIS IS WHAT BROKE ME. IDK WHAT HAPPENED BUT THAT GENUINELY MADE ME SO UPSET??? I FELT SO OVERSTIMULATED AND IRRATIONALLY ANGRY, ITS VERY FUNNY LOOKING BACK BUT THE HORRORS FELT SO REAL... i calmed down. sort of. and then i keep looking up dumb shit, as if i hadn't just learned what that gets me. i looked up "lucas the hedgehog" bc idk i thought it sounded funny. the first fucking result had the word STICKER in it. THIS MADE ME FEEL WORSE. I WAS SO GENUINELY UPSET NVFJNVJFVN

eventually it was revealed that it was both noxia and lynx fucking with us. i was so tired, i just left call and went to bed. but you need to understand the distress was so real to me i genuinely didnt sleep well that night. like i woke up and it felt like i didnt sleep at all. THIS IS GOING TOO FAR, IM TIRED.

anyway. do NOT listen to encee fucking tee, it ruined my life, i want to escape. i keep seeing patterns everywhere. its consuming me. i cant remember when this was but one day a mutual saw me having an enceetee breakdown and said "im starting to genuinely feel bad for you" NOOOOO JFVNJFVNNFV. im ok. im fine. lucas isn't real.

Oh ghskfkskfks I forgot abt the asks showing up in searches based on keywords, rip. Every time I get another ask like this I think the lore can't get any worse AND THEN IT DOES. I can't believe they pranked u, that's so funny but so 😭😭. Also someone should make a meme out of this w the dominoes falling and the first step is becoming obsessed w the lucas in the basement jokes and we still haven't reached the last step. Anyway thank u for keeping me updated on this, at least ur pain and confusion had a purpose (sending me funny unhinged asks abt encetee shenanigans)

[touyaspeach]

Summary ; You and Dabi play a sexy version of Russian Roulette.

Warnings ; dark content, noncon, dubcon, snuff, gun play, dacryphilia, fem! reader, kidnapping, uhh please lmk if I missed anything

Words ; 2.4 k

Thanks ; @katonshoko @cyancherub

A/N ; I've never written anything so dark before, I hope you like it! Though this fic is a far cry from the way I'd normally portray Dabi, it was still fun to write!

Letting him tie you up was a mistake that would cost you your life. You couldn’t fight back, you couldn’t struggle; all you could do was scream but it’s not like anyone would hear you. The ropes burned around your wrists as you tried desperately to free yourself, to no avail.

“Don’t be scared, little mouse. It’s just a game,” his deep voice rang out melodically above you. He spoke in such a soft way, gentle and sing-song while the gun he’d brandished was cold and harsh in contrast. The revolver that he loaded a single round into, spinning the cylinder and snapping it closed to your horror.

You were trembling all over, your body shaking against the restraints that you thought were for a fun and sexy time. Now, they were but a prison to keep you contained until...what? Until he fucked you until he killed you? The thought sent tears streaming down your cheeks as he slid off his belt and pants.

“Dabi, please,” you sobbed as he took his place between your thighs, “Please don’t do this!”

“Shhh…” he quieted you by pressing the barrel of the revolver against your pretty lips, the cold metal a shock to your system. “It’s just a game, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t just a game, you knew that bullet was in that gun, and that he’d planned on pulling that trigger. You choked another sob, bowing your head as you tried to process exactly what was happening.

“Here’s how this works. You’ll be a good girl for me, right? If you aren’t and you cum without permission, I’ll pull the trigger. It’s not that hard, so you should be fine, right?”

“Please…” you whispered, “please don’t.”

“I’m sorry, doll, it’s already happening,” Dabi trailed the barrel down the side of your neck, sending goosebumps to prickle all over your body. He pulled it down and over your collarbone, and between the valley of your breasts which made your breath hitch. His eyes were alight with excitement as you shuddered when the unforgiving metal grazed over your nipple, instantly hardening it.

The sight of you, shaking and crying while begging him to stop just made his cock harder and harder until he couldn’t wait anymore. “Be good for me, doll.” he cooed once again as he trailed his cockhead up and down your slit.

“Already so wet for me? Does being scared like this turn you on? So filthy,” he chuckled, pressing into you slowly. His cock stretched you out in the most pleasantly unpleasant way, rows of piercings slipping in and stimulating your walls. It shouldn’t feel so good, why did it feel so good? You were terrified and you were sure you didn’t want this. Right?

“Fuck, so tight. That’s it, that’s my girl. Take all of my cock,” Dabi said with a groan as he bottomed out. You felt better than he could have anticipated, so soaked with fear and arousal, you really were a freak. A freak who was so perfect for him, he was almost sad to play this game with you. But, well, he couldn’t exactly stop now.

You sobbed harder when he started thrusting in and out of you slowly, and even harder still when you realized that he felt good. That him fucking you like this felt so good despite how fucked up it was. His dick somehow hit every spot inside of you perfectly, cockhead kissing your sweetspot over and over. It was enough to turn your soft sobs into soft moans, something that he took care in noticing.

“See? Feels good, right? No reason to be gettin’ all worked up, doll.”

With that, Dabi picked his pace up until he set a rhythm that had you seeing stars. The squelching of your juices and the snapping of his hips combined in a lewd symphony as he fucked you. With an evil smirk he trailed the cold barrel of the gun down your torso again, down and over your mound, and pressed it against your neglected clit. You jolted at the feeling, already so sensitive. The metal was ice on your heat, a shock to your system, and your reaction drew a breathy chuckle from him.

“You like this.” it wasn’t a question, “you’re more of a slut than I thought.”

You started sobbing again, the reality of your situation hitting hard again as he started to stimulate your throbbing bud with the revolver. It was too much, god it was too much and your mind started to white out at your impending release.

Fuck, did he say something about asking for permission? Shouldn’t you do that? When you opened your mouth all that you could do was choke out a half sob, half moan as you came. Your walls fluttering around his length, your body lurching from pleasure, hips bucking into him even as he stilled.

Dabi cocked an eyebrow at you, “Now what were the rules? Didn’t you need to ask for permission to cum, little mouse?”

Ice flooded your veins colder than the harsh metal as you came back to reality. Your heart rate increased exponentially as you realized just what was about to happen. He was going to put that gun to your head and pull the trigger, and it would either fire or it wouldn’t. God, you hoped it wouldn’t.

You prayed then, to whatever god that was out there, for the gun to dry fire. For it to have landed on any chamber but the one with the bullet. The barrel pressed against your temple as Dabi leaned over you, supporting himself with one arm while the other held the revolver. The room was silent in anticipation and you were too scared to even sob now.

And then his expression changed, a warm and gentle smile graced his features and for a moment, for a fleeting, hope-filled moment, you thought it was all some sick joke.

Click.

You exhaled the breath you didn’t know you were holding as the trigger clacked uselessly. A dry fire. Thank fuck. You couldn’t help but to pant, or was it hyper-ventilating? The only thing you were sure of was your own fear and that his dick was impossibly harder than before.

He was getting off on scaring you, on playing this dangerous, sick game where your life was on the line. You felt nauseous at the thought, which was exacerbated by the laugh he barked out.

“S’all good, y’see! Remember to ask next time, doll, or ya might not get so lucky!” Dabi flipped the cylinder out, spun it again, and clicked it back into place. Effectively resetting the chances that the next one would be the bullet.

Then he starts fucking you, hips snapping against yours, balls plopping against the fat of your ass as he trails that damned gun down your body again. You sobbed once more, fresh hot tears rolling down your cheeks. He groaned softly at the sight of you, shifting just slightly to pound into that sweet spot again.

Dabi laid the revolver on your belly, causing you to yelp as the metal burned your hot flesh. It was so cold, and your body was so hot that it hurt. He snickered, and palmed both of your tits with large hands and deft fingers, pinching your nipples and flicking them gently. Then he reared back and slapped both of them hard, causing you to cry out and sob more.

You were beyond begging him to stop at this point, and as he continued to assault your cunt in the best of worst ways you felt that coil tighten.

He felt it too, as your silken walls clenched tightly around him. He snatched the gun and pointed it at you, his pace never letting up. “Remember, sweetheart.” And as you opened your mouth to beg him to let you cum he shoved the barrel between your teeth.

Your muffled protests fell on deaf ears as he fucked you over the edge of your second orgasm. You had no say in the matter, you couldn’t even beg around the barrel of the gun and you realized then that the game was rigged from the start. Not that you didn’t already know that, of course, but to be faced with such a harsh reality as your cunt throbbed and gushed, nearly gave you whiplash between the fear and the pleasure.

Your moans and sobs mingle together around the revolver, saliva dripping down your chin and over the harsh metal as Dabi doesn’t relent in his pace. “God you’re beautiful when you’re terrified, I can’t believe how hard you came that time.” He barked out a laugh, an awful and wretched sound, “Too bad you didn’t ask for it, now we get to play again. Are you ready, princess?”

You shook your head as much as you could, not even caring about how awful your face must have looked coated in tears and snot and spit. “Alright, brace yourself, I’m feeling lucky on this one!”

You squeezed your eyes closed again, anticipation making you feel like vomiting. As you did, you became too aware of the assault on your body. Your mouth tasted of metal, gunpowder, and salt, the only sound in the room was your whimpers, Dabi’s taunts, and the sound of his hips slapping against yours hard enough to thump the bed frame against the wall. And your body ached, it hurt in so many places.

The restraints that held your arms secure by your wrists, along with the ones that held your legs apart by your knees and ankles burned and tore into the tender flesh there. Your back was aching from being held in this position for so long, and you couldn’t feel your fingers. Your cunt, despite being well-lubricated regardless of your own protests, was starting to throb too.

Click.

Another dry fire, as you choked a sob around the barrel. Dabi let out a small groan of annoyance, and removed it from your mouth, rolling his eyes. "Shame," was all he said.

You felt numb after that, your mind shutting down as he continued without stopping. Dabi noticed you still and quiet, oh no. No, his toy wouldn't stop working just yet.

He paused just long enough to reset the cylinder, then placed the revolver on your belly. You didn't even flinch this time. Maybe you'd be more responsive if-

Long, slender fingers wrapped around your throat as Dabi leaned over you, pressing his weight on your esophagus as he fucked into you harder and deeper than before. Your eyes widened as blood flow was restricted.

Spots clouded your vision and you attempted to struggle, to make him move his hands, for anything to stop this. You didn't want to die.

Just as you thought you would black out, he relented, drawing those hands down your torso to palm once again at your breasts. A low chuckle rumbled in his chest as you coughed and sputtered and gulped in as much air as you could.

"No checking out on me, darling. I want you here and conscious when I pull the trigger," as if to taunt you he picked the gun up, waved it around nonchalantly, then pressed the barrel beneath your chin.

"And since you were so rude before, I'm going to give you a free one. Isn't that nice of me?"

You avoided eye contact, looking anywhere but his wicked grin. He didn't appreciate that,rearing back with the butt of the revolver and bringing it down over your jaw.

Hard enough to make you cry out, but not to break anything. "You should be thanking me," he hissed, hips still snapping against yours. "Get talking. I wanna hear how grateful you are."

You spat at him, saliva and blood that landed on his chest. "I'd rather you pull that damn trigger twice than thank you for this."

"Oh? So she's not broken yet, I see. Good, good. Twice? 'S that what you want, princess?"

You shouldn't have said that. What the hell were you thinking getting all cocky now? Maybe it was a poor attempt to seize some power back, maybe you just wanted it over with.

He pointed the gun down at you, pulling back to support his weight on his knees as he did so. Fuck, why did that send fresh heat to your cunt? Why did it turn you on so much? This whole situation was fucked up beyond belief, but...some deep and messed up part of you was enjoying it.

You stared down the gun with tears and snot and blood and saliva dripping down your face. And then you noticed it- the position of the bullet.

You see, what most people don't realize is that the way a revolver is constructed, if one should play a game such as this, and are able to look upon the gun at such an angle, you can see exactly where the bullet is in the cylinder.

Assuming he would reset again after the first shot, you should be safe. You would be fine. Right?

Without warning you gushed around Dabi's cock. Pussy throbbing and squirting all over him, making him groan. "You're so filthy. You really do get off of this, you fucking freak."

He threw his head back in a sick laugh, running his other hand through his hair, and regarded you with a twisted expression of...exhilaration.

Click.

This time you didn't flinch, because you knew. This time you stared him down and looked right into his eyes as he pulled the trigger. This caused him to quirk an eyebrow,and his smile grew so large that it ripped the staples in the corner of his mouth.

Spurred on by your newfound confidence, his hips stuttered. Was he going to cum? Finally?

"Mmm- fuck doll, you're so much fun. I'm gonna make such a mess of this slutty pussy."

Click.

He hadn't reset the cylinder, he pulled the trigger without warning but the gun didn't fire. Maybe you would be lucky after all.

As Dabi reached his high, his mind went blank. Every pump of seed from his cock matched with a pull of the trigger. He didn't even notice if and when the gun went off, he didn't care. Too involved in his own pleasure as he absent-mindedly clicked over and over and over while coming down.

"Ahhh, that was fun, doll." He said, pulling out and letting his cum drip down your cunt, "thanks for the good time."

[laf-outloud]

Jensen and Jared's Gold Panel - Denver Con Favorite Bits

How I love these two together!!! I'm here to share my favorite parts (which, let's be honest, is the whole panel so I guess I'm putting together a summary).

Right off the bat Jared comes out in a cowboy hat and makes the obvious move of taking that off and putting on his convention beanie! (Of course, Jensen then picks up the hat to wear it while Jared fangirls!) Kill me now.

They are really happy to be here, it feels right. (Of course it does!!!) They didn't get to feel the energy of the audience doing virtual cons.

Jensen fixing Jared's mic problems!

Jared mentioning one of the best directors coming in to shoot an episode (referencing Jensen).

Jared's Texas accent is strong today, "Y'all!".

Jared can't wait to see what Kripke put Jensen through.

Jared laughing at Jensen's "superhero sex party" on The Boys.

The Boys camera operator was already traumatized. People were mistaking Lube for hand sanitizer on The Boys set.

Jared's not old enough to watch The Boys.

Question: Favorite/Least Favorite role outside of SPN: Jared's favorite is Walker, least-favorite is the horror films for shooting all night long. Shooting outside in 100 in Texas is exhausting, especially since he sweats in the winter (Jensen attests and agrees New York Minute was the worst horror movie).

Jensen's favorite is his cowboy role in Rust. And still has the vest, holster, and belt he had as a kid. He's always loved westerns.

When approached about the part, Jensen thought to Alec "You had me at hello."

Jared's Airplane joke "Don't call me Shirley"!

The armorer asking if Jensen has gun experience and then teaching him about guns and Jensen just owning it!!! Armorer called him an asshole.

Jensen's physical joke about the finale, Jared's not having it.

Callbacks to the pilot were added on the day.

Jared couldn't read the scene without crying and they had a hard time rehearsing it. Resetting the scene and going from non-emotional triage to getting the emotions was hard.

Legitimate trauma for Jared, they weren't lying on camera. It's difficult for him to watch it.

Jensen sharing that it wasn't difficult to find emotion, it was keeping it in check. No one wants to see the projectile tears.

There was a lot of improv and Bob let them do their thing.

Jensen: "It wasn't just Dean saying goodbye to Sam and Sam having to say goodbye to his brother, it was Jared and Jensen saying goodbye to Sam and Dean too."

Jared came up with the idea about first words being last words and the clothes echoing the pilot.

The echoes of saying "You can let go," between Sam and Dean and then Sam and Dean Jr.

Kim Manners stating "That's your show", when they find the nuances. He had the note that this show isn't about monster-of-the-week, it's about the relationships with all the people that came through.

What song would be playing in Mystery Spot now - Jensen goes back to the Applebee's song! LOL!!!

Jared's would be by Pink (Odette loves Pink and runs around singing all the time).

Jensen got asked randomly about strangest way actors have died: Jensen said, "Tacos". He totally won the question!

Mom using her queer kids to ask a Destiel question. (What a shitty way to ask your obvious destiel question, btw).

Jensen saying Dean really never knew and he never played that. Jensen says the term romantic is being used because there's no word.

Jared talks about loving anything and it's a superpower. You can love people who punch you or give you a million dollars. Basically, love can be platonic.

The point story wise is that they can love each other, it's not a show about incest, heterosexuality or non-binary. It's not about "it means they want to make out". It wasn't the point of that scene "You are free to love whoever you want." Love this representation for the Ace community!

Jensen piggybacks (and claps for Jared's answer). The love that Cas had is heavenly, as an angel, on a level/plane that human emotion doesn't comprehend. Some default to romantic/sexual, but the way Jensen interprets it is that it's open and you can use that to be a better person. Cas' love was a love that isn't identified by humans. It superseded that. There aren't words to describe that.

Basically, they're saying, it wasn't romantic or sexual and that Destiel doesn't exist. Thank you for that Jared and Jensen!

It was great to see J2 together again and to watch them banter back and forth, listen attentively when the other's talking, smiling and laughing throughout, it was just wonderful!

[drsilverfish]

The Winchesters: Back to the Garden?

Is this, SPNWin 1x02 Teach the Children Well.

really heading for this? SPN 4x03 In the Beginning

The tone and colour palette of The Winchesters, which is Scooby-Doo in golden sepia is, thus far, significantly removed from the dark palette and profound horror of early Supernatural. 

This is partly because the CW wants its programmes to be advertising friendly for its youth demographic and it has ideas about what that looks like. We know that Supernatural was an anomaly, and that the network told SPN to move away from its early (gorgeous) darker cinematography,.

But, the story-telling horror remained. And that horror was driven significantly by the struggle with fate. 

If we are in Universe One (the SPN universe) then we already know John and Mary’s fates.

As Lucifer said in 5x04 The End: “Whatever you do, you will always end up... here. No matter what choices you make, whatever details you alter, *we* will always end up... here.”

But that would be hopeless, right? To simply be heading to SPN 4x03 In the Beginning, when Cas takes Dean back in time, but Dean is unable to prevent the events that lead to Mary, desperate on the road at night, kissing her own father Samuel on the mouth  (possessed by Azazel), to seal the demon deal that damns Sam to become Lucifer’s vessel, while John Winchester’s lifeless body  lies between them...

This story, The Winchesters, doesn’t feel like a dark-character-arc story, a fall-from-grace story, about how Mary ended up dead and John ended up neglecting their kids.

Robbie Thompson wrote SPN 10x11 There’s No Place Like Home and the colour palette of Oz (an Alternative Universe) really reminds me of The Winchesters:

I’m guessing many SPN fans are missing the traumatic text of SPN.

I’m missing it too, and The Winchesters feels... confusing.... for that reason.

Trauma can be addictive, after all.

Is The Winchesters intended to be a redemptive text, a healing text, by contrast?

I mean, like Sam and Dean, The Winchesters Scoobies are carrying trauma. John is suffering from Vietnam War PTSD, given he saw his friend Murph get blown up. Mary has been traumatised by her childhood as a hunter, and the death of her beloved cousin Maggie on a hunt. Lata is estranged from her family and has lied to her friends that her parents are dead. Carlos’ family (parents and brother) were killed by a ghoul, which is how he got into hunting. Ada has already been traumatised by demon possession and seems to be going a bit dark with her bonsai tree as demon trap. 

But somehow, they’re... reaching out to each other, supporting each other, talking about their feelings?!?!?!

Particularly given the 60s and 70s soundtrack, I’m really hearing Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock:

“I came upon a child of God He was walking along the road And I asked him where are you going And this he told me I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm * I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band I'm going to camp out on the land I'm going to try an' get my soul free We are stardust We are golden And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden Then can I walk beside you I have come here to lose the smog And I feel to be a cog in something turning Well maybe it is just the time of year Or maybe it's the time of man I don't know who I am But you know life is for learning We are stardust We are golden And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden By the time we got to Woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation We are stardust Billion year old carbon We are golden Caught in the devil's bargain And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden”

Some kind of return to Paradise (but not the fakery of Heaven) guided by Holy Ghost narrator Dean?

To a place where “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”? (Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut).

I can sense that the SPN fandom is a bit muted about The Winchesters and there’s some not-great news about its survival coming out of the CW already:

https://deadline.com/2022/11/the-winchesters-amp-walker-independence-no-back-orders-cw-cutbacks-season-2-canceled-renewed-1235159619/

A shame, because there’s something really intriguing about a redemptive after-vision for Supernatatural from Robbie, Jensen and Daneel, with a Vonnegut twist - the promise of healing for the traumatised and I’d like to find out where the story is going.

[cleighwrites]

Christmas Traditions

SPN Fanfic

Caracters: Sam x Dean x Cas

Word Count: 2,685

Summary: Sam, Dean, and Cas take some time off to celebrate the holiday.

A/N: This was written for @ladylilithprime for the @spnfanficpond’s Christmas Exchange! I hope I got in everything from the wishlist! 

Warnings: NSFW, past trauma (mentioned), m/m/m threesome, wing kink, anal sex

Read it on Ao3

Sam sat in the kitchen reading his copy of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol as Dean hummed under his breath and cooked dinner. Cas sat across from him watching Dean and smiling softly, affection shining in his eyes. They had decided to take Christmas weekend off and spend it together. No apocalypse, no monsters, no distractions; just the three of them, together for Christmas. Spiked eggnog, roasted turkey with fixings, and even a Christmas tree. Dean had joked that Sam could be the tree and Cas could be the topper, “We’ll have a kinky Christmas!” he’d said. Cas’s wings had fluttered at the idea while Sam had blushed and shook his head.

A Winchester Christmas in the bunker. Who would have thought?

Sam insisted on playing a Christmas station while they ate, and Dean was pleased that it was a station that played Trans-Siberian Orchestra, stating that “If we’re going to listen to Christmas music, at least they have taste.” The bird was perfectly cooked, and Dean even added carrots to the potatoes and gravy. The smell of pumpkin and pecan pies baking filled the air as they ate.

Cas even tried a bite, noting, “These are the best-tasting atoms I have ever tasted, Dean.”

Dean rolled his eyes but smiled as he said, “Don’t waste my cooking, Cas; we know you don’t eat.” 

After dinner and dessert, Sam sat on the sofa in the den (which he refused to call the Dean Cave) with his book in hand and his brother’s feet in his lap. Dean was watching Die Hard, and Cas had gone to get refills on their Winchester Special Eggnog, which mainly consisted of brandy. 

When Cas entered with three glasses in his hands, Sam looked up to see his wings pinned tightly against his back. 

“What’s wrong, Cas?” 

“Hmm?” Dean added, peeling his eyes away from the screen to look at their angel.

��Nothing is ‘wrong’, Sam. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Sam commented. 

“I hate that you can see his wings, and I can’t. Must be all that witchy stuff you’ve gotten into,” Dean lamented. 

“Dean,” Cas started, his wings shifting. “We’ve been over this. Sam spent considerably more time as a host to an archangel. That prolonged exposure is bound to have an effect. He could probably hear my true voice as well. Though, I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Yeah, no, I’ve been on the receiving end of your true voice, wouldn’t want a repeat of that.” Dean laughed to himself, self-consciously rubbing at his ear.  

“And I don’t think I could handle seeing another angel’s true face.” Sam shivered. 

Cas came up behind him, handed him and Dean their drinks, and put a reassuring hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I can only imagine the horrors you went through in that cage. I’m sorry we couldn’t get you out sooner.” 

Sam was quiet, trying not to remember everything that had happened in the time he was trapped with Lucifer. Not only him physically but his soul alone. Cas understood what it was like—they had bonded more after his time hosting the devil. Dean hadn’t truly understood until he’d hosted Michael, who’d gone rogue and hijacked his body. They’d all been through so much, but all of that only seemed to bring them closer together. They’d bonded in the trenches of multiple apocalypses. Sure, they still fought and went through stages of silent treatments, especially Dean, but they’d always found their way back to one another.

Sam owed Cas everything for bringing his brother back from Hell, and he’d earned his trust and love over the years since then. And Dean… they’d always been more than just brothers. Cas and Dean had always had a bond, and when they all decided to see what it would be like for all of them to be together, it had been a game changer. Sam couldn’t imagine his life without them in it. After everything they’d all been through, they could depend on each other. Sam had never felt more understood and supported in his life. They’d literally been through Hell, but they were still there fighting, rarely taking time for themselves. 

“How about a change of subject?” Dean said loudly, bringing Sam out of his thoughts. 

“Yes, what would we like to do tonight?” Cas added. 

“I was planning on a Die Hard marathon… but could be convinced to do something else…” Dean waggled his eyebrows at Sam. 

Unable to hold back his smile at his brother’s antics, Sam grinned. He took a drink from his cup, leaned his head back against Cas’s forearm and looked up at the angel. “Cas?” 

“You know I am always ready to be carnal with either of you.”

“Cas,” Dean complained, “you can’t just say shit like that.”

“Why? Would you prefer I call it making love?”

Dean groaned and made a show of rolling his entire head with his eyes. Sam laughed. 

“Sap,” Dean accused, then took a drink from his glass. “So, we doin’ this or what?” 

“I’m game,” Sam agreed. He finished off his glass of eggnog and cleared his throat from the burn. 

Dean nodded, downed the rest of his drink, got up from the couch, and started stripping as he left the room. Cas sighed dramatically, then squeezed Sam’s shoulder before following after him with his wings shivering. Sam simply shook his head at his lovers’ antics and then rose to follow them. 

Once he got to Cas’s room, the one they used when they were all together, Dean was completely naked and was helping Cas out of his clothes. They were making out; Sam felt his cock stiffen at the sight. Cas’s wings were spread wide, his primary feathers reaching out. Unable to help himself, Sam reached forward and rubbed the outermost primary feather between two fingers causing Cas to shiver and moan into Dean’s mouth. 

He was so pleased when they’d invited Cas into his and Dean’s bedroom play, and he’d agreed. Sam had been hesitant at first, Cas being an angel of the Lord, but when he’d found out about Dean and Cas, Sam had insisted that Dean offer to bring him into the fold. Cas hadn’t been judgemental about Sam and Dean being physically intimate. He’d said that all of Heaven already knew and didn’t think anything about it. 

Clearing his throat, Sam began to undress to join in the festivities. He watched as Dean removed all of Cas’s clothes. Sam matched his movements and joined them naked as Cas stepped out of his pants. Cas and Dean reached out to him and wrapped their arms around his waist to pull him into them. Dean leaned forward first and pressed their lips together. They kissed as if they lived for it, breathing each other’s breaths and tasting the eggnog they had drunk. Dean was all fire and passion in everything he did, always eager to please. 

Where Dean was all heat and willfulness, Cas was care and precision. Once Dean had had his fill, he nodded to Cas and lay down on the bed while Cas took his turn with Sam. Cas’s lips were more gentle but no less passionate. Dean moaned, and Sam knew that Cas was using his Grace to get Dean ready for them, whoever would be the one to fuck him. They tended to mix things up, keeping things interesting. The fact that all of them were pretty much up for anything helped in that regard. 

Cas reached between himself and Sam, grabbed both of their cocks, and began stroking them in time with Dean’s moans and grunts of pleasure. Sam reached behind Cas and wrapped his fingers around his marginal coverts, stroking along their soft vanes. He loved to feel Cas shiver and his wings vibrate with arousal. Sam played with the downy barbs at the base of his feathers and smiled against Cas’s lips when he stopped kissing and stroking him. Sam thoroughly enjoyed being able to play Cas like a finely tuned instrument. 

“Not fair,” Dean said from the bed. 

“You’re just jealous,” Sam said. 

“Ngh.” Dean threw his head back into the pillows and started grinding down on the bed again. 

Sam smirked at Cas, who had obviously started opening him up again. As he was about to ask how they would proceed tonight, Sam felt pressure at his hole and realized that he would be in the middle of everything. Secretly, or maybe not so secretly, Sam loved when he got to be between the two of them, surrounded in every way by the loves of his life. Sam leaned into Cas again and kissed him as his Grace worked him and his brother into a frenzy. 

“Sammy,” Dean moaned. 

Sam loved seeing his brother strung out and laid out on their bed. His hair was messy, and his skin was flushed pink from stimulation. With one last nibble on Cas’s bottom lip, Sam pulled away and crawled over the bed to his brother. He laid over him and kissed Dean while Cas kept opening them up. 

“‘M ready, Sammy. So ready. Need you.” Dean mumbled between needy kisses. 

Sam reached over to the side table, but Cas was already there, handing him the lube they kept there. Cas could use his Grace as lube, but when he got caught up in the moment, sometimes he’d forget, and none of them wanted that to happen… again. 

With freshly lubed fingers, Sam rubbed around Dean’s rim and slid three fingers in with no resistance. He thrust his fingers in a few times, then lubed up his cock and lined himself up. Dean wrapped his legs around Sam’s hips while he still had the chance. Leaning down, Sam kissed Dean as he shoved his hips forward, slowly sinking into the smooth warmth of Dean’s ass. Sam set a slow, steady pace that matched the ebb and flow of Cas’s Grace within himself. 

Cas lay beside them and ran his fingers through their hair. He pulled Sam’s head back and turned Dean’s head toward himself so they could press their lips together in an intense kiss. Sam heard Dean moan and felt him clench around his cock. Sam laced his fingers with Dean’s with one hand and reached out to run his fingers through Cas’s scapular feathers. Cas’s hips rutted against Dean, and all three of them moaned. 

After a moment, Cas’s Grace expanded in Sam’s ass and warmed for a few seconds before Cas stopped kissing his brother and moved to situate himself behind Sam. Dean unhooked his legs from around Sam’s waist and braced himself against the bed while Cas lubed Sam. As Cas lined himself up, he put his arm around Sam’s waist, and Dean pulled him down into a kiss. Sam stilled his hips when he felt the intense pressure as Cas pushed inside. It was always overwhelming being surrounded the way he was. Dean clenched his ass as he waited for Sam to start moving again, which caused Sam to clench, too, and Cas, in turn, to moan into Sam’s back.

Once Cas was fully sheathed, Sam rocked his hips forward into Dean, who nibbled on Sam’s bottom lip. When Sam rocked back into Cas, they all moaned again. Sam was solidly between the two people who meant the most to him in the world. This was bliss. Cas’s wings spread out to either side of them, putting them in a cocoon of iridescent black feathers. Sam felt safe and wanted and loved. 

They rocked together in a shallow, slow rhythm until Sam was ready to do more, to feel more. Sam grabbed hold of Cas’s wings to pull himself upright. Cas sat up with him and took his cue to pick up his pace. As he slammed his hips into Sam, Sam slammed into Dean. Cas fucked them both for what felt like hours. It was too easy for them all to move with each other. They were a finely tuned machine, hardly having to communicate with words as they thrust and moved with one another. 

Fingers laced through Cas’s wings and Dean’s hands on his waist, Sam let himself go with pleasure. It wasn’t often that he released control and allowed himself to just be. In the safety of Dean and Cas’s arms and wings, Sam felt secure enough to stop trying to perform and analyze everything and just let himself feel everything happening to him. Dean’s fingers tightening around his waist, Cas’s arm around his waist, their fingers playing against each other’s, Cas’s feathers fluctuating under his hands, every feeling was heightened and accentuated with need and trust. 

Sam and Dean were incoherent and sweaty by the time Dean finally came, shooting spurts all over his and Sam’s stomachs. As he came, he squeezed around Sam; Cas fanned his wings out, gripped Sam tight around his middle, and bit into the crook of his neck. With all the added stimuli, Sam reached the edge of ecstasy and came with a shout. Through the slits of his eyelids, Sam watched Dean reach for his hands and lace their fingers together. As soon as their hands touched, a blue glow lit the room, and Sam felt Cas’s hips falter as he came, warmth spreading through him as he did so. 

Cas turned Sam’s face so they could kiss as he rolled his hips a few more times, then pulled out and backed away from them. Sam did the same, leaning over to kiss Dean as he pulled out, then he lay down beside him while Cas lay down on his other side. Cas’s top wing came around and rested over them. Sam mindlessly ran his fingers through the primary feathers at his side and ran the fingers of his other hand through Dean’s hair. Cas was also stroking through Dean’s hair, and Dean hummed in contentment. 

With a snap of Cas’s fingers, they were all clean—fucking an angel had its perks, other than unlimited stamina—then they dozed for a little while, enjoying their post-coital haze and each other’s closeness.

“I would like to try something,” Cas said.

“Okay, shoot,” Dean told him, stretching out like a cat. 

Cas stood up beside the bed and cleared his throat. His eyes glowed blue for a moment, then Dean gasped. 

“Oh,” Dean said as he moved to the edge of the bed and stuck his hands out to run them along Cas’s marginal coverts. 

Cas’s feathers shifted at the touch, and Sam watched as Dean felt his way along the strong line of Cas’s wings for the first time. Cas closed his eyes and breathed in while Dean worshiped his wings, running his fingers along almost every feather. 

Cas chuckled when Dean rubbed at his alula, and Sam got up to join Dean in exploring Cas’s wings. Sam, of course, had been able to see them ever since he’d gotten his soul back from the cage, but he’d never really allowed himself to explore them like Dean was. Dean was on his left wing, so Sam went to his right wing and started straightening out his feathers that had gone crooked or were not laying flat. Cas hummed and leaned his head back while they groomed him. 

When all of his feathers sat straight and Cas was almost asleep, Sam and Dean kissed him on the corners of his lips. 

“Who wants to finish a movie with me?” Dean asked, his eyes closed and his head leaning on Cas’s shoulder. 

“I will,” Sam and Cas both said in unison. 

Once they dressed in their comfy sleep clothes, they went back to the den to finish watching Die Hard. Sam forwent his book in favor of snuggling on the couch and sipping more eggnog. Cas sat between the brothers, arms draped over their shoulders and wings spread wide around in a protective hug. Sam nuzzled into Cas and stroked the primary feathers that draped over his shoulder while Dean leaned into his other side. 

As far as Christmas traditions go, Sam was sure even Dean could get behind this one.

[sashibunbun]

You know what's fucked up? Nearly 40 years of trauma that I'm just now coming to terms with.

Let's start with, I guess, step-uncle (Dad's step-brother), being a straight up abusive asshole. We're talking training me in Martial Arts in a Cobra Kai way, belittling me, actively tormenting me, basically shit, macho older brother shit, trying to make me into basically the guy with a goatee and sunglasses who would say "Covid is no joke, calling all prayer warriors."

Then the instability, so let's trace it 1 1/2-3 Boise (I only know for certain the latter half), ID; 3-6 Henderson, NV; 6 South Lake Tahoe,NV (2 months in Henderson); 6-7 North Lake Tahoe, CA; 7 Kuna,ID; 7-8 Boise; 8-9Nampa,ID; 9 technically homeless in N. Idaho; 10-21 North Bend-Snoqualmie, WA.

Oh and the fun of watching my paternal grandmother (who raised me), slowly die from Diabetes, and being practically the only family who'd visit.

Dad continually coming in, then exiting my life (usually doing hard time) until I was 13, then dropping me back off again ay 16 (because fucking hell I did not want to move to Kansas). So at least the last time was my choice.

Definitely self induced and perpetuated fasting all my life, because fuck it, keeps me sane controlling my weight, even if it's unhealthy. Sometimes seems like the only thing I can control.

Let's start with the specifics at age 1 year 6 months, left to my grandparents because dad is also dealing with his own shit from a bad childhood, and it's 1982 and mom doesn't seem to want to be a single mom.

Flash forward to 7 years old, go to visit dad and step-mom #1. Let's run downy step-siblings first. Horror Movie freak step-brother with massive mental problems, actually tried to lord over me that he was older, actively tried to punish me, usually for no reason all because he couldn't stay up late watching horror movies. Older step-sister #1, massive Marilyn Monroe Stan, didn't really acknowledge me except a few times to tease me. Older step-sister #2 (see TW tags) very inappropriate, like fuck she's the embodiment of red flags for CSA at 12 (porn, playing with dolls inappropriately, inappropriate flirting with me). Then step-mom #1. I could and still can tell I was not supposed to be around, at all. Wanted me to come visit, but had to sleep in a closet, regularly verbally abused, eventually my dad caught wind and actually did the right thing, twice (sent me back to get away because I was sleepwalking and he knew that was no Bueno, then after him and step-mom #1 moved to my grandparents for a short time caught her giving a very abusive, but not physical punishment and divorced her, before going back to prison soon after.)

Actually that was kinda the problem with my dad's relationships until step-mom #2, had older daughters who flirted with me.

The problem in Kuna between 7 & 8. So shortly after the above divorce moved to Idaho, supposedly because Grandmother's health was going downhill from the altitude later found out it was to keep me from becoming a ward because of my dad. Moved in for about 3 months with my great uncle. Great uncle had a friend or something since he was always there named Ken. Next door was a friend one year older than me. Friend was definitely being sexually abused by at least Ken, if not her family (her sisters, looking back now, also showed signs), literally pulled his dick out to rest it on her 8 year old ass. She was the definition of learned that sex=love, so her BFF definitely needed to do what Ken did... guess who that was. Yeah, abused by a kid 1 year older who didn't know better. Oh and aside from maybe my grandparents because he did that shit when they weren't around (both were actually trying to find a place), everybody, including his friends who were Birchers knew what was going on, including my great-uncle (he'd later cop an Alford for having sex with said friend when I was 16).

Then came the most stable time in my life. But oh, the Universe wasn't done. So going along fine until my dad met step-mom #2. Actually still my step-mom and frankly a better one than either of the others. She doesn't actually have anything here was the first to notice I was not doing well mentally.

Split time between the two homes (as unstable as it sounds was actually stable until...) fast forward to me 12, in 7th grade dad decides, you need to live with me and he's stable now, agree because he is. Unfortunately decides a few months later that I should only live with him (12ish years of not being there and just a year or so out of his thankfully last stint in prison). This causes massive problems in the Family. So torn from grandparents, friends, and school. Eventually changed back after a custody agreement was signed. Had to go into counseling a few more times over the next couple years, but it was stable.

Then I found the internet at 14 and by 15 was cybering, usually with people around my age who were, you know, uwu. First online boyfriend was 18. Didn't last long, second was 17 (note I was 15), third was 18, last was actually almost my age. So kinda groomed but not really. Did help me discover my sexuality though.

Then came 1999, probably the worst year of my life. First came Columbine, think on it a kid who liked Rammstein, Manson, KMFDM and loved trenchcoats (face it also in the area of Seattle so it was functional). Everybody avoiding me aside from friends for a month. Then go to Semenary (ex-Mormon) on a Friday, new friend (well old by this time since I'd known her since the 6th grade) and her sister have a fight. Last time I saw either alive. The next day, her stepfather killed in her, her mom, and that same sister, still don't know the reason. Then I moved to Kansas to be with my dad after school was over. Hell got a job doing cold calls because no diploma (technically needed one credit because of a snafu), it's going OK, until about a month in, my dad gets a call that my grandmother is in the hospital for the last time. I let work know and me and my family drive up to see her and attend the funeral. It was here I basically went no contact for almost a decade on my dad's side of the family, because the funeral was basically bashing on her Husband of 20-ish years who was there for her at the worst parts of her life all because she wanted my aunt back when I was 14 to take care of my cousins, instead of her who was in failing health, and nearly blind. After that moved back because Kansas is ass, and going through my senior year a second time for that one class met my first real boyfriend, we ended up breaking up, I said it was because I didn't know if I liked guys, but truthfully, it was because I was scared of other things (see above about ex-Mormon). Then met somebody else, we stayed together off and on until 2004, through a move back to Kansas, then coming back and being homeless for 3-ish months. But during that was...

So I had a friend throughout High School. We were thick as thieves, and he wanted to be a director, and musician and you know teen gonna be big shit. We also had a friend who was going to be pur editor. I wrote, he directed and she edited. It seemed great until I got a call from his mom. Shortly after his return from either Basic or A-school (he was a Marine for the money) and on his way back, she downed some pills and wine. Hit me hard, within the space of a year, I had lost a good friend, the woman who raised me, my first love and kiss, and another good friend.

So flash forward to September 11th, 2004, have a new girlfriend, we're all living at a friend's place. We get into a bit of a fight because of some stupid shit. She goes to the park nearby and me and one of our friends go over to make sure she's safe. The next 3 hours are such hell, being beaten, threatened to be killed, made to watch her rape, before being made to turn away so no witnesses. We're the cops not looking for these guys, it probably would have ended with me getting stomped and dumped. It destroyed our relationship. Soon after I met a guy, actually loved him, and fell out because neither of us were stable. Got stability when I moved back in with my grandfather for the next 3 years in 2006. Then he had a stroke and died, I was there for that death, but it still hurt and I was, in no way able to pay rent so got the first roomy I could afford.

Big mistake, it was 5 years of problems. Living with a schizoform bi-polar person does that. Even worse was his girlfriend. He might have been physical when he went manic, and hell even tried to kill me because he thought it'd bring her back. She however was verbal and mental, constantly doing the same kind of shit as my stepmother. I pretty much cut them out in 2016 when I came back to the stability I'm in now.

So if you wanna know why I say I'm fucked up, well go back to the beginning and reread.

Edit: Shit I almost forgot something. So shortly before that cutting out thing. Attempted and about the only time the roommate's girlfriend wasn't a piece of shit, she managed to get ahold of the crisis line to keep me from taking a kitchen knife down the road, or tossing myself out our second story window into a dive onto the ground.

[maxirueee]

AU Alberu's POV as the experimented Beru

Alberu: Cale?

Cale: ...nggh..yes?

Cale rubs his eyes as he tried to open them slowly only to see his lover looking right at him with a nervous expression.

Alberu: I suddenly had a bad dream.

Cale: It's literally 3am in the morning.

Alberu: mm..yea- well *fidgeting*

Cale: Spit it out. What was your bad dream about Beru?

Alberu: DON'T CALL ME THAT ANYMORE- PLEASE just please I'm begging you...

Cale was in deep shock that his lover raised his voice at him just because of what? He called him by his nickname?

Cale: Didn't you tell me multiple times that I should stop calling you 'hyung' when we finally got together?

Alberu: I-its not that.. I just-

Cale: Tell me what's wrong Beru.

Alberu: THAT'S the PROBLEM.

Cale: Which is??

Alberu: That nickname, in my dream I was suddenly trapped in a flat boxed screen, I couldn't move but all I could do was smile. Smiling while looking towards the horizon which seemed endless. White. Blank.

ALberu: After a few minutes I suddenly heard voices. At first, there were a lot of compliments about how radiant I loo-

Cale: Are you even sure that's a bad dream?

Alberu: Yeah it is a bad dream!

Cale: Aren't you just totally flaunting how good-looking you are? You're srsly waking me up in the middle of the night because of this? I'm going back to slee-

Alberu: I SWEAR THAT'S NOT IT!

Cale looks back at Alberu who had a look of desperation. Cale couldn't distinguish if what he's seen rolling down the face of his beloved was sweat or tears. Maybe both. Well, he might as well comfort his lover since that was his job. Alberu: I heard giggles, squeals, people were shrieking with how I finally appeared. They kept saying that I looked so dazzling, how I sparkled. They were even speaking the same annoying lines that you tell me every time with your glib tongue.

Cale: Whatever do you mean oh shining sun of the Roan Empi-

Alberu: My point exactly *glaring at Cale*

Cale: Alright go on.

Alberu: It went on for days, I couldn't tell how long I was trapped in that frame-like screen window, all of a sudden I reverted back to my dark elf form.

Cale continues to stare at him, already feeling bored as he watched Alberu continue ranting his struggle of a mere dream. Although he found it amusing as he heard him say the next lines.

Alberu: But it didn't stop there, my hair color suddenly changed to a blood-red color just like yours Cale. I was the spitting image of you. And the voices agreed on how we really are sworn brothers if we just switched hair colors.

Cale: Hoh...

'There must be something more to this if it actually made the emperor of the Roan Kingdom have buckets of sweat rolling down his pretty face.'

Alberu: It was until I heard somebody say, 'How about a Pink Haired Beru?'

Cale: Huh?

Alberu: My hair color immediately changed to pink, then sky blue, then green, then orange, then red again. I didn't know when it'd stop but I couldn't even budge. Even when I wanted to so bad.

Alberu looked dead straight in Cale's eyes, with both his hands firmly holding his partner's shoulders, but ironically he was shaking. Alberu Crossman was shaking in fear. For what reason? Is this another one of the Sun God's pranks to his lover? Perhaps it was the God of Death again? He continues to ponder at the annoying thought that maybe divine beings were messing around his precious people again but stopped as Alberu continued speaking his worries.

Alberu: I thought it was okay since it was just a hair color change..then a woman's voice asked with great anticipation, "HOW ABOUT A BALD AND A MOHAWKBERU?"

Alberu: I continued to smile, even when my luscious golden blonde hair was instantly gone and I was suddenly bald. BALD! I saw numerous hearts floating in front of me and I could hear the mockery and laughter of beings I could not even see. Yet I continued to smile.

Cale was speechless.

Alberu: For some reason, I could read the words floating in front of me. "EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR THE ROAN KINGDOM'S FAVORITE SHINING SUN- BALDBERU" is what it said. More hearts appeared at a scary rate and I couldn't even shout or move. I was terrified.

Alberu glared at the person in front of him like a mad man. Cale just shut up and listened to whatever he said, Alberu really looked mental.

Alberu: The woman from a while ago spoke again, I swear her voice was scary beyond belief. She added "Okay everybody hold up- Now imagine DELINQUENT HAIRCUT AlBERU"

Alberu: My hair suddenly grew back twice as much and it was styled into this weird looking hairdo...

Cale continued to have his stoic face which made Alberu feel relieved. Little does he know Cale was on the verge of laughing his ass off-

ALberu: I suddenly heard "JOSUBERU I CAN'T WITH THIS FANDOM- YA'LL REALLY DID IT U PUNKS" again from that mortifying woman since earlier, apparently it was done by a group of people claiming to be my fans?! BUT THE MONSTROSITY THEY'VE- no that wasn't even half of it

Cale: 'There's actually more?! PFFFFFT' I see, continue then. The prince saw his darling sweetheart Cale shaking as if he was sympathizing with what he was going through. At that very moment, he felt touched by his lover's empathy towards himself.

Alberu: The horrors didn't end just there as I was still waiting for the whole nightmare to be over, they were begging for a 'Voldeberu' which I don't even understand, at that point, I SUDDENLY LOST MY NOSE!!

I WAS BALD AGAIN AND MY NOSE DISAPPEARED YET I WAS STILL SMILING. I HAVE NEVER FELT SO MUCH FEAR IN MY LIFE.

Alberu: Somebody then proposed a 'Clowberu' AND MY FACE SUDDENLY BECAME A CLOWN WEARING MAKEUP. The hardships I had to take while staying still like a fucking mannequin. BUT IT STILL DIDNT STOP THERE.

Cale almost broke into laughter as he wanted to continue listening to his lover's amusing dream! If he laughs now Alberu might as well punch him in the face.

Alberu: I wanted to cry, I pleaded with the Sun God in my head that I want this to stop but I didn't get what I wanted. Instead, a chatbox suddenly appeared, I almost pissed my pants reading at the schemes of those so-called 'fans' had for me.

Cale: Oho.. what did you s-see then? 'Pfft'

Alberu: "LET'S MAKE HIS SKIN GREEN WITH ONLY ONE EYE, MIKE WAZOWSKIEBERU" "We need a butt, BUTTBERU" "I still didn't get my mohawhkberu!" "TWIN TAILESBERU" "AFROBERU!" "MONKBERU!" "SANGWOOBERU" "COWBERU" "UCHIHABERU" "I SAY NUNBERU! NUNBERU SUPREMACY RISE!!!!!!"

I DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT MIKE WAZOWSKI BERU! BUT THEY WANT MY HEAD TO BE A COW?! HOW COULD THEY TO THE EMPEROR OF THE RO-

Cale couldn't handle it anymore he bursts out laughing, almost in tears.

Cale: BUHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH!!! If only I was there to see it all! I ca- I CANT! MIKE WAZOW- WAZOWSKI HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH AND AFRO?! HAHAHAHAHAHA

Alberu: How could you be laughing at my pain?!

Cale: Oh dear emperor of mine, isn't it fine that you have such 'entertaining fans' of yours?

Alberu: Entertaining can't even describe those lots... They all praised me for how I was the rising sun of the Roan Kingdom as they humiliated my every being. To the point where they even planned on turning me into 'LIGHTBULBERU'. A FUCKING LIGHTBULB BECAUSE THEY WANT ME TO SHINE LITERALLY. A WALKING FLASHLIGHT KING. ME. ALBERU CROSSMAN.

Cale: PFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Alberu: Haaaahh... You don't understand because you were never in my position. Those fans were a bunch of lunatics I say, LUNATICS!

What Alberu doesn't know is that we, the fandom won't just stop there...

Alberu felt shivers down his spine as he recalled the very vivid and realistic experience he had inside his dream.

Cale: I am so telling this to Tasha, my esteemed and very much adored Beru <3

Alberu: JUST CALL ME HYUNG PLEASE!!

The trauma seemed to have sunken deep into his mind that every time Cale calls him by that nickname, he subconsciously touches his hair and nose in order to reassure himself that it's still there.

I'm tagging these superb beings for making the thread LEGENDARY: @cale-alberu @chunnicalesimp @thescarletguard @trashduchesshenituse-reblogs @farmercale @just-a-sleepy-person @annerisk @pile-of-sticks @trash-duchess-henituse @icyteaa

[idk-how-cars-work]

I posted 744 times in 2022

That's 744 more posts than 2021!

169 posts created (23%)

575 posts reblogged (77%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@google-searchhistory-official

@pogasm

@anarchist-mlm

@restonrosebleed

@idk-how-cars-work

I tagged 428 of my posts in 2022

Only 42% of my posts had no tags

#lgbtq - 19 posts

#dreamwastaken - 16 posts

#transgender - 15 posts

#<3333 - 14 posts

#iconic - 14 posts

#boost - 12 posts

#gender stuff - 10 posts

#hermitcraft - 9 posts

#hmmmm - 8 posts

#stories from the deep - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#i am at a genuine loss for words. why. the longer i look at it the further into madness i descend. why is there a peen. wasn't he a fish.

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Nobody:

My friend when Charlie Spring: T-R-A-U-M-A HE HAS TRAUMA AND HE'S 🏳️‍🌈G A Y🏳️‍🌈

29 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

#4

MORE of my TBP headcanons because of course there's more

Mostly Vance and Bruce with Implided Brance but some Finn, Robin and gwen

No Grabber au I hate him sm

Robin tends to ba confidently wrong

Finney is a man of few words until you get to know him

Vance stole the switchblade

Gwen loves stuffed animals and figures

Bruce loves learning about Greek Mythology, Egyptian Mythology etc

And Vance is down to just like. Play with his hair while Bruce rambles on about how Zeus is the true villan and Hades isn't unjust

Vance is the kind of person who listens but can't remember (AHEM MORE AUTISTIC VANCE AGENDA)

Bruce reads very fast, so fast that he struggles to read aloud

Some guy called Vance a pussy once because of the choker and Vance beat the shit out of him

Vance's favorite Horror movie is Scream

Bruce hates horror in general but watches them with Vance for his sake

I've said it before I'll say it again: BRUCE IS VANCES BIGGEST INSTIGATOR.

Once Bruce got so mad he almost knocked a kid with his bat

Vance is absolutely petrified of spiders

But Bruce loves bugs

Bruce is SO FUCKING STRONG like he picks Vance up like he's nothing but an angry cat to him

And Vance loves it so much; he loves not having to be in control

29 notes - Posted October 20, 2022

#3

HERMITCRAFT BODY MODIFICATION HEADCANONS: PART ONE

uh yeah I got bored and so here's what I think hermits would get in terms of body mods (tattoos, peircings, scarification, cosmetic surgery etc)

Disclaimer: these are my opinions!!! You can have them for ur designs if u want!!! No credit needed!!!

Disclaimer #2: all of these are for the hermitcraft characters not the real people.

Grian: He has a traffic smp tattoo on his lower back.

Scar: Jellie tattoo. He had his Earlobes peirced but they closed up. He also tried scarification and got a tiny heart next to the Jellie.

Mumbo: earlobes peirced, usually has either gold or pearl studs in

Tango: Septum peircing. Decked Out tattoo sleeve. Nipple peircings.

Ren: Earlobes; wears little hoops.

Impulse: micro tattoo of waves behind ears. Lots of ear peircings. Stretched ears.

Iskall: one tat on upper arm of iskallium and same ear peircings as Impulse

Xisuma: As many mods as he had bitches. None. Negative 1.

Gem: little mushroom with a fairy on upper arm. Earlobes peirced, often wears pretty dangling earrings.

Pearl: Earlobes, wears pearl studs.

False: none

Cleo: had a tattoo on ribs but then it rotted away.

Bdubs: none

44 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

#2

FINALLY: THE PATCH PANTS TOUR

These are about 1 1/2 months old, so they haven't really bloomed into crust pants yet but I still love them.

Below: baphomet patch

(September 2, 2022)

See the full post

49 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

patches for my vest bcuz it's lacking

From left to right: not emo, I ENJOY THINGS A NORMAL AMOUNT, kein mensch ist illegal*, a Fresno nightcrawler with the text "Fresno, CA" at the top, Nobody likes Gender Roles, rainbow flag, ? , QUEER RIGHTS RIGHT NOW, red drips, Destructo Disk

*kein mensch ist illegal = no one is illegal in german

53 notes - Posted November 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

I'm not even surprised tbh except for the patch post?? I posted that like 2-3ish weeks ago??? Huh???

[themoonandotherslikeit]

Painted - Chapter One

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Y/N has moved on, her scars are barely noticeable anymore, and she’s finally stable. Or at least she was.

10 years after the worst day of her life, Y/N found herself staring face to face with an unimaginable horror. In the wake of her worst nightmare come to life, she finds herself reunited with the man that saved her all those years ago - Agent Dean Winchester who had left her a decade before broken and wanting.

Dean Winchester has spent the last 10 years trying desperately to forget Y/N and the tragedy that he pulled her out of, but when she called asking for his help he dropped everything to come to her aid as he knew he always would.

Can Y/N and Dean solve the mystery that has resurfaced after all this time? Will they be able to resist the pull between them? Or will this be the final brush strokes on a canvas, sealing their fate for good?

No Beta currently, all mistakes are my own!

Pairing: Dean/Reader

Tags: Dark!Fic, Agent!Dean, Serial Killer Fic, Smut etc.

Chapter One

Everything has a color. To Y/N, violence was red. She pulled back her arm, her fist colliding with the heft of her punching bag with a soft thud . One, two, kick. She liked training alone, it centered her, cleared her mind. She didn’t have to worry about pulling her punches, avoiding the knees when she kicked. The biggest danger was the skin on her knuckles, which were expertly wrapped.

It all started as self defense, a way to ease her mind as she walked back to her Jeep on the dark nights, but it had evolved to something else altogether. She didn’t fight because she was afraid, she fought because she was pissed . She was pissed that she had to learn to defend herself; that other women did. She taught classes so that her community would be safe, so that they’d find less women abandoned in ditches beaten to death.

But when she was alone, it was something else completely. The why of the thing was a mystery most of the time, even to her. People used to ask her if she was afraid she would see him again. She wasn't, not really. But she kept fighting anyway, and she would be lying if his face wasn’t the one she pictured every time her fist collided with the bag.

The beat of her music throbbed in her ears like an angry heartbeat as she went for an uppercut that rattled the bag. She was panting, sweat rolling down her temple. Each hit was a beat of her heart, causing the bag to come alive. With each swing she made, it swung back at her. She was strong, and she wasn’t holding back. One, two, kick.

Her watch chimed to alert her that she hit her workout goal for the day, but she had more fire within her that needed to be extinguished. It was a long workout, even for her, but she had a lot on her mind. If she was thinking about the ache of her knuckles and burning in her biceps, she was less likely to obsess over the things she couldn’t control. So she hit the bag again and again.

The sun was starting to speckle through the blinds on the storefront window, making the sweat on her arms glisten like diamonds. She considered, just for a moment, how the coast would look against the purples and oranges of the sunrise. She could have a coffee and just enjoy the silence. Or she could keep fighting. That answer was easy. She didn’t have time to appreciate the beauty in life. She hadn’t for a long time. All of the colors had lost their brightness, the depth that he used to talk about so frequently. The thing that kept him mixing until it was just right.

She hadn’t thought of him in so long, so when the thought came to her, she didn’t react fast enough to the bag swinging back toward her from her last hit. It collided directly with her face, sending her backwards onto the mat. A loud, painful crack echoed through her skull as her nose collided with the bag. She laid there for a moment, groaning. She tried to sit up, her nose throbbing and her mouth filling with blood from the hit. “Fuck me,” she whispered to no one in particular.

Trauma was black. According to her therapist, there were different types of trauma. Y/N learned that they all could be sorted into one of three main categories: acute trauma that results from a single incident, chronic trauma that is repeated and prolonged such as domestic violence or abuse, and complex trauma which is exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature. More so, there was capital T trauma and what she called little t trauma . Capital T was the big stuff, the stuff that wrecks a person in an irreparable way. Little t was less so. It is possible for a traumatized person to get over a little t trauma.

In Y/N’s life she’d seen her fair share of trauma. Probably more than a thirty-three year old woman should’ve. She’d seen trauma happen to others, happen to herself, and continue to happen in case after case that she worked. She saw trauma that others didn’t. The kind of trauma that couldn’t be seen from the outside. The kind of trauma that a person inflicts upon themselves.

She was always told that trauma healed over time, like a bruise, but for her, trauma was a cut that kept reopening. It was a scab that she couldn’t stop picking at, a bruise that seemed to deepen to a darker purple before it ever yellowed. Her eyes stung from the hit, and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

The only way she knew how to heal was to move on, leave the trauma behind. Her therapist told her to imagine herself placing the memories in a box and locking them away. Sometimes, when she was alone, she could hear that box screaming, banging, and begging to be opened. She resisted the urge, especially today.

She forced herself to stand, her head spinning. She leaned against the wall to regain her balance before she walked out to her car, her head tilted back. She could feel the blood roll down the back of her throat since it was unable to escape her nostril. She’d be pissed if she broke her nose, but, from what she could tell, it seemed intact even though it hurt like a bitch.

Her headphones were askew, but still playing her workout mix. She adjusted them and spit some blood from her mouth. She wouldn’t be thwarted by a fall; no, she wouldn’t be taken down so easily. If she fell in the gym and no one was there to witness her humiliation, did she even fall? The answer to that depended on if anyone would notice her bruised nose after the fact. If they didn’t, as far as she was concerned, she had a perfect refreshing work out with no issues whatsoever. Maybe with enough makeup her secret would remain her own.

10 years earlier

The sound of his paintbrush swiping delicately against canvas was soothing to Y/N. She sat on the edge of the bed, atop black satin sheets, resting on her hands, her back arched and her legs spread just right. Her long strawberry hair fell down her shoulders in loose waves onto the sheets.

“Just like that,” Lucifer murmured, a blonde wave falling into his eye. He was focused, his tongue partially out of his mouth, his eyebrows knitted together. She wasn’t able to see the painting from her vantage point, but she knew what it was. It was always the same. I just can’t get you right, he’d complain, his voice laced with pain and disdain. She thought he made her more beautiful than she ever could be on her own.

When she’d met him, he was so focused on his art. He would eat, sleep, and drink his paintings. His clothing was speckled with oil colors, his fingers calloused from gripping paint brushes for hours on end. She found him sexy and mysterious. She was dying to know the man behind such beautiful pieces of art.

It didn’t take long for his obsession to shift from his art directly to her. He doted on her endlessly, showering her in flowers, candy, candlelight dinners. They made love constantly. He couldn’t get enough of her.

“Let me paint you, Y/N,” he’d purr between her legs. “I just want to paint you.” It took her weeks to say yes. She’d always brush him off, blushing and insecure. “You’re exquisite. Please let me paint you.”

She struggled to deny Lucifer’s requests when he asked as his breath tickled the inside of her thigh. It was hard to deny him of anything , if she was being honest. The first time she said yes, he arrived in her bedroom and asked her to drop the floral robe she was wearing. He’d seen her naked dozens of times, but she was still nervous, vulnerable, staring at him. She brought him a bag, insisting that he look inside before she disrobed.

He stared at the bag, confused.

“They’re body paints,” she explained. “I thought you wanted to paint me.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. They made love on the apartment floor, painting designs on each other's skin until she was swollen and wanting, gasping his name into the night.

When she woke up in the early hours of the morning, she found him painting her image onto a canvas laying splayed out, covered in swirls of sex and paint. “Don’t move,” he instructed calmly. She wanted to be angry, but she still felt drunk from being ravished, and his eyes examining her were sensual and slow. She watched his wrist spin and curl, and a chill ran up her spine.

“Lucifer, how much longer? ”

“You’re just so beautiful, Y/N. You know that, right?”

“No,” she murmured, and his eyebrows knitted together.

“We will fix that,” he promised. “You will always be this beautiful.” He was talking to her, she logically knew that, but from her vantage point she could’ve sworn he was speaking to the canvas.

Present

Y/N entered the code to unlock the front gate to her property, leaning half out her car window. Thankfully, her bleeding had stopped, but her upper lip and chin were still crusty with blood. She looked like a mess, if she was being honest, but the only one there to judge her was her chocolate brown pit bull, Castiel, and Y/N figured that Cas wouldn’t care much either way.

The iron gate opened with a groan, sliding to her right. She slid back into her seat and shifted out of park to pull forward down the driveway toward her house. It was modest, nothing too big or magnificent. The outside was grey brick, a two story home with a large green yard and a pool in the back. As she pulled up, she could already see Castiel’s nose pressed against the window, her head through the thick curtains. Y/N smiled, her heart warming at the sight. She wiggled her fingers at Castiel in a small wave.

Castiel greeted her at the door, his tail wagging excitedly. She knelt down to pet his chin only to be met with deep blue eyes and a pink tongue. “I know, buddy. I need to shower somethin’ fierce.”

She kissed his nose and murmured. “I’m good. We’re good.” Half the time she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. She locked the front door behind her and kicked off her shoes. Her arms ached and her heartbeat was still residing in her sinus from her fall. She let her hair out of the tie that kept it up in a high ponytail, letting it fall down her back. Her head was sore from her hair being up for hours. She massaged her scalp with a wince. Everything hurt and she couldn’t wait to wash her problems down the drain and start fresh.

Her work out clothes were discarded on the bathroom floor, the sound of running water and the steam accumulating in the air were already starting to soothe her. She took a deep breath in through her nose with a wince before stepping into the shower and closing the curtain behind her.

Y/N faced the water, letting the heat roll down her skin. The water ran brown from sweat and blood. She braced her hands on the walls of the shower to keep herself steady. She closed her eyes, letting the baptism wash her worries away. Time has a way of wrecking a person, she knew that much. It gave a false sense of security, a sense of growth and change. She spent so much time trying to put her past behind her, locked away inside of a box.

She opened her eyes and looked at the half sleeves covering her wrists and forearms. The flowers and vines twisting around her arms, climbing, and growing out of thick, pink scars - creating something beautiful out of tragedy. She had hoped, when she got them, that they would help her heal and forget. She could laugh now at that naive girl who thought anything would let her forget. Time heals wounds, yes, but the greatest ones still ached in the cold and the rain.

Suds from soap and shampoo swirled down the drain, and she reached down to turn off the water. She wrapped her hair in a towel and slipped into her robe. She could hear Castiel whine outside of the bathroom door, unusually unhappy with not being able to see her. “You’re good, Cas,” she called out, wiping the fog from the mirror. She examined her nose. It was a little swollen and already beginning to bruise. She cursed to herself and just hoped that it’d be dull enough that her painted foundation would cover it. The last thing she needed was to worry those around her.

Castiel scratched at the door again, and she opened it, her dog circling her legs impatiently. “What is your deal?” Y/N reached down and scratched behind her ear, eliciting licks from Castiel.

Towel drying her hair, she stepped out of the bathroom and rounded the corner. Her eyes were heavy, and her head pounded from the hit. She needed coffee, bad . As she turned the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks, her towel falling from her hand. Castiel whined insistently, nudging Y/N’s leg with his nose. She stared face to face with something so familiar that it made her gut tighten, acid crawling up her throat.

A painting hung at her eye level in the hallway near the bathroom. Fine brush strokes of pale peach skin, strawberry twists of hair splayed out on black satin sheets, flushed cheeks, parted lips, and freckled legs spread out, exposing a delicate pink vagina tucked between them.

Y/N stared at herself. Her eyes closed, her swollen mouth, her pink cheeks on a face and head that belonged to her. Her freckled neck blended downwards onto heavy breasts with dark nipples and a mole under the right that she’d never seen before.

Her knees were weak, and she stumbled back, bumping into Castiel and tumbling backwards. She fell, hitting her tailbone on the wood floors with a hard smack . Tears burned in her eyes, from pain or fear she wasn’t sure. Castiel came to her, licking her cheek in concern.

Anxiety crept into her chest, pressing down heavily. She gasped for breath and clamped her eyes shut. She pictured the box inside of her mind, thrashing and pulsing with anger, begging to be opened. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she forced herself to stand on shaking legs. She made her way to her bedroom and quickly spun the code on her safe, pulling her gun from it. She clicked the safety off and held it in front of her.

With each room that she checked she only found an emptiness that overtook her home with a heaviness that seemed to engulf her completely. Nothing seemed strange or out of place other than the large depiction of her naked body that hung on her wall.

She kept her gun positioned outward and pulled out her cellphone, dialing the number that she could never forget. All she could hope for was an answer, and as a ring met her ear she let out a sigh of relief. It had been so long, she had expected a disconnected tone. She pressed the phone closer to her ear as she heard his voice.

“Y/N?”

“He’s back.”

------

Chapter Two

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[mittensmorgul]

As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt.  I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

[killianmesmalls]

Seeing the Signs

A short fic with Cas and Jack that takes place between 14x03 and 14x06, directly after their hunt in Sarasota. Just some father/son stuff for no reason. 

---

Castiel could feel the humidity sticking to his vessel’s skin, could sense the odd looks from passersby. A trenchcoat over a suit in the middle of Florida, he admitted to himself, was a strange sight even while driving in a thunderstorm. Just a few years ago, he wouldn’t have noticed the difference, but so much time amongst humans and a wave of pop culture knowledge allowed him to at least understand the glances in his direction.

Then again, this was Florida. They had seen weirder. Besides, he had bigger concerns.

Jack had been talkative the whole drive to Sarasota. Hell, there had been a time or two that Cas had attempted the age-old “quiet game” he’d read about in at least 20 of his child-rearing books in order to get the boy to settle. A pang of guilt snapped at his chest, knowing how much his son’s energy was due to pure excitement of just being allowed on a hunt.

Now? Jack was quiet, staring out the window as the typical afternoon storm made its way through. His thin finger traced the tracks of a raindrop before it gathered at the base of the passenger side window.

“Jack?” he tried, glancing at the boy. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.”

“If there’s something you want to talk about—”

“I’m fine, Cas. I promise.”

The winding interstate traffic around Tampa began to peter off along with the rain. Suddenly, Jack’s focus turned upward as signs indicated exits for Orlando and Kissimmee before he seemed to remember whatever thoughts he had been locked in.

“Jack—”

“I said I’m fine.”

The rise of parental frustration bubbled inside Cas. He knew, in spite of everything the boy had been through and everything he had learned, he was still very much a child. It was occasionally difficult for humans to see, considering they assigned such importance to smaller units of time: months, years, decades, and even more importance to appearance. As an angel, his eons made all other increments or visages almost inconsequentially different. Sam and Dean were human adults with more experience and trauma than he’d wish on any other of his father’s imperfect, perfect creations. Still, they were blips in existence compared to him.

Jack? Nephilim, human, whatever he may be now, Cas could never shake just how very young he was. Eighteen months. Eighteen months of trauma and responsibility and weight on his shoulders, but only eighteen months.

Still an infant by human standards, not that he had the chance to experience proper infancy, Jack was physically confusing to describe even for Sam and Dean. Was he eighteen? Twenty? Twenty-two? Not that any of those made a difference to Cas. Eighteen months in a teenage-to-young-adult body with the lost powers of an eldritch being wasn’t something they discussed in parenting books.

Cas heaved a sigh and, just as the last of the rain trickled off, pulled the car over.

“What? I said I’m fine,” insisted Jack before the car had even come to a full stop.

“We both know that is not true. Now, Jack, I want you to know that I respect your right to privacy and, should you need time on your own to sort out anything you’re thinking through, then I will continue on and we can hopefully work this through together if you cannot do it on your own. However, I am unable to ignore a marked difference in your behavior from the start of this trip to now and, if there is anything in my power I am able to do, I wish to help. Something is on your mind and I am here to listen if you’re willing to talk.”

A long quiet stretched between them. Just as Cas was about ready to restart the car and call it a temporarily lost cause, Jack shrugged.

“I just… I kept seeing signs.”

“Signs? Like, from heaven?”

“No,” the boy replied, shoulders curling slightly, “I mean road signs.”

“Well, Jack, we are on the road. Is there a specific one that upset you?”

“No, that’s not….” he trailed off and Cas could hear the teenage grunt of annoyance in the back of his throat. “I saw some signs for Disney World.”

Cas’s mind recalculated for a moment. “Disney World?”

“It’s stupid, never mind.”

At the dejected sound of his kid’s voice, Cas turned off the engine and fully glanced at him, admiring for a moment how very much this boy had been through hell and still looked like kindness personified. He felt a brief wave of remembrance for touching Kelly’s belly as the child kicked, solidifying in an instant their bond. Somehow, warzones and countless losses had not stripped that from them.

He’d be damned if continuing the wrong route down the interstate did.

“It is not stupid. Your feelings are never stupid. Misplaced maybe, depending on the circumstances, but never stupid, and certainly not now.”

Jack perked up as Cas finished, finally glancing his chosen father in the eyes. The look sent a swell through the angel, pushing him forward.

“We have some time before we need to be back home, and Sam and Dean will understand if we’re later than expected. Let’s go take a look and maybe, if you want, we can spend an extra day or two here and see a few things. Maybe meet this Mickey everyone has been discussing for so long.”

“Wait, really?” asked Jack, eyes wide.

“Really,” he said, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “While we’re here, we might as well. Besides, all work and no play—”

“Makes Jack a dull boy?”

“I was going to say ‘isn’t fun for anyone’ but I suppose I understand that reference. Though, remind me to tell Dean that The Shining is not appropriate viewing material for you.”

Jack rolled his eyes but, to Cas’s delight, at least shed a smile. “I kill monsters, I can watch horror movies.”

“Did you or did you not get nightmares after that one?”

Jack faked a cough and went back to looking out the window, smile broadening. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Remind me to also tell Sam not to give you law terms to use against us,” Cas said as he started the car back up and eased back onto the interstate.

From time to time, Cas took glimpses at the boy as they made way to Disney, spotting the smiles from him searching what he may want to experience in the parks in between counting down the miles. Though he didn’t like to spend the money they truly didn’t have on frivolous things like resort rooms and meal plans, there was nothing frivolous about this. For all that Jack had been through, he deserved this. He deserved to be a kid, to ride rides, to build a plastic lightsaber and hug a costumed character.

And, as Cas took the exit, he figured maybe a small part of him deserved it, as well.