#did you even watch the scene where he and michael say goodbye. the ones where they struggle under the weight of their father's desires.

[enlichened]

i could have haters stone me in the streets for this but some of the new spock/tos crew show content is good and im tired of people dismissing it as bad when they never engaged with it genuinely.

[unearthlytraveller]

Babylon 5 Rewatch: Chrysalis

30 years ago, fans of B5 had to wait three months for the first season finale. I'm not willing to do that.

I'm going to break here, because if there is any episode from season 1 that should not be spoiled, it's this one. And I'm going to spoil it below.

I remembered this as the best episode of the season. And, it is. It's not even close. Everything the season has been putting into place comes together, and the world falls apart. That moment when Garibaldi manages to give that warning from sickbay, and the crew rush to warn about the assassination attempt... only to find they are too late. It still gives me chills all these years and rewatches later.

I was unsure how I was going to feel about this episode. Part of the reason for that is because I last watched this in 2010 or 2011. Back then, the idea of a return to fascism seemed laughable. Today... it does not. And I can't deny that real-world context changes things. It's hard to enjoy the sci-fi drama when it doesn't feel all that speculative. But there's a line Sinclair says that struck me.

"Just that I've had this feeling lately that we're standing at a crossroads, and I don't like where we're going. But there's still time to choose another path. You can be part of that process"

The first sentence I remembered from before. The second two... I did not. And as small as it seems, it actually made me feel more hopeful to hear it.

Another thing that struck me on this watch was Londo. Signs and Portents was his first step down the path to darkness; this is his second. And yet, he is genuinely shocked by the consequences of his actions; and we end with him keeping vigil with Ivanova. It won't last, of course, but it's a reminder that he's not an intrinsically or purely evil character; there is much good in him. That's why we like him, and why he is tragic despite all he will do.

G'Kar gets to really show the range of his character. He starts in strutting villain mode, and the scene were his latest sexual partners leave his quarters is one of the funnier moments of a generally dark episode. But as the episode progresses, we see his other side. He seems far less keen in his government's aggression when talking in his chambers; he immediately understands the implications of the attack on Quadrant 37; and in the shuttle scene, it is Na'Toth who speaks of retaliation while G'Kar offers Ivanova condolences and is more reflective.

Garibaldi has come under criticism in recent episodes for his actions, and justifiably so. So it's interesting that we start this episode with Petrov, who Garibaldi was apparently willing to help get a second chance. We also get to see both his investigative chops, figuring out the assassination plot... but also his blind spots. Or as Walker Smith said back in TKO,

"One of these days, Garibaldi, you're going to learn to watch your back."

Delenn starts a change that is in both the biggest and smallest of the ambassadors. I, of course, know what will come out of the titular chrysalis. And yet while the physical changes will be dramatic, Delenn as a person arguably changes the least among the main cast. A little something I've always found amusingly ironic.

Sinclair has a pretty rough time of it. He makes a pretty awful proposal, fails to save the president, fails to meet with Delenn and get the answers he wants... He gets the last line of the season, though, and it's a great one.

"Nothing's the same any more."

This is the season finale, and so we say goodbye to a lot of things. The last time that Mira Furlan will wear that specific make up as Delenn, for one. But we also say goodbye to Caitlin Brown's Na'Toth, Michael O'Hare's Sinclair, and Julia Nickson's Catherine Sakai. Some of these actors will make guest appearances, but even now I feel somewhat sad about these departures.

Caitlin Brown's decision not to return is understandable based on what I've read; that she only came on as a favour when the actress who played Ko'Dath developed an allergic reaction to the makeup, and would never normally be stuck in such a low-profile role. Still, I enjoy season one where her and Andreas Katsulas give such great presence to the Narn. I don't think they ever fully replaced her.

Michael O'Hare's departure is bigger, since he was the star of the show. And, of course, there was that scene in Babylon Squared. It's amazing that JMS made such a big deal about how B5 was planned in advance, and yet was able to handle this and still make a show with such compelling foreshadowing. Sure, there are places were things don't quite line up that the obsessive fan can see, but they're easy to overlook. As for O'Hare himself, I hope he acheived some respite from the mental illness that forced his departure before his tragic early death.

Least important to the show was the character of Cathering Sakai; Nickson only had three appearances this season, the last of which before Chrysalis was 16 episodes ago. I mostly just want to mention that, if you want to know her character's fate, read To Dream in the City of Sorrows. It's a good book; not great, not really able to stand by itself aside from the show, but certainly better than most of the tie-in novels.

With season 1 over, will I continue to season 2? Not immediately. The real-world connections will only get stronger, and I'm not ready for that right now. Later? Maybe; we'll see.

Finally, I've been adding my CCG cards, and let's do that one more time. What choice could there be, but this one:

[blogger360ncislarules]

We are gathered here this evening to mourn the loss of George Marshall Cooper, Sr. The Young Sheldon patriarch met his maker in the Big Bang Theory prequel’s antepenultimate episode, which set the stage for Part 1 of Thursday’s series finale.

Portrayer Lance Barber appeared throughout Episode 13 — first in an alternate reality sequence where Sheldon (played by “mighty little man” Iain Armitage) imagines getting one last moment with Dad before he leaves and never returns.

“[Lance] was very instrumental in keeping everybody’s morale up, and seeing him towards the end start to get a little affected by it hit me harder than I thought it would,” Armitage shares with TVLine. “He’s always the funny one in between scenes, making jokes, making us look unprofessional because everyone’s laughing [when] they yell ‘action’ and we’re still snorting with laughter. [While filming those alternate realities] we kind of just looked at each other a few times and I’d go, ‘Thank you,’ and that… that struck me.”

Barber also appears at George’s funeral, which features an open casket. Throughout the somber affair, each family member goes up, one by one, and says a final goodbye. Raegan Revord, who plays Missy, went first. “Those tears are real tears,” she says. “I go up first, I walk back, and I’m still sobbing behind camera. I have to sit there and watch Montana [Jordan, who plays Georgie] and Zoe [Perry, who plays Mary] go up and say their goodbyes, and that was the most brutal for me.

“We had tentatively finished the scene, but I was sobbing even more [now],” she recalls. “I turned to our director [Michael Judd] and said, ‘I need one more. Give me one more.’ I went back up and I did it two more times. They told me they used one of those takes instead.”

Sheldon, who’s still presenting as stoic, decides that he doesn’t want to say goodbye before they close George’s casket. But a few minutes later, he gets up and delivers a eulogy. Or so it seems.

“I wish I could tell you that I said all those things, but I didn’t,” our narrator reveals, confirming that what we’ve just seen is a figment of Sheldon’s imagination.

“For a long time, I focused on my father’s shortcomings,” Jim Parsons’ alter ego acknowledges. “Now that I am his age and have kids of my own, I realize that he was just a person doing the best he could. And he did a lot. I didn’t say it as his funeral, but I can say it now: I loved my father. I will miss him forever.”

The way Armitage sees it, knowing that Sheldon regrets not speaking that day makes up for his decision. “I think it adds more layers to it than if it were something that Sheldon got up and said,” he opines, “which almost makes it more beautiful.”

Below, Young Sheldon co-showrunner Steve Holland, who penned the episode with co-creators Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro, tells us about crafting George’s memorial.

TVLINE | Was there any apprehension about setting Episode 13 almost entirely at George’s funeral, featuring an open casket, having everyone in tears, not constantly mining the subject matter for laughs…? The endings of shows [are] always tricky, and you’re always aware that there’s a lot of audience expectation. At some point, you literally have to just put that aside and tell the story that you think is best and hope that people will follow you down that path. Otherwise, you can get lost in the spiral of “Are people going to like this? Are they going to hate this?” It felt important to us, for the family, and for the character [of George Sr.] to do it. You can’t treat this glibly. For us, living with these characters for all this time, they felt real; this family felt real.

Going into Episode 13, we were trying to find that balance where we recognize that it’s a comedy, and we were trying to have some moments of levity. We also wanted to make sure that we gave this moment its actual, proper weight. I think what we found was that there were some jokes and some lighter moments that were shot that, going into the edit, started to feel a little tone deaf. It felt like, “This family is grieving, and maybe we don’t need make a silly joke at this moment.” For the audience, too, they’ve lived with this family for so long that they can be in the shoes of our characters and also grieve George’s death. It’s emotional, and we felt like we had earned it. We also felt like that was being respectful to these characters to let them have this moment of grief.

It was difficult to write, it was incredibly difficult to shoot, and then we had to watch it over and over again in editing, and it gets me every time. Any time you cut to Raegan in tears, it gets me. It’s a weird mixture because the cast was also grieving the end of this show. It was really an emotional time. It took us two days, or a little more than two days in the church to film the funeral scenes — two days that were full of tears, people just weeping on camera and off camera, with some moments of levity. Lance wanted to be in the casket; he wanted to appear at his own funeral, so he’s actually in the casket, and he had a fart machine to lighten the mood when it needed lightening. But it was a rough couple of days.

TVLINE | Can you talk to me about the idea behind Sheldon playing all those scenarios — all those different ways he could have had one last moment with Dad — in his head? Was it a way to show that, in his own unique way, Sheldon was, in fact, emotionally intelligent? I think that’s exactly right. It kind of goes back to Episode 12. We spent a lot of time crafting George’s last moment — a lot of time for a scene where nothing happens — and it was very important to us that this just be an everyday moment. George is leaving for work, no one’s paying attention, that felt very real. Sheldon doesn’t even look up, he doesn’t say goodbye to him, and I think [the question] was, “How does Sheldon process grief?” It’s not that he doesn’t have emotions, he just doesn’t process them outwardly the way other people do, so for him it was running these scenarios. It was branching into timelines and what he could have said.

Running that back to the outside world, and especially to his sister, looks like he’s not affected at all by it. He just seems very stoic, in a way that is upsetting to her. But for him, this is how he is processing his grief; he’s trying to go back and rewrite those last moments with his dad in his brain. I don’t think he’s really even aware that that is what he is doing. As an adult, I think he is, but as a kid I don’t think he’s necessarily aware that he is processing grief. He’s trying to come to terms with those last moments and his regret over not recognizing that that might have been his last moment with his dad. There is a sort of weird, emotional intelligence to that.

TVLINE | We see Sheldon get up and give a eulogy, then discover that what we just saw never took place. It’s what he wishes he had said that day. I couldn’t help but contrast that moment with Sheldon’s Nobel Prize acceptance. At that point in his life, at the end of Big Bang, he’s able to step up and honor his chosen family and their contributions to his life. Was part of the conceit here, with his eulogy, to create a parallel and show what Sheldon couldn’t bring himself to express at 14, and what he was able to express 25 years later, at 39? A little bit. Obviously, the show is Young Sheldon. You want to have Sheldon have a moment at his dad’s funeral, but we also know that the character Sheldon has a lot more growth [ahead of him]. It can’t all happen here. We started to feel as we were talking about it that it felt phony for him to get up and give this speech. It’s a nice dramatic moment for our show and for our character, but it didn’t feel true to him. We had already talked about [older] Sheldon going back and rewriting those moments. It just felt like the natural way to get that moment for the end of the show and for the character, but not give him too much growth in this moment. It would sort of erase the 12 years of growth that it takes him to get to that moment at the end of The Big Bang Theory.

[amberjazmyn]

talk about award-winning!

𝓲𝓶𝓪𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓮 - talk about award-winning! 

𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼 - swear words, spn castmates supporting fellow spn castmates, maybe some crying, spn scene 

𝓭𝓮𝓼𝓬𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷 - the cast, crew and some very lucky supernatural fans were given the pleasure to watch the final scene of the last remaining female actress and character on the fifteen-year journey that the show has been on. whilst they aren't showing the other scenes like dean's death scene and how sam is left to carry on without his two siblings and everyone else, they are just praising their female actress, iona kingsmill-speight and it gets a little emotional... okay maybe a lot emotional 

𝓪𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓻'𝓼 𝓷𝓸𝓽𝓮 - this is sad but not so sad that you'll be crying. i mean, that isn't my intention so let's just see where this chapter takes me haha. the actual supernatural scene that i'll be making up for iona and her character charlize winchester will be written in italics and then the present time which will be the cast, crew and fans watching the scene will be written in normal font. 

masterlist

- - - 

fifteen years is a long time to be on the same show, playing the same character alongside the same two actors beside you. fifteen years was long for any job but especially in tv & film. that is what it was like for iona kingsmill-speight and her costars jensen ackles and jared padalecki. they were the core three actors and actress of supernatural for these last fifteen years. except for today, today was the day that the cast and crew of supernatural and a very lucky group of 300 fans were going to be shown the scene in which a final goodbye to iona's character, charlize winchester is given.  it was very obvious that today was going to be an emotional day because, after this showcase of charlize's death scene, the full final episode and series finale of supernatural will be aired the very next evening for a two-hour special on cw. 

"...cast, crew and fans of supernatural, are we ready to see our favourite huntress say goodbye to supernatural?" matt cohen, young john winchester/michael announced into his mic

hearing that, everyone cooed and said "no, never!", "well, sorry, that is why we are all here!" matt announces again as everyone laughs as he then turns his attention to the three actors in the middle - jared, iona and jensen 

iona was the first to break into a fit of giggles, feeling a little uncomfortable that this event was made purely to say goodbye to her and charlize. even with the fact that dean and sam also came to their demise in this final episode. however though, she did know why they were doing it and she was grateful for it because never thought that she'd be the last female character standing. even as a winchester, almost every female character on supernatural has been killed off, all of them, except for charlize until the very end. 

"...so, iona, let's start off with you. how did that day of filming go when the three of you had to film your last scene for supernatural?" matt questions as iona smiles fondly as she swings her microphone back and forth in her hand - smiling at jared and jensen before answering

"ooh, what a good first question matt. what a way to get the tears flowing *laughter* but in all seriousness, it was a very long, tough and strenuous day and, you'll see that in the scenes that we're about to watch later on. it's kind of obvious in the scene in the episode when we broke character and it was just pure emotional exhaustion from the three of us. but umm, yeah, a lot of tears were cried and a lot of hugs were shared that day," iona smiled innocently as she crossed her right leg over her left and leant back into her chair as jared gave her a comforting look

"thank you iona, so i'll now move onto the brothers winchester, sam and dean. jared and jensen, how did you two go about that day of filming? was it the worst day you've had on set over the fifteen years?" matt asked sincerely as jared and jensen gave one another their look before jensen took the reigns for this one

"umm, similar to iona's answer, there was a lot of crying, loads of hugs, a lot of breaking character that was kept in the final product. loads of emotional exhaustion and just lying on the floor between takes to compose ourselves *laughter*. yeah, it was a very sucky, depressing day and for sure one of the worst days we've had on set," jensen responded with a smile and head nod, jared also responding with a head nod to reciprocate and agree with jensen's answer 

matt took that as jared's response, understood it and just moved on entirely to misha, "misha, you obviously had your final episode in despair, episode eighteen so, do you remember the final scene you had with iona/charlize? are there any behind the scene secrets that were left out or any easter eggs you can finally tell us?" matt smiled at his friend as misha smiled before responding, making sure he acknowledged his costar before answering 

"yes, actually, i do remember the final scene iona and i had together as charlize and castiel. it was actually a weirdly surreal feeling in all honesty. because, obviously, that was when we were starting to say our goodbyes, not just to each other as actors and best friends, but to the characters as well. however, i just remember how focused iona was, she obviously wasn't in the same mindset as me and jared were and crying every day for the entire week *laughter* but, that last scene in which charlize and castiel have that little arguement and then you see her reaction to cas' death, that was when all of her emotions just released. and, it honestly...i swear to god, scared the freaking crap out of me because i thought she was like, you know, hurt or something but, no. she was just doing some award-winning shit!" misha chuckled after speaking so sweetly about his fellow costar who just blushed and leaned further in her seat as jared gave her another comforting look 

matt then went back to iona to see her memories from her last day with misha, "iona, do you remember your last day with misha and are you going to reiterate everything he just said?" matt smiled as small chuckles were heard as she nodded her head 

"uh...*giggles*...yeah, pretty much everything misha just said, i'm going to agree with and say is the absolute truth. i had actually made a bet with the big brother, rich and i...i'm gonna sell him out whilst he's here and our good friend, jason manns that if i got through the entire week without crying, they'd buy me a new car *laughter*," iona chuckled as everyone seemed to gasp in shock - when was this bet made and how did they all on stage seemingly miss it?

"and, iona, how did the bet go?" matt chuckled as iona huffed sadly and glanced her head down before bringing it back up 

"i lost so i didn't get the new car..." iona pouted with a small giggle afterwards with just cured everyone's sadness straight away which then caused everyone to laugh 

"that's actually so sad, iona! what car did rich and jason say they were gonna buy for you?" matt chuckled making sure the next thing he mentioned was the cue to play the scenes that they were all present to watch as iona chuckled again 

"a range rover," she pouted as she fake cried which then turned into a laughing fit as everyone else laughed again 

"that's so sad! i hope you eventually get that range rover! buut, so we don't fall behind schedule, i have now been told that it is time to stop the questions for a bit because it is now time to roll the tape and watch iona's last-ever scenes on supernatural as charlize winchester!" matt announced as everyone cheered 

instantly though, iona cowered back into her former position, this time basically on jared as she then disreectly passed him a pack of tissues since it was likely he or someone was going to cry as they share a smile together. 

i was tired. better yet, i was exhausted. we had just defeated god, castiel was taken by the empty after sacrificing his life to save my older brother dean, jack became the new god and then left after he had restored everything that chuck had messed with. we now had a dog (well, it was technically dean's) called miracle. it was like we were finally able to live an apple pie life with maybe a few small supernatural cases a day every week or two which was lovely. well, that was until, a fucking vampire outbreak started just as everything for my brothers and i was starting to feel like we could live a normal and domesticated life again. 

however, i knew i was starting to become tired of this life, not just as an ex-hunter but also in general of being on this earth. i was tired. i was finding it hard to wake up in the morning, to brush my hair, brush my teeth, i was finding it hard to shower myself! i was crying myself to exhaustion every single night or day when i knew i wouldn't and couldn't get caught by sam and dean because i had no other outlet to let my feelings out. everything felt like it was a chore. opening my eyes in the morning, every time i blink and it feels like a chore. eating and drinking feels like a chore. smiling and pretending i'm okay when i'm really not feels like a chore. just breathing feels like a chore. i'm just so tired that i don't know how much longer i can keep on fighting. 

i knew i promised sam and dean, my brothers and our angel of the lord, castiel, that i'd never stop fighting but, i can't help but think about breaking that promise. and maybe just giving it up by twisting a knife through me would be so much easier than breathing every second of every day. this wasn't the first time i had thoughts about suicide, hell, it's not the first time anyone in my family has thought about it. sam's suicidal thoughts were so obvious during the trials that i knew i had to keep on fighting so i could inspire my younger brother to keep on fighting. 

i twirled my knife around my fingers, planning succinctly and exactly where it was i was going to stab myself and at which angle i was going to do it at. the angle that offered the worst chance of survival and the best chance of death. it's really not the best thing to be thinking about when me and my two brothers have pretty much swiped and banished all of the supernatural but, this job wasn't easy. it's fucking traumatic and it's scary. also, it's hard to be believed by people because they just straight away think you're insane when you tell them that your job is a supernatural hunter and you hunt down ghosts and werewolfs and werepires. it's a job that takes a toll on you like being a suicide hotline caller or a paramedic does, they are all trauamtic jobs. killing supernatural beings, the king of hell and the king of heaven being two of them, it's bloody traumatic. and, it also changes the way you feel about life and yourself. as i minded my business, trying to figure out the angles and where i was going to stab myself, someone knocks on my door. 

"...what do you want? who is it?" i call out, some edge in my voice since whoever it was, was intruding on my peace 

 i can never tell whether it's sam, my younger brother politely knocking on my door or dean, my older brother smashing his entire elbow and body weight in my fucking door to get my attention - which we've figured out is usually for something stupid.

"it's me, sam. can i come and join you in your room, char?" sam asks softly as a sad smile forms on my face as i decide to put my knife away, sam didn't need to see that imagery right now

so, i placed the knife away, sat back onto my bed and called out to sam that he could come into my room. 

"you can come in now sammy!" i smiled, trying to make my voice sound a lot happier and brighter than it actually was - even though i knew when sam knew i wasn't okay 

sam saunters in and, he looks sort of downcast and a bit sad. i mean, at least i'm not the only one but in all seriousness, why was he so sad? does he miss castiel? jack? 

"sammy, you okay? you seem a little down, what's up buttercup?" i respond, bringing my hand up to brush some of his fringe-y hair back as he sits down on my bed

sitting right up close next to me, something i never minded due to how close sammy and i were, not in age but in our sibling relationship. 

"meh, i don't know i guess. just...it feels weird not seeing cas and jack everywhere, you know?" sam huffed softly as my shoulders fell downward and nodded my head - i felt the same way

"yeah, i understand that. i do miss those two greatly but, what they did so we could all live peacefully, all of the hunters after we were the peacekeepers for so long, it's amazing!" i smiled softly, slowly becoming more genuine and my suicidal thoughts slowly slipped away for today

"i know but...i don't know why i feel down..." sam trailed off as i opened my arms for a hug 

this made sam smile small and nod before wriggling into my arms as we then fell down to my bed and just cuddled and comforted each other whilst dean was doing who knows what downstairs. 

"...and are you okay, charlize? you always make sure dean and i are okay but, how are you doing? are you okay?" sam questions as i huff, this is when i decided that i wasn't going to lie or sugarcoat anything and, i was going to tell him the plan i had for tonight 

"umm...ha...funny you ask that cause...no. i'm not okay at all, sammy. i haven't been okay for a long time," i trailed off as sam's heart broke, i could tell by the way his eyes changed and how his arms hugged me tighter 

"what were you gonna do?" he asks straight off the bat as i smile sadly before telling him as i savour what is most likely going to be one of my last sammy hugs 

"i was going to stab myself in the stomach, near the lower abdomen in a place where you nor dean would be able to resuscitate me or bargain with a crossroad demon to bring me back," i respond simply as i feel sam's breathing patterns change meaning he had started to tear up as my heart broke 

"i'm so sorry char. that...that's so scary but, i'm so glad you told me and that you're not going to go through with it!" sam whispered trearfully as that's when i felt my stomach drop completely 

just because sam had stopped me tonight, doesn't mean i'm not gonna try and take my shot tomorrow. 

"i...i'm sorry too," i mutter back as we then just fell asleep, the only other noise heard through the night was when dean had come home from his beer night that turned more frequent now that we were no longer full-time hunters 

"but don't think for a second that i won't try again," i muttered sleepily a little too loudly only to hear a tired groan back, which i assumed was sam responding to me in agreement but i doubt it was

╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝

getting woken up early in the morning by my older brother dean was never my favourite thing at all. most especially when he tells me that this new case was a vampires case that was abducting children and killing their parents. today was the hardest day of all of the hard days that i've had. i honest to god didn't want to get up. it took miracle's magic tongue (not like that you dirty fuckers), dean's singing and sam's adorable puppy face x three to get me to stumble out of bed just like dolly parton's song nine-to-five. 

i decided that today whether it was before or after the vampire hunt that i was finally going to take my life because i was no longer strong enough to live anymore. i was at my wits end at this point and half of the time, my brain was running on empty, no pun intended. 

"...come on charlize, we gotta get this hunt done quickly! we need to save the kids come on..." 

"...yes, coming sammy! just hold one moment, i'm cleaning my blade, please wait!" i holler back as i then recoil 'i'm just cleaning my blade'? what the actual fuck was that response? 

how could sam trust me with a knife after i told him about the fact that i was wanting to commit suicide with it just last night? i've got no clue but apparently, he's not worried and neither is dean and, in all honesty, that worries me that they're not worried. not worried that at any point, i could just slide the blade into my own stomach or neck even and go "whoops" and then i'd be dead. i'd for sure be worried if sam or dean were going through this again but, apparently, they're not worried about me after telling them that i've had suicidal thoughts. 

"sam! where's charlize? she was supposed to grab the kids?!" dean's loud voice bellows out as i feel my eyes tear up as i suddenly rememberd

that's why sam needed me and called out for me. how could i fucking forget about the children that the vampires were kidnapping? i'm such a fucking idiot! 

"i don't know dean! she told me that she was cleaning her blade but that she was coming!" sam shrugged with worry lacing his voice as dean took a big deep breath and tried to stay calm

"o...kay, umm, that's cool. she just needs to hurry up that's all!" dean calls out as this is when i realise that, i'm not a good hunter, i just stall things and i ruin everything 

maybe it is best if i just stab myself right here right now. would sam and dean really cry over me? would my brothers really grieve over my loss in the same way they grieved over each other's over the years? or would i just slowly become the forgotten winchester that no one remembered so it looked like it was just always the winchester brothers that were world-renowned, world-famous hunters? i mean, i guess i could test and see if my hypothesis is correct. i mean, it wouldn't hurt, would it? 

╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝

well, that was a fucking stupid question to ask, wasn't it? would it hurt? fucking yes it hurts! i just stabbed myself with my brothers two feet in front of me as a small groan fell from my mouth, garnering their attention pretty quickly. 

"charl...charlize! no, no, no! you said you weren't going to do it again, you said you were fine!" sam shouts out in panic as he's the first one to r ush over to me 

i start to feel breathless and dizzy very quickly due to the blood loss i was going through as it was a very quick thing when you're stabbed.  

"i...i lied sammy..." i spoke as monotonously as i could as i lifted my eyes to dean who just for once stood in shock, having no clue what to do with himself or how to react 

"...yeah, thanks sherlock, that's pretty obvious!" he shrieks out as he, in distress, tries to find the source of the bleeding, completely oblivious to, what i thought, was the obvious knife in my lower abdomen stomach area.

"sam...sammy, it...the knife...it...it's right here," i spoke weakly, pointing at the knife letting him know where the source of the bleeding was 

sam's eyes went wide like saucers - noticing it wasn't the same knife that he and i threw out together after we had woken up the next morning from our conversation. dean just watching on not knowing that was the right or wrong thing to do. 

"char...charlize, where...where did you get this knife?" sam stuttered as i looked to dean for help before looking back to sam, my vision getting blurry both due to dizziness and the tears building in my eyes 

"from...from the im...impala..." i breathed out, wincing in pain at the same time as sam wobbles for a bit before composing himself as best as possible before his tears spill over and down his cheeks

"oh, baby girl! charlize, you promised me you wouldn't do it or even think about it again! we even threw out the other knife together! why...why did you do this?" sam stuttered, his distress and anxiety going through the roof as i just laughed softly, briefly closing my eyes as dean finally stepped forward 

"oh, no, don't you dare close those eyes, charlize!" dean steps forward, opening them again as i roll my eyes, giving my older brother my best death stare which in all honestly probably just looked shitty anyway

"why do you think i did it, sammy? did you already forget what i told you that night?" i slurred as i found myself getting tired, struggling to keep my own head up 

this was when dean came in, pushing me against a wall in the barn we were in since we had started walking into it before i stabbed myself. i held onto sam as he stood in front of me with dean on one side of me making sure i didn't fall sideways or to the floor. 

"uh...no...no, charlize, we were asleep by that point! you were half-asleep and i was almost fully asleep when you said the last two things before you knocked yourself asleep for the night!" sam spoke quickly as he tried to control the bleeding but also allowed me to squeeze his arm

"i...i said, don't think for a second that i won't try again. you hummed a response that i assumed was you agreeing with me..." i trailed off as my voice started to become more hoarse and harder to understand - i was slowly shutting down second by second

"...char, please don't. what happened to always keep fighting? promising me that if i kept up the fight that you would too? what changed?" sam cried as i felt his entire body shake as i giggled before coughing, my own blood rising up my throat making it hard for me

"my will to live just stopped. yours was so strong that there was no way mine could ever be seen by another slither of daylight ever again," how poetic of me, i've stabbed myself and my two brothers are crying their eyes out as i force them to say their final goodbyes to me  

"no...no...nope, we are not doing this charlize! we are going to patch you up, we're gonna patch you up real good and you're gonna have a twenty minute break whilst sammy and i distract the vampires. during those twenty minutes, you're gonna feel better and you're gonna help save those kids and get them someplace safe, you hear me?" dean spoke with a gravelly voice as his tears slowly trailed down his cheeks as did me and sam's when i shook my head, adamant that my suicide attempt was going to succeed 

"no...no...you're not going to save me dean and neither is sam. i was always going to break that promise, i just didn't know my will to live was going to fade so quickly after losing cas and jack..." i trailed off 

"...and please, for the love of god, don't you dare try and make a crossroads deal an bring me back to life!" i say before i do the unthinkable... 

...i tried to take one last shaky breath in. despite how hard it was, i then lifted my arm up, positioned it right where the blade was keeping me alive and not bleeding to death and i pulled it out. straight away, i could feel the way my arm that dean was holding just slipped out so easily as i fell foward into sam as i bled out. with a smile on my face, i fell to the floor with my little brother holding me, cradling me as he sobbed so loud that i thought he was going to wake up everyone. wake up all the angels, saints and demons as he rocked my dying corpse back and forth. i then heard dean's body come crashing down next to sam and i. his tears and sobs not far behind as he then tried to place his arms around sam and me ut wasn't able to. his arms weren't long enough due to the way sam had carefully taken me to the ground so he just decided to rest his head on top of my body. 

"charlize? char? no...no...no! please don't do this to me! wake up, charlize! sam screams from the tops of his lungs the moment he realises that i was dead and wasn't ever going to wake up again 

he then violently begins to shake me every which way he could to try and get me to wake up. but, like imagined, it wasn't working, nothing was. of course it wasn't, i had made my final decision on my own terms and i was okay with it. 

"sam...sammy stop...stop it...she...she's gone! sammy...calm down!" dean's pleas for sam to stop screaming out for me to wake up suddenly starts to drown out to nothing but white noise as everything stops 

they always say that when you die, you get a highlight reel of your entire life go through your brain, a white light appears and then you're gone. it's as easy as going back to sleep. which was my favourite thing in the world that i treated for so long as the closest thing to being dead. with a huge smile on my face and my body shaking and rocking back and forth due to my older and younger brothers, this was the satisfaction i needed. this was the peace i needed. i needed to die so i could get my peace and carry on. now, i just hope that sam and dean are able to find their peace and carry on in their own special way without me. 

iona couldn't look away from watching how jared and jensen were reacting as they had been intensely watching their best friend's final scenes on the show she grew up on. iona not even focusing on herself majority of the video, her focus mainly on her best friends, her fellow cast members. jared was emotional and teary-eyed and so was jensen. other cast members, misha, alex, rob, rich and the others who weren't able to be present for the actual filming of iona's last scene but did get to be there for her final send-off before her final scene were all also emotional and close to tears or crying. 

"...wow guys, how do we feel? that was iona kingsmill-speight's death scene in supernatural!" matt announces, wiping away a tear of his own as the amphitheatre they were doing this event in suddenly erupted into cheers

which made iona suddenly shy and retract back to her safe spot towards jared, "so, iona, how does it feel to watch your final death scene after having so many others?" matt questions, making the young girl giggle slightly 

"uhh, in all honesty, i wasn't paying much attention to it," iona chuckled which caused shock throughout the room as she giggled 

"wait, so this entire time, you weren't really watching it?" matt is shocked as iona swayed her head side to side 

"well, i mean, i was watching it but, not all of it. i was more focused on you guys," she smiled shyly as jared held her hand 

"wow, you are honestly so humble, iona and i'm being serious. you could care less about the award-winning acting you did in your last-ever scene for supernatural because your biggest concern was everyone else. that's beautiful," matt commented as everyone gave iona a roar of applause as she smiled 

more questions were then asked and answered when it was the end of the event and finally time for iona to post about it on instagram. 

ionaspeight 

liked by jaredpadalecki, dicksp8jr, jensenackles, mattcohen4real and 98,23k others 

ionaspeight this was my promo shot before special effects were added for charlize winchester for this final season of supernatural. it has got to be my favourite promo photo that's ever been take over the years even though it's not something at all that charlize would wear as a hunter. but it shows what charlize would wear whilst living her apple-pie, cookie-cutter life. 

*

today was a very special but emotional evening. the cast, crew and a very special group of three-hundred supernatural fans were given the opportunity to have first access to one of iona's final scenes as charlize winchester. of course, i won't spoil it but, this event was an emotional rollarcoaster and it's something you do not want to miss! the day filming this episode but those final scenes in particular caused a lot of crying, lying down on the floor in between takes to compose ourselves, loads of hugging and loads of tissues. it was just really one of the hardest days emotionally on set but it was so gratifying as well because it really made it easier for our actual-actual last day for the final-final scene that me and the rest of my castmates, jared and jensen especially, think is absolutely priceless and award winning if i say so myself just to toot my own horn for a hot second. i don't think i'll ever be able to say goodbye to charlize winchester in its entirety because she's always going to be in my heart and whenever she feels the need to, she'll say a little hello. she'll also bleed through the rest of the characters i play in movies and television shows for the rest of my career. also, just as a little guessing game for the scene that you'll know when you see it tomorrow night, you have to try and spot the scenes in which jensen, jared and myself have our very obvious breaking out of character moments. then, tweet them to us and we'll respond to the first person who says all of the correct ones. and this is just to break up all the moments that you guys will cry within the entire two hours! which reminds me, the series finale of supernatural airs tomorrow night at 8/7 on the cw and then on the cw app! i love you guys so much and thank you guys for the best fifteen years of my entire life! 

view all 67,76k comments

jaredpadalecki there's all my tears for the finale gone before tomorrow night! i love you so much iona! 

ionaspeight jaredpadalecki i love you too jared and i think mine are also gone too tbh

dicksp8jr i'm super duper proud of you baby sister! you did well for being the longest-running female character on supernatural! you deserve that award and all the other awards that they are too stubborn to actually give us because they know that we're an amazing show that does deserve awards like every other show 

ionaspeight dicksp8jr thank you rich! i'm super duper proud of you too! 

jensenackles welp, now i'm gonna cry even more watching it tomorrow because i'll be alone! that's gonna be a lot of damage! 

ionaspeight jensenackles welp lets hope you and jared's tears don't create a flood in my basement

mattcohen4real you are an absolute gem iona! so many people have said it but i'm gonna say it again! talk about award-winning material! you deserve all the awards if the academies weren't so stubborn on giving the sci-fi shows more opportunities to get nominated! 

ionaspeight mattcohen4real oh stop it matt! i love you so very dearly! 

supernaturalfan2 even though i was one of the 300 fans to watch this scene and cried watching it, i'm still going to cry when i see it again tomorrow night! 

ionaspeight supernaturalfan2 aw you're so cute! but i hope that makes you have more of a advantage with the guessing game <3

- - - 

how many times have i uploaded today? three times? wow! firecracker today with inspo apparently! this was so much fun to write ngl! 

ily xx

word count; 5558

[laedback-taurus]

She’s Last

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader Word Count: 1.8k A/n: I had this idea while watching the Luca bullet scene, I cut out johns’ bullet to be able to make some changes work.

"Y/N Shelby" As soon as Luca said your name, Tommy's heart stopped. The thought what that bullet could take from him was too much and the only one that could even slightly calm him down was his wife and son.

“I was surprised how easy it was to get in a room with you” Luca Changretta sat on the end of the table in Tommy’s office.

“And now?” Tommy asked, drawing his gun.

“And now?” Luca started “and now you should know, that during the trouble you had earlier on your factory floor, I sent on accomplice into your office in overalls. He found your gun…” He pulled out and handful of bullets “and unloaded it”

Tommy checked his gun and found it unloaded. On by one Luca began lining the bullets up on the table.

“Arthur Shelby” The first bullet.

“Polly Gray” The second.

“Michael Gray” The Third.

“Ada Throne” The Fourth.

“Tommy Shelby” The Fifth.

“And finally,” Tommy heart began to beat rapidly.

“Y/n Shelby” Tommy felt his heart stop, the threat on your life was too much for him but he kept himself composed, determined to not show any reaction to this Italian in front of him.

“None of you will survive” Luca stated as he stood up to look out the office window. “Your level of security is pitiful” he turned to Tommy ��I could have killed your wife when she left your home this morning” The fact that they knew your whereabouts made him sick, he thought moving you back to Small Heath would make you even a little bit safer, but they were watching you, the thought of them watching you in your home mad him sick, had they watched you care for his son, do the housework…or had they watched his wife change, that thought alone made his blood boil.

“But you see…” Luca slowly walked closer to Tommy “I want her to be last” Tommy felt like he was about to pass out, his ears rang, and his vision was cloudy, but he didn’t show any emotion, he wouldn’t.

“I want her to be alive after her family and her husband are dead, because my mother says, that this is what will hurt you the most” Tommy stood emotionless, he knew that you seeing him dead or even hearing about it would break you. He knew that you would suffer the realisation that your son would be left with no one after you were gone and that would crush whatever of your soul was left and he couldn’t bear the thought.

“Instead of sending you a black hand, I could’ve had her killed in the night. You don’t know why. But I want you to know why and I wanna suggest to you that we fight this vendetta with honour” Luca explained,

“No civilians, no children” Tommy’s immediate thoughts going to his son who is probably happy at home with you now.

“No police” Luca added.

“Welcome to Birmingham Mr Changretta”

“Grazie”

You had spent most of the day entertaining your son Charlie while waiting for his father to come home. Charlie had grown up in Arrow House so he was having a hard time adjusting to Small Heath, you could tell her was missing his home. You tried your best to keep him occupied with other things like toys or helping you cook dinner for Tommy, his form of helping was sitting on the bench and playing with some spoons. As much as you loved Arrow House it was nice to be with your son in the place you and his father had fallen in love in, its not the most romantic of places but it did hold some very fond memories. You found yourself reminiscing quite a lot while you were back, Tommy was beyond stressed and your barely saw him so lately, all you had was the memories, the one where a young Thomas stood on the doorstep, crumpled flowers in hand and a nervous look on his face, the one where you hugged Tommy goodbye, crying into his chest before he was shipped off the France, the one when he came home from France, a broken man on your doorstep and your favourite, the one where he asked you to be his wife, right after you had pulled a bullet out of his arm, you were still holding the damn thing. And now your son was in that very same house, it felt like everything had come full circle.

“Y/n?” Tommy called out as he entered the small home, he listened closely for a response, but none came. “Charlie?” he called louder this time, looking in rooms as he went, panic slowly setting in, Luca’s threats weighing heavy on his heart.

“Daddy?” at the sound of his son’s small voice, Tommy turned to see him standing at the top of the stairs with his wife right beside him, Charlies small hand gripping the side of his mum’s nightdress and the other rubbing his eye. At the sight of his little family, he let himself relax for the first time all day, they were safe, and he was home with them now, that’s all that mattered.

“Hello Charlie” He smiled at the sight of his sleepy son, dressed ready for bed “looks like I caught you just in time”

“We were just about to pop into bed, weren’t we darling?” You asked your sleepy boy who nodded.

“Will you tuck me in daddy?” He asked sweetly, how could Tommy possibly say no. Charlie noticed his father start to walk up the stairs so he reached his little arms out, waiting for Tommy to pick him up. Tommy scooped him up and started on his way to his son’s room.

“You’re getting big aren’t you” Tommy pointed out his son’s sudden growth which he wasn’t particularly fond about.

“Mummy says I’ll be big and strong like you soon” Charlie pointed out as Tommy laid him down in his bed.

“Is that so?” Tommy smiled, noticing you watching your boys from the doorway.

“Uh huh and maybe I’ll find a beautiful girl like mummy” Charlie said as tommy tucked him in.

“No one is as beautiful as mummy” Tommy pointed out.

“Well maybe I’ll get close” Your son giggled followed by a yawn.

“Goodnight little man, don’t go growing too fast, okay?” Tommy planted a soft kiss on his son’s forehead.

“I’ll try Daddy” Charlie said before closing his eyes, Tommy quietly snuck out of the room where he found you standing in the hallway, a smile resting on your face. Tommy pulled the door shut behind him before he reached out for you, pulling you towards him by your hips.

“What’s wrong love?” you asked, reaching up the caress his cheek. You could always tell when something was bothering him, no matter how hard he’d try to hide it, there was no getting past you.

“Luca showed up at work, threatened me, threatened the family and…” he could bring himself to even say the last part, but you seemed to figure it out.

“Come on, come to bed, we’ll talk there” you softly grabbed his hand and lead him to the small room you shared. You began helping him undress by slipping his coat off and then his suit jacket, hanging them on some hooks on the back of the door. As you did this, he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off, working on his pants next. As he undid the button you approached him from behind, rubbing his bare shoulders softly. He slipped off his pants and turned to face you, you hands now lay on his chest, he placed his hands back onto your hips and lead you back to the bed, he sat on the edge, and you straddled him, beginning to run your fingers through his hair.

“You have to lay low for a bit” He broke the silence, rubbing his hand up and down your back.

“Tommy- “You began to protest.

“No, please listen to me love” he pleaded, looking up at you with the most hopeless looking you’ve seen on him. “He’s been watching you; he always knows where you are and at least here I can have you protected” You could tell by his voice that he was incredibly worried which scared you slightly, you hadn’t seen him this worried since you were in labour.

“I can’t lose you Y/n, I would lose my head, you keep me grounded and without you, I wouldn’t know what to do…I can’t lose you; Charlie can’t lose you” his eyes watered slightly and your heart broke. His hid his face in your chest and you rubbed his back gently as he clung to you, pulling you as close as he physically could.

“You won’t lose me Tommy, you’ll figure this out, you always do my love. I won’t leave the house unless you or someone you approve of is with me alright? I’m not leaving you; I couldn’t bear the thought of you alone” You reassured him, you felt him nod against your chest, you knew he wasn’t convinced, he wouldn’t be until Luca was dead but this was all you could do for now. You sat there for a while before he slowly pulled away, taking your hands in his. He gently ghosted his thumb over your wedding ring, your promise to him.

“let’s get some rest Tommy, you need it” You suggested, and he didn’t object, moving up the bed and guiding you up and into his arms, facing his chest.

You copied his actions from a moment ago and picked up his left hand, ghosting over his wedding band, something you both often did as a reminder of your promise to one another.

“There is something I have to tell you Tommy, I should wait but you need to know” you started, looking up at him, his tired eyes looking back at you. “Soon, we’ll be a family of four”

“I hope it’s a girl” was all he said before he drifted off to sleep with his pregnant wife in his arms and his son outside their door, building up the courage to ask if he could sleep with them.

[sinfulwrites]

Hand Appreciation

Do you guys remember that scene in Halloween 2 where that nurse sucked on Michael's fingers?

Yeah, that inspired this. Some are spicier than others, Peepaw's is just straight smut, but all include hand to mouth in some capacity.

This was actually titled "finger lickin good" in my docs but I decided not to make it the official title, as good of a title that is.

Jason Voorhees

It started off innocent. He meant nothing by it, simply stroking your cheek with the back of his index finger. It was innocent, but you were the one to make it not so innocent. You gently grabbed his large hand and held it up to your lips. He watched in awe as you started kissing his fingertips to his knuckles, occasionally sucking here and there. What got his face bright red was when you ran your tongue from fingertip to knuckle on the same finger that was admiring your face moments before. When you finally let him have his hand back he was beyond flustered, you couldn't help but chuckle at his shyness. Well, now he doesn't want to check the traps, Y/N…

OG Michael Myers

It was him who started it. Not in any smooth way either, this is Michael, he doesn't know how to be smooth. His curiosity was at its peak today, he just couldn't stop staring at you. When he had you next to him he couldn't stop himself from pressing a finger to your lips, awkwardly poking them as he examined your face. His fingertip slipped past your plush lips and you decided to take the opportunity to catch his finger in your mouth and run your tongue along his fingertip all while maintaining eye contact with him. You managed to stun him for a moment, his head tilted as he watched you suck on his finger. He stopped it by pulling his hand away from you, but you could tell by that glint in his eye that he was far from done with you.

2018 Michael Myers

You were going to be grocery shopping today, but Michael had other ideas. You turned to say goodbye to him and were pinned in a corner before you knew it. Your bag slipped from your hands so they could grip his shoulders when he pulled you into a kiss while his hands were anything but subtle, running up your thighs before one made itself at home between your legs. Grocery shopping was all but a distant memory as you rode his fingers while maintaining a messy kiss with your unusually horny lover. He eased an orgasm out of you right by the front door of all places, but you were far from caring at that moment. As he held up your trembling frame his fingers came out from between your legs, thoroughly wet from your slick. In your dazed, horny state you did not hesitate to take his hand and stick his soaked fingers in his mouth, sucking off your own fluids while maintaining eye contact with him. He almost shivered at the sight. That was the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

Bo Sinclair

He knew what he was doing when he grazed your bottom lip with his finger, and you knew what you were getting into when caught it in your teeth while smirking at him with your new catch. He didn’t hesitate to push his fingers in your mouth, testing your gag reflex while messing around with your tongue, which was more than eager to play. He decided to even the score by catching your tongue between his index and middle finger, giving it a light pull and only chuckling when you whined in protest. “Why don’t I give your dirty mouth something else to suck on, hm?” The sound of his belt hitting the floor was all the encouragement you needed to join it down there.

Vincent Sinclair

Whether Vincent wanted to say it or not, he was beautiful. You certainly thought so. Though he may hide behind a mask, he cannot hide his beauty from you, as it wasn’t restricted to his face. He may stare down at you in awe at your beauty, but it’s a mutual feeling as you return the same loving look. You immediately lean into his gentle touch when his fingers glide across your cheek, giving his thumb a soft little kiss before looking up at him again. His hand stays where it is on your cheek, allowing you to take his hand into your own and give his fingers more kisses, each tracing up to his knuckles. His mask hides how red his face is, but you can tell he is flustered because he can’t look you in the eye when you finally stop. Luckily for him, you were far from done. He found himself laid back on his bed with you sitting between his legs as he did to you most nights. You had plenty more spots to shower in affection…

Thomas Hewitt

Thomas’s hands always dwarfed your own, it was something you loved about him way more than you were going to tell him. He was so much bigger than you, but he always treated you like porcelain. Every night he allowed you to hold his hand and stroke his knuckles, mindful to avoid the knicks he gets from work on a daily basis. The old and new wounds do nothing to sway you from spoiling him with affection. He was nearly asleep, hugging you close to him as he always did with his face in your shoulder. He snapped right back to reality when you kissed his hand, lightly to test the ropes. You felt him jump awake, but he didn’t move from his spot, so you took that as your sign to keep going. You kissed his finger again, down to his knuckle before you sucked on said knuckle. That finally got him to sit up, lightly pulling his hand from your mouth on the way up. You rolled on your back so you could look up at your man, who was towering over you but it was hard to tell because of how dark it was. You could feel it though, just like how you felt him spread your legs so he could sit comfortably between them. He was more than eager to share the affection with you, in fact, it felt wrong to be spoiled so much and give nothing back. The day may have been rough, but the night would be worth the wait.

[maxwell-grant]

So, thoughts on Better Call Saul last season ?

....................................................................................

..............Okay, so

I'm still not having an easy time dealing with the fact that this show is over. I started watching Breaking Bad with my mom circa 2013, right as the 5th season was ending, and soon afterwards we'd started watching Better Call Saul together when it first began airing in 2014. I quite literally grew up with this show from adolescence to adulthood, it just always being there, something me and her would look up to every year or so. There's really nothing else out there that's comparable to this, in terms of my experience with it.

My first school assignment with video (pretty much the first time I ever filmed a project of any kind) was me doing a parody of that "That's why I fight for you Albuquerque!" commercial, and that was way before Better Call Saul began airing. This character's just been a part of my life for so long, I moved through homes 4 times and even then, there was always looking forward to watching Better Call Saul on the couch with her with every year or so. It was just always there, and it never felt like it was gonna leave.

I know I'm being dramatic but, man, it really feels like the end of an era to me, because it is. Just, 9, almost 10 years, coming to an end.

I guess I don't have as much to say now as I did last post considering I've been reblogging BCS posts and dropping thoughts in the notes but, here goes:

Oh man was I scared when Lalo Salamanca crashed through the laundromat's rooftop, killed Gus and proceeded to take over Los Pollos Hermanos as well as the franchise with his own vlogging spin-off. I was a little unsure that Lalo could carry his own show but, Tony Dalton really made it work, and Cocina de Lalo really sweeped the Emmies this year so, can't argue with results, y'know. I know the fanbase was kinda mixed on the Hamlin & Salamanca Graveyard Smash episode but it definitely felt like a major step-up as far as LGBT representation in this universe.

Anyway, rest in piece king. Besides getting a ghost boyfriend, you ended up ruining like 4 relationships and causing your lawyer to go off the deep end so badly he ended up creating the world's most pathetic monster that would eventually bring down Gus for good so, congrats Lalo Salamanca for winning the cartel war purely by dicking around.

I'm glad that Giancarlo won that TV Icon award apparently based almost entirely on his performance in that wine bar scene because, Jesus, talk about an all-timer way for us to say goodbye to Gus. I'm glad that they never showed Gus again, that was the perfect note for the character to leave us forever on. Again, victory has to be bittersweet, and he has to get the choice to walk away from this, only he doesn't really get a choice.

Giancarlo's ability to wordlessly convey volumes of inner turmoil was so good, I love so much about Gus' presentation and how non-verbal it is in the moments where it matters most. Also love that they somehow worked in a way for Gus and Lalo to Villain Monologue at each other prior, 10/10.

I kinda missed Jonathan Banks this season, but Mike was such a fixture in the early seasons of the show (and back then, the only part that interested me, I was a little too young and restless to stay awake for much of the lawyer business in Seasons 1-3) that, I get why he had to take a backseat. Dearly loved all of the Mike scenes in this season as well. Also, still miss Michael Mando, and if anything is gonna get me to rewatch this show (and it's far from just one thing), it's gonna be getting to see Michael Mando as Nacho again and really appreciate the character and all he brought to it.

I wasn't actually looking forward that much to seeing Walt and Jesse again because I was kinda afraid that, with BCS already kind of being seen as living in Breaking Bad's shadow, that it was gonna be this whole thing and, honestly I was fine with them not showing up at all. I thought the RV scene was neat and didn't think much besides that.

But then that Kim &Jesse scene happened and suddenly I remembered that, oh yeah, I fucking love Jesse Pinkman and he's one of my favorite characters ever, and here he is interacting with another of my favorite characters ever, and oh God Aaron Paul's doing such an amazing job at playing S1 goofball Jesse, this can't be easy, and oh this scene is so incredibly meaningful and of course they're gonna have Jesse Pinkman deliver bullshit monologues about Baby Jesus and his idiot friends while completely unaware of the massive weight of the narrative ready to pounce on him from behind, and of course it's Kim who has to pass the torch to him.

I was of the opinion that El Camino wasn't really something that had to exist but, nobody in their right minds would complain about getting another hour plus of Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, completely on his own, getting to claw for a set-in-stone freedom one last time. That said, I deeply love this being the last we ever get to see of Jesse Pinkman. This kind of fleeting glimpse into what he was, what we first knew him as, his innocence and humor here heavy with the weight of everything that's going to happen to him.

Crushing but strangely liberating at once, to see Jesse like this and to know for sure that, at the very end, away from his parents and Saul Goodman and Walter White and those fucking nazis, he will finally find his freedom and walk away with the closest this universe can give you in regards to a happy ending, just as Kim did.

(By Breaking Bad Irony)

And on the OTHER hand, I deeply loved that Walter White's final scene was a microcosm not just of the fly episode (which in itself was a deeply significant microcosm of the show), but also of his entire character and role in Saul Goodman's life. He shows up, makes mountains out of molehills, desperately tries to fix problems while making them infinitely worse, acts like a pedantic arrogant jackass the entire time, complains about his chronic inability to make decent life choices, and then just casually devastates the only person around him he can still bully, before leaving others to deal with the noise.

I love that, compared to his guns-blazing semi-redemption at the end of Breaking Bad and the bittersweet flashback at El Camino, to Better Call Saul, there is nothing redeemable about Walter and his lifetime of regrets, there is only the fallout of all he destroyed. In the end, Saul Goodman's big shot was just Worse Chuck, and nobody has anything but contempt for his name here. Rest in shit Heisenberg, nobody even dignifies you with your cool made-up name anymore.

We absolutely had to get a Chuck flashback and, in an episode heavy with the idea of regrets and time machines, of course this was gonna be Jimmy's. Maybe the one chance he ever had, to turn things around with Chuck, the one time Chuck ever reached out to him for a change, maybe the one time Chuck could have changed if only a little, and so could Jimmy.

Chuck is rightfully remembered as such a pain in the ass and even one of the reasons people disliked the show, and the current response to him always seemed to be 50/50 between "Chuck was a monster that ruined every chance his brother had at being good" and "Chuck was right about literally everything that Jimmy was and would be" but, I liked that his final scene just punctuates what an awful, awful tragedy it was for the both of them to turn out like this, that they both could and should have done so many things differently, that they both deserved better than to destroy each other like they did. That, more so than Walter or Howard, Chuck is Jimmy's biggest regret and the one he'd been dying to confess the most to.

If the running idea across most posts I've written or reblogged about this show is that Better Call Saul is a ghost story, there was really no other way this show could have possibly ended without the exorcism of it's greatest, most pervasive and dangerous ghost: Saul Goodman. And maybe Saul Goodman's never really gonna be banished for good, the prison mates will surely never let their hero die (and isn't that what Jimmy wanted Saul to be? A hero, the guy with the slingshot?), but we know better, and more importantly, Kim knows better. There's only one person who still knows Jimmy McGill, and it's the only person that matters, because this was a love story.

There was really no other way this could have possibly ended for Jimmy and Kim and, I love that in the end, the poster boy for dodging the law and it's consequences, the character who made a living out of slipping away scott-free, the King of Getting Away With It, was the ONLY major character in this world who ended up facing legal consequences for what he did.

Just, fucking Saul Goodman being the only major character in this universe who goes to jail and stays there, and of his own volition no less. They couldn't kill him, and they couldn't let him go free, he had to get a unique fate and that was it. They let him "win" and get 7 years, show that he very much could have just gotten away with it, but he didn't, because he changed, because he had to prove he'd changed, because it had to mean something.

Man am I glad that I just happened to download a couple of songs off the BCS soundtrack a few days prior to watching this, because when that final smoking scene started playing the track "Shared Smoke" that also played in the smoking scene in the first episode, I was SO glad to be able to recognize it.

I hope they don't do more spin-offs but, I would absolutely watch anything these people did. They made so much of what seemed like such an unworkable premise it's nothing short of magic.

It was a love story, first and foremost. It was also a ghost story. It was a crime drama. It was a lawyer show. It was a comedy. It was a horror show. It was a story about people becoming the worst versions of themselves. It was about the best versions of ourselves coming through at the last minute. It was a downfall and a redemption. It was the beginning of a legend and the end of an era. It was everything that could have possibly been expected of it and it was a million other things it had no right to be. It was a FUCKING SPIN-OFF and it held a grip on our souls and it's gonna be greatly missed.

Would have still liked to see Huell one last time though. Hope he's doing fine in Louisiana.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Ineffable Con 2020 Fun Facts

Fun facts from the Ineffable Con 2 (2020) guest panels :): 

Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

David G. Arnold (the music composer)

Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

1. Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

What do they have from Good Omens:

Rob has the statue from St. Beryls, all four motorbikes from the four horsemen, Crowley’s Devon watch, box signed by David Tennant with Crowley’s sunglasses and Aziraphale’s cocoa mug with Michael Sheen’s DNA :).

Douglas has the playing cards from Episode 1 and heavily annotated Good Omens book they used for filming with inscription by Neil: ‘For Douglas, make us love, make us cry, 3rd August 2017’.

Neil has Aziraphale’s chair from the bookshop that he bought from the BBC and he uses it for Zoom meetings.

What is their favourite thing that was not in the book and was added to the TV show:

Neil: all of the first half of Episode 3 - an absolute joy.

Rob: also the beginning of Episode 3.

Douglas: David Arnold’s music and Peter Anderson’s front titles.

Could Aziraphale get out of the Bastille easily if he wanted to?

Neil: if he could: absolutely. Did he have any conception of the mess he was in: probably not. It’s one of Neil’s favourite pieces of acting - the absolute delight on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that Crowley’s there and then he turns around and rather petulantly, grumpily goes oh it’s you - that moment of joy on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that he’s been rescued is one of Neil’s favourite things. 

Neil and yoghurt starter: I had this slightly mad thing where I would explain to everybody that fans were yoghurt starter. And I said, ‘Basically you start out with yoghurt starter and you put it into your warm milk and you leave it, and the yoghurt starter goes off and turns the entire thing into yoghurt. 

Neil realized that there was a cat in his house (Neil doesn’t have a cat :)). After the panel Neil said that he was going to look for the cat with a can of sardines and Douglas joked that he would find Michael Sheen in a cat costume.

What was the best and worst about making the series:

Douglas: the best - the camaraderie, getting to know the people, the cast and crew. 

Rob: the best - realizing that the book could be translated to the screen and watching it happen. The worst - coming to the end of the shoot and saying goodbye to everybody.

Neil: the best - the amount of love from everybody, the worst - fighting budget battles (producers wanted gone all of the cold opening and the death of Agnes Nutter).

Did they expect that Good Omens would attract so many LBGTQ+ people and how they feel about that:

Neil: Yes, absolutely. There are definitely people out there who seem to think that I accidentally wrote a love story with all of the beats of a love story including a break-up halfway through, without somehow noticing that I’d written a love story. And I may not be the brightest candle on the candelabra, but as an author who’s been doing it for a long time, I’m very well aware of when I’m writing a love story, thank you very much. And so from my perspective I knew that the love story would be one of the driving things that would get us from the beginning to the end. And I also made a bunch of decisions about our angels and our demons in terms of casting, in terms of gender that everybody backed me up on, which I loved. You know, the idea that the archangel Michael is played by Doon [Mackichan] is something that is... or Beelzebub is Anna Maxwell Martin, whatever, there’s... it’s not like we are going: these are women, there are men, we are going: these are demons, these are angels. They... this is not a thing. And also doing something like Pollution, where you go in and go: okay  well if we were doing this in... if 1989 was now, if there were they pronouns, we probably would have done that. We didn’t think of it at the time but that’s no reason why we can’t do it now. And we did and I remember having a... not exactly a battle, but a... my very tiny skirmish with one of our execs who was very nice and very bright and was like: ‘Why are you saying they?’, and I’m like... and I... explaining, and he’s like: ‘Well I’ve never heard of that before.’, and I’m like: ‘Oh, okay, but trust me, just trust me, it’s all fine, just trust me.’

Douglas: And you know I have to say, just following on what Neil’s saying, I’ve been directing for quite a while, and I tend to notice if characters are falling in love, I tend to notice a love story happening in front of me, and I think it’s there, and everything is meant, guys, everything is meant.

Neil added: I would just say, there are some things that you do while you’re writing a script intentionally. The fact that... I wanted to do this, well, it was a thing I did that I really enjoyed doing... where whenever people accuse them of being a couple: they don’t deny it, they don’t argue, there’s no flustering on their part. They absolutely… you know, everybody… what I’m trying to say is:  yes, other people in the story are perceiving them as a couple too. And here is Uriel perceiving them as a couple, here is wonderful Dan [Starkey, playing the passerby] …and you know, you do scenes like that because that’s... you are trying to make a point here and you’re trying to make a point on how people are perceived.

Season 2, yes or no [fiends, all three of them!]:

Douglas: What’s that?

Neil: Of what?

Rob: Is it muted for me as is for everyone else?

Neil confirmed that they are going to be Funko Pops. [yay!]

2. David G. Arnold (the music composer)

He didn’t read the book before he was approached to do the music. He was asked to do it by Douglas Mackinnon he knew from the Victorian episode of Sherlock and he said yes before even knowing what it was about because he wanted to work with Douglas again.  

The first piece of music he wrote for the show was the brass band doing the Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon [Episode 6, in the park before the kidnapping].

The second piece of music he wrote was the lullaby that Crowley sings to Warlock. He always liked the lullabies like in Mary Poppins so he said to Neil: Why don’t we do it like Walt Disney, but if Walt Disney was possessed by Satan? That was about 7 months before he needed to write anything again while they were shooting and it kept going round his head the whole time - the melody stuck with him and when it came to the Opening Title of the show, this became the middle bit.

The original opening title was Everyday by Buddy Holly and each episode was supposed to be closed with a different version of it: a death metal version, an angelic choir version, a carmina burana version... and he actually made all those. But he likes to find the musical identity of the show and put it in the opening titles because it’s important and it tells you: ‘This is the word you’re going to experience’, so he wrote his own opening title with the lullaby in the middle and played it to them [probably Neil and Douglas] with Buddy Holly as the backup and: Neil just turned around in his chair and said, ‘That’s Good Omens.’. From that point the instructions were with no rules, just to create whatever he wanted: the further you can go the better, the weirder and the stranger you can think the better. It’s a rare thing to be shown a world like Good Omens and be let free to run around in it. 

His favourite ending title is the Queen one in Episode 1.

One of the reasons he didn’t do a theme for Crowley and a theme for Aziraphale is that the theme of the show is theirs - it’s theirs and they share it and it’s both of theirs and there is no separating in that regard. 

About Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reflected in the music score: It’s interesting isn’t it, because the relationship changed in a way slightly frequently and majorly infrequently. It seemed right from the start that their relationship was somehow seeded and planted and had begun by the time we saw them even though they may not have realised it themselves, you know, with the pair of them on the wall, considering one is a demon in the Garden of Eden and one is an angel. They act very charitably towards each other and they act with a lot of things you might not expect. And underneath that there is a sort of sense of togetherness and support even though they both know that their paths are going to diverge and they have different responsibilities. So I always felt like, right from that moment, when the wing came up on the wall, that there was something special about their relationship. Three moments that stuck with him: in Episode 3 saving the books in the church when they completely rely on the other for survival in the way that they were very open about, one in the car outside the nightclub in 60s Soho - the Holy Water, you go too fast for me, that genuinely tearing, that there was reluctance in those words that he spoke and that sort of things as a composer is gold, it’s about making those moments more, and in the last episode in a scene they’re not event in when we see Adam and Dog in the fields and Anathema that music there which celebrates Crowley and Aziraphale’s music which is the theme of the show - their shadow has passed over everyone’s emotional journey, and everyone’s emotional journey is theirs as well. The argument in the bandstand was important as well.

His favourite leitmotif from the series is the lullaby.

About the scene in the car in episode 2 when Thomas Tallis changes into Queen: Terry’s favourite piece of classical music was the Thomas Tallis piece [Spem in Alium] so Neil asked if they can go from Thomas Tallis - a choral piece from 16th century - to We Will Rock You, and: ‘You never say no. You don’t say that you can’t do it. What you have to do is to be the first person who solves the problem.’ In the end it was a two-days work just for this little bit and he mentioned that he never had these sorts of challenges anywhere else before.

His favourite non-musical detail in the show - the crucifixion, how the scene was shot, how it was upsetting, and how it was made more effective by Aziraphale and Crowley’s inability to stop it, that they had to observe and watch it, that it had to happen. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking, I wasn’t expecting that level of brutal honesty, in terms of the pictures that I was looking at and what they chose to show. And I think all the more effective for it. 

3. Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

When creating the costumes for the characters she started with mood boards. 

Aziraphale - she knew that he needed to have something winglike in his collar so that’s why there are sweeping lapels very often. Using velvet [for the waistcoat] because that was nice and soft and had all the appropriate qualities. His watch and fob that has little gold wings hanging from it and other tiny bits of symbolism. Tartan bow tie. Beautiful cashmere checkered trousers - not quite tartan but a nod to it. A mid to late Victorian coat, Michael only made his decision on the coat a couple of days before the filming. Aziraphale in the present settled on a ring with angelic symbol and harp cufflinks, earlier his ring in ancient times has got a much more roughly hewn set of wings on it, so before jewellery making became sophisticated he modernised slightly - he magicked it up to be a bit more modern, more gentleman signet type of ring, but he never modernises entirely. His heart is much more in the past.

After they began to define Aziraphale they started to look at how the Heaven army of angels might look - the element of tartan came sort of from Aziraphale and the angels have a not-tartan kilt with a semi military type jacket and a military band across that might hold arms or not, because they are not really violent. She used spats to make them look quite neutral and genderless so hiding fastenings and concealing little details like that seemed a way to do that.

Gabriel doesn’t wear spats because he’s on Earth such a lot. His shoe has a cover with two buckles on the side giving the same neutral element. He wears a cashmere light-as-air suit.

The other angels are all in bastardized versions of what era they may have died in, so they could have died in the 1930s or the 1800s and the costume would have an element of that era about it - though of course as an angel you can change things.

The Quartermaster Angel - the costume is a combination of slightly Indian type military, maharaja pants, longer spats from another era, all combined pieces of military tailored to be magical and slightly nonsensical, as Heaven might be.

Crowley - she felt that he wrapped around like a snake sheds its skin so she wanted something double breasted because that seemed to envelope his snakey charm. David wanted to be more casual than wearing a suit. Under his collar he always has a flash of red like the snake that he comes from - the red belly. They put a red seam into the sole of his boots so always there is a hint of where he came from. The red tie in the blitz. He was more rock and roll than Aziraphale and modernised more to a snakehipped rock and roll star really. His present jacket - the fabric there is quilted, they found an 80s jacket that had elements of things they enjoyed - part of that was that it had a slightly quilted quality to the fabric which was like a textured snakeskin. It took quite a long time to create the fabric and then to make the jacket from that - they quilted some fabric and washed and whooshed it repeatedly to create a bit of puckering in it. He has a snakey scarf around his neck like a chain mail linked scales of skin scarf that he wore that complemented his neck chain. The trousers he wore in Victorian times are the same he wore in the 60s when he meets young Shadwell. His present trousers - slightly waxy denim - we just were looking for a slithery finish. Crowley’s neck chain - there is only one in the world - her tailor has a Gothic church full of interesting stuff like busts and drapes with old things, this chain mail scarf was there and David was looking for something to complete his costume and liked it. 

Hastur and Ligur are her favourite characters - they were so enjoyable to create. She had an amazing book of 1920s and 30s criminals and they used that as a starting point, because they were all quite worn out and bedraggled and poverty stricken and like hell might be ideally. They burnt and decayed the bottom of them as if they were rotting from the Earth and rotting back into the ground - all demons have sort of gators as if they were rotting from the ground up.

One of the most difficult things was the demons - when they realized they had a few days to create hundreds of demons in South Africa (4-5 days for almost 200 demons). It was as if I had been dissolved in holy water when they asked me for another 150 costumes.

The sleeves of Anathema’s coat have been inspired by a Victorian cycling coat. 

The historical costume that Newt’s ancestor wore influenced his and Shadwell’s costumes - they used elements of the historical costume to put a little cape on Newt and Shadwell and their wax coats to give them the quality of that look. Newt's costume has a lot of mustard to make him feel a bit awkward and uncomfortable - it's not the most flattering colour on a northern European complexion.

The nuns’ headdress needed to look a little bit demonic - she bought a whole book on nuns’ headdresses for research. They also used the V in the nurse's apron because that was nicely demonic. The nurses' watch has got this Satanic symbol at the top - a little take on the medical since old nurses’ uniforms used to have watches.

For Madame Tracy she went back into the 70s, slightly Biba-esque makeup and a cape. They had only one pair of her goggles so it was always a nightmare to find them.

Which part of the cold opening is her favourite: I love ancient Rome because there is at least 6 to 12 metre of fabric in a toga and that was quite fun wrapping that around the boys and creating those., and her favourite was the Globe.

The lapels represent wings in every way and every shape and every form. Wings are very important.

4. Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

The first thing that the director Douglas Mackinnon (with whom he worked on Doctor Who and Sherlock) said to him was: for all the graphics, for all the title sequence, for everything, I want you to promise me one thing, and that is very, very simple, promise that you send me emails that say: ‘this might be absolutely nuts, but my idea is...’.

The opening title it’s full of easter eggs - it’s a type of sequence that’s been designed to watch a thousand times, for example: on the escalator down to Hell there is one character running up deciding that he doesn’t want to go to Hell or the sea is full of plastic bags because we don’t look after the planet.

Every single face in the title sequence is either Crowley’s or Azriphale’s, they are repeated all the way through - inspired by Neil saying that there’s good and evil in all of us, so there is a grand procession of people of all the characters from the story - marching towards Armageddon - but all the characters have been taken over by good or evil. And along the way our two heroes are kind of playing tricks on each other, doing good, doing evil

The opening title combines multiple elements - two dimensional animation elements, three dimensional animation elements, CGI and live action (the people in the procession were created by live action on a travelator). So the result is a kind of strangeness - such as 3D figures with 2D animated tracked heads - which makes it unique.

Their first idea and version of the opening title was based on tapestries of old, subverting them, but then they wanted something more new and fresh.

Both Douglas and Neil were an important part of the opening title creation process.

The opening title sequence took about a year to make from the creative start with four intensive months towards the end.

One of things that inspired him was a Bauhaus theatre image from 1930s.

Question if the hand-drawn font for the graphics will be a purchasable font: no, because it was original and it’s unique and it was created just for this - it was for the love of the show and the story and it will be kept there.

In the scene where there are three photos of witchfinders - Neil and Douglas revealed in the DVD commentaries that two of them are their grandfathers - the third one is Peter’s great uncle.

Originally the signs telling us things like ‘Thursday’ or ‘Mesopotamia’ - were done as if somebody (who was living inside the television screen) ran up close to the screen and showed us the sign. In the end they simplified it, only showing the signs. The one time that it was sort of left in the show was when in Episode 5 a little demon in the video game shows a sign ‘GAME OVER’.

Outside of his work on it, what was his favourite thing on Good Omens: spending time with Douglas and Neil, and also working with Milk VFX - I think I can honestly say it's the best job I've ever worked on with the nicest people. 

5. Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

He first read the book when preparing for the audition - the character wasn’t in the book but he got into it, loved it and couldn’t put it down.

He didn’t know about the name Eric until the script was published and people started calling the demon that, he really likes the name and thinks it fits.

There was a version of the script where the demon was going to be dressed in different costumes each time he was discorporated (for example one in long hair wearing a dress) - they would be all the same but different incarnations, in one version they had different accents. 

The first scene he shot was the one where the demon goes to Heaven to deliver the Hellfire (and also wants to hit ‘Aziraphale’ which was cut). That first day was also his favourite moment of shooting because there was an immediate welcoming atmosphere and everyone was lovely and in love with the production.

Disposable Demon is like a permanent intern, running errands for the higher ups in Hell.

His favourite part of the costume were the eyelashes (though he loved the whole costume).

If he could change anything about the costume he would also want cool contact lenses - some brightly coloured ones.

Question what animal (like other demons have on their heads) comes to mind when we see the Disposable Demon: he didn’t think about it at the time, but later he saw people talking about his horns as bunny ears and found it interesting, and also the facts that there are so many of him and that he is quite happy and friendly for a demon so the bunny makes sense, so he might be a sort of a rabbit. Or perhaps something goat type because of the horns.

Question if there is another role in Good Omens he would have liked to have played: he always thought that the four horsemen were very cool and Pollution was his favourite so probably Pollution (also was the most jealous of Pollution’s contact lenses). 

If there were a season 2, he would be there in a heartbeat.

Question about Eric’s feelings on Crowley, if he’s a bit of a Crowley fan: I think he might be. There is something about Crowley and how he is somehow a little bit different from the rest of the demons. - and the Disposable Demon has, much like Crowley, interest in the human world. He could well be 6,000 how many years old, the same as everyone else, but he seems to have this younger vibe and I think he thinks that Crowley is quite cool.

Good Omens fandom is his first experience with a fandom of this scale. It speaks a lot, the fact that this kind of very, this minor character, a character who is only on screen for a very short amount of time gets any kind of attention at all, it's quite amazing really, it goes to show how big and enthusiastic the fans are. I never experienced anything like that.

6. Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

When Crowley used a miracle to switch off the Bentley lights in Episode 1 at nuns manor it was done by: there was actually a very small guy called Louis turning on and off the switches quickly.

David Tennant was allowed to wear the snake eye contacts for only 3 hours a day otherwise they could damage his eyesight.

For Mary, the Bentley, it was the second time she was ‘blown up’ on film - first being in the Endeavour with Inspector Morse about three years earlier.

He was a bit nervous during filming the bookshop fire scene because the Bentley was so close to a real fire - not wanting the paint to blister. The car was moved off after a few minutes of filming but still.

About the damage to Mary: Unfortunately, we overran, and Rob my stunt driver had already booked a holiday and off he went and so when he returned in January, on the 10th of January, I had this new driver who really had no clue how to drive old cars, so I showed him around, I showed him to go around corners. He came around the corner, the door was not closed properly for some reason and the door flew open as he went around. And instead of slamming on the brakes which is extremely efficient and would stop him straight away he kept on going, hit another car and really smashed the door quite badly. It did take the car off the roads for 10 months. The door was completely remade because of this accident and it cost the total of  £24 000 to rebuild the car to get it back to running as it is today.

The Bentley’s part most difficult to maintain and service is the engine. 

Would Mary be available for a potential season 2: definitely!

[oviids]

pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.*  - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul.  slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes*  - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

[ariaadagio]

Things I loved about S6

Spoilers below the cut:

1. I never thought I’d enjoy Lucifer being a touchy-feely talks-about-his-feelings hug addict. If you’d asked me in S1, I’d say “holy out of character, batman.” But OMG I loved this development. The man is an expressive octopus, now, and I just cannot deal with how adorable that is.

2. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. Lucifer said Chloe’s name like 47 times this season and I WILL NEVER TIRE OF IT.

3. So. Many. Callbacks. 

4. So. Many. Little. Details. Like this:

5. The Ghost homage in the everything is fine room.

6. Dan being a ghost and dealing with his guilt!

7. G O R G E O U S   M A E V E   W E D D I N G.

8. No Deckerstar wedding. 

9. Ella’s apocalypse board! I had FEEI flashbacks. 

10. Rory serving up big fat servings of character development for both Lucifer & Chloe.

11. Carol. I did not expect to like this guy but I ended up loving him. What a great dude.

12. The first thing cartoon Lucifer does is check to see if he’s got bits.

13. Chloe also checks herself, but later. Lol.

14. CARTOON LUCIFER.

15. Lucifer performing with a drag queen. 

16. Lucifer’s duet with Rory.

17. All the Lucifer performances lol.

18. Ella finds out!

19. Ella finds out without being told!

20. LUCIFER FLEW WITH CHLOE. I REPEAT. LUCIFER FLEW WITH CHLOE.

21. Michael is scrubbing Hell’s floors with a toothbrush. Hee!

22. SO MUCH LUCIFER & DAN.

23. EVEN MORE LUCIFER & ELLA.

24. THE MOSTEST DECKERSTAR.

25. I never in my fucking life thought I’d enjoy watching Lucifer be a parent, but ... yup. Lucifer being a parent. How do you do this to me, show?

26. Chloe becoming a detective again!

27. Amenagod.

28. Linda’s vision of Godifer with socks and Birkenstocks. 

29. Lucifer did not become God.

30. The nightmare that is this show’s Hell canon is getting a major facelift. 

31. The facelift is turning Hell loops into Linda’s office. 

32. Maze & Lucifer’s goodbye. Scoop my heart out with a spork, I can’t watch this without crying. This was so long in the making. Beautiful.

33. Linda was writing a book about Lucifer. I hope she revisits it when her embarrassment about the draft has cooled. Because holy hell I imagine Lucifer is a fascinating as fuck case study and I bet it would sell like hotcakes in the psychology community.

34. Lucifer gaining control over his invulnerability. 

35. So. Many. Heartfelt. ILYs.

36. Trixie & Dan’s final scene. Return with the spork and finish me off, please.

37. Lucifer has a picture of Dan on his nightstand.

38. Chloe has Trixie’s Devil art on her desk.

39. Chloe makes Lieutenant! YASSS, GIRL. GET IT!

40. Adam is a douchey dudebro and his casting is just. Ugh. Perfect.

41. Eve walking herself down the aisle.

42. Linda walking Maze!

43. Fight scenes!

44. CHLOE AND LUCIFER FIGHTING TOGETHER.

45. The Magic Castle. 

46. So much great humor. 

47. So much Deckerstar! (I know I already listed this but I feel it was enough to merit two mentions)

48. The writers playing with perspectives in the episode where Linda’s book got read. 

49. Science gak. 

50. Happy Shirt! 

51. Dan’s vs Maze’s memory of their pre-murder car chat. 

52. Toxic masculinity. Lol.

53. Lucifer helping Maze get Eve back. 

54. "Something old and something new, in something borrowed, with lots of nasty blue bits.”

55. Character growth.

56. Character growth.

57. Character growth.

58. Lucifer’s speech to Rory in episode 9, about feeling like a monster and that he hopes he never made her feel that way. Another one I can’t get through without crying. 

59. "Hello, Detective.”

[condorclaw]

...so we could all use a little fluff after yesterday, right?

TW: description of a panic attack with referenced abuse. The scene is in bold if you want to skip over it, and is a small part of the story

-

Michael didn’t understand much about the world, especially since Snowchester was all he could remember.

What he did know was that there were both kind people, and people who were not so nice.

Michael’s dads knew what was best, he had realized. Many times Michael had been approached by strangers in his own room, with dadboo swooping in to clutch him to his chest protectively. Michael didn’t know what was so bad about some of these strangers, but in his dad’s arms, he felt protected, so he figured dadboo knew something he didn’t.

Dadboo wasn’t the only one in Michael’s life who he felt fully safe around. There was his other parent, dadbee. Dadbee wasn’t as tall or as strange as dadboo was, but dadbee would stand with dadboo, a weapon clutched in his hand whenever a stranger would invade the house. If Michael listened to Technoblade’s metaphors in the possible future, he’d look back on this time and compare his fathers to a sword and shield.

There was another important guardian in Michael’s life too: his uncle Tommy.

Tommy had hair that reminded the kid of gold, fangs that were as sharp as piglin tusks, and always some kind of mischievous glint in his eye. When Michael’s dads were away, Tommy came to watch over him, something Michael had grown to look forward to.

Ever since the two met, they had a strong connection, something that was cemented with Tommy knowing Michael’s native language, being able to communicate with him better. Tommy was also teaching it to his fathers too, dadbee getting good enough to ask Michael what he wanted for dinner, and being able to understand Michael’s answers, while dadboo was the best at giving one-word instructions.

His family was so cool, and Michael would tell Foolish Jr. about them whenever the little totem came over for a playdate. Just like Michael, Foolish Jr. had an uncle as well, but unlike Michael, Foolish Jr. had never seen his own, hearing that he had been taken somewhere secret. Michael felt sorry for his best friend, while also being happy that he had such an awesome uncle himself.

Tommy was even missing an eye like him! Michael didn’t know how he lost it, and whenever the piglin asked, Tommy would just mumble something in response about “green”, and saying that Michael could hear about it when he was older. Michael didn’t mind, it just made him feel closer to the blonde.

The world was confusing, and things didn’t make that much sense yet, but Michael knew that he always had dadboo, dadbee, and uncle Tommy by his side to protect him.

-

“You two have fun, okay?”

Michael watched as Tubbo tried forcing a large metallic object into his bag, even beginning to stomp down on it before Ranboo ran in frantically.

“Tubbo, we just need to check on the borders of Snowchester, we don’t need-”

“Nukes can come in handy, Ranboo!”

“HOW!?”

Tommy rolled his eye in mock exaggeration, glancing down at Michael, who turned his head to stare back. “Your dads are never getting out of here, guess I can’t babysit tonight.”

Michael stomped his hoof in frustration, letting out a loud snort of annoyance, which caught both of his dads’ attention.

“Tommy, what did you tell him?” Ranboo’s eyebrow raised in suspicion as his eyes gazed down at the huffy piglin.

“That the two of you are slower than the Eggpire’s “ultimate takeover”.” The pout on Tubbo’s face was enough to make Tommy burst into his signature laughter, the couple eventually joining in on enjoying the joke. Michael didn’t understand what was happening, but began to giggle in little snorts, not wanting to be left out.

“Okay, okay. I think we are taking a while,” Ranboo muttered, tilting his head to look down at Tubbo accusingly. The ram hybrid stared back, sticking out his tongue in mock aggression.

“Don’t you want to be safe? We could run into a pack of wolves and have to defend ourselves.”

“Tubbo, I think the nuke killing us is more likely to happen than being killed by mobs-”

Michael let out another frustrated cry, beginning to hop in place and slam his hooves down on the floorboards. Ranboo and Tubbo both looked at him, ears folding back sheepishly.

“Sorry,” Tubbo mumbled in piglin, rubbing the back of his neck. Ranboo nodded along with that, bending down to rub Michael’s head affectionately. “Okay, we get it. We’re going now. Have a good time, Michael.” Ranboo gently booped Michael’s snout with his own, standing up once the piglin squealed happily,

“Ranboooo, we have to make a stop at the warehouse,” Tubbo tugged on his husband’s jacket once the enderman stood.

“Tubbo, we’ll waste time-”

“Do you want the nuke to be left here with our son then?”

“...okay, w-”

“GOODBYE ALREADY!” Tommy let out a battle cry, shoving the two parents through the door and locking it behind them. Michael chirped happily, clapping his hooves at the amusing sight. Even inside, they could still hear Ranboo and Tubbo talking faintly. Uncle and nephew listened closely, waiting until the voices could no longer be heard.

“Okay, those two are gone now. We now have the whole night to ourselves.” Tommy turned, giving Michael a fanged grin. The piglin began jumping on the spot excitedly, flapping his stubby arms.

-

Tommy had been surprisingly good at managing Michael, even understanding how to keep him happy while making sure he was safe. The lack of a language barrier made everything a lot easier too, but even Tubbo and Ranboo were surprised at how well Tommy knew how to do a lot of household tasks that parents normally took over. The two of them had once come home to a spotless house, Tommy telling them that he needed to kill energy through cleaning after putting Michael to bed.

Currently, Tommy was preparing a bowl of steamed carrots for Michael, keeping an eye on the piglin playing on the floor while also focusing on the pot boiling. Michael’s favourite food was potatoes, but his parents had told him that Tommy didn’t really like those much, so he had to have something else. Michael’s next favourite was carrots, which was something Tommy did like too, and he always made them the way Michael liked.

On the floor, Michael was playing with his stuffed bee. It was a gift from his dadbee that Michael loved squeezing into, and it was even the size of the piglin himself. It was rather silly to see him clutching onto a giant bee, but it was also a very cute sight.

Michael pretended to attack the large plush, leaping into it at full speeds and rolling across the floor like he always did. Tommy chuckled at the sight, removing the pot from the stove and turning it off. “Be careful, little man. Tubbo’ll kill me if something happens to you.” He muttered light-heartedly.

Michael oinked in understanding, rolling his bee across the floor once more. Upon doing so however, a thread caught onto the edge of one of the floorboards, unravelling the bee slightly and exposing the stuffing. Michael stared at the plush toy quietly, his eye wide as tears started to spill from it.

Setting aside the carrots for draining, Tommy quickly turned around upon hearing a panicked squeal. He spotted Michael clutching the ripped bee close to his chest, sad little oinks escaping from him. Tommy slowly made his way over to his nephew, crouching down to see him better.

“Did Mr. Bee get hurt?” Michael nodded, oinking out what happened to his favourite toy. Tommy turned, glaring at the floor with a huff.

“How dare you fuckin’ hurt him. Mr. Bee never did anything to you, stupid pieces of wood.”

Michael giggled a little, tears still falling from his eyes. Tommy turned back to the piglin after “getting angry” at the floor, an understanding smile appearing on his face. “Michael, do you know where Tubbo keeps the rainbow string with the tiny stabby sticks?”

The piglin gave a curt nod, pointing to one of the chests along the walls. Tommy stood up, stretching his body before leaning down and gently picking up Michael. Michael was placed in his high chair, with Tommy bringing over the bowl of drained carrots. “You eat these, okay? I’ll have the coolest surprise for you when you’re done.”

Michael’s eye widened again and he quickly began to gulp down his food, Mr. Bee forgotten for now. Tommy let out a panicked laugh, quickly taking the bowl from Michael and stared at his nephew eye-to-eye. “You only get the surprise if you eat slowly, okay? It’s not safe to eat that fast.”

Michael frowned, folding his arms and muttering something.

“Woah, and where did YOU hear that word from?”

Another snort.

“...okay, I’ll admit that I did say that.”

Michael’s lip curled in in satisfaction as he stuck his tongue out at his uncle, Tommy placing his hand to his chest and gasping dramatically. “Wow, you’re so fuckin’ rude. I can’t believe you’d do this to your own flesh and blood.”

Michael pointed to the right side of his head.

“...flesh and bone. Stop being so sassy tonight.”

Another stuck-out tongue.

-

As Michael began to eat, Tommy looked through the chest his nephew had been pointing to, finding the needles and threat he had been looking for. The blonde gave a fist pump in quiet celebration, heading back to where Michael had left the stuffed bee behind. He sat down and picked up the plush, surprised at how light it was. With his materials there, Tommy began to sew up the toy.

Wilbur had taught him how to sew during the Pogtopia days, when Tommy's clothes kept getting torn due to running from the Manberg guards. Wilbur eventually became far too busy to teach Tommy more, which was when Niki stepped in to continue teaching Tommy, and started teaching Tubbo as well.

Tommy didn't have the best childhood. Actually, that was an understatement. Tommy had one of the worst childhoods possible, with the constant threat of war and death looming over his head as he charged into battle with his family and friends. It was the worst experience Tommy could have ever gotten, and even though the wars were over, there were still the rising threats of new ones. Ones that he'd probably be forced to participate in.

But for now, everything was okay, and that's all Tommy wanted.

Michael was a bright young lad, appearing to adopt similar mannerisms to Tommy's own. While he'd never say it to anybody, Tommy was incredibly fond of his nephew. Michael had a loving family, and a wonderful home to live in. He didn't have to care about wars, or being exiled, or being imprisoned, or-

Tommy felt his heart rate drop for a moment, accidently pricking himself with the needle he was sewing with. "Shit," he muttered, quickly shaking his hand to alleviate the sting.

Michael looked over at him, hearing the curse. His ears were perked up and he oinked inquisitively. Tommy responded with a thumbs-up, letting out a fake laugh. Michael copied his actions, giving a similar thumbs-up motion with his hooves.

As Michael continued to eat, Tommy continued to sew, his mind suddenly a lot more crowded than before.

-

Michael slurped up the last of his meal, licking his lips happily. Carrots were always filling, especially when Tommy made them.

The piglin began to let out chirrs, gazing in Tommy's direction as he wiggled in his seat. Tommy looked up from what he was working on, eye softening when he saw how energetic and happy Michael was after the meal.

"Alright, I'm coming."

After removing Michael from his chair, Tommy brought him over to where he had previously played with his bee, setting the boy down carefully on the floor. "You ready for the best fuckin' surprise ever?"

Michael nodded rapidly, clapping his hooves and flapping his legs.

"Shut your eye."

Michael did so, one of his hooves rushing to cover up his functioning eye. The other hoof covered up his skull eye, despite not being able to see anything out of it. Tommy smiled fondly, placing the stuffed bee in front of his nephew. The bee was sewn up shut, a large red bow tied around its thick neck.

“You can look now.”

Michael removed his hooves and immediately started shrieking with excitement. He rushed forward, almost flattening himself into the plush toy. Tommy stepped back, folding his arms and leaning against the wall with a smirk. “Is your uncle the coolest, or what? Don’t answer that, I know I am.”

It was funny how despite being different species, Michael looked so much like Tubbo in the moment. Tommy recalled a similar situation with Tubbo that happened in the ravine of Pogtopia, and how it happened shortly after Quackity had joined the group. Quackity had gone to secretly fetch items from his old office, returning to Pogtopia with them alongside Tubbo’s beloved bee plush that had been abandoned on the former vice-president’s desk.

The bee was ragged and torn, but a still-recovering Tubbo had been happy beyond tears to have it back. He held it all day, with him only letting go as he slept that night. Tommy had slid the bee gently out of the older boy’s arms and tried to stitch it back up. It didn’t go as well as he had hoped, but Niki had found him underneath the moonlight, and was the one to assist in repairing the plush. Tommy had made Niki promise that she wouldn’t tell Tubbo it was him, but looking back at some of those messy cross-stitches, Tubbo probably figured it out within seconds.

Upon waking up, Tubbo found his newly-repaired bee and began to bleat excitedly, clutching the toy close to his chest and burying his face in it. It had been a moment of joy in the darkness of their situation, and certainly lifted Tommy’s own spirits.

Michael was acting just like his father did then, the memory causing a soft smile across the blonde’s features. Tommy was so lost in his thoughts though, he didn’t notice Michael rushing towards him. In the piglin’s excitement, he had forgotten the one rule his parents had set up for him.

He grabbed a hold of Tommy’s leg, squeezing it tightly in a hug.

Tommy's eyes shot open at the sudden contact, the pressure on his leg constricting him, preventing him from moving it. He couldn't move his leg, he couldn't move his leg, he couldn’t move his leg.

His voice caught in his throat, the walls of it tightening as his breathing sped up. He couldn't scream for help, he couldn't cry out for anybody. All that was there was the searing pain of his wounds as his body was scraped along the ground, Dream's voice in his ears that Tommy couldn't run, that Tommy couldn't beg, that Tommy couldn't leave.

Michael had looked up at his uncle at that point, suddenly aware that the mood in the room had shifted drastically, and still clutching the leg. Tommy returned Michael’s look, trying to weakly shake his leg, which had become numb.

“Michael. Leg.”

It was two words, but Michael immediately realized what he had done, the piglin stepping back a few feet with an apologetic squeal. Unfortunately, Tommy’s head was now spinning, and couldn’t make sense of the room. He was real, he was real, he was real. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t back in the prison, his head-

Tommy collapsed to the ground, making Michael jolt. Michael started oinking nervously, trying to find out what was going on, and what he could do. Tommy’s head felt like it was going to split open, and he shut his eye tightly, hands clawing at the wooden floor as he tried to communicate with Michael, making sure not to scare him even more. “Brain’s upset.”

Tommy wasn’t able to open his eye to see what Michael’s response was, but Michael was frantically looking around for something that could help. When his parents were upset, he would curl up next to them, snuggling into their sides, but he couldn’t do this with Tommy. His fathers’ one rule had been to never touch Tommy, especially if his uncle wasn’t looking, and Michael had broken it on accident.

Going over everything he liked to do when scared, Michael’s eye landed on his bee plush. Whenever he was worried, he liked to hug it. Would his uncle like doing that too? Nervously, he tried nudging it towards Tommy, little by little. When he thought it was in good-enough range, he let out gentle honks, trying to get his uncle’s attention. It took a few minutes, but Tommy’s eye eventually opened slightly. It looked glazed and unfocused, glancing around the room for a moment before landing on the soft toy placed in front of him.

Slowly, he let go of the floor, the process taking several minutes for him to even reach out for it, but Michael waited the whole time. He gave the toy one move delicate shove, allowing it to roll until it stopped in front of Tommy with about a foot of distance between them. Once more, Tommy grabbing the plush took a while, his arm trembling, and his face pale, but eventually he got a grip of it, pulling it into his chest as quickly as he could.

“Thanks,” Tommy muttered weakly, Michael’s ears rising as he smiled.

-

It was about a half-hour later before Tommy fully calmed down, the comfort of the bee plushie combined with the gentle sounds of Michael’s chirrs lulling him into a more comfortable mindset.

Weakly he got up, the bee plush sitting in his lap as he rubbed away the tear stains. Tommy glanced over to his side, noticing Michael watching him carefully. His head was cocked to the side, and though he seemed happy that Tommy was up, his eyes showed worry for the older boy.

“I’m great, Michael,” Tommy lied a little. He was certainly feeling a lot better, but Michael probably wouldn’t understand if Tommy said he still felt a little disoriented. It was best to reassure the kid more than anything else. Smiling back at his nephew, Tommy carefully handed the bee plush back to him, the worry in Michael’s eyes being replaced with relief and joy.

With a grunt, Tommy hoisted himself up, praying that his arms or legs wouldn't give out again like they did before. He was still shaken up, and definitely not wanting to come in contact with anything else at the moment, his skin feeling cold and exposed from the aftermath. Michael watched him closely, taking a few steps away whenever Tommy would stumble in place, and looked like he was about to fall over. Letting out a sigh, Tommy looked over at Michael, gently smiling at him. "We could use a break. Do you have anything you want to do?"

Michael practically beamed.

-

"Hello~!" Tubbo slammed open the door, his mouth pulled into a cheeky grin.

Ranboo followed behind his husband, letting out an exhausted yawn as he carried a stack of leather almost up to his chin (and for Ranboo's height, that was saying something). "The world's most tired man is back, along with the living embodiment of a firework hyped up on crack."

"Ranboo, don't say that," Tubbo frowned, placing his hands on his hips. "You're nowhere near enough to be as colorful as a firework is."

"Are you implying that you're the tired one here?" Ranboo set down the stack of leather, beginning to brush remaining bits of meat from the leather off of his hands. "Because it seems like I had to do all the work."

"Hey, you're the one who said we should get leather!"

"And that to YOU somehow translated to "let's kill every cow in a four-mile radius". Now I've got gunk all over me."

"We-"

"OH MY GOD, WILL YOU BOTH PLEASE FUCKING SHUT UP?" Tommy yelled from where he sat on the carpet, spinning a plastic spinner that landed on the color red. Michael oinked in agreement, trying to reach the red spot on the plastic mat with his hind leg. Tubbo and Ranboo's conversation was immediately forgotten, the two watching in awe as their son was playing Twister.

"C'mon, big M. You've got this," Tommy encouraged. When Michael wasn't looking, Tommy carefully slid the mat closer together, making the spot reachable for him. Michael placed his leg down, letting out a squeal of victory. Tommy whooped excitedly, Michael raised a hand to give Tommy an air high-five, when he slipped and fell down, squealing in surprise.

"I know last time with Battleship was the weirdest I thought this could get, but I literally have no clue why you keep teaching him games out of his age range." Tubbo muttered, confused, before taking off his uniform and hanging it up on one of the hooks. Ranboo nodded, following Tubbo's actions with his own coat.

"Michael's a trooper!" Tommy folded his arms with satisfaction. "Next time I'm teaching him chess."

"Do you even know how to play chess?"

"Um, of course I do."

"Then why-"

"Okay!" Ranboo clapped his hands together, interrupting the conversation before it spiraled once more. "I assume you two had a good time?"

Tommy and Michael looking away from the couple awkwardly wasn't a good sign.

"Well, it was a good time," Tommy began to explain. "There was just a little accident though. I'll tell you two about it later when, y'know, somebody certain's asleep. But all you need to know is that Michael handled it really well." The blonde looked down at the piglin, flashing a fanged grin. Michael returned the smile, standing up on his stubby legs and rushing to Tubbo to give him a hug.

"How was the patrol thingy?" Tommy stood up as well, stretching as best as he could.

Ranboo and Tubbo were now the ones that looked away awkwardly.

"So somebody," Tubbo began, itching his cheek. "Might have suggested that we should get leather while we were out."

"And SOMEBODY," Ranboo flashed Tubbo a glance, folding his arms. "Decided to commit a mass cow genocide-"

"You know what! That story's not important right now!" Tubbo waved his hands frantically, laughing awkwardly as he avoided eye contact with a glaring Ranboo. "The point is, we didn't end up doing what we wanted to do-"

"Wonder who's fault that is-"

"-SO WE DECIDED TO DO IT ANOTHER TIME!" Tubbo finished, looking like he was about to start sweating buckets. "So, if it's okay, Tommy… could you maybe look after him again tomorrow?"

Tommy grinned again, nodding his head several times. "You can count on it, Tubbs. We definitely need to fuckin' talk about what happened tonight first, but hell yeah! Sounds good to me!"

"If you tell me Michael killed somebody, you're immediately fired as a babysitter and an uncle." Ranboo lifted up Michael from Tubbo's side, allowing the piglin to grab at his horn.

"Michael, if you ever kill somebody, don't tell your dads." Tommy whispered to Michael in piglin, fully knowing what was coming next once Michael giggled.

"Tommy, what did you say to him."

"Manslaughter is pog."

"YOU DID NOT-"

[bestillmyslashyheart]

for @antiforlexpropaganda. sorry it’s very very late (and a super thank you to @caitlesshea for rewatching the scene for me and writing a transcript so i didn’t have to)

Maria knocked again, a quick rap that echoed inside. It was early but she knew Alex was used to getting up with the sun so she wasn’t too worried about waking him up. Or at least she hadn’t been before she spent multiple minutes knocking on his door. Just as she was considering leaving and coming back later, the lock turned and the door cracked open.

Alex looked faintly surprised to see her. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he accused lightly.

Maria shrugged. “Well, I learned you and all of our friends have been lying to me about aliens and murders and resurrection, so I haven’t been feeling particularly social. That being said I fell for your ex, so I’ve decided that even though I’m not speaking to them you and I are even?” She questioned hesitantly. She hadn’t actually spoken to Alex about Michael since that day at the bar and she definitely hadn’t talked to him before or after her and Michael’s very brief foray into a relationship but she knew he had heard about it. There was no way he hadn’t.

There was a look in Alex’s eyes, something Maria couldn’t place, but it was gone before she could try to figure it out. “That’s fair,” he replied. “What’s up?”

Maria let out a small breath of relief. She held up her mom’s laptop in answer. “Forgot the password.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “And you want me to use my NSA intelligence cryptology training to hack into your laptop?”

Maria sent him a coy look in answer, unwilling to come out and say that yes, she wanted him to commit a crime for her. Thankfully, Alex let out a little huff of a laugh. “How does any straight man survive you?”

“They don’t,” Maria grinned and follow Alex inside when he stepped aside. He led her into the living room and settled on his couch, his right leg stretching out in front of him. He waved a hand to invite her to have a seat. She did, perching herself on the edge of the bench in front of Alex’s piano and looked around. She had stopped by right after Alex moved in but hadn’t been by since. He hadn’t done too much with the place but it definitely looked less like waystation now. More like a home.

Alex sat patiently as she looked around. She felt his eyes on her but she waited a moment before turning to him.

“How come you’re not mad at me?” She finally asked. It was what she had feared, why she had waited so long to come around.

“For Michael?” Alex asked, like there was anything else he could be angry at her for. She nodded and he sighed. “The mess between us will never be your fault. And plus you didn’t know my history with him until after you hooked up. That’s my fault. I should’ve told you.”

“No,” Maria argued. “When I found out I should’ve stopped.” Because while she hadn’t known in Texas, she’d definitely known after.

“Yeah, okay, you should’ve.” He was only agreeing with what she’d just said herself but it hurt to hear him say it. “But you couldn’t. How could I be mad at you for falling for Michael Guerin? It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

Maria wasn’t sure she agreed. “Yeah, until it’s not.”

Alex shook his head, a soft look coming over his face. “Don’t write him off yet, okay? He keeps secrets because of how much he loves Max and Isobel, not because of how much he loves you.” Maria privately thought it was a little early (or late depending on you looked at it) to be calling it love.

She had to ask. “You told me once that you would stay in Roswell forever if the guy from the museum would just keep kissing you. But you did leave. What happened?”

Alex closed off and looked away. “He stopped being that guy.” His eyes flicked away, focusing on something behind her. “I begged him to get it together, then he got busted for stealing hubcaps.”

“He was pushing you away. He does that.” Maria had watched him do it to Max Evans countless times over the years. “He hurts people to see if they let him go. Made out with Lindsey right in front of me.” There was that look on Alex’s face again, the one she couldn’t identify.

“Yeah, well,” Alex shrugged. “I didn’t need much pushing. He’d become this walking bar fight and I just could not deal.”

“Hey,” Maria said softly, aching to reach out to him but feeling like it wouldn’t be well received. “You grew up in an abusive home. It makes sense that you didn’t want to be around all that anger.”

“Yeah, and then the irony of enlisting to escape violence,” Alex huffed. “He was locked up the day I left. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

The words felt loaded, more so than Maria could understand. She didn’t know what to say. As the silence stretched on, she cleared her throat and stood up to get the laptop she’d placed on the counter on the way in. “So. Want to show me some of those famed skills of yours?”

Luckily, Alex took the out and followed her over to the counter, easing into the seat and lifting it open. He had to push aside an empty coffee cup and plate to make room. She almost offered to move them to the sink but Alex quickly ignored them so so did she. Maria watched him work for a few moments before asking, “are you in?”

Alex hit a few more keys before the screen changed to the home screen. Maria let out a sigh of relief. Alex eyed her carefully. “Did I just commit a felony?”

Maria shifted in front of the computer, absently settling in Alex’s lap. She only had a moment to enjoy the feeling before realizing how stiff he was, his hands in the air a careful distance away from her body. Swallowing her faint disappointment, Maria straightened with a wry look. “It’s my mom’s computer. Her nurse said that two weeks before she went missing when she wasn’t trying to escape she was talking to someone online. I wanted to find out who.”

“They let her have internet?”

“She’s a patient, not an inmate,” Maria retorted. Alex stiffened but didn’t say anything. “She uses her computer to watch Netflix and stuff. I don’t know. I just want to see her browser history.”

Alex clicked around quickly. “Somebody cleared her search history,” he announced before tapping away again.

“No,” Maria shook her head, suddenly realizing that they were really treading the line between concern and invasion of privacy. “My mom was the last one to use this computer. If she deleted it, she obviously didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing online.”

“You know that if somebody clears their search history, they’re usually hiding something,” Alex warned gently.

Maria scoffed. “I thought she wasn’t telling me her password because she couldn’t remember it. If she didn’t want me to see something then hey...” She shrugged.

“All the more reason to see it,” Alex offered.

Maria blinked. “I’m not investigating my mom. I just want to know how might have taken her, but she’s a victim. I’m not gonna invade her privacy over it. She has a right to her secrets.” Alex shot her a look at that but Maria ignored it. Maria heard a noise from down the hall but Alex didn’t even look up so she ignored it.

His phone buzzed before he could say anything and he checked it quickly. “It’s Valenti. I’ve got to go.”

About that... “I like Kyle,” Maria started, “but he was terrible to you for so long. How have you forgiven him?”

“Kyle and I aren’t friends,” Alex objected. “I’m doing this because it’s my responsibility. I’m doing this for Liz. You know, something I learned in the last 10 years is that sometimes showing up is the most important thing.” It felt like a rebuke and Maria glared at him for it. He shrugged. “Can’t stay mad forever. People have a right to their secrets,” he shot back at her.

Maria rolled her eyes. She was about to reply when a louder noise came from down the hall and Maria finally registered it for what it was: the sound of water running coming from the bathroom. Maria’s eyes widened as she looked around the kitchen again and noticed the two coffee mugs and two dirty plates. “Alex,” she hissed. “Someone’s here.”

Alex raised any eyebrow. “I’m aware.”

Maria huffed a laugh. “Sorry I interrupted.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t.”

Maria glanced down the hall though she couldn’t see anything. “Is he hot?”

Alex hummed. He closed the laptop and stood up, rounding the counter to fully enter the kitchen. He busied himself pouring another cup of coffee. She was about to refuse one herself when she realized he never offered her one. “In that sex-in-a-truck-never-introduce-him-to-your-momma-kinda-way,” he replied idly. It took a moment for the words to register. The realization hit her a split second before Michael’s voice carried down the hallway.

“Where’s the other towel?” He shouted at Alex.

“Under the sink!” Alex called back. He gazed evenly at Maria as he lifted the coffee to his lips and took a sip.

“What the fuck?”

Alex tilted his head in question but didn’t say anything.

“No,” Maria stated. “Seriously, Alex. What the fuck? Guerin’s here?”

“He sleeps over occasionally.”

“Occasionally.”

“Mhmm.” Alex looked at her. “Problem?”

“Yes,” Maria replied immediately. It had only been three days since she kicked Guerin to the curb and he was already in Alex’s bed? “Is he incapable of sleeping alone? Were you just waiting for me to get tired of putting up with his shit?”

Alex’s gaze grew cold. “Since you never bothered to tell me you two were starting something, I can’t imagine why I would be waiting for you to end it.”

Maria glared. “You knew. You knew we were together. You knew where he parked his Airstream.”

“It was hard to miss,” he agreed.

“Why is he here?” Maria demanded.

“Currently, he’s taking a shower,” Alex replied.

“Alex.”

“Maria.” He took another sip of his coffee. “I didn’t realize I needed your approval on who’s allowed to use my shower.”

“We broke up three days ago and you’re already having sleepovers with him? Did you think for a second how I would feel about this?”

“Strangely,” Alex mused, “my relationship with Michael has nothing to do with you. And also, you didn’t seem to think about how i would feel about you dating him.” Maria flinched.

She opened her mouth to reply when movement down the hall froze her in her tracks. Michael had his jeans and socks on, his shirt in one hand, a towel in the other as he scrubbed at his hair. “Thanks for letting me-” he froze when he looked up to see Maria. The hand holding the towel slowly dropped to his side. “Maria. What are you doing here?”

“She wanted me to hack into her mom’s laptop,” Alex answered for her. There was a strange note in his voice and Maria turned to him only to find him gazing appreciatively at Michael. The look in his eyes made something in her stomach churn.

“Oh.” Michael blinked. “Well. I should get going.”

“No,” Maria said quickly. “I should go.” She snatched up the laptop and fled with only a hurried thank you over her shoulder to Alex. Only when the front door was closed behind her did she stop and close her eyes. She didn’t understand it, she’d been the one to end things with Michael, so why did it hurt to see him in Alex’s home, clearly comfortable and not out of place at all?

----

Alex took another sip of his coffee as Michael stared at Maria’s back as she almost literally ran out the door. “You’re an ass,” he accused lightly.

Michael shrugged. “Did you want me to tell her I was in the kitchen when she came in and heard your entire conversation? I still don’t know how she didn’t see me.”

Alex didn’t know either. Michael had been downing his second cup of coffee when Maria had come in and he hadn’t moved until Maria went for the laptop.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said suddenly. Alex looked up at him in surprise. Michael’s hands were clenched around his shirt and towel. “For fucking up that summer. For not saying goodbye. I didn’t want to have to watch you leave.”

“Thank you,” Alex said quietly. He understood Michael better now, understood why he’d acted the way he had that summer, but it was still nice to hear. He cleared his throat. “You planning on staying here again tonight?”

“If it’s not a problem,” Michael confirmed. “The generator is still on the fritz and I haven’t figured out how to fix it yet.”

“Guest room’s yours as long as you need,” Alex assured him. It wasn’t the first time Michael had crashed at his place when the Airstream was less than hospitable and Alex was sure it wouldn’t be the last. When it happened, they functioned well as roommates and nothing more, even when they were on better terms. Neither one had ever been willing to blur the lines between their relationship and their temporary living situation. No matter what other people, Maria, thought, nothing had happened between them the night before. And nothing would happen so long as Michael needed a place to crash.

Michael nodded at him in thanks and tugged his shirt on. “I’ve got to get to work. I’ll see you tonight?”

“I’ll order Chinese.”

“Sounds good.”

They exchanged soft smiles before Michael headed out, a quick detour to toss the towel in the laundry room on his way. Alex fixated on the motion for long moments after Michael left, at the easy way Michael moved around his home. It made his chest flutter warmly.

It wasn’t a bad feeling. Not at all.

[poohkeepsee]

I was going through my AO3 bookmarks, and I wanted to organize them a little bit. These are my Dean/Cas canon-ish fic recs.

season 5

canticles  by  2street2car Words: 10,311     Chapters: 1

“But you know something? If I couldn’t get you laid, at least I gave you a good first date.”feat: footsies at a Ruby Tuesday, stargazing, the recreation of an iconic "Dirty Dancing" scene (no, not that one—the other one), and practicing for When You're With A Girl.

FTBYAM MY BELOVED

post season 6

Someone Who's Feeling For Me  by  ellispark  Words: 45,876     Chapters: 1

Dean sees her for the first time in nearly six years in some no-name town in Idaho, and it's panic at first sight.

Lisa Braeden, the one woman Dean ever actually had a shot at a real life with, back from where he buried her in his mind. And her hand is on Cas's arm like it's no big deal, like it belongs there. Cas, Dean's dorky, sweet, badass, angelic best friend, and he's just standing there next to Lisa and not moving her hand away.

Dean feels the jealousy rising, and it's not directed where he expected it to be. Because it takes this exact moment for Dean to realize he's in love with his best friend. He's in love with his best friend, and Lisa is looking at Cas like he's the best thing since automatic rifles, and Dean is utterly fucked.

post bunker

Sun Can't Set Until Nine  by  LeverDrift Words: 67,939     Chapters: 16

Cas moves into the bunker as his powers start to fail. Dean doesn’t know if the arrangement is as permanent as he wants it to be. He's also not sure why he keeps dreaming about his friend. All he knows is that he wants Cas to stay. Overall warnings: canon-typical miscommunication & Dean having self-hatred issues.

Life Skills  by  ilovehowyouletmefall           Words: 26,052     Chapters: 3

After Metatron steals Castiel's grace, and Cas comes to live in the bunker, Dean spends a lot of time with him, sharing all of his favourite things. Dean can't help it if sharing things with Cas just makes everything better. Besides, it's Dean's job as Cas' friend to introduce him to the joys of human life. To teach him how to be human.  And if one of the experiences they end up sharing is sex with women, well... that's just part of Dean's job as Cas' friend too, right? The desire is triangulated, the rituals are intricate.

Sam Stole My Boyfriend  by  sobsicles    Words: 8,445     Chapters: 1

“Dude, you’ve been staring at me a lot lately, like even enough that Sam noticed. More than usual. So, like, what’s up?” Dean pauses, purses his lips and reconsiders. “What did I do?”

Cas knows that would be a perfect time to confess to Dean what exactly happened and what he was thinking. Maybe, Dean had some insight into the situation or even some kind of comfort to offer. But, the longer that he sat there, he realized that he could not tell Dean absolutely anything. So instead, for the first time, Cas fumbled.

“Um,” Cas mutters and abruptly stands. “Freckles?”

Dean blinked up at him as Cas pivoted and left the room. There was only one remaining option he had and unfortunately, it involved Sam.

Aching in the Absence of You  by  sobsicles Words: 95,090     Chapters: 10

Brittle and battle-worn, Cas looks at him over coffee one morning and says, "I need to go," and Dean instantly knows that he's not coming back.

He's not really sure how he knows it, but he does. It settles into the pit of his stomach, curling hot and tight like something he instinctively wants to tear out with his bare hands. He takes a breath, and it gets stuck in his throat, hitching there. It hurts, hurts, hurts when he finally exhales.

"Yeah," Dean says, "of course you do," and he nods jerkily as he looks down at his phone. He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't look up from the screen when Cas gets up and leaves the room. He doesn't finish his coffee, or move for a long time.

By nightfall, Cas is gone.

'Communication'  by  JustAnotherSamlicker Words: 11,656

The same story told from two perspectives.

Dean bought a house and he and Cas fix it up.

Is Dean moving out? Is Cas moving in?

Should they just talk to each other already? (Yes they should)

Build a Home  by  domesticadventures Words: 20,102

After they save the world, Dean expects Cas to come back to the bunker with them.

He doesn't

season 10

The Most Important Thing  by  NorthernSparrow Words: 94,462     Chapters: 14

Jimmy Novak remembers nothing of the last six years. Reunited with his troubled daughter Claire, he's struggling to raise her on his own. The most important thing is to make Claire happy. But why does he keep having these dreams of wings, and of two men in a black car? (Canon-divergent from S10E11, when we first met Claire again and Dean was still struggling with the Mark of Cain. Takes places several months later).

season 12

Heroes for Ghosts  by  pantheon_of_discord Words: 42,922     Chapters: 7

Canon-divergent from 12.08

After Sam and Dean are arrested, Castiel is left alone and scrambling to find them. He knows they’re locked away in a government facility, and he’s still able to hear their prayers, but no matter how he tries Castiel can’t seem to track them. He chases leads and even attempts to hunt on his own, but Mary is AWOL, Crowley refuses to help, and Castiel’s options are running out.

Weeks pass, Castiel’s hope dwindles, and through it all Dean prays, keeping them connected. His voice is comforting, frustrating, and occasionally annoying, but in his solitude Castiel comes to cherish it. But then one day, without warning, Dean stops praying, and Castiel is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about his feelings.

season 13

i want to do with you (what spring does with cherry trees)  by  sobsicles   Words: 74,173     Chapters: 8

Dean keeps going back.

When he arrives, it's always to blooming flowers and a windmill in the background, not too far from a brook, the sun painting the plains.

He likes it there. He likes to stand in front of the makeshift urn and check that it's still where he put it, switching out the flowers when they wilt. He likes to listen to the sound of birds chirping, insects singing, the faint sound of water trickling in the distance. He likes to turn his face up and feel the sun on his skin, wondering if Cas would do the same if he were here, somehow knowing that he would.

He likes to talk.

There's never a response, but Dean feels the breeze rustle through his hair and watches the flowers bob when bees come to them and stares as the windmill keeps turning, turning, turning. And he imagines that Cas is replying—the windmill is the tilted head, the bobbing flowers are a gentle smile, the breeze is whatever words Dean wants to hear at the time.

Sometimes, it's almost like he's there.

Trial and Tribulations of Raising a Nephilim  by  Sickandtiredofyou Words: 14,910   Chapters: 6

Dean has far too much on his plate, losing his mom, his best friend and now being a single parent to a newborn nephilim.

In which Jack is an actual newborn instead of a teenager.

post season 13

dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)  by  sobsicles           Words:     108,427     Chapters:     4

Freedom is just one adjustment after the next.

Cas hums again. "I think you already have. It's been months since everything settled. All that's left to do is...get used to it, and perhaps—" His voice stalls out, uncharacteristically, and his gaze roams Dean's face with intensity. When he speaks next, his tone is a little raw. "Perhaps what one does with peace is...whatever they want."

"What if I don't even know what that is?" Dean grumbles, arching an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I know damn well you don't just mean good food and a good bed and time in Baby, not simple wants like that. You mean—ya know, the big things, the wants we didn't get to have before."

"Yes," Cas agrees. "If you're not sure, figure it out."

"Easier said than done."

Reasons to read this:

Dean reads a story that ends like despair and his reaction is FUCK THAT

Cas wears Dean's hoodie

Jack is a toddler

The Jack and Claire sibling energy we deserve

Eileen being awesome and pulling pranks with Dean while Sam thinks she's an angel

Sam knows

YOUR HONOR THEY'RE IN LOVE

First Date  by  aeli_kindara Words: 8,968    Chapters: 1

“We should go on a date. You and me.”

Castiel wishes he could see Dean’s face. He wishes he had any idea what to say.

“I’m asking you out, Cas.”

Also known as the Dean Winchester makes the first move fic.

season 14

Broken Road  by  thegeminisage Words:     109,629     Chapters:     7

A 14.13 Lebanon rewrite. When Dean uses a wish-granting pearl to try and kill the archangel Michael before he can escape the cage in Dean's head, they instead wind up with a newly-resurrected John Winchester.

It's been more than a decade since John died, and a lot has changed: Mary is alive, Sam and Dean have what passes for a proper home in the Men of Letters Bunker, and they're living with angels. John doesn't know angels are real, he doesn't know about the fragile new relationship between Dean and Castiel, and most of all, he doesn't know that Dean said yes to Michael, or that Dean's plan to defeat Michael would send him to a fate worse than death.

Now Dean must contend with both his father asking questions he can't answer, and his loved ones learning about the darker truths of his childhood, all while constantly battling the archangel trapped inside him. But Dean coming to terms with his history may be the difference between this being the beginning of a journey—or the end.

post season 15

fools and pilgrims  by  lagaudiere Words: 31,904     Chapters: 2

Claire shows up at the bunker a day before Dean was planning to leave, with her hair cut short and a fresh tattoo on her left arm under a bandage. Chuck is dead, Jack has given up his godlike powers, and Cas is back from the Empty, which doesn't make it any easier for Dean to talk to him. Suddenly finding himself in a world without monsters, supernatural forces, or any need for hunters, Dean's solution is to go on a road trip. Claire tags along.

Dean-Claire mirror fic post Despair

what's missing is found (our souls can exhale now)  by  sobsicles Words: 27,403

It's not the first time Claire has ever gone missing. It is, however, the first time Kaia panics about it. Dean's dragged into the mess, but he soon finds that it's the best thing that could have happened to him.

canon(?) au  (Hunters and Men of Letters)

Dean Winchester's Secret (Angel) Boyfriend  by  reluctantabandon, Winter_of_our_Discontent Words: 11,191     Chapters: 1

Dean Winchester isn't exactly a team player. So when he starts mentioning a new Hunting partner, Ellen and Jo Harvelle aren't sure whether they should be worried or relieved.

But they're starting to get the feeling there's something important Dean's not telling them about Cas...

Shot Through The Heart  by  peanutbutterjelly-pie (Aleakim) Words: 11,191     Chapters: 1

Dean is a hunter.

Castiel is a Man of Letters.

And even though they have to work together on a regular basis, there is not much sympathy between them. Castiel thinks Dean too brash and reckless while Dean in return sees nothing more in the other man than a rude asshole with an obsessive love for books and a truly terrible fashion sense.

But fate clearly has a funny way of throwing those two together over and over again.

And somewhere along the way feelings change into something neither of them would have expected.

[ender-baggins]

Just watched 14x13 Lebanon.

Will preface with the fact that this was a bit of my commentary on the previous episode, and that I do think John Winchester was a crap parent

Lebanon was a pretty good episode, actually. I know some people hate it, and I started off prepared to seethe every moment that John was on screen. but then I managed to get one foot out of the John-crit zone and put it in Sam and Dean’s shoes, and looking at it from both perspectives? The episode has a lot of nuance to it.

Spoilers for this 14x13 Lebanon (obviously)

Overall I think the most important thing to remember about this episode: the theme is that some things are too good to be true.

I knew which episode it was, but I was surprised because I thought it has been in season 15, and then John didn’t show up for a while, so I thought I was wrong until the Pearl came up.

I gotta hand it to Jensen. When John appeared, there were so many emotions packed into Dean’s face in that first short scene, I had to rewatch it several times to get them. Part of it was simple shock, but I could also see… something a little like panic in his face, along with Waay too many emotions for me to name.

The conversation between Sam and John was… I started off mad and then focused more on Sam’s perspective and realized that… yeah, Sam isn’t the same person he was last time he saw his dad. And he didn’t get closure. He never got a chance to get real closure on it, and then here, he did, at least in some form.

Also, interesting thing I noticed- I could see the beginnings of how it could turn into another argument, and John said something that seemed a little accusatory, “you didn’t have a problem talking about it before you left,” and then Sam was like “nope, not gonna argue, not gonna do it, REDIRECTING-“ Which, after what Dean said in the scene before—

—Sam doesn’t want to mess this up for Dean. No way is he gonna start a fight, not now, not when they just got their dad back.

I don’t like the last line of Sam and John’s conversation: “But you did your best, dad. You – you fought for us, and you loved us, and… that’s enough.” Because honestly- it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t. And… dammit he could have done better. But then again, that’s Sam’s dad, and he’s been dead for over a decade, and sometimes people tend to put rose-colored glasses on over the past. So I’ll still happily condemn John’s parenting but I won’t condemn Sam just because he’s unable to see things for what they are in this case.

Now- my absolute favorite part of this entire episode is the section of Sam and Dean going to get groceries and noticing things are changed, and realizing “oh shit, what else is different?”

One, gotta love Dean for implying that Sam being a kale nut is a worse thing than Dean being considered a serial killer by society (which, it’s not like society is wrong??). Like, ah yes, wonderful priorities there, Dean. You’re a wanted killer with your face up in the town, but clearly Sam giving a lecture about the wonders of kale is a much worse thing. (If you can’t tell, I’m being incredibly sarcastic here)

And then here. Castiel’s appearance. I was screeching watching this. Completely freaking out- so much adrenaline. I bet if I’d taken my pulse it would have been skyrocketing-

This was followed by the scene of Castiel and Zachariah in the restaurant, which was Awesome, very clearly highlighting the difference that Dean and the Winchesters made in Cas’s life (later this will be relevant in the Confession - “You changed me, Dean”).

*cue me posting an unnecessary amount of screenshots*

Castiel unfurls his wings—

(Note the messy hair from flying around everywhere. Not the same as his old haircut, but they did what they could with Misha’s hair at the time)

Notice that Dean’s got the angel blade point down, and when he attacks Castiel, he’s using the blunt end to hit him, not the sharp end

(On the other hand, Sam uses the sharp end of the blade to swipe at Castiel. No judgement from me here, Sam sees this as “not our Cas” while Dean still sees this as “my Cas, I can talk him away from Heaven again.”)

Then, the most interesting thing here- when Cas pins Dean agains the wall, Dean’s not even trying to fight Cas here.

See how his hand settles on Castiel’s chest? Not really pressing, just touching. His other hand is gripping Castiel’s wrist, I imagine to try to remove enough pressure from his neck that he can speak. Trying to use his connection to Cas to get Castiel to stop hurting him. And it doesn’t work. Castiel stares him the eyes, not even a flicker of doubt or questioning.

You’ll note that I referred to alternate Castiel in this episode as exclusively “Castiel” and not “Cas.” Because it’s not Cas. Cas is the angel that saved Dean from Hell, and the angel that’s been by Dean’s side for 11 years (at this point in time). And this Castiel has not done that. So he is not Cas.

I’m reminded of the scene wayy back in season 5 where Cas beats Dean up in the alley for trying to give up and give in to Michael. There, Dean actually encouraged Cas to kill him, at the end, and Cas softens. Can’t exactly parse out the parallels there because my brain isn’t working, but there you go.

Now, probably my favorite conversation with John is this one, with Dean.

Right here. The way that Dean says “I have a family.”

It feels almost defiant. “I do have a family. I have Sam, Cas, Mom, Jack. My mother, my brother, my best friend… and I have a son, we all have a son. And beyond that, I’ve got Jody and Donna and Claire and the girls. I do have a family. Yeah, it doesn’t look like the apple pie life, the white picket fence, wife and kids, and yeah, our son is the child of Lucifer, and yeah, I’m in love with my best friend who’s an angel in a man’s body, and I wouldn’t trade him for any woman, and you’d hate that. But they’re my family. And I’m good with that.”

It’s proud, it’s a little defiant, it’s also a little bit of a reassurance, as we see from John’s smile afterward. I don’t think John caught the hint of a challenge in there.

I loved that moment. That might be my favorite line in the entire episode. “I have a family.”

I also like… Dean’s acceptance, “I’m good with who I am.” Part of that… I think it’s both a good thing and a sad thing and also a half lie at the same time. I think he’s good with who he is, in the sense that he’s accepted that he and Sam are the people that have to fill this role in the world, y’know, saving everyone. I think he loves the people he’s with, he loves his family and wouldn’t trade them for anything, not even having John back. No way would he ever trade Cas or Jack or Sam, or Mary, for anything else, ever.

It’s sad, though, because it’s like… he can’t imagine who he’d be if he had a different life. Yes, he’s had a few runs at an apple-pie life, but they weren’t happy, there was always something wrong nagging at him. He… I think he believes there’s no way for him to be happy, and that this is the best he could have.

I’m not even sure how to analyze the goodbye scene. I mean, the clearest thing here is just so much grief from everyone. They got a taste of their father back, and now he has to go back to being dead. There’s so many complicated feelings for both of the brothers, because of the complicated relationship with John, but in the end? They can’t help but love him, and they can’t help but feel grief at losing him. I won’t fault them for that.

In short, I wanna give Dean a gigantic hug and also give him therapy-

And then Cas coming back to the bunker when he did. I bet he sensed something and headed back to the bunker as fast as he could. Also, no clue what he experienced during the whole “Castiel and Zachariah are alive” thing. I imagine it’s possible there were two Cas’s running around for a bit? Because Mary didn’t get affected by the pearl. And Sam was there with his own memories, despite there being videos up of him doing things in the parallel universe. As for Cas, he’s part of Dean’s group of “people” so my guess is two Castiels running around for a little bit.

I like how Dean looks at Cas at the end. He’s relieved to have his angel back.

In summary-

The theme of this episode is “some things are too good to be true.” John came back, the four of them got their moment together, but John couldn’t stay. Things were good for that single afternoon, because everyone was just happy to see each other again, but it sent so much stuff into chaos that it couldn’t last, it had to be undone. And even then, if they’d tried to keep going with it, I know it would have degraded, the illusion of perfection would shatter, and they’d fall into old habits, old arguments and new ones.

And so it had to end.

[sisterspooky1013]

Liquid Courage & Promises Kept

Rating: Teen and Up

Words: 3558

Read it on AO3

Tagging @today-in-fic

December 20, 1999

She’d been standoffish lately. Well, she’d been standoffish today, yesterday she was actually borderline flirty. He was having a hard time reading her from one day to the next, unsure if the difference in her demeanor was real or if it only existed in his head. At times he was sure she returned his affection; the flutter of her eyelashes over her icy blue eyes and the slight part of her pouty lips appearing as an invitation, and he’d almost accepted it several times. Almost. Something always got in the way; a knock at the door, the ring of a phone, the sting of a bee or the sudden aversion of her gaze, self consciousness dragging her back inside herself and away from him. He thought he could see the internal struggle in the set of her shoulders and the tuck of her chin. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, but she couldn’t admit it to herself, and he wasn’t going to push her. He’d waited this long, what was a bit longer?

Today, the typical relief that comes with a Friday afternoon was overshadowed by her businesslike demeanor, the perfectly polite but impersonal way she answered his questions, and the thorough but unemotional way she engaged in conversation with him. The more she withdrew, the more he advanced, grasping for some feedback, some response that soothed his feeling of rejection.

“Any big plans this weekend?” He inquired, resorting to small talk, which they typically didn’t need.

She didn’t look up from the file she was reviewing. “I’m getting dinner with an old friend from undergrad tomorrow. That’s about it.” Her tone was flat and disinterested, but not annoyed. She didn’t ask him about his own plans, not that he’d have had anything to share.

“Scully….are you okay? Did I do something?” He hated the whiny tone in his voice, the insecure way he sought her validation.

She looked up then, her brow knit in confusion. “No, why do you ask?”

“You just seem kind of…off? Distracted maybe? You don’t seem like yourself.”

He saw her sit up a bit straighter, just a touch more life enter her eyes. “Sorry, Mulder. I’m fine, it’s just been a long week I guess.” She offered him a thin smile. She was placating him, that he could tell, but he still wasn’t sure why.

He returned her tight-lipped, not at all genuine smile, nodding. “Glad to hear it.”

They finished out their workday, she wished him a good weekend and left the office quickly, before he had the chance to attempt walking out with her. Part of him wondered if “dinner with an old friend” was a euphemism; did she have a date? Maybe she was going out with an ex? He’d certainly been less than supportive (not to mention mature) when he’d been aware of her going out with someone in the past, so it would make sense that she’d hide it from him. Heaving a defeated sigh, he locked up the office and headed into a weekend full of boredom and misplaced jealousy that he didn’t have any right to feel.

**********************************

Saturday he had slept in, played some basketball at the Y, and stopped by to check out the Gunmen’s latest research to pass the time. It was now half past 8 and he realized he hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so grabbed his keys and headed to a restaurant in DC that had the best burgers, in his opinion. The fact that Scully was probably out on her date right now entered his mind at regular intervals, and he pushed it away, wanting to give her space to have an actual life outside of him and The X Files. Regardless of his feelings for her, above all else he wanted her to be happy, even if it was with someone else. The thought of having to meet some guy she was dating and act like he didn’t want to rip his face off made his stomach turn.

He parked in a 15 minute space just outside the restaurant and headed into the lobby. It was a busy Saturday night crowd, noisy and boisterous with various sporting events playing on several TVs and people shouting over each other to be heard. He placed his order, to go, with the hostess and then leaned against the wall to survey the scene while he waited. It was hard to say what made him feel worse, the families with children dragging french fries through lakes of ketchup, or the couples with their heads titled close together in intimate conversation, oblivious to anyone and anything but each other. His solo status was always painfully obvious in a setting like this. Most of the time it didn’t bother him, but today, knowing Scully was somewhere with someone else, it felt like shit.

And then he heard a laugh ring out like a bell. It was a sound he knew in his bones. One that, while infrequent, was a balm on his soul. Well, usually it was, anyway. But when he turned toward the sound and saw Scully, one hand to her chest while the other lay flat against the table top for stability, leaning toward the recipient of this sweet sound with her teeth bared in a joyful grin, his heart sank. She looked completely incredible, her hair mostly pulled back with a few strands loose around her face, a blue v-neck sweater clinging to her tiny frame and showing just a hint of cleavage. She was leaning in closer to a man whose back was to Mulder, removing the hand from her chest and placing it on his arm as she practically fell over in hysterics. He had never seen her like this, and envy twisted in his rib cage. Who the fuck was this guy that could make Scully laugh like that? He forced himself to look away, to stare at the gaudy rainbow checkerboard tiles on the floor. He checked his watch to calculate how much longer it might be before his food was ready and he could get the fuck out of here. Mercifully, the sound of her laughter subsided and he willed himself not to look that way again; he didn’t want to see something he’d never be able to erase from his memory.

He was doing such a good job pretending she wasn’t there that he was genuinely startled when he felt her cool hand thread around his elbow, linking his arm in hers. He looked to her and saw that her eyes were glassy and a little bit red. She was drunk.

“Come here often?” She drawled, her smile and the weight of her body leaning against him sending a wave of electricity down his torso.

“I might ask you the same” he countered, working very hard to seem casual, though he probably didn’t need to, given her state.

“Come sit with me.” She ordered. The contrast between her behavior at work yesterday and the open, seeking way her eyes roamed his face now was jarring. He was so confused by her signals.

“Nah, I don’t want to intrude. You’re out with your friend.” He couldn’t bring himself to say “date.”

She waved her hand in the air, brushing away the concern. “It’s fine, Mulder, he wants to meet you, come say hi.”

So she’d talked to her date about him? He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved, flattered, or weirded out. He turned to tell the hostess where he’d be before allowing her to pull him by the arm over to her table. As they approached, a second man sat down at the table, appearing to have just returned from the bathroom.

“Guys, this is Mulder!” She said with a level of excitement that seemed, to him, to be unnecessary.

“Mulder!” They both repeated as though they were reunited with an old friend. One was tall and blonde with an athletic build, the exact kind of guy he’d expect Scully to be interested in. The other was shorter and lean with a bald head and calloused hands. After an awkward beat where he looked at her expectantly, Scully remembered her manners and began introductions.

“Mulder, this is Rob, he and I were good friends in undergrad” she motioned towards the tall blonde man, and then to the shorter, bald one. “ This is his husband, Michael.”

A grin spread across Mulder’s face as he understood that this was most definitely not a date. He stuck out his hand and shook both theirs enthusiastically, agreeing to Scully’s insistence that he sit down as she stole another chair from a nearby table.

“I have to pee” Scully announced suddenly, leaving the table. Mulder looked after her in amused surprise at her lack of decorum. This was a side of his partner he had not had the pleasure of seeing yet.

Mulder stood to remove his coat, noticing Rob discreetly flick his eyes over his body as he did so. He always appreciated being checked out, even if it wasn’t from his target audience. As he sat back down, Michael spoke.

“It’s nice to meet you Mulder. Dana has told us so much about you.”

Mulder smirked self-consciously. “Nothing bad I hope.”

“Nothing that we can’t see with our own eyes” Rob remarked, giving him another once-over with an appreciative nod of his head. Michael jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Sounds like you do a lot of interesting work together” Michael offered, distracting from Rob’s remark.

“Uh, yeah, something like that” he responded cooly, seeing the hostess approaching with his order.

Scully returned from the bathroom and plopped down beside him dramatically, putting her hand on his thigh. He eyed her skeptically, but didn’t move it.

“I gotta go, I’m parked in a 15 minute spot. It was good to meet you both. You’ll make sure this one gets home okay?”

“Of course” Michael answered, sliding his arm around his husband’s shoulders. “Rob is a drunk Dana whisperer, from the stories I’ve heard.”

“No one wants to hear those stories” Scully warned, draining her glass. “Anyway, I’m going with you, Mulder.”

Mulder looked at her quizzically “oh are you?”

She gave him a coy smile and nodded, her eyes bleary from the booze.

“How about I take you home instead, party girl.” He stood and put his jacket back on.

Scully shrugged, accepting this alternative, and hugged her friends goodbye. Rob held on to her a little longer than Michael, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle before she told him she’d call him tomorrow. They left the restaurant arm in arm, and when they reached his car outside he opened the door for her to climb in first.

“So chivalrous” she mused, beaming at him.

He shook his head and laughed at her condition. In the moment, she was the antithesis of everything he knew her to be. The Scully he knew would roll her eyes and pity this blatant show of flirtation. Throughout the 15 minute drive to her apartment, she continued to paw at him, sliding her hand up his thigh until he batted it away. He settled on holding her hand, which seemed to make her happy and distracted her from more nefarious contact. When he pulled up outside her building, he expected her to get out and go inside, but instead she turned to him and asked “aren’t you going to walk me to my door?” It seemed to be asked in earnest, absent any innuendo, so he agreed. She held on to his arm and leaned into his side as they made their way in, her footing unsteady in her heels. He took her keys and unlocked the door for her, his feet planted firmly in the hallway. He was intrigued by her behavior and he could admit that he was very turned on by it, but she was drunk, and there was no way in hell he was going to take advantage of that.

“Come inside” she suggested, pulling on his arm.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Scully. You get some rest, call me tomorrow and let me know you’re alive. I’ll bring you some coffee and a breakfast burrito.”

She pushed her lower lip out in a little pout and stepped toward him, sliding her arms up his and on to his shoulders. The height of her heels compensated quite a bit for their usual discrepancy so that she only had to stretch a tiny bit for them to be face to face.

“What cha doin, Scully?” He asked, his mind telling him that this was a bad idea, while his body urged him to proceed.

“Just giving you a hug. Is that allowed?” Her voice was sultry and smelled like whiskey.

“A hug. Sure, I guess that’s okay.” His hands found her waist. Just a hug. They’d hugged hundreds of times.

She slid her hands around his neck and pressed her cheek to his and the rest of her body followed, breast to chest, pelvis to pelvis, thigh to thigh. This was not their typical hug. She was draped over him, her breath hot on his ear. He was afraid if this went on much longer, she’d be able to feel how much he wanted her. She pulled her head back, keeping the rest of her tucked against him, and looked at his face. God, she looked beautiful, if not a bit out of it. He willed himself to pull away, but he couldn’t, not yet. She leaned in and brushed her lips across his. Electric. His body tensed, knowing it couldn’t go on. Next she pressed her soft full pout against his lips, her fingers digging into his hair. He sighed, and then pulled away, stepping back from her, breaking contact.

She looked at him with a mix of embarrassment and confusion. Not wanting to send the wrong signal, he took both her hands in his. “You’re drunk, Scully. It’s not right. I don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret tomorrow.”

She held his gaze, her eyes watery and tired. “I won’t regret it, Mulder.”

“Well if that’s the case, kiss me sometime when you’re sober and I promise I won’t turn you down.” He was smiling at her, captivated by this moment where he felt like he could say anything, where they could be completely honest for once.

“Why haven’t you ever kissed me, Mulder?” There was sadness in her voice. Regret.

He took a breath before responding. “I guess…I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”

“I do. I want you to.” He was afraid that he was about to find out she was a tearful drunk.

“Okay, I promise that I will. Soon.”

She nodded solemnly, and he pulled her into a hug, a real one, with her cheek squished against his shoulder and her hair tickling his nose. Keeping his hands on her shoulders, he stepped back and looked at her, asking “are you going to remember this conversation tomorrow?”

She blinked slowly, her eyes working to focus on his face. “I think maybe not.”

He laughed, stepping through into her apartment and leading her to her bedroom, where he waited outside the door as she changed into pajamas. Once she was tucked safely in bed with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol within arms reach, he went out to the kitchen and got a piece of paper to leave her a note. By the time he returned to leave it next to the glass of water, she was already asleep.

***********************************

Scully woke in the morning to find her mouth dry and sticky. As she sat up, her head lurched and squeezed her brain in protest. She looked around, unsure how she got here. The last thing she remembered was spotting Mulder at the restaurant, and then….nothing. Turning to check the time, she was relieved to see a glass of water and she chugged it down, stopping halfway to take two of the Tylenol; she must have put them there before she went to sleep. As she turned to drape her legs over the side of the bed and prepare to stand, she spotted a slip of paper on her nightstand and unfolded it.

Hey Party Girl,

I’m willing to bed you have a mean hangover. Whether you remember it or not, I did promise you a breakfast burrito. Call me when you’re awake.

Mulder

Her eyes went big. Mulder was here? She felt strange not being able to remember it, and hoped she hadn’t done anything embarrassing. First she dragged herself to the bathroom to brush her teeth and then took a shower, pulling last night’s mascara from her eyelashes. As she stepped out, already feeling a little better, the phone rang.

“Hello?” She cringed at the volume of her own voice.

“Hey pretty lady, you make it home okay?” It was Rob.

“Apparently so, though I don’t remember much of anything. What happened after Mulder showed up?”

Rob chuckled softly and her stomach turned. What had she done? There was a scuffling sound on the other end of the line and she could hear Michael say “stop torturing her!” Before he wrangled the phone away from Rob.

“It wasn’t that bad, Dana, Rob is just being a jerk. You got a little handsy with him then told him to take you home. We could tell he wasn’t going to take advantage of you.”

“Uh, what do you mean by handsy, exactly?” She was starting to feel nauseous.

“I think you had your hand on his thigh and you were making some serious bedroom eyes at him, but that’s it, at least at the restaurant. I can’t speak to what happened after you left.”

“Oh god” she whispered.

There was more scuffling and then Rob was back on the line “Look, honey, it’s clear that you both want to be with each other so I don’t see the issue. Just get over yourself and fuck him already.”

“Right, thanks Rob, that’s really helpful.” She rubbed her free hand over her throbbing temples.

“It was good to see you, Dana. We should do it again sometime.”

“Yeah, it may be a while before I can stomach alcohol, Rob.”

“You know my number. Bye.”

He hung up and she replaced the phone on the receiver, dropping her head into her hands with a groan. Dragging herself to her bedroom, she put on sweats and a t shirt, brushed her hair, and then flopped down on to the couch, already predicting it would be a wasted day. She was too old for this. When she heard Mulder’s familiar tap tap on the door, she considered staying very quiet until he went away, pretending not to be home.

“Scully, I know you’re home, your car is outside.” She heard him call out. Fuck.

Fluffing her hair a bit as she walked to the door so she wouldn’t look like a drowned rat, she opened it and found him looking adorable in jeans and a blue sweater, a paper bag in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. Her eyes went big at the idea of food and she realized she was starving.

“Well it’s clear the burrito is welcome, do I also have permission to enter the premises?”

He was grinning at her in a way she found both endearing and infuriating. She hated not knowing what had happened. Taking the bag and cup from his hands, she turned and walked to the couch, leaving the door open as an invitation for him to follow.

“Thanks” she muttered, taking a sip of the coffee before setting it on the table and unwrapping the burrito.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, eyeing her curiously.

“Like I drank way too much” she returned without looking at him.

He nodded knowingly. “Do you remember…everything?”

She shot him a wide-eyed look. “What is there to remember?”

He shrugged “nothing, just wondering.”

“Look, Mulder, I don’t really remember anything after you showed up at the restaurant and if I did something embarrassing I’d rather you just tell me now instead of dragging this out. So what did I do?”

He shook his head nonchalantly. “Nothing, Scully. You were very pleasant, actually.” He smiled at her and she knew there was more to it, but he was taking the path of allowing her to remain blissfully ignorant, and she was thankful for it.

He turned on the TV and they sat quietly and watched the news while she ate and drank, slowly feeling more human as the minutes passed. He saw her check the time and took that as his cue to leave, and she walked him to the door.

“Thanks, Mulder, both for getting me home safe and for breakfast.”

“Anytime. You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

She gave him a rueful look while shaking her head slowly.

“Well, in the event that anything does come back to you, I want you to know that I intend to keep my promise.”

“That really means nothing to me Mulder, but thanks I guess?”

He chuckled a little, then turned and left her to nurse her hangover in peace.

[nelavili]

I'm still processing Season 6 and as an unpopular opinion I'm not too happy about it as a whole. I feel horrible for not enjoying it as much as the Cast/Crew would like me to, but I just can’t change this feeling I have.

Just to clear my head I'll write the things down that irked me. I don't want to start any discussion, they're only my thoughts on stuff ‘n thangs. Huge spoilers ahead, please don’t read if you haven’t watched.

Michael

I admit it, I have probably more sympathy for the bad twin than I should. And after the whole S5 I thought we get a bit more closure with him. I didn’t expect a redemption arc, after Michael killed Remiel, Dan and Chloe it would have felt wrong. But after the “Everyone deserves a second chance” the dude is down in hell, scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. Really, Lucifer? That’s cruel after such a righteous line.

When Luci realized he could help everyone, even if he hated them, I hoped for a dive into the twins’ relationship but it was like Michael didn’t even existed anymore. And if someone needed therapy it would be the twin with the huge inferior complex. That could have been so interesting. (I had hoped that he'd sat on the couch at the end, but noooo we get the Frenchman.. such a disappointment.)

Maybe Tom Ellis didn’t want to play 2 roles again, or there was no time, but I feel that was a huge opportunity wasted.

What even was the plan of Michael? To get God to retire and wreck havoc on earth to get Dad back, so Mickey can take over as the new God? And then what? Wipe out humanity? I see no endgame here.

Ella

I liked Ella’s Story so far. But she stole the personal file of Carol and even broke into his house.. and everybody is cool with this? Carol might be crushing on Ella pretty hard but if somebody tells you they broke into your house, because they feared you were hiding something bad, You run for the hills. But the dude isn’t even phased.

I’m glad Carol is a good guy, though. Even if he’s kind of bland.

Ella finding out the truth on her own came out of nowhere. I would have found it better if they would have her act a little suspicious over the whole S5. But since they wrote S6 while S5 was shot, a little to late for this.

The scene at the wedding was amazing. I had so much fun with her outburst there.

Dan

Ghost!Dan was my favorite by far in this season. And I really liked how he wanted to help and tried to find out what he still felt guilty about.

I am so glad he got to spend his afterlife with Charlotte and I laughed so hard with the pudding. Didn’t expect that, in a positive matter. :D

The scene with Trixie killed me. Bawled so hard as soon as Kevin got teary eyes. That really gripped at my heartstrings.

But how could he go to heaven while in a body of a killer when his daughter stands right next to that killer?

Comedy-wise Dan is top notch

Trixie

I missed her so much.

It felt like she was an afterthought with everything. She recently lost her Dad and Chloe spends most of the time with Lucifer. I really missed the scenes with her and Luci, they always were so adorable.

They explain it later that she’s at a science camp, but I honestly thought Chloe chooses Lucifer (and later Rory too) over her.

She wasn’t at Chloe’s deathbed but here I’m not sure if the scene with Rory isn’t placed somewhere at the threshold to heaven where only celestials are able to enter. But if she wasn’t there because Chloe sidelined her in favor of Rory, then I can understand her absence.

Linda

I love Linda, she always gives good advice but nobody’s ever took it.

Her book probably would fly under the fantasy tag if she ever published it. Still, it felt cringey.

It was so sad that she thought she was a bad therapist.

Apparently she wants to keep helping celestials because it’s better than helping humans. In the end, celestials have the same problems as humans just on a bigger scale. But okay.

Amenadiel

Amenacop was good, and a nice nod to Dan who put in the application.

It made him realize that he only can change things when he has more power. I’m white and no american so I don’t know if the BLM theme there was well enough executed. Got me wondering.

The apocalypse just being Angels who are incompetent was a letdown. Like this whole season.

I really like him as god. And I am glad he took the position in the end. Even if he could have decided this a bit earlier.

Rory

I like her sarcasm and her character.

Didn’t like the whole time travel, time loop and daughter spiel. I’m not a big fan of time travels or couples getting a kid just for the sake of a happy end or to add extra drama. I could have lived without a Deckerstar baby. Instead they could have focused on Trixie for a change.

The time she spent with Lucifer on the 4th August was precious though.

How in hell did the Frenchman capture her? How did he even know how she looked? IIRC Dan hasn’t seen Rory while in that body. Dan just went over to Trixie that’s why I thought he’d capture her and not Rory.

Lucifer

He found his calling to help the souls in hell only because Rory traveled back in time? No man, he already took the step with Jimmy Barnes in preparation to take over as god. I don’t think it’s far fetched to believe that he would have the same epiphany without Rory there.

But without Rory, he wouldn’t have been helping Ghost!Dan to go to heaven. Though, before Rory traveled back in time, Lucifer was already trying to help Dan. They probably would have needed more time to figure out about what Dan felt guilty about, but figure it out anyways.

How did he even got Chloe pregnant? Was it his subconscious deciding he was ready to be a father? Amenadiel had to believe that he was human to get Linda pregnant. Or maybe it’s because they always thought they couldn’t impregnate a human and self-actualized it that way. Anyways, it’s a tiny hang-up I have with it.

Somebody else besides me thought that the scene in the panic room was awkwardly long? I know they thought Lucifer would vanish somehow, but it seemed too much to me.

His singsong while the magician talked about the trick. :D

I don’t want to even get into the whole time loop thing because I think it’s ridiculous(ly bad).

It took a lot of time for him to realize that he didn’t want to be god, after he put it on hold for a second time. Even Chloe could have asked him if that is really what he wanted. Could have spared us an episode or so. Why is the communication on this show so bad? Q.Q

I loved that he helped Maze with Eve to get the wedding back on after their fight.

He didn’t say goodbye to Trixie  - again. What a nice step-devil..

It’s been Chloe, Rory and his family since he found out she’s his daughter. Not even mentioning the one kid who probably loved him before even Chloe fell for him.

For someone who is all about free will and led a rebellion against God for it, he was quick to accept that he has a “fate”. I thought he’d find another way, or at least try to. Nope, he just did what his child wanted. And they disguised it at his “choice”. Doesn’t look like a choice to me if your daughter begs you for it and you have to promise it. Just getting along with what your child wants.

Why does everyone need to shoot him? Just cut him until he bleeds. The Americans and their fixation on guns. Nice parallel to Chloe though.

Lucifer trying to fix the relationship to Rory with gifts was so cringey. I don’t know why but I couldn’t watch him sing/dance in that scene.

Both him and Amenadiel didn’t want to become like their Dad because of the reasons stated in S5, yet Lucifer exactly did. Another letdown.

 

Chloe

As soon as she knew Rory was her and Lucifer’s daughter it was all only about Lucifer and Rory. No thought of Trixie? I understand she was worried about being a bad mother to Rory, but come on, you’re being a bad mother to your first child right now.

She was ready to go to heaven with Lucifer. And Trixie does what exactly without her parents? Living with her Grandma because one of her parent died and the other one is abandoning her? It’s like the writers forgot about Trixie while forcing Rory on us.

The addiction to the necklace got old pretty fast.

And that whole fight against Lucifer felt unnecessary just to add more drama.

She gets mad at Lucifer for not telling her everything while not telling him that she went back to the LAPD. It’s Lucifer, he always has things on his plate. Double moral, pretty much.

She looked so gorgeous at the wedding, oh my god.

Most of the Deckerstar scenes were good. I got tired of the obvious naked cuddle times, surprisingly. Somehow it felt not like the ones in S5 and it bothered me.

I thought Chloe would finally get to know about everything Lucifer did for her, but I didn’t expect her to read it in Linda’s book. And that she only took away that he left her every time they had an emotional breakthrough.

They spend Lucifer’s last day at the beach and once again, no thought of Trixie. I’m sorry I repeat myself here so often. But this whole season wronged Trixie so much.

They face the baddie without any backup.  At least get Amenadiel with you.

Other things

The use of music between scenes was too much for me. Got annoying at some point.

I appreciate that they wanted to show us snippets of past Deckerstar scenes but here too, I felt like it was too much.

Couldn’t really follow the timeline. Maybe it were the cuts.

What’s been the point of bringing Adam into the mix? Just to wrap up Maze and Eve’s story? For Linda having another celestial to therapy?

The animation in the Jimmy Barnes Hell loop was AMAZING. I laughed so hard.

I’m not saying that Deckerstar shouldn’t have sacrificed everything for the time loop to stay intact, I say that the whole daughter-time travel plot shouldn’t have had happened. They never even talked about having kids, and then ignore the whole existence of the one kid that’s already there.

I really need all the Michaella fanfics, please. My first ship that’s actually a raft, because they never officially have met. RIP lmao

The acting was great as usual, all my problems come from the writing and the plot.

In the end, I really feel frustrated, underwhelmed and disappointed by the whole season. I didn’t have high expectations other than the same writing quality like S5. My excitement for that Season died as soon as Rory told Lucifer that she’s his daughter, to be honest. I waited for a plot twist that never came. Then the whole time loop shit.  I’d rather have waited one more year for S6 if the plot would have made more sense, since this felt like a first draft of a whole other show. And now I wished that S5 would have been the last season. If I could travel back in time, I’d rather not watch S6.

I can honestly live with the fact that Luci and Chloe are in hell, trying to help souls to get to heaven. (But hello, not the murderers perhaps? Or I want Michael sitting on that couch right now.) But the fact that both “chose” to sacrifice their time together with their family and friends just because it’s fate now and parents have to make sacrifices for their children; and anyways there’s an afterlife because (human) life is just a blip in our existence… nah thank you. I do not want it.

I’m probably not gonna rewatch S6 anytime soon.