#fuck lebanon county

[lebanonpacorruption]

FAT FAKE CHIEF PUBLIC DEFENDER BRIAN DEIDERICK BECOMES A PROSECUTOR

It’s like he’s admitted he was terrible at being a defense attorney. If anyone has met the prick, you know how he viewed EVERYONE has guilty. He’s been acting like a prosecutor for a decade and now he is one.

So what happens to his public defender extra curricular activities?

Doesn’t really matter, because pretty sure he was aiming to be Klines replacement on the bench but Tylwalk said Naaaaaa… you’re too bad at attorneying bra

Hess watch out for that butthole! Heard Deiderick was up Tanners once upon a time 😂😂

[doberbutts]

moving to central pa from kentucky was a trip bc my mom's friends would be like "oh, we're bringing chicken pot pie" and my family had the misfortune of anticipating a pot pie, not off brand chicken and dumpling soup. it's not bad, but we still bicker with them bc where's the pie? strips of pie dough don't count as pie. fucking lancaster and lebanon county, hate this place

Hey hey hey them's fightin words ok Amish Pot Pie is a delicious, hearty meal that's a staple for Lancaster's poor with savory egg noodles and enough broth to fill your belly. 😤

Like many PA Dutch words it's called "pot pie" in English because the actual word for it is "bott boi" which sounds a lot like "pot pie" if you don't know PA Dutch. It's just unfortunate that it shares that name with the more pie-shaped dish, because the first time I ordered pot pie at a resturant outside of PA I was in for quite a surprise.

Anyway yes 👎👎👎 Lancaster 👎👎👎 in general but don't you diss my delicious cult foods

[221btardisimpalawithloki]

what fucking crack do you smoke if you think its a multiple-hour drive between lebanon and hastings. its less than an hour even if youre a weenie who goes the speed limit

[thoughtslikeaminefield]

Summary: Sam intervenes. Part two of a three-part series about roomies to lovers.

Characters: AU Dean Winchester x female reader, Sam Winchester

Warnings/tags in this part: two F-bombs, recollection of sexual activity

Words in this part: 1,900

Notes: Shout out to @indecisive30something for their prompt.

And, as always, many thanks and all my love to my Ride Or Die @brrose-apothecary

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Since that afternoon, when Dean did make her come until they both passed out on the couch, sweaty and satisfied, wrapped in a quilt her grandmother made 30 years before, neither of them were able to look at the other straight without blushing, grinning, or both.

Yet, much like last time, they didn’t talk about it afterward, and the longer they put it off, the more awkward it became.

They were also spending an inordinate amount of time trying to act normal around Sam and Eileen; instead, they came across like they were trying to cover up a murder or something.

“Dude, what is with you?” Sam asks four days post-incident.

“What?!?” Dean stage-whispers, his gaze darting wildly around Eileen’s backyard, where several friends have donned swimwear and are sipping their beverages of choice until it lands on her, and his skin flushes.

“That. That’s what,” Sam responds, flipping the burgers and brats, feeling mildly amused and significantly annoyed by his brother’s utter cluelessness regarding their roommate. “Stop acting like you guys didn’t hook up again. You can’t sit still or keep your mouth shut for three seconds when she's in the room.”

Dean feels a flush of a different kind as he glares at his younger brother. “Horseshit. I’m zen as fuck.”

He lets his gaze float back to the object of his desire, glistening in the sun as she bobs in the pool with their friends.

Sam snorts and arches a sidelong brow. “This morning at brunch, you read the ingredients from every condiment bottle on the table before getting up for a newspaper and asking old man Fergus about his cats.”

“So?" Dean gripes without taking his eyes off her. "I was being neighborly.”

“You hate that guy and you’re allergic to cats.”

“What’s your point, Sam?” Dean turns to face his brother again, not ready to have the conversation but knowing full-well that it's happening anyway.

“I already said," Sam answers with a casual shrug. "You’re doing a shit job of concealing that you two got something going on again as if anyone cares.”

Dean drags his eyes back to catch a glimpse of her adjusting her ball cap over her shaded eyes. Even with her sunglasses on, the light reflecting from the pool is harsh and she squints, wrinkling her nose and clucking her tongue before laughing at something Meg has said.

Dean can't help but grin and revel in the butterflies in his stomach.

“In fact," Sam continues, "if you asked anyone in this county or the next one over? They’d be relieved you two are finally doing something about it.”

“She’s still married, Sammy,” Dean replies quietly, flicking his gaze back to his brother. “And you know that sonuvabitch’d make her life Hell if he thought he could — I ain’t given’ him any ammo.”

Sam is thoughtful for a moment before continuing more gently.

“At least tell me you aren’t holding out on her or yourself just because you aren’t ready to make it public yet,” Sam asks. “I’m not expecting you to take out an ad in The Lebanon Times, but I hope you aren’t just brushing it under the rug like last time...”

Dean clears his throat, shifts his weight, and downs the rest of his beer before tossing it in the recycling bin. “You want another one?” he asks Sam in an attempt to change the subject.

“Dean. Come on, man, don’t do this to yourself,” Sam lowers his voice, trying to snag his brother’s attention. “Don’t do it to her.”

Dean shakes his head. “Man, I’m not the only one in this situation; the road goes both ways, she could talk to me, too.”

Sam screws his eyebrows and stands up straight, abandoning the soft approach since his brother is clearly a moron. “What are you, three? That’s the oldest, weakest excuse for not taking initiative.”

Dean sighs, glances back toward the pool, and lets the memories of her wash over him — her husky voice, demanding more; her soft, strong hands, gripping him so tight; her scent like fresh-baked lemon meringue pie, sweet and heady and thick; and the way she falls apart so fucking easily for him every time.

“Alright, alright,” Dean holds up a hand in surrender as he backs away from his brother, headed to the cooler. “I’ll... come up with somethin'- say something. You want another one, or what?”

He doesn’t wait for Sam’s affirmative reply before turning and striding toward the cooler under the awning of the side patio. His own sunglasses are seated firmly on the upper bridge of his nose, but he fidgets with them anyway when the allure of her throaty laughter glides through the heat of the afternoon sun. Dean groans as he flips the lid of the cooler and reaches in for two bottles.

Just as he stands and turns back toward the group, she’s pushing up out of the water. He watches the rivulets of water sparkle across her bronzed, sculpted shoulders and down her shapely arms to her wrists. She twists her narrow waist and slides her perfectly heavy, peach of an ass to sit on the edge of the pool.

Her body looks like those statues of Venus but full of life and heat, breathing and hungry, sleek and strong. Her back is a work of art and he’s suddenly so hard in his trunks, he has to figure out how to walk back to the grill without coming in his pants.

AC/DC blares from the sound system, and she laughs again, head thrown back, baring her throat and kicking water in an arc aimed at Meg.

“Oh, my god, Meg, remember that trashy dance routine we did in high school to AC/DC?”

Meg splashes back, cackling. “We thought we were so hot!”

They each dissolve into giggles, and Dean can’t take his eyes off of her. He’s openly staring when she suddenly turns her head in his direction.

Dean pops each bottle top off with his ring and drops them in the recycling. She gasps on her laughter and bites her lip to stop from choking because that off-the-cuff move of his is just one example of how good he is with his hands.

Memories from mere days before, his hands up her shorts, holding her open wide and down as he mouthed at her cunt through the thin cotton, making her squirm and whimper. He worked her up from a puddle of vibrating sludge to a shining goddess over that three hours on the living room couch. And then he put her to bed and tucked her in.

Meg wades closer to her in the pool, away from Cas and Gabe, and wraps a hand around her ankle. “You OK there?” Meg asks soothing a hand up and down her friend’s calf.

“Yeah,” she breathes, answering Meg’s concern and trying not to dwell on the memories of Dean's hands on her skin.

Meg nods, sliding her shades down to the tip of her nose to gaze over the rim at her best friend of 20 years. “Nothing since Sunday?”

She told Meg about the couch incident. She gushed about it. Meg told her Monday night that she should go crawl into bed with Dean without a word, but that just didn't seem right.

She shakes her head in answer and drops her eyes to the rippling water below, remembering how she woke up alone in her bed Sunday night at 8:30 with an ache between her thighs like she hadn’t known in years. There was a sweating bottle of water and two Excedrin on her nightstand and her childhood bear was tucked in beside her.

“It’s OK, it was just a friend helping a friend out kinda thing,” she replies to Meg’s frown with a shrug. What goes unsaid hangs in the air, just like last time.

Meg cocks a brow and smirks in the Winchesters' direction. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

He’s watching them closely, the heat of his stare, radiating through his aviators. He licks his bottom lip into his mouth before lazily pulling it out from under his teeth as he taps his ring against the bottleneck in time with AC/DC.

"That's not how just friends look at each other," Meg asserts, as her friend swoons at the vision of Dean. There's something almost separately sentient about Dean’s anatomy. He fills any room, warms any space, quells any fears or insecurity just by showing up.

Meg's heart skips a beat when her best friend sighs and pushes to stand. For years, she's watched them dance around each other, and she wants them both to be happy.

“Have fun,” Meg sings from the pool, as her friend slips her feet into her flip flops and her cover-up over her head before making her way to the grill area.

The corner of Dean’s mouth curves with a silent smirk so maddening that only he’s capable of pulling it off without being a smug bastard.

“Hey, girl, you hungry?” Sam asks, not yet recognizing the swell of heat and things unsaid between his brother and her.

She can’t control the way her chest vibrates and her exhale shakes, and Dean’s cocksure smile splits into a bright, wide grin.

“Hungry, princess?” Dean asks, lifting his beer bottle to his mouth to tongue the opening before wrapping his lips around it.

“Not for that,” she replies, nodding toward the grill.

Sam does a wide-eyed double-take before chuckling. “Well, Dean, maybe you should see if you can find something she is hungry for.” He tries to hide a grin.

Dean bobs his head before tossing what’s left of his beer into the bin then offering her his elbow. “Shall we?”

She laughs in that way that makes Dean's toes curl then loops her hand through the crook of his arm. “Lead the way.”

As they saunter toward the door to Eileen’s kitchen, Dean looks down at her and asks, “you got everything?”

She blinks, feeling a little confused and a lot flustered. “Like what?”

“Phone, keys, your utmost certainty that you want this to happen,” Dean replies, his shoulders stiffening and his jaw tense.

He slides the glass door open and guides her inside the air-conditioned house, then closes the door behind them with a soft thud.

She turns to face him and draws a deep breath. His bright, warm eyes are filled with hope and anticipation.

“I don’t really know what’s on the menu, but you make me feel good and safe. I want that.”

Dean smiles and walks into her, enveloping her in his arms. “OK,” he murmurs against her damp ball cap before dragging his lips down and along her jaw. “Lemme take you home.”

She sighs and melts in his embrace. “OK.”

Part Three

If you like this, please let me know or buy me a coffee!

Dean Winchester Masterlist | SPN Masterlist | All Fic Masterlist

[hotshotsxyz]

Stay Awhile

Happy holidays to @not-the-same-url-i-used-to-be, for the @destielsecretsanta2020 gift exchange! I hope you like this mess of pure found family fluff!

(Read it on AO3)

Family dinners are kind of a big deal. It's hard to get everyone together these days, so when every single one of them RSVP's yes, it's huge. And they're running late.

"Dammit," Dean says, glancing at the traffic map Cas has pulled up on his phone. They're on I-80 just outside of Cheyenne, stuck in stop-and-go traffic that doesn't seem like it'll be letting up any time soon. They're coming from San Francisco, or thereabouts, and on their third day of driving.

Once upon a time, Dean would've just pushed through, making the 22-hour drive on 3 hours of sleep, coffee and a little bit of hope. These days, though, he and Cas like to take it slow, to stop and smell the roses as it were.

That's what they do now. Two years down the line, and they don't hunt unless some other hunter desperately needs their help. Instead, for the first time in Dean's life, they've been travelling just for the hell of it. Most recently they'd been in wine country, because Cas was curious and Dean had forgotten how to say no a long time ago. They have at least 16 different bottles in the trunk, all of which they're planning on sharing, if they ever make it to Lebanon.

"Sam's gonna kill us," Dean groans.

Cas pats him on the thigh. "He'll kill you," he replies. "I said we should've left Saturday, but you wanted to stick around for the county fair."

"It was twelve bucks and they had a pie eating competition!"

"Yes, dear," Cas says, fake exasperation lacing his tone.

"Fuck you," Dean replies, but he can't stop the laugh that bubbles out from his chest.

Cas shakes his head with a smile. "There's an exit coming up in half a mile, let's see if we can't find a better way home."

Dean grins. "Anything you say, sweetheart."

All said and done, they're only forty-five minutes late. Sam's still going to bitch, but frankly Dean considers it a miracle of navigation and ever-so-slightly reckless driving.

"Grab the wine and I'll get our bags out of the trunk," Dean says.

The sounds of laughter and plates clinking floats out as soon as they open the door to the bunker, and Dean can feel a grin settling on his face already as he pauses to take it all in. He loves this, more than just about anything he's ever had. Cas nudges his shoulder and nods towards the open door.

"Don't you think we've kept them waiting long enough already?"

"Yeah," Dean says, and they head in.

"It's about time!" Sam calls when he spot's them. He stands and strides over to them.

Dean drops his and Cas's bags in preparation for the bear hug he knows he's going to get. Ever since he and Cas started heading out on their own, Sam acts like he hasn’t seen them in years.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean says, accepting the embrace and clapping Sam on the back. "You should've seen the traffic."

"We all know it wasn't traffic that kept you in California an extra day," Sam teases.

Dean shoots a look at Cas. Traitor, he thinks. Cas's grin widens, and for a moment it's almost like he can hear Dean's thoughts again. But no, Cas just knows him that well.

"Alright," Jodie says, stepping up behind Sam, "give the rest of us a turn."

Dean and Cas pass out hugs like party favors, making sure to spend a moment with everyone in the room. Cas lingers for a few minutes with Jack, and while he does Dean steps into the kitchen to make them both a plate of food.

It's been too damn long.

After a few minutes, Cas joins him in the kitchen and presses a short kiss against the shell of his ear.

"It's good to see everyone," Cas murmurs, wrapping his arms around Dean's waist.

Dean turns in the embrace and deposits a lingering kiss against Cas's lips. "It is," he agrees.

There's something that Dean has been turning over in his head for a few weeks, and he figures now is as good a time as any to finally spit it out. "What if we stayed put for a while?" He searches Cas's face for any sign of distress, but the soft smile he's been wearing all night remains.

"Here in the bunker?" Cas asks, tilting his head in that oh so familiar way.

"We could," Dean says.

"But?"

"But…" And this is the part he's nervous about. There's a lot they've hashed out over the years, and Dean knows that Cas wants to be with him. He knows that he's happy as a human, knows that they're happy together. But there's something different about asking him for this. "I was thinking we could get a house. Something that's just ours. Still nearby, so we could be close to everybody. What do you think?" Dean bites his lip.

Cas's smile expands into a broad grin. "I would like nothing more than to 'settle down' with you, Dean Winchester."

"Awesome," Dean sighs and kisses Cas again.

They rejoin the party after that and are pulled quickly in opposite directions. Donna tells Dean about her (very, very hot) new boyfriend while Cas is regaled with Claire and Kaia's latest hunting adventure. He finds Charlie and Stevie talking to Patience about her college classes (and finds out that she's doing psychic consulting out of her dorm room). Garth and Alex are discussing the challenges of treating monsters and hunters in underground clinics. Bobby is talking to Jack about metaphysics (and damn, when did Bobby have time to do so much reading on the subject?), and Sam and Eileen are bent over some witch-y looking book with Rowena.

His family, Dean thinks. The hunters, the werewolves, the Queen of Hell, God himself, a couple college kids, and an ex-angel. It doesn't get much better than this.

The party goes late into the night, and when it's over everyone crashes at the bunker. These days, it functions as a stopover for hunters from all around the country. Sam and Eileen are slowly expanding their reach, giving hunters everywhere access to the enormous cache of knowledge contained within the bunker's walls. It feels so full of life, like it was always meant to be. They all sleep easy.  

Dean wakes up smiling. It's not like this everyday, but it's happening more all the time. Something about sleeping in Cas's arms, waking up in them, it keeps the nightmares at bay. Most of them, anyway.

Dean brushes a lock of hair away from Cas's face. It's gotten longer recently and it's nice. He places a soft kiss on Cas's brow.

"I'm gonna make breakfast," he says softly. "Want to help?"

Cas groans and presses his face into Dean's shoulder. "Too early," he mumbles.

Dean chuckles. "Alright, sweetheart," he says. He rolls onto his back, carefully dislodging Cas, then gets up.

Without opening his eyes, Cas whines and makes grabby hands at Dean. Dean catches one of Cas's hands in his own. "I'll make coffee," he promises, then presses a kiss into Cas's knuckles.

"Promise?" Cas says.

"Anything for you, sunshine," Dean replies.

To his surprise, Dean isn't alone when he walks into the kitchen. Claire sits at the table, eyes closed and a steaming mug held in both hands.

"Hey kid," Dean says, clearing his throat.

Claire hums in acknowledgement, takes a sip of her coffee, then opens her eyes. "You two look happy," she says, apropos of nothing.

"I- uh, yeah. We are," Dean replies.

"M'glad," Claire says. "You both deserve it."

"We're thinking about getting a house," Dean confides in her. "Haven't even told Sam yet."

She smiles at that. "I'm happy for you," she says.

"You know, if you ever wanted to get out of the life-"

"Nah, me and Kaia have everything we need. I wouldn't say no to an invitation to visit, though."

Dean grins. "You'll be first on our list."

They fall into comfortable silence for several minutes, as Dean pulls out enough ingredients to feed an army. Hunters are a hungry bunch, after all.

"Claire?" Dean says as he cracks eggs into a bowl.

"Yeah?"

"You seem happy, too."

There's a long pause. Finally, she says, "I am." Dean turns to see her smiling into her coffee

Just then, Sam and Eileen walk into the kitchen, followed quickly by Garth and Bess. Before long most of the bunker has arrived, and Dean gets back to cooking the feast. Behind him, someone else fires up the toaster, and soon he's handing off plate after plate of bacon, eggs and toast.

Finally, once nearly everyone has food, Cas walks in looking just as rumpled as he always does in the morning. Dean meets him with a mug of coffee and a sweet kiss. "Morning, sunshine," he murmurs against his lips.

"Good morning, Dean," Cas replies, voice still rough with sleep.

And yeah, Dean thinks, he could get used to this.

[nix-that-rad-lass]

I am fucking livid

I went through my watch later on YouTube and watched some documentaries- including one about the explosion in Beirut.

My parents watched it with me.

Halfway through, my father has me stop it. He says: “oh my god. Look at these people. They look like Americans. This looks like it could have happened in America. That’s terrible”

I look at him. “It not being in America does not erase the atrocity, the cruelty, or the terror.”

How far removed is the American psyche from other countries? That many people here can not fathom pain that happens elsewhere unless they imagine it effecting them, or their family?

It’s disgusting and sad and terrifying how little empathy there is for other human beings.

My father also said: “that looks like a city! Like a first world city! Lebanon is always portrayed as some shitass third world country!”

My only response: “you can find places in any country that look like first and third world. You can go to the outskirts of Cullman County, Alabama, and it will look shittier than a small town in x y or z country- and vice versa. The difference is here, some 90% of people are living in a first world setting. In too many other places, there’s one or two big cities, oftentimes with rotten underbellies, and the rest of the state or country is left to rot.

In no way is that fucking ok. And I am so fucking angry that this keeps getting glossed over. I am so angry that so many people are being dehumanized and erased and killed because fucking selfish ass corporate cashcockers want to line their pockets at the expense of actual human lives. I am so fucking angry that every week there is a new disaster and every week they are glossed over. Every week people suffer for no reason and I am fucking SICK OF IT.

[pallasperilous]

Twenty Questions

Summary: Michael is AWOL with Dean, so Sam drives while Cas rides shotgun. They fill silence with a light inquiry into the nature of Enochian pronouns and their relationship – or lack thereof – to human vessels’ gender.  ...it’s more fun than it sounds.

Word Count: 1,221 Rating: Gen (there’s a single swear) Pairings: Sam & Castiel (are good nerdfriends)

WARNINGS: brief references to social prejudice against queer identities. Angel lore nonsense. References to past harm done to Baby’s clutch. 

Complete story in post, or on AO3.

---

They’ve been creeping down the same stretch of interstate for five hours. They long ago run out of podcasts and Dean’s more bearable cassettes and weird lore chit-chat and dumb car games – Sam has learned the hard way that 20 Questions with Cas is actually either 3 Questions or Infinity Questions.

They’re finally in the same county as their turn-off, but they’re still at least three hours out from Lebanon and they’ve officially run out of silence, too. Castiel is pretty good at keeping quiet when he’s in the back, at least over long hauls – Sam would sometimes catch Dean glancing into the rearview just to check that he hadn’t poofed out at some point.

Having Cas ride shotgun is something else. Just having another body there pokes Sam in the brain, demands comment. The other body is usually Dean, and Dean sucks at silence. If it’s not talking, it’s music. If it’s not music, he’ll starts fucking humming or tapping or whistling. Dean is nature, abhorring a vacuum.

Only Dean’s not here. So it turns out that silence is currently a very painful conversation.

“I’ve been wondering about something,” Sam says.

Castiel has his eyes closed, but they snap open immediately. “Oh?”

Sam adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. “So…the other angels. They call you he, right?”

“They normally call me Castiel.”

Sam shoots him A Look, and is rewarded with a microscopic smile. “No, I mean – you all have…consistent pronouns. That don’t change based on your vessel. From what I can tell.”

Cas shakes his head. “Not usually, no. You have to understand, Sam – most angels have never occupied a vessel, nor would they ever expect to. It’s a specialized field.” He shifts down a bit on the bench, folds his arms.

“So you do all have…some kind of…essential gender? In your true forms?”

Castiel hums non-committally. “The pronouns you hear us use in English are an approximation of an Enochian form of address. One that has nothing to do with reproductive or social roles.”

“What’s it describe, then? Rank? Age?”

“Rotational axis.”

Sam can’t help it: he laughs. “What?” The unbidden mental image is of Castiel strapped on one of those vomitous centrifugal wheels they used to velcro kids into at Space Camp.

Cas sighs, although it sounds more embarrassed than aggrieved, as if Sam were asking after the origin of an off-color family in-joke. “When angels traverse the common areas of Heaven, our wings manifest as rotating bands of energy. There are two possible planes – axes – of rotation. The pronouns refer to which axis that angel’s wings occupy.”

“So, what…it’s not he and she, it’s more like… righty and lefty?”

Cas snorts. “I’d never thought of it that way, but the analogy is apt."

“Are there any, um. Ambidextrous angels?” Sam squints and kicks on the turn signal as they crawl up towards the nearest eastbound exit. There’s a lava flow of red brakelights ahead of them.

“A few. ”

“Anybody we know?”

“You know me.”

Sam hesitates, glances over at Castiel. He's got his elbow up on the door, chin braced on the splayed fingers of his far hand. Everything he’s wearing looks like it needs ironing, including his face. “Oh yeah?" Sam manages, lamely.

"Mm," Cas replies, which is frankly about as much as Sam deserves.

"Is that...what's that like?"

A forest green Outback two lanes over is suddenly seized by the need to exit at 126 A and Sam has to stomp on the brakes to avoid getting side-swiped. By the time Sam has brought the car back up to speed, Cas still hasn't answered.

"I'm sorry," Sam says. "Kinda none of my business." His knee is starting to ache from kicking out the clutch. They could’ve switched drivers a few hours back when it was bumper-to-bumper. Sam officially chalks it up to his pride, but really it would be admitting that Dean will be gone long enough that Sam will have time to replace the clutch after Cas fucking incinerates it.

Cas lowers his arm. "I'm not offended, Sam. I was considering my answer."

Sam shrugs; “I know angel stuff is a sensitive subject. Didn't want you to feel interrogated or anything. I'm just, you know. Curious."

"Yes, I've noticed that about you." There's a thin smile in Castiel's voice. "It was...it is...largely unimportant. I would usually adopt the same manner as the angel I was interacting with. It makes it easier to coordinate our movements. Since the majority of angels are of the axial group referred to with masculine English pronouns, I'm usually considered," and here he deploys air-quotes, Jesus Christ, if that isn't a throwback –"one of the boys."

Sam frowns, squints against the reflection off the back window of a church minivan. "I think that'd bother me."

"Why? It's simply practical. It describes the greater part of my behavior, at any rate."

“I dunno, it’s still…reductive, right? I mean, which way would you–” Sam winces a bit in anticipation at how dumb this is going to sound –“rotate, if you were alone?"

Cas, as usual, takes the ridiculous in stride. ”I truly don't have a preference. Each has its tactical strengths and shortcomings. The ability to alternate between the two is an advantage in battle, of course, and it grants me access to a broader array of potentially suitable vessels."

Cas turns his face away, as if he's checking out the blind spot, or maybe his own reflection in the side mirror. "It's part of why I was chosen to retrieve Dean in Hell, and then to interact with him after his resurrection."

They finally slip off the interstate and onto the four-lane state highway, a slim river cutting through an old growth forest of gas station signs and fast food logos. They could be literally anywhere in North America, and Sam feels his shoulders relax. Anywhere In North America is Sam's hometown.

Cas sighs. “You must be hungry by now. You should pull over."

"Nah, I'm okay. I'd rather get back to the Bunker before dark.”

There’s a pause which Cas somehow manages to imbue with maternal concern. "Sam. You do need to eat."

"We have food at home."

"Not enough."

"Cas, seriously. I’m fine.”

“I can tell that you've lost weight."

"Yeah, well. Probably because I don’t have Dean shoving garbage in my face every five hours.”

Sam feels the resulting silence as an actual, physical tension in his chest.

“I’ll stop somewhere when we’re over the state line,” he adds. Cas makes a little noise of consent.

Castiel turns his face forward again, drops his arm into his lap.  "It does make some in the Host uneasy. The dual axis,” he clarifies, as if the ranks of Heaven might possibly have an opinion on the particulars of where Sam gets his next chicken sandwich. “They think it suggests a deceptive or indecisive nature."

They hit their first stoplight, and Sam looks over at him. “You're telling me there’s an angel equivalent of biphobia."

"You are," Castiel says dryly, "a fount of damning analogies today, Sam Winchester."

“Wow. That’s, uh. That’s…fucked up? Not sure why I’m surprised, though. As above, so below, I guess.”

“I’ve come to see the relationship between Heaven and Earth as a lateral one,” Cas answers. Then he smiles.

“But that’s just me.”

[cinemavariety]

2019 Oscar Nominees

Best Picture “Black Panther” “BlacKkKlansman” “Bohemian Rhapsody” “The Favourite” “Green Book” “Roma” “A Star Is Born” “Vice”

Best Director Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”) Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”) Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) Adam McKay (“Vice”)

Best Actor Christian Bale (“Vice”) Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody” Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) Willem Dafoe (“At Eternity’s Gate”) Viggo Mortensen (“Green Book”)

Best Actress Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma”) Glenn Close (“The Wife”) Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”) Melissa McCarthy (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”)

Supporting Actor Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) Richard E. Grant (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”) Sam Elliott (“A Star Is Born”) Sam Rockwell (“Vice”) Adam Driver (“BlacKkKlansman”)

Supporting Actress Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) Amy Adams (“Vice”) Marina De Tavira (“Roma”) Rachel Weisz (“The Favourite”) Emma Stone (“The Favourite”)

Adapted Screenplay “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” “BlacKkKlansman” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” “If Beale Street Could Talk” “A Star Is Born”

Best Original Screenplay “The Favourite” “First Reformed” “Green Book” “Roma” “Vice”

Animated Feature “Incredibles 2” “Isle of Dogs” “Mirai” “Ralph Breaks the Internet” “Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

Foreign Language Film “Capernaum” (Lebanon) “Cold War” (Poland) “Never Look Away” (Germany) “Roma” (Mexico) “Shoplifters” (Japan)

Best Documentary “Free Solo” “Hale County This Morning This Evening” “Minding the Gap” “Of Fathers and Sons” “RBG”

Best Cinematography “Cold War” “The Favourite” “Never Look Away” “Roma” “A Star Is Born”

Best Costume Design “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” “Black Panther” “Mary Poppins Returns” “The Favourite” “Mary Queen of Scots”

Film Editing “BlacKkklansman” “Bohemian Rhapsody” “The Favourite” “Green Book” “Vice”

Makeup and Hairstyling “Border” “Mary Queen of Scots” “Vice”

Original Score “Black Panther” “BlacKkKlansman” “If Beale Street Could Talk” “Isle of Dogs” “Mary Poppins Returns”

Original Song “All the Stars” (“Black Panther”) “I’ll Fight” (“RBG”) “The Place Where Lost Things Go” (“Mary Poppins Returns”) “Shallow” (“A Star Is Born”) “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”

Production Design “Black Panther” “The Favourite” “First Man” “Mary Poppins Returns” “Roma”

Sound Editing “Black Panther” “Bohemian Rhapsody” “First Man” “A Quiet Place” “Roma”

Sound Mixing “Black Panther” “A Star Is Born” “Bohemian Rhapsody” “Roma” “First Man”

Visual Effects “Avengers: Infinity War” “Christopher Robin” “First Man” “Ready Player One” “Solo: A Star Wars Story”

Documentary (Short Subject) “Black Sheep” “End Game” “Lifeboat” “A Night at the Garden” “Period. End of Sentence.”

Short Film (Animated) “Animal Behaviour” “Bao” “Late Afternoon” “One Small Step” “Weekends”

Short Film (Live Action) “Detainment” “Skin” “Marguerite” “Fauve” “Mother”

Okay, time for me to rant. I honestly believe 2018 was one of the best years for cinema in as long as I can remember. That being said, this years nominees is seriously disappointing - one of the worst list of nominations I have ever seen in the history of the Academy.

- First of all, why is Vice getting so many nominations? I have yet to see it, so I will reserve my full judgment. However, the film was panned by almost every critic so I am a little confused as to why it is being so recognized.

- Toni Colette deserved the nomination for her powerhouse performance in Hereditary. I don’t care if it is a horror film. She literally out-performed every single actress who was nominated this year by a long shot.

- Black Panther being nominated for Best Picture is the biggest joke I have ever heard. Just like last year with Get Out, it seems that the Academy is just trying to appease to POC and SJWs. The film itself is just mediocre in general, since when are super hero films deserving of a Best Picture nom?

- If Beale Street Could Talk is much more deserving of a Best Picture nom compared to anything else on the list. It was a step up in quality compared to Moonlight and I am really surprised that it was almost completely snubbed this year.

- Johann Johanson’s score for Mandy was unbelievable, and the Academy should have paid tribute to the genius composer’s memory by giving it the nomination that it so very deserved.

- Lastly, Annihilation should have been included for the best visual effects category. That film had some beautiful CGI that blew my mind.

That all being said, fuck the Academy. I could care less about this popularity contest.

[mrabh]

Man...the pack movin slow, my features is trash. I’m jus tryna make it to the crib by the weekend. Fuck off ma back!!!!!! (at Lebanon County, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqUyU0wFsP3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vu488i0oa4u6

[lebanonpacorruption]

RIP

Heroin withdraw death at Lebanon County Correctional Facility in 2018. Tori Herr.

Most prisons provide Soboxin to safely ween a Heroin addiction away for incarceration.

Ala Methadone.

Lebanon County Correctional Facility disregards “safety” at the President Judge/Brain Surgeon General that all they need is Cold Turkey and A Home Plan out to Jubilee.

Jubilee won’t even prescribe Prozac.

But Jubilee hires the inmates on work release to work in their sweat shop/thrift store.

If Jesus Christ came back for a day and saw this, he’d send the entirety of Lebanon County Pennsylvania to the 9th Circle of Hell

#fuckLCCF

[alwaysscreechingbasement]

To quote a Facebook friend: “ "I live in Lebanon County, PA very near York County. On my road there are MANY Trump flags hanging in yards and porches, there are Trump signs in lawns, and occasionally throughout the county you will see the Impeach Biden or Fuck Biden signs. The area between Pittsburgh and Philly is Trump country and in this area its the worst. I was always afraid of putting any political signs or flags in my yard for fear if retaliation. I’m a pansexual, an atheist, and a liberal democrat. I’m a triple threat to these ppl. I’ve been discriminated in the past for being an atheist by landlords in a HUD subsidized apartment. I’ve been in a bar where idiots accused me of having a dick between my legs because they were too stupid to know the difference between pansexual and transgender. If anyone came to my home asking the questions this article claims, I do believe I would go full on crazy on their ass. I’m done with this shit." ”

[covid19updater]

COVID19 Updates: 07/24/2021

US:  Breaking: The newest and most requested Tat in the United States is the Covid Spike Protein. This has been confirmed by the CDC and the United States Association of Tatoo Artists.

World: OP/ED:  In fall/winter it will be "determined" Covid is a bioweapon to take the drug companies out of the line of fire for the poop vaccines that don't work (and the Biden admin for total failure). Then things get hot in the US-China relationship. After the bioweapons thing is communicated, Pfizer & Co. has developed updated boosters that are then supposed to work against the new variants. Then comes mandatory vaccination for ALL (as we are now dealing "with a new threat level" that was not clear before).

UK:  Truly alarming news that Government is dismantling yet more of our defences against new #Covid variants Just 3% of positive tests from amber list arrivals are being checked - why boast of our “expertise” in genome sequencing if we’re not even using it? LINK

Malta:  COVID rules sceptics and anti-vaxxers march through Valletta LINK

Malaysia:  Malaysia reports 15,902 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record, and 184 new deaths

UK:  Politicians and scientists in the UK are concerned that people are deleting the official COVID-19 mobile phone app, or at least switching off its tracing function, to avoid having to self-isolate

Lebanon:  Lebanon’s deepening economic crisis has piled pressure on hospitals, leaving them ill-equipped to face any new wave of the coronavirus, a top hospital director has warned;

Indonesia:  Indonesian island of Bali is running out of oxygen for its COVID-19 patients  as infections surge, the chief of its health agency said, as Southeast Asia’s biggest country struggles with region’s worst COVID epidemic;

World:  NEW - Dr. Fauci: "People are sort of raising their eyebrows a bit,” by the apparent steep falloff in the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness that the Israeli data seems to suggest (NYT) (Thank you Captain Obvious)

Missouri:  #BREAKING: @HealthyLivingMo reports #COVID19Missouri hospitalizations hit 1,700 Wednesday, highest inpatient total since 1/30, +39/day over past 7 days; #DeltaVariant surge hits new full week peak of 16,518 cases reported, avg 2,359.71/day, highest full wk since 1/17-1/23

US:  Hospitalizations rising in 45 states

France:  Breaking: Protests against COVID restrictions have turned violent in Paris, France.

New York:  New hospital admissions in New York due to COVID-19 are up +43.0% from a week ago.

Georgia:  New hospital admissions in Georgia due to COVID-19 are up +35.3% from a week ago.

Missouri:  New hospital admissions in Missouri due to COVID-19 are up another +13.9% from a week ago, and have bounced back to more than half their previous peak.

Louisiana:  New hospital admissions in Louisiana due to COVID-19 are up +68.7% from a week ago, more than halfway back to their previous peak.

Texas:  New hospital admissions in Texas due to COVID-19 are up +47.2% from a week ago.

California:  New hospital admissions in California due to COVID-19 are up +44.9% from a week ago.

Florida:  New hospital admissions in Florida are up +54.2% from a week ago, down just -26.3% from their peak.

UK:  Piers Morgan reveals he caught Covid at Euro 2020 final despite being double jabbed LINK

World:  Severity of SARS-CoV-2 reinfections in second wave determines likelihood of mild endemicity LINK

Iceland:  Iceland lifted all domestic restrictions on June 26 after a majority of the population had been vaccinated. The country's Chief Epidemiologist now says that vaccinations are not proving as effective against the Delta variant as was hoped. LINK

California:  Anti-mask protester punches breast cancer patient in her surgery scar and rips off her face covering after demonstrators gathered outside LA clinic which is enforcing the county's mandate LINK

Florida:  BREAKING: Florida reports 14,258 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, as hospitalizations continue to rise

US:  NEW: Number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 tops 33,000, highest since May

US:  After a string of COVID-19 infections were reportedly traced back to travelers returning from Las Vegas, one county in Hawaii is sounding the alarm on travel to the Sin City. LINK

RUMINT (US):  Dropped my car off at the Honda dealership for service and they are completely out of cars to sell. I asked the service tech and he said they have a few at the port, but they can't get chips needed to make more cars. Crazy.

Tennessee: ‘Heart-wrenching’: inside a hospital grappling with Delta and vaccine hesitancy LINK

RUMINT (World):  Folks. Sit down. Get a stiff drink. And listen in. This is an extinction level event. This is no joke nor drill. Nor am I trying to paint a grimmer picture than it already is. We are in the final years of a cohesive civilization. Why? Fungus. Prokaryotes (bacteria) differentiate quite a lot form eukaryotic organisms such as fungi and I have a hard time seeing that bacteriophages would be able to infect eukaryotic cells. In essence we are exposed to a huge amount of viruses in our daily lives, but our cells are either non permissive (can’t replicate in our cells) or non susceptible (can’t bind to and enter our cells) to almost all of them. ^^ This got the wife thinking. The this from her days of old about 9 years ago now.*****Bat immunity may hold clues for HIV***** But then it gets terrifying. Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome is a condition seen in some cases of AIDS or immunosuppression, in which the immune system begins to recover, but then responds to a previously acquired opportunistic infection with an overwhelming inflammatory response that paradoxically makes the symptoms of infection worse. Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) is a state of hyperinflammatory response that usually occurs in the first six months of treatment of HIV/AIDS patients. It is a potential complication of the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). The overall incidence of IRIS is still unknown. However, some studies report that up to 25 to 30% of HIV patients who are on antiretroviral therapy have IRIS. This activity outlines the risk factors, pathophysiology, clinical presentation, and the role of the interprofessional team in the management of immune reconstitution syndrome. A PREVIOUSLY unknown immune response in bats to a deadly fungal disease may hold the key to future treatments of AIDS, world-first research has found. Starting to sink in? The vaccine is not a fucking vaccine. It is a bioweapon opening us up to a secondary payload WHICH IS FUNGAL!!

Massachusetts:  Cases tied to Provincetown COVID-19 cluster rise from 256 to 430, town manager says LINK

US: NEAR VERTICAL—The South is now seeing #DeltaVariant in its true vertical exponential form. So many not vaxxed. Short of lockdowns, it now all comes down to masks, ventilation & air disinfection—but if Delta has R0=6, it’s hard to bend curve; if R0=8, it’s almost impossible.

[supernatural-fanficuniverse]

Heart Hope

Title: Heart Hope

Pairing: Dean x Reader x Sam (friendship)

Word Count: 3,776

Warnings: Fluff, ANGST, drunk angry dean, self-harm, depression, cussing, suicide attempt. 

Summary: You had known the Winchester brothers for 3 years and had grown to love them as if they were family. You had started to think you were a burden and that the boys were better off without you. What happens when one night you decide to act on those thoughts?

Inspiration: Heart Hope by Oh Wonder 

A/N: *I am in no way trying to romanticize self-harm and/or depression.* I struggle with these as well, and just used this work of fiction as an outlet. If you ever need to talk, I’m here. This is my first Supernatural fanfic, so please let me know if it was any good or not.

Y/A = Your age

You were laying in your full size bed that lied in your bedroom in the bunker. It was 2:48 in the morning and you couldn’t sleep. You knew that wasn't a good thing because your thoughts are always relentless, and they bring things up from the past that you wish you could forget about forever.

You had known the Winchester boys for about 3 years now. They rescued you from a Rougarou. It was a hunt you had been waiting for, for nearly your whole life. After all, it was the Rougarou that killed your parents and your little sister, and that’s what got you into hunting.

To this this day you couldn’t forget the sound of your little sister’s screams. It’s like the sound was burned into your brain, and the devil played it on loop day and night just to watch your pain being relived over and over again.

You had to admit, it was taking a major toll on your mental health. You became obsessed with tracking the damned thing down. You wanted to torture it, to make it feel pain, the same pain you felt every day by not having the people you had loved the most next to you. You wanted to hear it elicit the same gut wrenching scream that you could never forget. You just wanted the fucking thing to die. You wanted revenge, as simple as that. At least it should have been simple, somehow you’d found a way to fuck that up to.

You got a lead and had finally narrowed down its next targeted hunting ground, Smith County Kansas. You had prepared for the long trip (you were currently in Minnesota) and did as much research as you could, all the while trying to hurry. You caught whiff of a few news articles. Fuck. A few missing bodies here and there and you knew it had already struck. You thought you were too late but you went anyways, there’s no way you’d miss the chance to slit its throat, even if there was a chance it wouldn’t even be there. You had talked to the local townspeople and had finally figured out that the Rougarou’s nest was in an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town. By the time you had gotten there and snooped around some,something hit you on the back of the head and your vision went black. Long story short, you were tortured until the Winchesters came to save you. You would always be eternally grateful to them. 

You found out that Smith county was practically their backyard seeing as how they lived in Lebanon (one of the cities in Smith). They said they could use a fresh set of eyes, and someone to help do some research, kinda take the load off of the boys, so you gladly and happily obliged to tag along. You had grown so attached to them within the last 3 years. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for those two goofballs. You looked up to them as if they were the older brothers you never had, and you were pretty sure they loved you like a little sister. It was the closest thing to family that you’d had in quite a long time and it was a nice change in pace. But you started to think you were a burden to them. You knew they loved you, and you knew they’d never intentionally let you think anything less than that. But these days and with everything that had happened in your past, it was all just beginning to be too much to handle alone. Yeah, you could count on the guys always being there to protect you on the hunt, Sam or Dean always rushing in to save the day. But this was different. You didn’t need to go laying your problems on them, they handle enough on their own, much less the heavy weight it would be to add your plethora of issues on them as well. You were just getting so sick and tired of being so alone. You gave up on the idea of sleep and sat upright in the bed, carefully setting your feet on the cold floor. The sheer coldness sending a shiver up your spine. You quietly padded down the hallway to the kitchen, passing both Sam and Deans doors. By the sound of it you could tell that at least one of them was snoring heavily, but hey at least they were getting some shut eye. Good sleep is something very few hunters can get often, so you knew they relished in their off time, even though they were always searching for the next case. You went to cabinets and pulled out a mug, along with supplies to fix a nice warm tea. Maybe a chamomile infused tea will give you just the right amount of comfort to be able to shut your mind off and finally fall asleep. God knows what you would give for a hug right now. But as always you were left to console yourself, tightly crossing your arms and drawing what little solace you could out of their pressure on your chest. The microwaved beeped bringing you of your thoughts, you reached in to get the mug and as you pulled it out you realized it was much much hotter than you were anticipating. The mug slipped out of your hand, the hot liquid splashing against your arm and your leg, as the cup made its way toward the ground. That’s when your heart sunk to the bottom of your stomach.

It wasn’t just any mug, it was Deans favorite mug, the last one that he had kept from his Mom’s personal china collection. He’d either lost or broken them throughout the years and this was the last one. The mug collided with the ground and produced an almost ear shattering sound that echoed throughout the entire bunker that was so quiet, that you could hear a pin drop from a mile away.. Before the mug had hit the ground you had instinctively reached down trying to save it. When it splintered in 6 huge pieces of porcelain one of them came up a jabbed you in the soft skin between your thumb and pointer finger. Your eyes instantly welled up in tears, and it wasn’t even because of the astounding pain you felt in your hand, it was because you knew how angry Dean would be at you. And you never wanted Dean to yell at you. To look at you with those pretty green eyes of his and see anger and disappointment reflect back to yours. You heard two sets of footsteps stomping down the hallway as fast as they could. “Y/N?!”, you heard Sam yell. You stood there shaking, tears in your eyes clutching your injured hand, and fearing what was about to happen in the moments after this one. You thought Sam was going to round the corner first, but you were surprised when you saw Dean instead. “What the hell is going on?” Dean questioned in a not so nice voice, his tone gruff. You noticed he slightly slurred his words, fuck. That means he had been up late drinking and he probably hadn’t sobered up yet. You just stared at him, for fear if you were to open your mouth that you would lose your shit right then and there, but you couldn’t let that happen no matter what. You can’t let the boys see you weak. Sam stood there just taking in everything as well, he looked a little dazed. “Did you not fucking hear me or something, Y/N?! I said what the hell is going on in here!” Dean’s voice boomed. You hated when he got like that (which he had only ever done once before). He looked at the ground and you knew he was about to explode. “Wait. Hell no. Hell no! Is that my moms fucking mug? Did you break the last item that meant so much to me?!” Dean practically yelled. You could smell the whiskey on him from here. “Dean,” Sam said warily. Dean turned around and angrily looked at Sam. “No Sammy! You don’t fucking understand! You never have! That was the last possession of our mother that I had, and what!? She gets a free pass to just destroy my personal items!? Huh Sammy!?” You knew you wouldn’t be able to take much more of this. You had never meant for any of this to happen, all you wanted was to make some tea. I guess you fucked that up too, just like everything else. “And the big kicker is, she’s not even family!”, he turned on his heel to look at you, your heart breaking in two. “You know that you have caused nothing but trouble since we found you?! I knew the day that Sammy begged for you to come along that I would regret it sooner or later and boy was I right.” He laughed but it contained no mirth. “He said he pitied you, hell, even I did too. But only a little bit, what can I say? It’s a hard knock life, get over it. We put our asses on the line for you all the time! And you don’t even appreciate it!” Dean continued his voice getting louder and louder with each sentence. “What about that time you almost got Sam killed because you messed up the Latin during an exorcism?! Or maybe the time when I almost got shot because you forgot to clean your damn gun?! Do you ever fucking think? Or are you too stupid to even handle that?!” The malice that dripped off of his voice was so heavy you could physically sense it. You couldn’t take this anymore. This was just too much, all the insecure thoughts that you had been thinking had just been expressed by someone you loved more than anything. You took off towards your room, practically slipping in the small puddle of blood from where you cut your hand. You hadn’t even noticed it was bleeding until now. You’re so fucking stupid, Y/N! You just couldn’t keep the one good thing that had happened to you huh? You shouldn’t be surprised, you fuck everything up so what would make you think this time would be any different? You should just die. It’s not like anyone would miss you now. Dean certainly wouldn’t. He would probably be happier. You slammed your door shut behind you, quickly locking it. Your breathing was erratic and your heart was beating out of your chest, hot tears streaming down your face. You could faintly hear Sam and Dean arguing with each other in the kitchen. You can’t ever do anything right and this just proves it. You were a waste of space from the start and should have just given up when your family died. If they were still alive today they probably wouldn’t even love you either, you just made people feel that way about you.

It was true, no one ever checked in to see if you were okay, no one ever cared to ask how you were doing. Nobody is this whole damn world fucking cared about you. And you knew it down to your core. You were never someones first choice.

No one needed you nearly as much as you needed them. You thought back to the last time you had cut and swore to yourself that you’d never do it again. That was 3 years ago. The Winchesters had helped you out a lot. Had being a keyword. You were pretty sure you were going to break that clean streak tonight. And the sad part is, is that you didn’t feel any remorse about it. You fucking deserved this. You took your back off of your door and ran to your dresser, rummaging sloppily through the drawer until you found what you were looking for. The razor blade that you used to self-harm. You had tried to get rid of it, but never could. Guess that decision had come in handy after all. You rolled up your sleeve on your left arm and glanced down at your wrist. The scars had almost completely faded, sending a pang of guilt straight to your heart. You ignored it, and cut a deep but short cut in the top of your wrist. You let out a strangled sob slash cry of pain. This was deeper than you’d ever dared to cut before, the blood immediately coming to the surface. Sure it hurt like hell, but you deserved this and so much worse. You know if you cut deep enough into the vein that runs the length of you arm, this could finally be over? “Shut the hell up,” you muttered trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts that were invading your brain. If you take the razor blade and cut vertically instead of horizontally that- “SHUT THE FUCK UP,” you yelled at the top of your lungs. You started attacking your wrist and arm with the blade not even caring where it cut, nor how deep. You could hardly see the cuts because the blood was pouring out so profusely. You heard someone (maybe even two people) banging on your and screaming your name, but you could care less. You started to feel lightheaded, but continued to cut into your sensitive skin anyways. You heard the door open with force and slam into the wall, the lock failing. “NO!,” Dean yelled, concern and fear etched onto his face. It made your heart break even more. In an instant his strong arms were around you, but you still had one thing on your mind and that was putting your lights out forever. Dean took off his flannel and gingerly wrapped it around your arm as he whispered things in your ear, taking the blade away from you before you could do any more damage. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it”, “It’s going to be okay”, “You’ll be alright”, “Stay with me sweetheart.” The last thing you saw was Sam’s shocked and concerned face come around the door frame before the peaceful blackness overtook you and you gladly let it. You prayed to God you’d never open your eyes, or take another breath again.

You suddenly regained consciousness, your brain coming back to life. You looked around the dark room, hoping that you were in heaven and you just hadn’t gotten there yet (and it certainly didn’t look like hell).

The pounding in your head (not to mention the pain in your heavily bandaged arm) and the steady hum of the air conditioner told you that you were in fact not in heaven, but in the bunker.

You felt halfway disappointed that you had failed, but there was a small part of your subconscious that was happy you’d be able to see Dean and Sam again. You felt the familiar cotton sheet and the fluffy bedspread and knew it was yours. You were in your own bedroom.

You wondered where Sam and Dean were, and somehow as if reading your mind, you heard a click and the light from the lamp on your bedside table flooded the room.

You had to squint your eyes before you could open them fully. It was Dean, your heart restricting as you noticed how puffy and bloodshot his eyes were. It looked like he had been crying for days straight and Dean never, I mean never cried. You had only seen him cry once since you’d known him and that was because Sam had scratched Baby’s passenger side door in a narrow parking garage.

Guilt flooded your heart as you stared back at him, hardly even noticing Sam in the rocking chair in the corner of your room. He was still fast asleep but his eyes looked about the same or maybe even a little worse than Deans did.

A single tear, that stung almost tangibly with accusation, slid down your cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Dean.” You were scared your voice wouldn’t work properly so you just whispered. It was almost inaudible, but you knew he had heard it.

“It’s okay. I just wish you would have told us you were hurting this badly, Y/N.” Dean replied solemnly, sounding as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He handed you a glass of water, but you were shaking so he ended up holding the glass up to your lips and helping you drink.

“Thank you.” You said even quieter than the first time you had spoken, your throat feeling a lot better but you still didn’t want to test your voice just to have it fail.

“You know I didn’t mean a single word I said right?,”Dean said breaking the silence.

“I was drunk and I wasn’t thinking straight. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You’re the closest thing to family other than Sammy that I have. I will not lose you. Especially not when I can help you, which I can, and I will. I will do everything in my power to get you better, no matter what it takes.”

“Deans right, Y/N.” You heard Sam suddenly speak as he got up from the rocking chair and made his way to the foot of the bed, setting his hand on your blanketed leg. “You mean so, so much to me and Dean. You’re like our little sister. We don’t want you to have to go through this alone. Like Dean said earlier. I really really wish you would have to come us. If not me then at least Dean. We care about you.”

Hearing them reassure you like this almost made you break down, but you couldn’t yet. You still had all those horrible thoughts bouncing around in your head. Maybe you’d feel better if you expressed them out loud.

“I think I’m starting to be a burden to you guys,” you blurted out, drawing them to look at you with concerned and confused faces. You continued nonetheless, “I love you both just as if you were my blood brothers that I had had since birth. I just feel that sometimes I’m too much for you to handle. I feel that I’m not worth fooling with. I want to make your lives easier, not complicate it by me being there. You both have your own problems and issues and you don’t need me adding to that, y’all have a hard time carrying it all by yourselves. The least I could do was keep it to myself. I tried to ignore the thoughts, I truly did. It’s just hard when they tell you that you’re both better off without me. I agree with it too and that’s what kills me. I know that I slow y’all down and it makes it more difficult on hunts. I’m also not as experienced as you are at hunting. Sam is the best at research and can find out anything in a matter of hours and Dean can gank any son of a bitch that tries to mess with him. What am I good at? Making a sandwich? Doing a load of laundry? I’m only good at stuff that’s unimportant and it adds no value to hunting. I just feel that it was better all the way around if I were to check out. Maybe it would be better for you guys.”

You looked up from your hands that were sitting in your lap and both Sam and Dean were just looking at you. You suppose they were contemplating what they wanted to say next. You just felt so vulnerable under their roaming eyes. You had never told them any of this, for all they knew you were a happy go lucky girl, certainly not one struggling with suicidal thoughts.

“Y/N,” Dean said, drawing you from your unwelcome thoughts. “I’m the one that is sorry. You have no right to be apologetic. I do. Sammy and I obviously haven’t done our job well enough. We should have noticed you were hurting.” He was remorseful when he said it.

You looked over at Sammy and he nodded his head in deep agreeance with his older brother.

“We should have noticed when you started to pull away from us. When you started eating more meals in your room and when you stopped coming to us with your views and opinions. We care so fucking much about you Y/N. I care so much about you. You are the little sister I never got to have. You do so much for us. You may think it’s little tiny mundane tasks but if you weren’t here to do them, Dean and I would be lost. You and I both know that I’d starve if it was up to Dean to cook a meal every now and then.” Sam smiled at you and laughed softly.

You smiled back and laughed lightly as well. It was very true after all, Dean was a terrible cook. He’d tried to bake you a cake for your birthday one year and practically burned the whole bunker down.

Dean decided to chime in, “Sammy’s right Y/N, but that’s not the only thing you’re good at. You’re a badass hunter. There’s not one Y/A year old girl that I can think of that has the guts to do what you’re willing to do on a daily basis. We will get through this together. We will help you. Sammy and I are right by your side, and we will stay here with you until you get better.”

You were in tears now, the hot liquid flowing earnestly at their words.

“What if it takes forever?” You asked quietly.

Sam responded immediately, “Then I guess we’ll be here forever.”

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” Dean added.

They both leaned in and engulfed you in a big warm Winchester hug. You cried and cried, their grips on you never wavering, not once, until the tears finally resided. You finally had hope that maybe you get actually get through this.

Dean pulled back and looked you in the eyes before speaking.

“Promise me and Sammy one thing.”

“What is it?” You asked softly.

“Promise us you’ll Always Keep Fighting.” Dean pleaded, unfallen tears brimming his eyes.

“I will. Just for you and Sam. I will. I love you guys.”

“And we love you too, Y/N.”

For once you had hope, real hope. Heart hope that ran so deep, you could feel it to your core. With Sam and Dean Winchester by your side you could get through anything.

Tag List: (Shoot me an ask if you want to be added)

@supernatural-jackles @samanddeanmyheroes

[dispatchesfrom2020]

August 2020

A Month in Photos

Hoda Kinno’s neck was broken in the blast in Lebanon’s port on August 4 - her uncle carried her, searching for a hospital open to help. The Kinno family are Syrian refugees from Aleppo. The small country is home to nearly one million refugees - mostly from neighbouring Syria - Hassan Ammar/AP

Women line up to vote in the Belarus elections on August 9 - the results will be widely disputed as fraudulent after incumbent President Lukashenko declares himself with the winner with 80% of the vote. About half a million people take to the streets in large-scale protests, rejecting those results - Misha Friedman/AP

This image of a wildfire burning through Napa County felt like the purest expression of 2020 - Noah Berger/AP

Hundreds of trucks, adorned with Trump and Blue Lives Matter flags, drive towards downtown Portland. The city has been the site of on-going protests after federal law enforcement descended on the city to crack down on anti-racism protests. Tensions were running high when a right-wing rally-goer was shot and killed, August 29 - Mason Trinca/The New York Times.

The scale of democratic protests in Belarus is fucking huge. Lukashenko - the long-time authoritarian ruler of Belarus - was declared the winner of an election widely decried as fraudulent. In mid-August, upwards of half a million gathered in Minsk to call for Lukashenko’s resignation. 32,000 people have been arrested since the protests began in May - Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters

The Christ the Redeemer statue is sanitized by military officials as the site prepares to re-open in mid August. The country has been hard-struck by the pandemic, despite President Bolsonaro’s attempts to downplay the threat and focus on the country’s economic well-being. Brazil adds 500-1200 new deaths each day in August - Andre Coelho/Getty Images

During the Get Your Knees of Our Necks March, a four-year-old child hugs a photo of her late father, Marqueese Alston. He was killed by Washington Metropolitan Police in 2018, age 22 - Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Trump arrives back in Washington DC to stormy weather after attending a rally in New Hampshire. Despite the pandemic’s grip on the country, Trump continues to hold in-person rallies - and a scourge of outbreaks follow in the wake of his campaign - Doug Mills/The New York Times

Renee Allard and her family board a bus from Lake Charles to Baton Rouge. The category four hurricane levelled homes and businesses in Texas and Louisiana - but the on-going pandemic added further complications as people were forced to weigh the dangers of crowded storm shelters against the potential risks of the storm’s high winds and rising waters - William Widmer/The New York Times

Fish are laid out to bake in the summer heat at the Long Hai fish market in Vietnam - Khanh Phan

In Brazil, Kayapo Mekranoti Indigenous people block one a major highway. They are demanding compensation for the environmental damage caused by the construction of the roadway, as well as assistance fighting deforestation, illegal mining, and money for COVID-19 efforts. “Indigenous health is growing more fragile by the day... We are here to defend the Amazon and protect our territory. But the government wants to open indigenous lands to illegal projects, including mining, logging and ranching.”

[antifainternational]

Roughly half or more in each region say gender equality is very important. Pew Research Centre. Guess who was at the bottom of that list? The Middle fucking East. And you want more of them in Europe, right? Brilliant.

We’re guessing that you’re talking about part of the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes Survey (since you didn’t bother to properly cite your source).  This studied several different topics, surveying 38 countries around the world but just five in the Middle East (Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey).  They measured the importance of gender equality by asking “how important is it that women have the same rights as men in society?” Now that we got that out of the way, here are all the reasons why you’re fucked, Anon:1) Generalizing about regions - yeah, you’re right, the five countries that = “the Middle East” for this survey came out at the bottom on the gender equality question.  What do people in Syria, Iran, the UAE, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, or Kuwait think about gender equality?  We don’t know because Pew didn’t survey those ten Middle Eastern countries, just five others. But in every Middle Eastern county polled, the majority said it is somewhat or very important that women have the same rights as men in their society.  In fact, gender equality was more important to people in Lebanon than people in three of the European countries polled.  You know Lebanon - the country hosting the most refugees per capita in the world?  Yes, that one.

So let’s not get too excited about what the results from this one poll done in five Middle Eastern countries actually means.  2) Ignoring the other factors that were identified - you probably didn’t bother to actually read the Pew report on the survey you’re histrionically waving about here, but if you did you’d know that women, the higher-educated, and the more left-leaning were all more likely to prioritize gender equality.  But of course you want to paint the world in broad, xenophobic strokes, so better for you to just ignore what women, better-educated people, and leftists in the Middle East think about gender equality and just ban ‘em all.  And of course never mind the less-educated and more right-wing dudebros where you’re from that don’t care about/are against gender equality.  Just pretend they don’t exist.  “Brilliant.” Hey Anon, don’t you think that maybe refugees coming to a country where there are still functioning schools they can attend that aren’t bombed-out or where they don’t have to worry about being violently attacked on the way to/from school might = more people achieving higher levels of education, which in turn would (according to this study) = better attitudes towards gender equality, as shown in the very survey you’ve referenced?  No, you didn’t stop to think about much before you wrote to us, did you?  3) Ignoring the other parts of the survey - Like we said, this was a just a part of a larger survey on social attitudes.  Did you know that four of the five Middle Eastern countries surveyed were more supportive of free speech than countries like Japan, Russia, or Ukraine?  That’s from the same survey, Anon!Did you know that the same survey found that the five Middle Eastern countries were more likely to support people’s right to practice their religion of choice than the countries polled in Europe, North America, and Latin America?Did you know that the same survey showed that people in the Middle East were more supportive of the rights of citizens to criticize their governments than people in Asia, Africa, or Russia?  Same survey shows that people in the Middle East are less-likely than people globally to support government censorship of large political protests.  Bet you didn’t know that, huh?It’s almost as if you cherry-picked the data you wanted to support your claim and ignored data that contradicted it.  That’s a particular logical fallacy we sometimes call The Texas Sharpshooter, Anon.  Stop doing it because it makes you look like a clown.4) Prioritizing an opinion poll over people’s actual lives - Let’s assume for a second that you were right and that a survey done by a private Western research company that asked exactly one question about gender equality to people in just five of fifteen+ Middle Eastern countries = an accurate reading of people’s attitudes towards gender equality in the region and that attitude is not as positive as it is elsewhere.Let’s also assume that, contrary to the very survey you’ve cited, these attitudes about gender equality cannot be swayed by things like better education and that the people that hold them will never change their minds no matter what.Let’s also ignore the data from the same survey you’ve cited that shows that people in the Middle East are more likely to support free speech, freedom of religion, the right to criticize governments, and freedom from government censorship and focus solely on their attitudes towards gender equality.

Assuming all of that, what you’re saying still comes down to this:  you think we should refuse safe haven to refugees - people literally fleeing for their lives - if they come from a region that scored low in an opinion poll on gender equality.

That’s what you’re saying here - “we’re sorry that you’re going to be murdered or die in a bombing or starve to death, but we can’t have people from a country that scored low in an opinion poll on gender equality coming to live here!”  What kind of fucking monster would suggest that?  That people and their families should all be condemned to unimaginable horrors and violence and death because you don’t think they scored high enough on a fucking opinion poll.  You know what, Anon?  We’ve had it with people like you that pretend to care about gender equality as a fucking smokescreen for your Islamophobia; your racism; your xenophobia.  We see right through you.  GTFO with that shite.

[cardiaccadillac]

Brit Psycho, a Ketch x Carter fic preview for those of you who’ve been following Cardiology For The Damned.

–

“Coffee. Black. To go.” Carter sets the money down on the counter as abruptly as she’d ordered and waits, lips pursed.

She’d gotten the call from Dean a couple of days ago, prompting the sudden road trip across half the country to Lebanon, Kansas. He’d sounded desperate, like she was his last resort. Can’t say she blames hims.

It’s barely been five seconds when she’s interrupted by a random stranger, making her skin prickle in irritation. “Well, it’s good to hear a familiar accent,” a voice drawls behind her, like pretentious home county nails on a chalkboard, and she rolls her eyes. “Why don’t you come join me?” he’s already invited her by the time she turns to look at him, glaring daggers. “Maybe make a friend this far from home.”

“I doubt it’s that familiar,” she says, deadpan, as the drink arrives and she picks it up. “I didn’t go to private school and I have places to be. So, thanks, but no thanks.”

She’s already turning away when his next sentence stops her dead in her tracks. “I don’t see there’s any need to hurry. We’re both on our way to see a dear mum-to-be.”

Carter freezes. “And that means what, exactly?”

“I believe you know Kelly Kline. Or at the very least, you’re about to.”

Fuck, Carter thinks. She turns, striding to the booth with a filthy look as she sits down opposite him. “Alright, who are you?” she hisses, pouring as much venom into a hushed tone as she can.

“Arthur Ketch, British Men of Letters,” he introduces himself smoothly, taking another sip of the cup of tea he has in front of him. She can smell it’s Earl Grey. With lemon. Toff.

“Oh, hello Arthur. Nice to meet you,” she says with a cutting fake smile. “Now that we’re done with the pleasantries, how about you tell me why I shouldn’t take that silver spoon in your mouth and ram it down the back of your throat?”

His eyebrows lift, amused. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to cause a commotion.”

“I can be surprisingly subtle.”

“Oh, I know.” He almost seems to smile at that. “In fact, I know a great deal about you, Dr Carter, and therein lies our problem.

“I don’t know about that, but I can certainly make it your problem,” she retorts, turning the threat up to eleven. She doesn’t know who this asshole thinks he is, but she hates being caught off guard.

“You see, you’re the doctor who’s going to deliver Kelly Kline’s baby,” he continues, then his superficially polite tone turns a note menacing. “And I’m afraid I can’t let that happen.”

A smirk plays on her lips. Just give her a fucking excuse. “It’s really not a case of you letting me. I do what I like, and bad things happen to people who stand in my way.”

“Then I’m afraid we’ve reached something of an impasse,” he replies, unfazed. “Because the same happens to people who stand in mine.”