#give me the introspection

[guardianhyren]

Thanks to this one Black Clover fic I read forever ago where Hage wasn’t really all that great to Asta but he put on a brave face because no one would believe him; I have this overwhelming urge to read/write SOMETHING where Asta/Magic Knights finds a magicless village (for whatever reason) and they don’t like it but Asta has finally found people he can belong with and this one lines between Asta and Yuno plays in my head on repeat like a broken record:

Yuno: Why the hell do you care so much?!

Asta: Maybe because for once in my life I’m not the freak!

[rosedproblems]

Tumblr please for the love of god, find étoile. I just know you’ll all be swooning over Tobias and loving Cheyanne just like I have. Please, I’m not a content creator and I need content. Help a girl out

[mal3nko]

No because Dorian becoming Archon of Tevinter should have given us at least SOME inner conflict on his part when it comes to achieving that status since it’s what his father ultimately wanted him to be in the first place when he was younger. Like there’s so many aspects about him reaching that position that should have put into question a lot of things about his personal journey and Veilguard does absolutely NOTHING with it.

I mean, you can choose who’s the ruler of Fereldan in Origins as well as who’s the new Divine in Inquistion and I feel like both of those choices give an appropriate amount of characterization and inner conflict with the people involved. We get a proper look at how whoever is elected truly feels about their position, like an unhardened Alistair feeling very unconfident about being king and is even willing to break up with a non-Cousland Warden for the sake of his country. I guess this is part of a bigger issue with Veilguard in general and how it just seems so uninterested in tackling the bigger picture when it comes to politics within Thedas, and by extension how people truly feel about reaching these positions of power.

Like I’m sorry, but I just needed a lot more from Dorian than just “Oh, I’m going to be Archon? Excellent! I’m a little nervous about it but I’m sure I’ll get the job done!”.

[dogydayz]

I so desperately need to see more folks write abt the inherent dynamic of how Cygate is like. a very much mutual, back-and-forth protective relationship. They protect /eachother/ and I think that thats such an important part of it all. Tailgate gets dumbed down a lot but he’s soooo far from stupid or plainly naive, his naivety comes from his optimistic attitude and lack of experience with more extreme situations. But he’s so fucking smart, and hes a stubborn lil’ shit, and he’s gathered every bit of how Cyclonus works and keeps it all in mind for whenever something happens and the guy /needs/ someone who /gets/ him to step in.

The “See, that wasn’t so difficult.” line speaks soooo many words. He’s so fucking patient man, if there’s one thing he has oodles of experience with it’s the passage of time having to be spent for a Good Outcome. That’s sorta what the whole arc of that development was about, showing what /he/ is willing to do. They are equal in what they give and take. They’re anchors for eachother and I NEED more of that it’s like my favorite thing to see in art and writing of them. They’re going to make me so ill i genuinely teared up writing this wtf

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 2x24, "no reason"

we get a look inside of house's mind that's so intimate, it breaks his own dreamscape. happy season finale!

truly, where do i even start with this one?

this is ultimate house md. it's such a brilliant season finale because it truly feels like everything over the last 46 episodes has been building to this saga, delivered to viewers by way of the show's ongoing plot device - nonreality. and it's only through nonreality that we can finally say that we know and understand house. above all else, i think 2x24 is about generating kindness toward its leading man after he's gone very much off the rails.

sidebar before i get into the meat here: minus the shooting, has anyone had a similar dream experience to house? i've had dozens of nightmares over the years that are so scary and destabilizing that i'm prompted to choose a ridiculous course of action (a la killing a patient in surgery) that forces me awake. it was exciting to find that represented here!

i'll foreground the recap with my take on 2x24's overall premise: house himself becomes the case in 2x24. while there is a patient b-plot, it's only there to reinforce the plot's incredulity. that case is so nonsensical and disgusting that it pushes the boundaries of the episode, and of house, to their respective breaking points. poor guy lol, even if how we know him is just in figment form.

one of the first tipoffs we see that things are Abnormal, i argue, is house's immediate dismissal of the guy who shot him, moriarty (me when they remember this show is another sherlock holmes iteration: !!!). not that i expect him to fly off the handle or take a cameron-esque approach, but there would at least be some diagnostic potential in the psychology of a near assassin. instead, and like always, house will defer to the impersonal, the b-plot patient. 2x24 nearly collapses under this unexpected strain, the combination of the medical (house's sanctuary) and his psyche (his demise).

this dismissal of himself as the patient can only subsist for so long; it's forced to confront house's fear of losing his mind, which he believes (canonically now) is all he has (more on that later). his mind's version of moriarty comes to represent the emotional side of house, house's own person his logical side, and 2x24 posits that these things must coexist in order to solve this case.

this leads to the "diagnosis" - house is "miserable for nothing." he can't logic his way out of this fact, nor can he explain why he clings to his misery via logic. he must confront the emotional, a truth that moriarty knows that house doesn't trust because it can't be objectively measured. so, realizing that moriarty, an inextricable part of house that he hates. it's vindictive, turbulent, and regretful, but it's him. no matter he wishes he weren't human, according to moriarty, it's inescapable.

that's why he apologizes to himself here ^. and this is such an emotional extreme for house that it breaks the dreamscape. in his traditional epiphany moment, he knows that he would never admit this out loud to anyone, and goes to do what neither a logic or emotion-driven person would - he kills someone!

looking ahead, i am obsessed with 2x24's implications for "house's head" and "wilson's heart," btw. that logic/emotion split is heightened, and since they fail to merge, it comes at the cost of the patient. this is such a longstanding binary within house md, and i never get tired of revisiting it.

beyond just what moriarty stands for, 2x24 features a long procession of allusions to house's self-disgust. 2 scenes that i want to focus on in this regard are his conversation with the patient's nonexistent wife and his (extra) hallucinatory confrontation with cuddy and wilson.

^ this scene is intentionally classic greg house diagnostic techniques wrapped in his usual, bland misogyny. yet his insistence that she's too good-looking for her husband (the patient whose entire body keeps exploding in the ugliest ways possible), house can't wrap his head around it. he believes that it must be "a mathematical error."

house equates looks here to more than just pretty faces and conventional attractiveness. her husband's body is failing him, and it looks ugly doing it. house feels that his body fails him, and that it's ugly. him revealing the visuals of his infarction is traumatic, even for the hellacious episode it takes places within (2x13 "skin deep" lol). even the above shot reinforces this - the wife's posture is idyllic, even in heels; house's relies on his cane to carry not just his imbalance, but also the rest of his weight since he's so weak post-gunshot.

not to feed into the men yelling = good acting phenomenon, but hugh laurie ate DOWN here.

his (JUSTIFIED) meltdown in cuddy's office is the counterweight to his internalized physical disgust. i love the dialogue: "what do i have?", cuddy's misunderstanding that he's referring to an illness, and his furious answer: "i have my brain. that's it."

house reduces himself to just one half of his person, and he's also disturbed that the 2 people closest to him can't see it that way. in violating his agency, they've made him categorically nothing. i think that the (false) revelation that cuddy and wilson were in on the ketamine all along was one of the most stressful moments of the series for me. i was disgusted that they just bypassed his agency and went through a worse repeat of the infarction/stacy debacle.

like when wilson just agreed with his full chest that he agreed with cuddy's choice, i literally said: "he would not fucking say that." and thank god he didn't. had he, i would have had no problem with house socking him in the face. in reality, if we follow the logic of the episode, the punch is actually something house would never do to wilson, hence the dramatics:

cuddy and wilson's treatment of house throughout 2x24 showcase a much sadder reality that exists in house's mind: he thinks that they look down on him as a problem to be solved, nothing more. since he evidently reduces himself to so little, he assumes that they would do the same. that's why we can't earnestly share in cuddy's joy when the ketamine is first introduced:

the forced ketamine violates house in several ways: it unwittingly takes away the personal and social meaning of his disability; it introduces a new slew of problems (the convenient 50/50 success rate mirrors the logic/emotion binary in 2x24 well); it minimizes said disability to a measly, simplified issue; and it obviously ignores house's autonomy.

that's what's really so scary about the ketamine treatment when we still believe it was involuntary. if wilson, cuddy, or any other house md character can violate house's bodily autonomy and consent, then the very fabric of the show gets upended. he loses the control that he clings to. this is another instance of house/audience solidarity - we want him to get better, but we want it done on his terms, and we want it to have "meaning" (to quote house; more on this later, too).

wilson and cuddy also operate as interesting foils for the fellows, whose roles in house's dream world are very dissimilar. wilson and cuddy's (nonconsensual) involvement in house's physical and mental health emphasizes how personally involved they are with him. they are confidants and recipients of his vulnerability, which is why their betrayal is exceptionally painful. house and wilson peeing together while discussing his potential mental decline illustrates this pretty well lol:

important to note in this scene is how wilson reminds house of why he has a team: "if you could think of everything yourself, then you wouldn't need a team to annoy." in a wilson-like fashion, he reminds house to have a bit of humanity and that he does, actually, like people every once in a while. but what's more interesting is how this remark showcases how house views the fellows' perceive him.

when moriarty reveals that the bathroom and the argument in cuddy's office were hallucinations, he tells house that he also wet his bed. yet when the fellows show up, he takes on a look of shame and hides it (from 3 doctors who have been dealing with a man with exploding, bloody body parts all day. i think they'd take dirty sheets over that any day).

he tries his best to maintain surety and authority in their conversations, only admitting to "losing it" when he realizes that this is (hopefully) all just a dream. not before they get house some tacos in one of the most kickass shots in the entire show, ofc:

i know i'm not paying as much time to the fellows in this recap, but who i really want to highlight among the 3 is chase. he speaks up a lot in this episode, and before we know that it's all just a dream, it sounds like he's really knocking diagnostics out of the park! yet with the revelation that this is all a dream, this implies that house may either have an inflated view of chase's potential (doubtful), or that chase's success is a continued sign of house's own mental decline.

this more likely that not negates the passive compliment that house gives chase when he's out of earshot. speaking to moriarty, house says that chase must be smart, "otherwise i wouldn't have hired him." oof. it also confirms that house's perception of chase is almost endemically a "yes man," for better or for worse depending on house's diagnostic success. it's only helpful when chase isn't parroting house's incorrect ideas.

lastly - because i could keep going forever lol - i want to talk about "i want meaning" because, for me, this is the episode's great unifier, and a thematically excellent point on which to leave the season. house the atheist admitting that he wants life to have meaning (tbd on whether or not he believes that it has any in the first place), is a massive character shift originating in his confrontation with moriarty. yet house's inability to synthesize this with his belief, or lack thereof, in the powers that be launches him into his season 3 conflict.

by the end of 2x24, house believes that solving his leg pain will grant his life meaning. his dream experience has captured the ins and outs of his rationalization of the ketamine experimental treatment. his leg can represent both halves, the logical and the emotional, because it has ramifications for both, and contributes to his overarching misery. thus, he aims to resolve them both via one treatment. in house's mind, from this will come meaning...but he doesn't know yet that we have to create this meaning ourselves.

leaving the season with the question of "what is meaning for house?" is so exciting. knowing the answer - or lack of one - that they provide is part of the tragedy i've come to love so much about this show.

like i said earlier, this episode is one of the greats. there are a thousand pieces to put together, and a million elements to appreciate, and yet our titular character still shines above the rest (imo). 2x24/season 2 really is That Bitch. i'm so happy i got to write about this one :)

PS: i have to make the note because i am a season 5 fan first and a person second: 5x23-24 is very similar to the 2x24 debacle with the revelation of house's hallucinations, except the amber ordeal is house's own fault, and house md successfully banks on us assuming they wouldn't repeat a similar premise. i love that this episode walked so those 2 could run in the future.

[whimzycle]

Hi Whimzycle! I'm a HUGE fan of your art, it makes my days brighter and I absolutely love how you draw Aster! <3 I started enjoying ROTG and the GOC saga again and I was wondering if you felt comfortable sharing your top 3 fanfics! :)

Thank you so much!

Daawwee thank you!! I appreciate it!! I used to be intimidated when it comes to drawing Bunny but lo and behold, he is the only one that I drew the most out of all the rotg cast lmao.

As for fics though...[Sweats in majority of the rotg fics I read are Jackrabbit centric]

I'll try to keep it as neutral as possible though lmao

Top 1. Prelude to Time Feelers by atimefeeler

I'm sorry I know I said I'll keep it neutral but I really can't help it. It's a really good fic, Jackrabbit notwithstanding. In my defense, the romance isn't really romancing, really they're more queer platonic that's why I like it very much. This fic is so good, genuinely. It's a reimagine of events that happen in both the book series and the movie. The fusion of both media is really well-done and it's world-building even more so! It features perspectives from Mother Nature, Bunnymund and Jack. So like, essentially, you get Mother Nature's backstory, Bunny's backstory and Jack's pov all in one chapter. It's great I love it. High tier, 10/10 fic. Though if you really aren't comfortable with the Jackrabbit part of it, it's cool. I still think you should give it a try lmao.

Top 2. My Stars and Your Valleys by ketren

This is one of the really cool ones lmao. It's a science-fiction au!!! Almost like the likes of Star Trek but it feels more like a treasure planet for me lmao (I've never seen star trek, I'm sorry I'm a degenerate lmao) One of the things that I really like about this fic is how well it incorporates elements of the movie into this fic like oh my god. Especially Jack's initial relationship with the guardians is almost like the movie and it's good, it's great I love it. Oh and the plot!! Goddamn the plot!! It's so eerie and mysterious and I love it. It keeps you interested for the entire duration of the fic, wondering what the hell is happening lmao. But oh! I most love Jack's relationship with his sister, even though it's only at the first and last chapters lmao. They're so good, I love how complex it is. It's a high tier, 10/10 fic!!! Please read it!!!!! It's so good!!!!!!!

Top 3. 188 Hugs by Icka M Chif (mischif)

Affectionate Guardians are my weakness and this fic exploits my love for it. Also, it's Jack and Bunny centric so it's a two-for two punch of things that I love. The title says it all when it comes to the plot lmao. It's essentially an exploration of Jack and Bunny's friendship through hugging lmao. It's a great fic high tier, 10/10. (Although really, any fic from this author is a 10/10) I love how it tackles the Jack is lonely for 300 years bit and the only way to dismantle that is through the power of friendship and found family. Really, the only solution to everything. And I love it, it's great, it's amazing and I feel so much joy over this fic. I really don't need to explain much lmao. This fic is just so good, I'll let it explain itself for you. So please!! Read it!!! So you can experience the immense joy I had when reading it lmao!!!!!!

Now, I know you only said my top 3, but I'm adding honorable mentions because it is a crime if I do not include any of them:

Sparks Fly by Icka M Chif (mischif)

Naughty and Nice by Icka M Chif (mischif)

Not a Guardian by Icka M Chif (mischif)

Advent, Advection by pengiesama

Selenographia, sive Lunae descriptio by pengiasama

Looming Shadows by Reidluver

Nights and Nights Again by partingxshot

When Hope Gives Way to Joy by taizi

Other Ways by Asidian

Unique by Asidian

Learning to See by emeralddawn

Mischief Managed followed by April Fools by Neyiea

Allegro Non Molto by tablrcloth

Flower Prompt: Yarrow by melissae-astron

Like a Star by Lunermoon1000

Protege by ProlixEllipsis

[star-struck09]

Life is about trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and—

[moonchild-in-blue]

You know, I'm really really curious to see how post-enlistment BTS is going to sound thematically-wise.

In these past 2/3 years, they all had the chance to get uncomfortably honest and, for lack of a better term, liberal, in the way they explore their own sound, in a way we got to see very little of previously. We got the rapline fleshing out their work, and the vocal line braving into full-fledged solo stuff for the first time.

Hoseok, who keeps refining and pushing the boundaries of his sound. Who found his footing and is making it his own. The boy who was born for the stage finally gets to be on the spotlight as himself, standing on the shoulders of BTS's j-hope but going back to his roots as Hoseok.

Yoongi and Joon, who already have an incredibly rich discography, and are digging deeper into themselves - there's healing, there's catharsis, there's grief for a past self and hope for a new one. Between Yoongi's Suchwita and Joon's work on RPWP, there's a lot of conversations about life as an artist and as an ordinary person, about mental health and identity, the creative process, about leaving your youth behind and coming to terms with adulthood and the loneliness it brings.

Jin, Jimin and Jungkook who have finally ventured into longer bodies of work, who have finally got to explore who they are (as musical artists) outside and beyond the Bangtan umbrella. Jin especially with this upcoming tour and all the entertainment content he's been a part of, and gets to do things his own way.

Tae, who went the other way and invested in his relationships, who showed us more of himself not through music, but through the way he conducts himself with his friends, outside of the stage.

As Bangtan, they have always been very vocal about all of these, but it's the first time they all got to live life aa creatives on their own. There is a newer, better collective understanding of themselves and each other, and a new layer of maturity and transparency, which has been beautiful to witness it unfold.

I'm so very looking forward to see all of this new knowledge and experience being brought into BTS, and how the new chapter will reflect that once they get together again. Personally I feel like the MOTS series was the perfect mesh of their individual identities and sounds (which makes sense since it was the last Big Thing they did pre-covid that wasn't just a compilation of things like Proof. BE was great but had a very distinct sound and purpose under the Covid context), and if their recent solo work is anything to go by, we are going to see a completely new version of BTS that is bound to surpass all we know from them so far.

[joonboree]

Stan's strong brain theory

I was watching the Gravity Falls panel at this year's new York comic con and (this) one part stood out to me in particular. It's about 2 minutes long. (but you know watch the whole panel if you can it's so fun)

It feeds into a silly theory I had about Stanley. That he's got some zen like control over his own mind/consciousness that even he might not understand but at the very least it makes him stronger against Bill. (Last episode spoilers)

Evidence I have for this is:

1) In dreamscapers the way he just knew he was talking to Dipper in his own head.

This might not be evidence on its own but

2) The way he was able to suppress his own thoughts so that Bill wouldn't know he wasn't in Ford's mind was pretty Strong.

Now this situation though non-cannon provides a third part to that evidence.

3) Even in his dream, weird as it is, he's able to question when Bill is disrupting the flow of his subconscious.

If he knew what lucid dreaming was he could probably pick it up pretty easily and could probably even choose not to have that dream but feels too guilty to let it go.

To him it might be a gift he has that he assumes everyone can do because he's thinking "Well if my brain is so great how come I'm not smart like Ford or I messed up at school?"

It seems like something he wouldn't have found a use for in his life except to specify screw over Bill.

P.S. After writing this I literally just re-watched the Stanturian candidate from not having remembered it at all. It is kind of one minus point to my theory in regards to the tie they used on him. I feel like it wouldn't have worked or would have worked less on him.

[purpurussy]

😶‍🌫️

[agentc0rn]

{Retrouvaille}

Thoughts below:

I wanted to go with Metanoia (spiritual conversion) for the title but Retrouvaille sounded thematically stronger and fitting. It means reunion between loved ones who were separated apart for a long time. :)

The flowers shown in one of the panels are:

Lady's thimble (harebell/bellflower) = grief, submission

Teasel (dipsacus) = misanthropy

Pheasant's eyes (adonis) = sorrowful memories, I cannot forget you

Morning bride (scabiosa) = I have lost all

If you also are able to catch the reference in the last page, I applaud you!! You get a cookie :)🍪

[hp-lonesome-actual-art]

Sketchbook doodles with zero context, because my mind has been all over the place and he keeps inserting himself during my low moments to be a distraction. Or maybe I’m the clingy one in this scenario? I don’t know who’s to blame but clearly one of us is attention seeking and the other is desperate for human connection. A recipe for disaster probably /j

Bonus unhinged one which will not be disclosed further lmao

[murdockhawkeye]

this is *maybe* a bit of a stretch but i still find interesting to think about? don't know if i have everything right

but

i feel like with the elemental opposite duos - emma & rikki, cleo & bella - you could reasonably say their arcs'd mirror each other in a way

like

emma and rikki have issues with responsibility/expectations but on opposite ends of the spectrum

emma was a gifted child, everyone had high expectations for her and she tried to meet those expectations the best she could. she’s responsible emma, who makes sure everyone is looked after, and everyone “knew” was going to become a top athlete, because look at all those trophies on her shelf

and then rikki on the other hand, was alone for “her own good.” she admitted to elliot that no one really liked her growing up, so when somebody did, it made her feel weird and she pushed them away. she stayed away from other people, made sure they never had any expectations of her

they both avoided disappointing others, by going to opposite extreme lengths

and then they overcame these issues, with emma facing a sudden change in her life (becoming a mermaid) that meant she had to give up her swimming dreams and disappoint the people in her life (that had to suck for her, honestly.) she had to come to terms with that - but then, she also found a whole new world that she’d never have been a part of, if things had gone the way she planned

and as for rikki - her biggest change wasn't the tail, but becoming friends with emma and cleo. had she'd her way and zane’d never gotten cleo stuck on that boat, she’d never become friends with them. rikki had to learn the hurdles of friendship and of keeping them, like when she mistook the different kinds of fish, when cleo and emma didn't support her relationship with zane, etc. they had their issues - but in the end, they were there for rikki, and rikki was there for them back. she'd have never gotten that kind of solidarity, had things gone the way she thought it would

and then there’s cleo and bella

bella - unfortunately, didn’t have much in terms of development, since the writers prioritized will’s relationship with her over expanding her character background+ for some reason ??

so i'm just mostly going to talk about cleo here first - but i'll get to bella in a second

cleo by s3 is a very confident and self-assured person; but she didn't start out that way. she was insecure, somewhat naive. she grew up overshadowed by her two best friends, the both of them being gifted in their own rights - emma, the young up and rising athlete, and lewis the science genius, they were sure to go places. cleo, on the other hand, was overlooked. she didn't have much going for her - except for adequate grades and a love of the marine life that was hindered by her fear of water

and then cleo became a *literal* mermaid. either she was going to avoid it or overcome it. in the end, she didn't just overcome her fear of water, but she also took a risk by taking that job at the marine park, where she'd be working right by the marine animals. she let her fear control her before, and she wasn't going to let it stop her from wanting to pursue things anymore

(funny, she started out with a fear of water, then became a mermaid. she struggled with her grades, then became a science genius)

bella, much like cleo - had her own issues when it came to the kind of attention she got, but the other way around. her first appearance, she was being catcalled. same ep, nate is drooling over her. they've made her beauty a point throughout s3. even cleo and rikki's brought it up. it. could not have been easy for her to deal with that, especially with her secret in mind

seeing that, even with the different issues when it came to attention, i think they'd still have had the same feelings about it. a younger bella, probably would've been similarly insecure/anxious as cleo had been - until she learned to be more sure about herself and grew into the bella we know and love today

(we should've gotten way more lore and background about bella, agh)

tldr; emma and rikki have same feelings but opposite reactions (people pleasing and people avoiding.) cleo and bella opposite situations but same feelings (overshadowed and center of attention)

yk, rikki was right in a way i think about the "universal law," but like, more about keeping in balance and not about trios. emma and rikki balance each other out, cleo and bella were *meant* to balance each other out. but in s2, bella wasn't there - charlotte was

do i blame the antagonizing of charlotte and cleo's out of characterness on the writers, or do i blame it on some magical semi-canon mermaid universal law about balance

blaming it on a mermaid universal law sounds more fun, and could have interesting implications. (though the writing grates me, still)

[setmeatopthepyre]

Bulwark

Push. Pull. Breathe.

One.

The ache would fade, he knew, told himself. It always did. Eventually. Even if it didn't go down without a fight. Especially then. Tommy had survived every heartbreak. Every loss. Every injury. Every siege. Until now. This one felt different, now, but it wouldn't be.

The ache would fade. It always did.

Push. Pull. Breathe.

Two.

He knew the steps. Breathe through it. Pull the air into his lungs. Deeper. Deeper. Pray for enough oxygen to sweep across his shores, erode the sharp edges of his feeling. Reach the brackish water inland and flood the sunken place inside of him. Push it back out, hope the floodwater spilling back out to sea took the rubble inside of him with it. Breathe. Deeper. Deeper. Never deep enough. Remind himself that he wasn't built to be washed clean, to gather sentiment like sediment. To feel. He was built to be a bulwark, a fortress. A wall against the tide. Strength carefully constructed to serve as protection. To withstand storms. Built for waves to crash against before they circled back to sea.

Push. Pull. Breathe.

Three.

He didn't need to do anything but breathe. Breathe through the shaking of his muscles, breathe, breathe, count breaths like reps. Out, in.

Push. Pull. Breathe.

Four.

Push. Pull. Feel.

Five.

Fuck.

The clang of iron on iron. Another stone in the fortification of his body. Another stone in the pit of his stomach. He just needed to breathe. He didn't need to feel. That's not what he was built for. That's not what they built him for. That's not - it's not what he built himself for. It might have been. It should have been. It isn't.

Chest heaving.

Breathe.

He was built to be up on the ramparts. Eyes in the sky. The lone watcher on the wall. Scanning for danger, always, always scanning for fucking danger. Don't feel, just breathe. Feelings cloud your judgment. It's not your job to feel.

From above, his job was to assess threats. From below, to be the last line of defense. Hold the line.

Always keep your head on a swivel. Eyes open.

He had. He did.

Breathe. Deeper.

Not too deep.

Hold the line. No matter what.

Hold the line.

Don't feel. Don't listen.

Don't listen to the snide voice in the back of his head, asking,

Alright, you perfect fucking soldier. What is there left to defend now?

--

bul·wark (bo͝ol′wərk, -wôrk′, bŭl′-) n.

1. A wall or embankment raised as a defensive fortification; a rampart. 2. Something serving as a defense or safeguard. 3. A breakwater.

[shatterred-unvoiced-thoughts]

Drop some words in the comments, and I’ll turn them into a crappy, painful poem :)

[shallowseeker]

Zachariah torturing Dean:

5x03

///

Zachariah torturing Jack:

13x14

(Script 13x14 via @spnscripthunt-inactive)